This is for the September 2009 'Missing scenes' on the lj comm tf_rare_pairing. The prompt was:

Pairing Wanted: Ratchet/Omega Supreme

Rating Wanted: Don't really care for this one.

What missing scene do you want to see? At the end of the third season, after they've defeated the Lugnut Supremes, Ratchet and Omega finally get to catch up and confess their love to one another.

Three things you want in your story: Nervousness from both of them. It should be pretty obvious that neither of them are all that experienced in this sort of thing. If it gets to a higher rating then spark play rather than anything else would be great.

Three things you do NOT want in your story: Pretty much anything is fine for this one.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Ratchet entered the control room slowly. Optimus had asked him to go with Omega to a secluded landing pad away from the crowds that had surrounded them and, not wanting to be part of the celebration that came with the display of Megatron and his top lieutenants, Ratchet had agreed easily with the suggestion.

"Omega," Ratchet said quietly.

The deep slow voice of his friend answered, "Ratchet. Where are we going?"

Ratchet patted the column with the huge Autobot face on it that hid Omega's spark. The lights in the control room dimmed slightly in response. Ratchet told him, "We're going away from this crowd, old friend. Optimus Prime will get in touch with us on a later cycle, and meanwhile, we can catch up with each other."

A pause, then Omega replied, "I would like that, Ratchet."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Ratchet carefully steered Omega in ship form to the landing pad near Autobot headquarters. As Omega settled down, a series of panels began to cover the docking bay, hiding Omega away. Ratchet powered down the controls and leaned back in his seat, patting the console in front of him. Omega flashed the lights on the board at him in reply.

"I hope you're happy to be home, Omega." There was no response, and Ratchet busied himself with fixing the damage to the console. Once that was finished, he stood, his servos creaking noisily as he stretched, then moved to the landing ramp. Descending, he did a walk-around and noted that Omega had another leak in his engine, there were a multitude of dings and dents and some out-right tears in his plating, and he had innumerable scratches and mars to his paint. Patting an engine, Ratchet told him, "Well, I guess I'd better get to fixing you, old friend."

"I'd rather you came in and talked to me, Ratchet." Omega's voice echoed through the large bay, and Ratchet quickly checked that all the hanger doors were closed. Omega was also here to be checked over by Perceptor's team sometime in the next few cycles. As far as Ratchet was concerned, Omega didn't need any checking over, and he wasn't going to announce their presence any sooner than he had to do so. Omega had a fear of Perceptor's team. He also feared losing Ratchet and did not like being near the science team since they had made it clear that Ratchet was not their first choice to be paired with Omega. Both factors had Ratchet wishing there was another docking station that was big enough to hold Omega, rather than having to come to the project's bay.

"Sure, Omega, here I come." Ratchet climbed the landing ramp carefully. He was starting to feel the injuries he'd received during that last fight with Megatron. Mind you, he wasn't as badly hurt as Optimus, but he was stellar cycles older and could feel every twinge and scrape. Reaching the spark chamber room, he called the control panel down and sat down in the chair with a huge release of air gusting from his vents.

"Well, Omega, what do you want to talk about?"

There was a long pause as Omega collected his thoughts and marshaled them. Ratchet waited patiently, used to the deliberation of Omega's thought processes. Finally, the huge 'bot began speaking.

"Ratchet, at the end, why didn't Optimus Prime use the magnus hammer to kill Megatron? It would have been justifiable."

Ratchet was careful in his reply, "Well, that's just not Optimus' way. He believes in justice, and while it could have been argued that Megatron deserved death, he also deserved justice. Optimus is…in many ways, he is the best of the Autobots, always trying to uphold the standards of the Autobot cause as he understands them."

"I…feel the same way, Ratchet. I had Megatron captured and was ready to execute him when he argued that he needed to be brought to Cybertron to face justice and be punished." Omega paused after that, Ratchet waiting patiently. "I should have killed him, Ratchet, but I didn't want to. It seemed wrong."

Ratchet patted the console, "Your primary function is to protect, Omega, not pass judgment, even on Megatron. We'll leave that burden to the high council. You did the right thing."

"But…I brought Megatron here and went into stasis lock, Ratchet. He was able to use me to create those clones, and we are lucky you were able to defeat them!" Omega was getting agitated, his spark energy fluctuating wildly. Ratchet stroked the control board, next to the monitor that showed Omega's sparkbeat.

"Easy, big guy. It all worked out, and you did fine. I'm just glad you made it through, and it's…" Ratchet broke off, pressing his servos against his mouth for a moment before continuing, "I'm glad you're on-line again, Omega."

A long silence followed. Ratchet watched the spark signature carefully, the tension easing from him as the signal stabilized and slowed. Finally, Omega dimmed the lights in the room and brought them back up. The medic gusted out air in relief.

"Ratchet?"

"Yeah, old friend?"

"Tell me what I missed."

