Title: Checkmate
Warning: Heatfic, of a sort, and frank talk of interfacing. Consent issues, if you choose to interpret it through human eyes instead of an alien culture.
Rating: PG-13, at least.
Continuity: G1
Characters: Ratchet, Vortex, Hook, Ironhide
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors (or scenery), nor does it make a profit from the play.
Motivation (Prompt): Kinkmeme Request
All Transformers have routine maintenance/checkups to make sure they're in functioning order and maybe take care of things that need doing/replacing every so often. One of these necessary things is an analysis of a certain type of spark radiation, maybe to check for a very rare but devastating power fluctuation in one's spark. This is checked once every vorn to make sure a Transformer doesn't develop it. Thing is, it's usually overwhelmed by the spark's other radiation and can't be detected. The only time when it's strong enough to get a reading on it is when the mech is on the brink of overload. And since the fluctuations are so subtle, the sensors have to be exposed to the radiation for a long period of time-say, half an hour? to get a proper reading. But if the mech overloads, all the intense radiation from that will ruin the sensor, and they have to start over again.
So basically, once a vorn, EVERY mech, Autobot and Decepticon, has to visit a medic and be held at the brink of overload long enough to get this reading.
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Part One: Ratchet
[* * * * *]
They called it being 'in check.' There was a long technical term for it involving fourteen syllables and every vowel that could be bought, but nobody but Perceptor used it. Everyone else just said they were in check, and that was the end of it.
It wasn't a big deal. Machine in general needed to go through extensive check-ups occasionally. The more a machine was used, the more the mechanisms needed to be inspected for malfunctions, worn servos, stripped wires, programming errors - all of it. The whole maintenance package. Engineers knew what mechanical upkeep was like.
Robots, especially living ones, didn't have downtimes. Only drones powered down completely and came back online the same as they turned off. Cybertronian bodies functioned all the time, even in statis. That meant that the weak points were always under pressure. Potential wear-spots wore down constantly, stripped wires had to be replaced before pain started, and parts couldn't be snapped out and replaced without surgery. Defragmenting and processor backups happened as a standard part of recharge protocols to maintain the computer inside, but it was the rest of the body that needed to be looked after by a trained medic.
Especially during war. Oh, sure, everyone had been accustomed to heading to a clinic for a physical once every five vorns before the war had started, but now that physical was army-mandated. It was done twice a vorn whether or not a mech wanted it.
Even before the war, however, Cybertronian bodies had naturally taken steps to take care of themselves. Call it an evolution of independent processes, but as sentience had grown on Cybertron, so had the ability of that sentient's casing to look after itself. The short system tests run during recharge weren't enough. Stress tests weren't possible during recharge. Once a vorn, no matter what a mech did to stop or stall it, every system went into turnover and began running an intensive self-scanning sequence.
Autobot, Decepticon, or Neutral, everybody went into check. That was part of Cybertronian life.
And that was fine. Normally, it barely registered on everyone else's radar. It was something that happened, and the people around a mech in check adjusted their schedules the same way they did for any other daily matter. In Earth local time, the full range of system fluxes as their bodies ran the tests lasted approximately a week. More, if a mech had to block it off for some reason. Less, if he went with it, which was what most mechs did on automatic. Either way, a week in check was no great loss of time for a race that lived millions of years.
It could even be kind of relaxing. Ratchet likened it to systematically using, stretching, and relaxing every part of a human's body in a detailed examination. It was a series of scans meant to test for problems. If humans could scan their internal organs on their own, in his opinion, they'd understand why this was such a non-issue in Cybertronian life. Check was just part of how mechanical beings worked.
It didn't fall in a particular order, but mechs generally started out the check by recharging like a lead brick for about two days straight as everything under the armor shut down to a low ebb of nonstop internalized scanning. That transitioned into then being unable to cycle down for the next five days. Energon was pushed aside as utterly revolting until about day three, when tanks that had been steadfastly refusing to open their intakes suddenly wanted to go vampire on the nearest friend or enemy if that's what it'd take to suck down some fuel. No fuel whatsoever flipped to devouring double rations in order to power every system going into hyperdrive. Every system. Autobots cleared the gun range at a run when someone in check stormed in, glazed stare of target-lock overlay in place, and Primus help whoever supervised combat practice that day.
Fresh cans of lubricant and bottles of coolant became the Holy Grail on about day five, when line-flushes began. There was a miserable hour or two when used fluids of every kind spewed out of a mech's waste ports. That was wet, messy, and embarrassing if it happened in the middle of rush hour traffic in Portland.
