It was late at night before Ratchet left med bay to sulk over Optimus Prime's shocked refusal to fund a pick-and-place machine, let alone nine of them or about two million dollars' worth, "merely," as he'd said, "for my own enjoyment."
The place Ratchet headed for was not for humans. Ratchet had, for the moment, had it up to there (a location he presently defined as "waaaay over the top of my helm") with humans. It was not, however, totally unknown to them.
Once upon a time, when Charlotte Mearing first drew the short straw to inspect the base top to bottom and had finished that task, she went to find Will Lennox.
"Director? How may I help you?" he'd said, stacking his weapon in the locker neatly, Epps right behind him, doing the same. The smell of cordite hung around them, olfactory marker of the firing range.
"I'm hoping you can, actually. In the bots' quarters there is excessive floor wear in a path leading to a wall panel, where a strong odor like that of gasoline is present. If that's a still for high-grade, do we need to request outside channels that it be moved?"
Epps and Lennox exchanged a glance. Then Epps cough-laughed into his fist, and said, "Excuse me, people, I've got to .. uh ... got to." He'd been backing away from them as he floundered into this un-sentence; then he pivoted and walked away, shoulders shaking.
Lennox smiled, said, "Let's go to the coffee room."
The coffee room was surveilled only by video, not audio.
Lennox looked at the coffee remaining in the urn, poured it down the sink (which was why the plumbing never gave them any trouble), and started another pot. "You found The Core Dump, Director."
"The Core Dump," she said, sitting at a table.
He joined her in the human-sized cheap plastic chairs, while the coffee maker burped and whistled in the background. "Yeah. 'Hide told me about it when I pulled inspection. I noticed what you did, and asked him about it. The Dump's a bar, and while it's not officially restricted, because it's not officially there, it's for Autobots only. Doesn't serve human drinks at all, no accommodations for anyone our size that isn't intended for minibots. Before you label that discriminatory, think about it from their point of view for a minute. They're surrounded by an extremely alien culture. They need to get away from us once in a while, and The Core Dump is the only place on base they can do that." He smiled. "Sometimes, you need to go where everybody knows your frame."
Charlotte Mearing had smiled at that. Ever after, if the traffic and the smell were noted in an inspection, she simply edited them out of the report.
Any legally adult human would have recognized the emotional atmosphere of The Core Dump the moment they got past the door, even through the stench of not-quite gasoline it emanated. It was a dive bar. Not a "gentleman's" or a "hospitality suite," certainly not a "club."
Well, come to think of it, possibly it was a club after all. A 'bot could certainly get hit over the head with, as well as at, The Core Dump.
The Core Dump was a place where 'bots came to addle their processors, and, processors duly addled, they were expected to pay up and leave. It was, after all, a short stagger home.
Most nights - The Core Dump did not open until all humans not on guard duty could reasonably be expected to be in recharge - Gears ran the place, and was there when Ratchet made it as far as the barstool next to Wheeljack.
Gears, knowing his customers, said simply, "Ratchet. Double or treble?"
The Core Dump served one product, and one product only: the twins' best triple-distilled high-grade, filtered through Herkimer diamonds - a human discovery, actually, but the twins weren't proud, they'd steal good ideas from anyone.
They had also managed to perfect a method of distillation which left little variation from batch to batch, and this made Ratchet extremely happy. No one needs to get blotto occasionally more than a medic, and the twins' consistent output was something upon which he could rely for help in that department.
"Treble, straight up, pressed shale-oil chaser with rubidium dusting on the side," Ratchet said. "Hey, Jack."
"Ratchet. I haven't seen you in about a decaorn. How're things with you?"
Ratchet knocked back a good slug of his drink, followed it with a sip of oil, and then a pinch of rubidium dusted onto his glossa. "Much better in just a moment," he said to Jack. "You?"
"Same old same old. My lab has a bit of slack right now, so it's hard to keep the humans assigned to me out of trouble. There isn't anything your department needs at the moment, is there?"
"Nine pick-and-place machines, high end, in a hurry."
There was a silence while Jack did a fair amount of internet research in the time that it took Ratchet to get one round farther into his Autobot margarita. Shot, oil, dust; savor and swallow. Then the inventor said, "I found plans for one. I'll build it, scan it as an alt-form, see what needs to be improved to get it to fulfill your requirements, and then get my staff to build nine iterations of the improved version for you. That will require about a week. Is that sufficiently timely for you?"
Ratchet swung his barstool to face the inventor, mouthplates agape. "Primus, Jack, that's a better solution than I dared hope for. But aren't the plans copyrighted?"
"No, they're copyright-free. I will never willingly infringe on another inventor's patent. The people who posted these plans accept donations, so my department will make one. Perhaps yours will too?"
Ratchet nodded. No "perhaps" about that one. He'd pay for it himself if he had to.
