Title: Fidelius (Prologue)
Author: Femme4jack
Rating: R
Continuity:Bayverse 2011 AU based on Patronus (coauthored with Merfilly)
Pairing: Ratchet/Ironhide
Content Notes: Explicit Intimacy (Spark, Tactile, PnP), very brief references to immature forms of robotic life and spark creation through budding

Notes: Prequel to Patronus, written for mmouse15 for her winning bid on FandomAid's Help Somalia auction on livejournal (thank you!). So many thanks Merfilly for coauthoring the original story with me, and for giving me the encouragement to continue, including much help with plotting. It won't be the same going solo.

The prologue takes place at the "fade to black" point in ch. 10 of Patronus. Most of the remainder of the story will take place in the past.

Fidelius: a complex and powerful Charm that takes a specific piece of information and implants it into a being's soul.

Fidelis: Latin for faithful or loyal.

Ratchet lay atop of the dark mech, bathing in the hungry, willful fields spinning off Patronus's freely exposed spark. Seeing the spark itself was such a comforting-arousing sight. His own spark spun fast in his chest in anticipation, his fields surging eagerly to contain and be enveloped by the one who knew him best: his shelter, haven and resting place, as the humans would say. His processors might still have their doubts that this was truly Ironhide, but his spark had no such compunctions, pulsing with that stretching-aching need of a bond to be renewed.

He deliberately had not yet opened his own plates. He prided himself, for better or worse, in being able to resist the demands of his spark. It wasn't hesitation or doubt, though he did have those. Whoever Ironhide now was, there would be both loss and gain, joy and sorrow in the renewal of their bond.

No, it wasn't hesitation. There was just so much to take in as he familiarized himself with the not quite-so bulky frame that was almost painfully new. So new, in fact, that his olfactory sensors could still trace the remnant of the rich solutions used in the growth tanks less than half a year earlier, and the subtle aroma of protomass only recently differentiated and coded. It was their species's own version of either the new car smell or new baby smell, depending on how one chose to look at it.

Not that Patronus was off-gassing Volatile Organic Compounds, Ratchet thought, bemused at the strangeness of humanity's predilections for things that were toxic to them. Nor that the reformatted mech had truly been a sparkling (or that sparklings were in any way equivalent to helpless infant mammals whose chemistry elicited genetically coded bonding behavior on the part of adult caretakers). But it was so different than the molecules he was accustomed to drawing past his keen medical sensors. Ironhide had already been considered... well... not ancient, but certainly on the well-seasoned-headed-toward-rusty side when they'd first met, so long ago. Could this really be the same mech who had been his anchor through thousands of vorns (thousands of deaths)?

The frame did not a mech make. Ratchet had certainly constructed enough new ones over the eons to be certain of this. But Ironhide had lost far more than his frame to Sentinel's madness. There was usually at least something left of the protoform, core coding and unique, spark-conditioned nanites to stick in the growth tank as a base for a partial reformat. Absolute reformats, like Ironhide's, had always been considered a brand new person. The relationship between spark, bonds, memory core, and deep coding were complex enough that not even the greatest scientific processors fully understood just what went into forming the personality matrix that made a mech a unique person, different from other who might share the same frame and code.

Patronus insisted he was Ironhide. Could Patronus even know what it meant to claim that?

Not hesitating, Ratchet inwardly claimed. Not at all. Just... exploring... relearning.

::What the slag are you waiting for? Don't tell me you are so old you forgot how to do this?:: Patronus's glyphs were full of humorous, teasing modifiers, as though he knew exactly what Ratchet was up to.

::Old, hmm? That old spark of yours really is getting a kick out of suddenly being the kid around here. I just happen to enjoy taking my time,:: Ratchet said, deliberately kicking his olfactory fans up a notch to take another, obvious whiff. Ah, there it was. The familiar comfort of another, newer scent, but one that was indubitably Ironhide. Distinctly organic molecules from his human family imbued every part of him. The Lennoxes were just as much a part of that frame as the volatile chemicals that made up the ammunition he produced internally. Patronus's field teeked sharply of their energies as well, a bond that had still been brand new, by their reckoning, when the events of DC had happened. A bond that was changing him in the ways that all such bonds did, and would continue to change the cohort, as well, as those energies were shared.

It was a bond so new it should have severed in the trauma of Ironhide's disintegration. Even the cohort bonds could have, or rather, should have severed. From everything Ratchet had been able to glean from Sentinel's weapon, it was designed to sever the coding of such bonds, leaving a blank slate upon which he could build whatever he wished. The nanoviral tech had been Sentinel's cold, horrible logic at work in a universe bereft of the Allspark, and in which the war wouldn't wait for the newly budded to grow and mature enough to handle a warrior's frame and coding. But Ironhide had such a stubborn old spark. He somehow had held on. And that, in itself, was enough to convince Ratchet of just who was making the impatient noises underneath him. His thoughts had taken all of a few human seconds. But human seconds were long when it came to the desires of the spark.

::You and your chemo-receptors,:: Patronus growled over their private channel. ::Seriously, medic, open up and quit sniffing me like that rodent Sam keeps.:: Ironhide ran his digits along Ratchet's sides, finding the keen sensors that helped the medic keep a secondary reading on his patients' fields. His touches concentrated on those, mischief in his optics as Ratchet's energies swirled in response.

::You want to play it that way? I thought you were anxious to touch my spark,:: Ratchet teased.

Patronus's fingers scraped the sensors harder on their journey toward the even more sensitive areas underneath the lateral plating of Ratchet's vivid green armor. ::What I want is for you to quit sniffing and thinking and actually DO something,:: he growled, tugging hard on a cable he knew, from the scant memories he'd integrated, would get a response.