Well, at least the interface equipment check was fun. Lasted three days, roughly, and left mechs wrung-out in its wake, but it was fun.
Except for the minor detail of the rad-scan. And it wasn't really that the rad-scan was terrible or anything, but half an hour of begging on the edge of a firmly denied overload was only enjoyable in retrospect. Very enjoyable, perhaps, but before and during the rad-scan? Never had such filthy curses and sweet promises been piled upon medical staff, usually within the space of the same sobbing ventilation.
The Monopatinous radiation scan was very necessary, as the disease it spotted could wipe a colony if it wasn't countered in the early stages. The 'Skateboard Disease,' as Spike dubbed it once Ratchet finally explained what was going on. The medic had to inform him why every Autobot got locked into the isolation ward at some point during the four-million-year delayed wave of check that hit the Ark over the course of two short months.
Ratchet reset his optics doubtfully at the human. "...medical slang is Lock-Axle, but yes. It's the same idea."
Spike smiled, picturing Autobots wobbling about like they were balancing on unstable skateboards instead of feet. "So it seizes up your axles. Can't you just grease them or something?"
"It's a progressive disease," the medic explained. "The first stage symptoms are locking axles and difficulty balancing. Secondary symptoms include spark pain, headaches, and stuck intakes. After that, it's all downhill." Spike gave him a quizzical look, and Ratchet shook his head. "We're a race of moving parts. Freeze the moving parts, and we fall apart rather quickly. Second stage of Lock-Axle kills. If the fuel pump doesn't stop first, the fuel lines will burst when valves stop opening to release pressure. Joints stop bending. Brain modules go dead as charge stops transmitting."
Wobbling Autobots suddenly seemed much less funny. Sobered, Spike nodded. "Is it contagious?"
"Very."
"Oh. So, you can just scan for it?"
One red hand lifted and wavered noncommittally. It was a somewhat delicate topic. Not that the Autobots didn't trust their allies, but they were also aware that the humans got upset over certain topics. The organic beings had already weird out once about what, for Cybertronians, was a completely natural mechanical process. The humans had found the system fluxes to be alarming, especially when cute, whimsical Fireflight had unexpectedly turned into a bouncing, trouncing maniac one day. He'd violently torn apart the gun range and then thrown both Sunstreaker and Sideswipe around the practice mat without once changing expression. True, neither of the frontliners had been trying to hurt the Aerialbot, but Fireflight didn't do stuff like that.
Right afterward, he'd inhaled four times his normal energon ration, grabbed the nearest piece of plating attached to someone warm and willing, and disappeared into the Aerialbot hangar. For 72 hours straight. Interrupted only by Ratchet barging in and hauling him to the isolation ward, but being dragged along the corridor floor certainly hadn't meant the randy jet had stopped what - or rather whom - he'd been doing at the time.
Sparkplug and Spike had nearly jumped out of their own skins in shock. After that reaction, understandably, the Autobots were a bit leery about explaining that interfacing for 72 hours in a row wasn't even a record for their race. Fireflight was young; his endurance would grow as his system efficiency improved. But Sparkplug had choked on thin air when Ratchet set just the preliminary definitions for an explanation down. He'd banned his son from the medbay before the discussion could go any further.
Apparently, the humans hadn't even known what interfacing was. Giant robots having sex broke little organic brains? Go figure.
"I can scan for it, yes," Ratchet decided on after a split-second council with Prowl over the base commline. As long as the talk didn't touch on 'alien sex,' Sparkplug had okayed talking about the topic with Spike. "Measuring the Monopatinous radiation level during check is one of the few opportunities we have to catch the disease before it moves into critical levels. The scanner equipment itself is finicky and useless for anything but this scan, but it allows us to filter out normal bodily radiation under certain conditions that only exist during the check." He was not going to mention the filtering was possible because the interface stage of the check prioritized interface equipment tests above running conflicting systems at optimal baseline levels. Telling the humans that fragging a mech's body into neutral was a medical necessity just wasn't happening. Explaining that it was part of his duty to render the Autobots near-mindless with pleasure was not going to meet with approval from the human medical community, he could tell.
He hedged, "Opening up our spark chambers for the scan is a private matter, however. Using the isolation ward ensures patient confidentiality."
*"Pass the word that no one is to mention the methodology behind rad-scans,"* Prowl pinged out through the commline for everyone to hear.
*"Please, please tell me he isn't going to ask - "* Jazz started.
"Can I sit in?"
Humans and their Pit-slag curiosity. Ratchet reset his vocalizer uncomfortably and scrambled for an answer even as the commline erupted into chatter.