"The humans might still sue our socks off if they think they can prove a copyright infringement, though, so I'll research enough to make sure my solutions for improvements aren't parallel to theirs. Shouldn't be hard to come up with something different. The humans are pretty new to both metal and electrical technology; we know more than they do, so I've got more to work with. 'Course then I'll have to run it by Prowl and Red, see if it's okay to share; that way, we can make some money." Wheeljack had another hit off his own high-grade, and his optics became just that bit more shiny and purple, to match the drink.
Ratchet licked the rubidium off his fingers. "We don't wear socks," he pointed out, skipping all the important information in Jack's last statement. He didn't bother with the fancy bits this time, just slugged down the high-grade.
"Yes, so think how uncomfortable being denuded of them will be!" Jack gave him a very bright-and-shiny, if not purple, smile.
"Do you need budget allocationsh from my department?" Ratchet heard his own lisp and frowned. That oughtn't to be happening yet. Another hit, another dip into the oil, more rubidium. Yeah, that'd fixh it.
Wheeljack too had to make an effort to be lisp-less. "Fortunately not. I can justify the ex-shpense by leasing the machines to weapons contractors on base once you're done with 'em. They won't need all of them, so onshe (that one got by him) I've got the patents for my improvements secured, I'll license those machinesh, an' the deshignsh" – Wheeljack nearly wobbled off his barstool, and Ratchet caught him under one elbow – "to manufacturersh. Thanks. We'll make lotsh'a money 'f I do that."
Gears glided silently by and re-upped the medic's supply of high-grade by pouring most of a fifth into his cube from a five-gallon pail.
"Hey! Where'sh mine?" Wheeljack said.
"Cuttin' you off, Jack," Gears said. "I'll have to call Sunstreaker to help you home otherwise."
"No, no, don' call Shunshtreaker. Don' call Shideshwipe, neither."
"Give him another, Gearssss," Ratchet said, tossing money on the bar, proud that that ess, at least, had gotten out of his vocalizer without attracting an unwanted aitch, although it did seem to have cloned itself on the way by. "I'll geddim home."
"You will, huh? You're almost as pie-eyed as he is."
Ratchet simply stared the unpleasant minibot down. Gears shrugged, and poured Jack another.
"Sho why you need nine o' th' thingsh?" Jack's last drink disappeared with amazing speed.
"Can't tell you. S'medigly priv'lidjed-ed inf'mation." Ratchet finished the rubidium, drank the oil straight, and chased it with the high-grade. Tasted funny, as the cannibal said of the clown. Note to shelf, self, remember to do it the other way around nexht time. "It'll get shomebody laid, though."
"Ha! Shomebody's gettin' laid? S' pretty nice fer them, I guessh."
"Yeah, shure ish. Not fer ush, though. Not fer th' likesh uv ush."
"Iddon' haveta be that way," Jack said, sliding off his barstool and, after a certain amount of tap-dancing, remaining upright. "Sho don' be tha' tway."
Ratchet gave the inventor, who smiled at him, the Slow Blink of Intoxicated Stupidity, and said, "Doeshn't?"
"No, shilly, iddoeshn't. Come on. S' goda my quardersh. Nicer'n' yersh."
"Ishn't either. S'got inventionsh all over."
"Doeshn' have bitsh o'botsh ev'rywhere, though."
Ratchet made it upright and unsupported, and said, "S' righ'. Ye're righ'. No bitsh o' botsh. Lezgo your quardersh."
Indeed, there were no bits of 'bots present. Assured of this by a quick scan, Ratchet took the inventor in his arms, and kissed him rather thoroughly.
Jack returned the volley, but made a foot-fault. "Shorry," he said, taking his pede off Ratchet's.
"Don' be. I shtand on 'em too. C'mere, you."
Ratchet's next serve was long and hard, and barely stayed in-bounds. He pulled his helm back, adjusted his focus, and found that instead of kissing the inventor's mouth, he had his glossa in Jack's audial.
"Oooh," Jack said, nonetheless. "S' nishe." His fingers found a chink in Ratchet's shoulder armor that flared of its own accord, and rubbed the structures to be found within it.
Ratchet's optics crossed. Jack, approaching for another kiss, instead whacked Ratchet's forehead with his own, making them both stagger, and they committed a double foot-fault.
"Tell you wha'," Jack said, seizing Ratchet's servo, "'s goda m'berth. Won't be steppin' 'n 'chother's pedes there."
"Sure won'," Ratchet agreed," not'n yer berth. Known you long time, Jack, long time. Open yer ches'plates f'r me?"
"Oh yeah, long time. Sure, don' see why not. Don' see why not t'all. You too, huh?"
"'Course. S'no fun f'you do it 'lone."
And so, while not the direct cause (no sex tape was involved), this solution to the need for pick-and-place machines was the method by which Wheeljack and Ratchet's sex life eventually netted the Autobots quite a lot more than Optimus' Christmas tree did, balls and all.
Ratchet considered that a win for everyone, including himself and Jack. Finding that they had more in common than they first realized, the two Autobots didn't end their affair when they sobered up just because they started it while they were drunk.
Sources of wisdom vary so widely among the sentient species of the galaxies that, indeed, some are filtered through Herkimer diamonds.