Ratchet's field flared hard. ::Careful what you wish for,:: he warned as he turned his experience against the young-old mech below him. Medical manipulators extended from the digits and servos still holding him up and over Patronus's frame, and slithered into the open chest to touch everything but the spark chamber, winding around sensitive conduits and sending a stimulating charge directly into his longtime lover's brand new, overclocked systems.

The dark mech's optics flashed and his entire frame expanded and went rigid as an overload crashed into him completely by surprise. It was obvious from the flare of his field that it was almost as frustrating as it was pleasurable.

::What the slag are you doing! Didn't want to fragging overload until we were joined!:: Patronus snapped with the precise tone and glyphs Ironhide would have used.

::Just reminding you of who's in charge,:: Ratchet said smugly. ::One of the many things you've forgotten that I'll have to teach you again.::

::The slag you will!:: Patronus spat back, grabbing on to Ratchet's shoulders in an attempt to roll them both over.

::I have so many redundancies and extra equipment in my frame that I outmassed you even before your reformat, Patronus:: Ratchet continued casually, his frame firm and refusing to move no matter how hard Patronus pushed. ::Not to mention that I'm fully trained in keeping even my largest patients subdued. Besides, I needed to see you overload, and feel you get fragged off.::

::And why in the Pit is that?:: Patronus asked sharply, even as his motor systems whined and groaned with the effort.

::Hush, you. Don't wake Mikaela and Prime. Feeling you fragged off that I made you come first, as much as anything you say, tells me that you are still you, Ironhide,:: Ratchet responded softly, his chestplates finally cracking open, revealing the brilliant and warm light within.

The dark mech abruptly stopped struggling, his field flaring with awe and desire rather than frustration. ::Oh Primus, Ratchet.:: The tone suddenly was all Patronus again, youthful and eager, but also slightly uncertain and afraid.

Ratchet locked his shoulder and elbow joints, keeping himself far enough above the obsidian mech so that their coronal tendrils could not quite touch, extending his prehensile cables, connectors tapping against his lover's port covers.

::Spark memory is different than core files,:: Ratchet explained patiently despite his own need which, if he allowed it, would have him crashing their sparks together. The young mech was trembling below him, thrusting his chest upward, desperate to complete what he was aching for, despite the fear in his field. ::I'll show you both, together, at least at first, so let me plug in. Sparks will take over soon enough as we merge. Plugging in has a secondary purpose, though. I'm going to take over your motor functions, so I can control the pace. Your spark has done this before, but has also experienced massive trauma since the last time. I want to take the merge very slow, give you time to adjust at each stage before we complete it.::

::Whatever, slag, please Ratchet! I need this... need you.:: Patronus's data ports were already open, eager for the connection, which Ratchet immediately gave him, feeling the firewalls melt underneath his touch, revealing a swirl of desperate need and powerfully stubborn determination.

~Easy, I'm here. You have me,~ Ratchet soothe. Unlike when he was plugged in as medic, he allowed his own thoughts and emotions to mingle, and felt Ironhide's... and yes, it was important, he realized, to use that designation... felt Ironhide's emotions and thoughts latch onto his own, anchoring himself. Signaling for permission, and receiving it, Ratchet deftly took control of his cohort-mate's motor functions, and felt the frame below him go still.

Then Ratchet keyed up the datafiles, including some of the very oldest that were tagged with Ironhide's designation and kept easily accessible and uncompressed in his primary data core crystals. They were memories that Ratchet had been accessing repeatedly both to grieve and comfort himself as he had painstakingly created the new frame below him. Memories he had thought would never again truly belong the spark now reaching for his.

Many were co-memories, precious ones which he and Ironhide had long ago decided to blend, shared repeatedly during merges to reanchor themselves over the vorns, to remember who they were when the horrors of war threatened to make them forget and become only machines and functions.

Ironhide's spark, not controlled by motor function coding, but rather in the thrall of a bond desperate to be renewed, flared outward at the first taste of memory, coronal fingers reaching farther than any should be able to until one finally brushed a tendril reaching back.

Ratchet heard himself whine and abruptly shut off his vocal modulator to preserve his patients' recharge. But within their shared swirl of thought-feeling-sensation-data, he was suddenly gibbering senselessly at the sheer perfection of the simple caress, tendril-to-tendril, memories of a thousand other merges rapidly flashing by and eagerly absorbed by the mech underneath him.

Even as Ironhide had anchored to him, Ratchet now effortlessly anchored himself to Ironhide. Yes! The touch of that ancient spark, combined with what Ratchet could feel so clearly in his lover's processors, was Ironhide, without a doubt. Despite feeling so young and lacking so much in experience and memory that had made the guardian who he was.

Joy and relief blossomed between them as Ratchet lowered himself, sinking into a familiar and protective unconditional acceptance he had never dared hope to feel again. On instinct deeper than his own innate medical caution, he released his lover's motor control. This was Ironhide. Ironhide! He did not have to be careful or in control.

Dark arms wrapped around him and pulled him down the rest of the way in a fierce embrace. The spark spinning into his own reached hungrily for the memories he was sharing, because it knew those memories, felt them deeply though his integrated data storage was bereft of them. Deep within Ironhide's spark, they were still present and safely kept, even if conscious processing could not access them. But with Ratchet's memories spilling into Ironhide's data core, recognition lit up and the spark matched its priceless treasures to the datafiles that were being hungrily devoured.

Together they remembered.