*"No!"*
*"Wow, who knew the Witwicky's were voyeurs?"*
*"They're just ignorant, you cad!"*
*"Oh, Primus, who would ever let a human in during - "*
*"I call dibs on Carly."*
Ratchet twitched once as the chatter came to a screeching halt. That lasted a few seconds before the outraged shrieking started. Right. Well. Prowl could handle that one. Time for a tactical withdrawal from the conversation for the sake of patient rights. After all, he was the one who had to pull on a mask of medical neutrality and pretend he was made of ice no matter who walked in as the partner of whatever mech was in check.
He counted himself lucky, to be honest. The delayed check burnt through the Autobots in quick succession as every completed system turnover triggered the next mech (or three), but it'd done the same for the Decepticons trapped on Earth. Tt might well have been a normal part of their lives, but not when every single mech in a base was itchy with system scans. Ratchet didn't want to think about what would have happened if the Decepticons had been at full power while all the Autobots were in check. A mutual check had resulted in an unofficial cease-fire instead of attacks.
It'd resulted in some funny incidents, as well. Funny as in strange, although there had been some incredulous laughter as well. Coinciding checks had resulted in some vicious individual battles as both Autobots and Decepticons went through weapons system fluxes, but Ironhide had supervised and kept things from getting out of hand. The interfacing equipment tests? Not so much. It'd been either compromise or supervise, because willpower could only go so far.
Fortunately, Red Alert could be surprisingly practical under the right conditions. Fraternization policies didn't go lax so much as they'd gone missing entirely. Autobots were given leave to frag whoever gave consent.
Mechs in check didn't go crazy, but system tests were important. Sex was a healthy part of a mech's life. It was either test the fragging systems, or risk real problems down the road. Besides, they were all kind of selfish deep in their sparks. Taking care of themselves was more important than giving a scrap if the mech enthusiastically helping out at the time happened to be wearing a purple or red symbol.
Prowl had rationalized it to the officers that if they didn't look the other way, they'd had to deal with the fall-out some other way, and there were only so many disciplinary tactics available to him. It wasn't like defection - or even affection - was really a problem. Emotional connections made during check were not an issue. They just didn't happen. The interface equipment stage of check was the crown prince bilgepump of "Love 'em and leave 'em."
Plus, as Hot Spot had proven with Motormaster, nobody in check was under any obligation to respect his partner in the morning. There was an unofficial interfactional agreement not to take prisoners or start punching faces, yes, and maybe go for another round before parting ways - but respect? Pffft, no.
So consequences got thrown out the window, and mechs grabbed whoever as available when the check started. There'd been a spacefarer pile-up in orbit that scandalized N.A.S.A. The moon had ended up with a new crater, and Cosmos had unexpectedly emerged as the dominant force in space soon after, pretty much by surfing Blast Off through re-entry. Of course, then Starscream had come blazing out of nowhere to ambush Skyfire during re-entry, and nobody knew who'd been in control after that. Neither thruster nor wing had been seen of shuttleformer or Air Commander until three days later, when Skyfire literally crawled out of the Mohave Desert and called for someone to bring him a vat of energon and a pillow.
Ratchet had his medical vows, which he held to despite the war. He respected individual choice. It'd been nice to have Red Alert and Prowl make the decision to look the other way, because he'd been dithering over raising the possibility himself. A closed population like what was currently on Earth was just asking for strange health problems to pop up and spread, and he needed as much cooperation with medical personnel as possible. First Aid had proven particularly popular in gaining that cooperation among the Decepticons who found themselves outside the Victory when the best time for the rad-scan occured. Ratchet suspected it was because no Decepticon in his right mind was going to turn down a Protectobot group-frag while in the midst of check, and that's what First Aid offered in exchange for cooperation with the scanning. He also suspected that more than a few Decepticons had escaped the Victory in order to get a chance at that offer.
Ratchet himself had handled wading into the Ark's wrecked common room to drag two Coneheads, a Cassetticon, and Optimus Prime off for the rad-scan. He'd freely handed the data over to Hook upon request. Hook had done the same with the scan results from Jazz, the Reflector components, and half his own gestalt, although he'd acquired it using far less medical professionalism than Ratchet employed.
Jazz had sent flowers the day afterward, just to mess with the surgeon's head. There'd been a bomb hidden in the stems. The tag had read, 'Baby, you blew my mind!'