"Well, after I had to put you into that modified stasis lock, we celebrated what we thought was the end of the war. Of course, we couldn't put our servos on Megatron, or on Starscream or Strika or any of his lieutenants, really. So eventually we stopped worrying about him and got on with the rebuilding of Cybertron. Energon was a bit tight – most of the processed energon can't be brought through a space gate unless it's in a heavily shielded ship, and those are pretty rare. So the rebuilding effort was slowed by the lack of energon. We also lost the Allspark, or rather, Autobot command sent it through a space bridge with no coordinates in the hopes that it would be lost rather than be used by any remaining Decepticons." Ratchet shifted into a more comfortable position and continued, "We started rebuilding and just kept working on finding sources of energon, especially raw materials that we could take through space bridges. Meanwhile, Cybertron was rebuilding our society. It was hard, Omega. A lot of bots were willing to put up with limits on what they could do, because they remembered the war. It didn't seem like home, and I had been demoted because it meant that I got to stay with you. Eventually, you and I became part of a space bridge repair team and sent out to the rim of the galaxy. I was, quite frankly, glad to be rid of trying to deal with the new politics of Cybertron."

"But wasn't the purpose of the war to have the old Cybertron back?" Omega questioned him. "Was our sacrifice in vain?"

"No, no, it wasn't. It was…time only goes forward, Omega, and you can't make it go back. We couldn't regain the old Cybertron, and if you think about it, the old Cybertron led to the Decepticon uprising, so it wasn't perfect either. We have to keep moving forward, and we've got young bots like Optimus that make me feel like we have a future."

Omega digested the information, then asked, "But Optimus has the Allspark now. What happened?"

So Ratchet told him the story of finding the Allspark when they tried to repair a defective space bridge, the crash landing on a backwater planet, the waking up 50 solar cycles after crashing, and the loss of the Allspark. He continued with the fact that Megatron had also crash-landed with them and had been used by Isaac Sumdac to build his robotic empire, unbeknownst to the Autobots for quite some time after they'd come out of stasis lock.

Two cycles had passed in this manner, Omega asking questions and Ratchet answering them and the ease of a long friendship had settled over them when Ratchet got pinged by Wheeljack. He answered and grimaced at the tone set by the project bot. Omega's lights flash agitatedly as the voice filled the control room.

"We have energon for Omega Supreme and will be extending cables. Please do not touch any controls during this time, and remain where you are." Wheeljack informed him. As he spoke, the refueling lines poked out from the walls and found their couplings on Omega's ship form, locking in and beginning the process of refueling the huge Autobot. A few more housekeeping issues were discussed, Ratchet getting grumpier by the astrosecond until the connection was closed. Omega's unease was communicating itself to Ratchet from the lights on the control panel flashing, and he hunched over the panel protectively until the connections were made and fuel started pumping into Omega's tanks, which had the effect of calming the giant Autobot.

Omega sighed as his fuel levels rose. "This feels good, Ratchet." The lights stopped flashing and the monitors evened out, showing information instead of random numbers. His energy field also calmed, and Ratchet could feel the tension leaching out of him.

"I'm glad, old friend." Ratchet was stroking the console unconsciously, monitoring Omega's spark and fuel levels. The humming that came through the console to his servos was Omega's tactile response to his touch, and a grin quirked across his face as Omega buzzed him hard enough to send his hand skittering across the console as the fuel levels topped off and the cables retracted, leaving them alone once again.

"Ratchet?"

"Yeah, Omega?"

"Can I ask one more question?"

Ratchet spun around and looked at the column that hid Omega's spark, answering, "Of course you can."

Omega was quiet for a long time, until he finally, hesitantly, voiced his question, "Why did you tell me you were my friend, when I first on-lined?"

Ratchet was puzzled, "Why do you ask?"

"Because you are the only one that did that for one of us; Omega Prime's mech told him he was his handler. Omega Ultra's mech didn't introduced himself at all, and it was ten cycles before he learned his name. They were both mechs from Highbrow's Intelligence section, you were a medbot. I've always wondered why, out of the three of us, I got the only friend."

Ratchet sputtered, unable to form a coherent reply. He took time formulating his response. "You were supposed to have an intelbot yourself, but she got hurt, and then captured by a bounty hunter. I had been taking care of her injury, and I was captured with her. She…begged me to use my EMP generator to wipe her memory so the activation codes for you wouldn't be captured. I…I did as she asked and wiped her entire memory. Ultra Magnus brought me back into her, in an attempt to retrieve those codes, and your code was passed to me by a fail-safe Ar…the intelbot had installed. So I became your activator by accident, and I couldn't view myself as a perfect example given that the intelbot had lost who she was due to my actions. I wanted to be your friend, Omega, not a handler, not a supervisor. I hoped we could find answers together."

A long silence followed as Omega thought about what Ratchet had told him. Finally, the giant Autobot said, "Thank you, Ratchet."

A silence fell between them. Ratchet sank deeper into the chair, watching the beat of Omega's spark, and wasn't it funny how he called him Omega when perhaps, he should be calling him Supreme, given there had been two other Omega guardians built. He idly voiced that thought and sat up quickly as a wildly erratic pulse scrolled across the monitor.