One way or another, the rad-scan got done. So far, everyone had come up clean. Medics, surgeons, engineers, and scientists alike all knew what Lock-Axle could do if set loose on Earth to infect every Cybertronian trapped here. They were all cooperating to make sure the cascading checks resulted in a prolonged, bizarrely peaceful health test. The Decepticons and Autobots sort of, maybe, kind of worked together, but the check happened once a vorn, and usually not all together like this. This was unusual enough to temporarily disrupt war. But it'd be over with soon, and they could go back to shooting at each other instead of swapping cables.
Ratchet had believed it was over already, in fact, but there was the small matter of the Combaticons. One Combaticon, to be exact.
The Constructicons and Protectobots had gone off right on time, but the Stunticons and Aerialbots had been constructed on Earth. Everyone watched them closely in case of any problems, but they went through their first check just fine, triggered by the mass check ripping through both factions. They'd been tripped by the cascade effect. It'd been predictable enough.
Nobody had thought to watch the Combaticons. Their pattern had been erratic to begin with: Blast Off had been triggered by Cosmos' tryst in orbit instead of by anything happening back at the Decepticon base. He'd carried the system flux back to seed the turnover in his gestalt. That should have tripped the check in the rest of his team once they combined, but Bruticus only combined under Megatron's orders. Megatron hadn't initiated more than a short skirmish since the mass check started. Therefore, Swindle had finished full system turnover almost a month after Blast Off, and he'd only reluctantly reported for the rad-scan at the last possible minute after auctioning himself off for every single interface he could manage. Onslaught scorched through his own check in four days flat and impatiently demanded to be scanned at the first opportunity. Brawl had gone through a normal check with no complications.
"So?" Ratchet leaned back in his chair and eyed the screen with scant favor. On one side of the split screen, Red Alert and Prowl were watching intently from the bridge. "What do I care? Why are you telling me this?"
On the other of the screen, Hook refined features scowled. Calling for a consultation damaged his dignity, but even he had to acknowledge that this was a potential problem for every mech on Earth. "So Vortex hasn't gone into check. You cannot tell me you want him running loose if he flips into frag-mode outside of strict supervision."
And suddenly, Ratchet cared a great deal. "Thanks, I needed that nightmare in my life."
"Aren't Autobots all about sharing?" Hook asked sweetly.
"Frag you."
"As Starscream said to Megatron: 'not even if you died during overload.'"
The Autobot medic sighed and leaned forward to run a hand down his face. "Now we know how low his standards go, I suppose. Alright." He smacked his hand down on the desk. "Is he attempting to suppress, or is he just that socially out-of-sync?" Mechanical influence did trigger cascade checking for whole bases, or in this case, planets. Having a single mech stand out indicated that something was wrong, but whether Vortex was ill or simply too crazy to feel any sort of outside machine pressure was the unknown factor.
Primus spare them from a full-fledged Lock-Axle break-out. It could wipe out whole colonies, and it was only curable in its early stages.
"That's what I don't know." Oh, did that hurt Hook's pride to admit, however sourly. "How much can check be suppressed, and for how long? Scrapper got him in for a physical, but this is not my area of expertise. I'm not certain what I should be looking for. His stress levels were off the chart, but he was fighting the loyalty programming at the time. Megatron had to order him into the repair bay," the surgeon grudgingly elaborated when Ratchet's optics narrowed at that detail. "Even chaining him down didn't help calm him."
"Why would chaining him down - " Blue optics widened before narrowing again. "Don't answer that. I'm fairly sure I can imagine why that helps."
Vortex didn't have notoriety as a sadomasochist for nothing. Ratchet didn't envy Hook even on a bad day in the Autobot medbay, because he didn't want to think about comparing Tracks' prima donna waxing issues with what went on in the Decepticon repair bay.
That got a thin smirk. "Bonecrusher bent his rotor blades around the table legs, and he still didn't relax any."
The things he learned in the name of medical information. "Stop that," Ratchet ordered. "Just tell me someone's outright asked him why he's not in check yet?"
Hook opened his mouth. Twice. No words came out either time. His dignity could only collapse under the application of logic. Decepticon logic: 0. Autobot: 1.
"I know he's Vortex," the Chief Medical Officer pointed out with ruthless reason, "but even Vortex must know that being in check is the only time the rad-scan can be run. Even if he's being," inexplicably and alarmingly, "discreet about the rest of the system tests, we've all been keeping the 'facing in the open for access to medical services. I'd have thought, if nothing else, that he'd enjoy the method - "
"He does," Hook interrupted hastily in an effort to appear less flummoxed than he was. "He's been on-call as a volunteer assistant for two months now, and he's slagging good at it. My efficiency rating is the lowest it's ever been for the record numbers going through the test. First-time success rate is above 80%." He looked briefly thoughtful. "Although I could swear that Soundwave threw the scan on purpose the first two attempts."
"I can hang up any time, you know," Ratchet threatened. He didn't need to know that about Soundwave. It immediately brought Prowl to mind, and he didn't need to think about any sort of parallel between the respective factions' cold-sparked officers. Control freaks with a fetish for medical restraints and a power kink to boot. What, was it some sort of requirement for the rank?
He had to stomp on a little scoff, and only because Prowl was staring right at him through the split screen. Prowl had specifically requested that Ratchet flub the test as many times as the tactician could endure. Half an hour of denied overload had turned to six hours of teasing the Autobot Second to the brink and keeping him there to shudder and beg for release until - finally - Ratchet 'accidentally' let him slip over the edge. Over, and over, and over again.
Soundwave had only gone three rounds? Heh. Amateur.
Hook did a lousy innocent act. Ratchet would know, since his own poker face was currently in place. "It is relevant information," the Decepticon insisted.
"Yeah, right. Pull the other one. It shoots daisies." The silly human saying got a confused look that bought Ratchet a moment to think while Hook puzzled it out. "Alright, my first thought is to ask him upfront. Second would be to ask his gestalt."
"Already did that." The Constructicon waved a hand impatiently, and an alert observer might have picked up a hint of embarrassment. Who, him? Smoothing over a gaffe? Perish the thought. Yes, perhaps he had asked the team before directly asking the individual patient. To be fair to Hook, nobody really thought about asking Vortex for accurate information. "Outside of combining into Bruticus, Onslaught has no more insight into Vortex's systems than anyone else."
"And Bruticus hasn't come out in battle for a month or better," Ratchet agreed thoughtfully. "Medical appeal to Megatron for a test combine?"
"Not a chance. Unless we start keeling over, we're deemed 'healthy enough.'" That had to rankle Hook's perfectionism. The surgeon grimaced. "You cannot imagine how long it took to persuade him that this is a matter affecting all of us on this blasted mudball."
Couldn't imagine, and didn't want to be told. Consulting with the Chief Medical Officer of the opposite faction during a war wasn't done casually. Soundwave was probably monitoring this call just as closely as Red Alert and Prowl. "Does Vortex typically try to avoid medical procedures?"
Hook's smile was slow, full, and vicious. "Not when I am involved, no."
On the other side of the split screen, Red Alert recoiled as he got just what the surgeon alluded to. Prowl's face twisted before going blank. Ratchet was thoroughly unsurprised. "Right, then it's not likely he's avoiding the rad-scan itself. That leaves a few possibilities for diseases, none of them detectable on the surface, or - well, it's possible to push check off for a while, but not for long, and there are definite consequences."
"What kind of consequences? Mechanical or mental?" Unspoken was Hook's total lack of concern for Vortex's already dubious sanity.
"Mechanical, but affecting the mind." Ratchet leaned back in his seat to cup his right hand under his left elbow and tap a finger against his chin as he thought. "Check doesn't interrupt overall function for long; we're capable of putting up our own system scan interference and remaining coherent throughout. The more it's suppressed, the more the system test requests pile up in a mech's buffer. It can be extremely overwhelming when suppression stops working." His fingers flicked out in a shrug. "A mech's mind can get bulldozed by a flood of sudden mechanical function requirements."
Both medics abruptly stopped venting and reset their optics at each other as that registered. Vortex, sadomasochist interrogator and psychopath extraordinaire, released in a blitz of suppressed check.
"Ah, slag," Ratchet breathed.
"Primus spare my operating table," Hook agreed fervently. "Scrapper can appeal to Megatron to get him back in the repair bay. How do I tell if he's suppressing?"
"Send me the data," the Autobot said, hands flying over the console as he pulled up the Ark's medical research database. There were tell-tale signs, but scrap him for a tractor if he remembered them off-hand!
"Megatron will never agree to that. Just tell me how to induce the check, if I have to!"
Ratchet's engine ground angrily. "For all I fragging know, he's already gone through the full turnover. Inducing wouldn't do anything but get you a current status update on his systems. Which," he paused and thought that over before finishing slowly, "might be the best option. If he's not willing to actually tell you, that is. If the check's finished, his systems will refuse to go into another turnover. If it hasn't started, then it will."
"And if it doesn't?" Hook shifted, pride warring with the fact that spark illnesses were not his area of specialty in the least.
The list of diseases that could stomp the check was short and very memorable. Ratchet didn't need to research it at all, sadly. "Then you'd better tell Megatron that sending me Vortex's stats is the better option."
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