"Omega is the name you gave me, Ratchet. Please…please don't change it. They want to take me away from you. If you change my name, they will."

Ratchet patted the console and replied, "Of course I won't change it, Omega."

The erratic pulse continued, and Ratchet tried sending electrical impulses to steady the beat. It didn't help, and seemed to make the situation worse. Frantically scrambling through his processors for a fix, Ratchet pounded on the console and yelled, "Don't do this to me! Omega, stay with me!" Omega had these panic attacks before, convinced the Omega project 'bots were taking Ratchet away and hiding Omega from him by changing his name. The fear was deep-rooted and Ratchet mentally kicked himself for forgetting about Omega's deep fear of loss.

A groan answered his pleas and the pain in the sound drove Ratchet to action. He spun around and went to the column that hid Omega's spark, keying the entry code in. The hatch slid open, and Ratchet looked at the spark of his friend. It was pulled back away from him, quivering in its corona of light, almost shivering. Ratchet reached out and the spark flinched away from him. He froze, then ever so slowly pulled his hand back. He rested his head against the edge of the hatch, anguish crawling through his circuits.

"Omega."

"Ratchet." So low and pain-filled it caused Ratchet's spark to twist in his chest.

"You need to calm down."

"I…I can't. I'm afraid."

"Yes, I know. Just…calm your spark. I'm too old to change my ways, and you'll always be Omega to me. I'm not leaving you." Ratchet watched as the spark calmed a bit after his words, but still continued to pulse erratically. The irregular sparkbeat was not good, it would cause Omega's systems to work harder than they should and would lead to systems failures if not corrected. An answer finally came to his processor – an old procedure for regulating sparks. He waited for a time, then finally spoke again, "Omega, do you…do you want me to open my spark to you, so you can regulate yourself against me?"

A wild jump of the spark, then it edged closer as Omega replied, "Yes, please, Ratchet. I…I've always wanted to see your spark."

Ratchet clenched his servos on the edge of the door, trying to focus on the fact that Omega was his friend, was his patient right now, not…not anything more. He sent the commands to his spark chamber and slowly, his chest plates parted, exposing the silvery chamber of his spark. Once the chest plates were tucked away, he started to open his spark chamber. A dim blue light started leaking through the cracks and became brighter as the chamber irised open slowly, finally showing his spark to Omega.

The giant's spark reached for his, tendrils of light growing from the corona and Ratchet was surprised to see matching tendrils grow from his own spark. Omega's spark was beating in time with his, the tendrils still reaching for each other. Obeying the overwhelming impulse, Ratchet leaned into Omega's spark chamber and hissed as the tendrils met, tangled, entwined. A pulse of love came to his spark, and he replied with an answering love and added friend. The tendrils entwined more, pulling the two sparks closer to each other, Ratchet groaning as more feelings went over the connection. He was answered with a moan from Omega, and then a shout from both as their sparks snapped together, merging into a huge ball of energy between them. Ratchet howled at the overwhelming love/desire/pain/protection/love that came from Omega and struggled to send his own love/admiration/protection/lust/duty/love back. He fell to his knees, actuators unable to keep him up any longer as all of Ratchet's functions turned toward the unexpected but not unwelcome spark merge.

As the connection deepened, Ratchet was pulled into the thoughts of Omega. His processor was simple and straightforward. There was the overwhelming directive to protect any Autobot in danger, the childlike wonder at his friendship with Ratchet, the admiration for Ratchet and his honesty, the pain at all the destruction he had caused, the fear that he wasn't wanted. Ratchet soothed the fear and fed his admiration of Omega into the merge. He was answered with a pulse of love so strong it shoved him over the edge into overload and his optics flared white as his overload fed into Omega's spark and pushed the giant mech into his first overload.

When Ratchet's processor rebooted, he found himself sprawled on the floor, his upper body lying within Omega's spark chamber and his legs trailing out the hatch. His spark was back in his own chamber, but the locks hadn't cycled yet and his chest was still open, his spark brighter than he remembered and pulsing slowly, in time with Omega's spark. As he lay there, trying to gather his scattered thoughts together, a tendril extended from Omega's corona and reached for his spark, which extended its own tendril. The two streams of energy met and entwined before breaking apart and sinking back into their respective sparks. Ratchet's chuckle, rusty-sounding and little-used, echoed through the room and brought an answering laugh from Omega. Delight sparked between them, a profound understanding of the other and warmth in their shared friendship. Groaning, Ratchet pushed himself up and got to his feet, then staggered over to the chair before collapsing in it. He hadn't overloaded in so long his servos felt like rubber, slow to respond and feeling slightly unreal. He smiled as he looked at the screen, Omega's sparkbeat scrolling across the monitor.

"What's so funny, Ratchet?" Omega wanted to know.

"Our sparks, old friend."

Omega was quiet, obviously scanning their sparks. "I don't understand, Ratchet."

"Look at them. They're beating in perfect time together."

"Just like us."

"Yes, just like us."

The End