Only a Prime
Chapter Nine
Optimus stiffened, bracing a hand against the floor to try to rise. His systems kept him from doing so before Ratchet's hand pressed firmly against his chassis.
The medic left him with a stern look, transferring the sparkling into one palm and producing a piece of tarp from subspace. "You're on medical leave until further notice. Ironhide and I can handle the Wreckers." Then, aloud and through his comm., he replied: "Dispatch Sideswipe and Bumblebee to meet them, confirm idents' and lead them here."
There was barely a pause before Ironhide's voice came back, clipped and sharp. "Where's Prime?"
Glancing to Optimus, expecting him to try to comm. back first with some kind of dismissive assurance, Ratchet found the mech staring silently at his hands. Specifically, at the tiny body he was gently wrapping in the tarp. He closed his hands around the shroud, a tremor passing through his digits as he detected the rapid dissipation of heat from the grey body.
"Ratchet?"
"Office," he replied curtly, not flinching at the agitated snap in the specialist's tone. "I could use a servo getting him to the Medbay. Ratchet out."
Optimus shifted, about to protest before the older mech cut him off with a hard click. "He'll stay in the dark, Optimus, don't worry." A pause, and Ratchet's tone softened in an unwitting reflection of the ache in his own spark. "And I do need his hands to keep you stable. I can't close until the chamber's cooled."
His optics fell to the small, solid parcel in his hands. Softly, and having to force himself to meet Optimus's gaze, he asked, "Do you want to…" Hold it? Say goodbye? Bury it? He didn't know the end to the pitiful question, and it was all beyond his ability to say anyway. As was nauseatingly become habit since they'd started on this venture, he felt utterly useless.
Chassis wrenched apart to weeping, smoking protoform, Optimus put a hand on the medic's wrist. Ratchet tasted energon from biting his glossa at the gesture, feeling his spark give a bitter clench. He should not be the one who faltered, here. Should not need comfort and reassurance from the patient. But this gesture, this selfless offer of comfort was fundamentally Prime, and a clear summation of why they were trying so desperately to make another.
That, Ratchet privately admitted, and because he wanted his sparkling too.
"It will be alright, Ratchet," Optimus intoned, though it sounded weak and laboured to his own audios. "There is always hope, and today we are reunited with old friends and comrades. I know you and Wheeljack were close."
Shifting the bundle into one hand, Ratchet settled the other over Optimus's wrist with a sigh. "Optimus, I will figure this out," he said, flat and hard, the sub-harmonics of his voice and the potency of his field wreathed in solemn oaths. "I swear it to you. And if-"
The sound of transformation outside was the only warning before Ironhide burst through the door, having sped in alt. mode from the control room. It was long enough for Ratchet to slip the bundle into a shoulder compartment. Inside, it felt like a lead weight.
"Ordered everyone out of the corridor. Way's clear to the Medbay," the dark mech uttered for Ratchet's benefit, though his optics were fixed on the Prime. He came to kneel at the tall mech's feet, openly scanning over the slick mess of his chassis, taking in the tremors of shock in his lines. Ironhide shook his head, optics bright. "Primus, look at the state of you."
Optimus cycled a vent, relieved that he could at least do that much now. "It looks worse than it is."
Ironhide's mouth slanted into a crooked smile, the initial system-wrenching panic easing a little at the ridiculous and blessedly predictable reassurance. "Like scrap it does. Gonna keep you confined to the Medbay myself after this." His expression sobered when he looked back to Ratchet, whose deft hands were syphoning out murky energon and polluted coolant from the Prime's chassis before it could burn and crust against his internals.
"What in the Pit happened? And what can I do?"
Ratchet didn't pause in his work, one hand resting over the chamber to protect the fresh seal whilst the tube from his other wrist sucked away the viscous mess. He knew Optimus was watching him from the weight of his focus rather than through his peripheral vision. Whether he was looking at the obfuscated body or simply wondering if Ratchet was about to relieve some of the burden of his guilt by confessing the whole mad scheme to Ironhide, he couldn't tell.
The medic did not give Optimus time to react, much less protest, before snapping a cord into an ancillary node inside the mech's gaping chassis and triggering stasis. When the long body fell slack to the critical optic, Ratchet motioned for Ironhide to approach.
"Take his other side and help me carry him. Quickly." When Ironhide's field crackled, Ratchet shook his head a little with an exvent, manoeuvring his hands beneath thigh and chassis. "He's fine to move, but he'll be better in the Medbay."
Ironhide fell silent, though his expression spoke volumes as he helped collect up the Prime's body as if it were made of glass. As they began the agonizingly slow process of moving Optimus to the 'bay, Ratchet found that he couldn't met the mech's scrutinizing stare.
Nor bring much of his focus out of that shoulder compartment, where the sparkling's corpse slid against his frame as he moved.
2 weeks later
Wheeljack couldn't have arrived at a better time, in Ratchet's mind. There had been some changes in his old friend, such as the loss of the nervous-awkwardness that used to haunt his gait, but it was still Wheeljack. Older and more confident, with scarred and thicker plates, but still Wheeljack.
He'd brought four Wreckers in tow with him on the Xantium, presently left on the sea bed where it had landed whilst NEST figured out how and where to move a spaceship without several million civilians noticing. A wide green mech, Bulkhead, had stood close to the inventor's shoulder when introductions were made. Behind them, Leadfoot, Roadbuster and Topspin were all that was left of the crew.
From the official reports, sheer determination and tactical brilliance in the face of overwhelming odds had seen them escape hounding Decepticon forces to follow the Prime's transmission. Off the record, Wheeljack had said that, in typical Wrecker style, their arrival was more the result of suicidal audacity and dumb luck.
Ratchet had performed all their physicals, absorbed the reports from the deep black that hadn't managed to make it to their unit here on Earth, and greedily combed the Xantium's inventory. There was an honest-to-Primus stocked and equipped medical bay on board; as well as weapons, ammunition, rations, replacement parts and a myriad of other essentials that Ratchet had spent decades thinking of as precious luxuries.
In turn, the Wreckers had found new enthusiasm and energy for being amongst the Prime's team inside the security of the Hoover Dam. Megatron himself was on this planet, making this the front line of the Autobot/Decepticon war, and there were regular skirmishes between his most powerful warriors and their own. Leadfoot, Roadbust and Topspin had taken over an entire storage room with schematics of weapons and physics-bending propositions for instruments of war. Wheeljack's interests had clearly rubbed off on the engineers. On the third day after their arrival they'd requested Optimus's alt. mode schematics for their Project: Mobile Battle Station.
All in all, there had been plenty of distractions from the fact that Optimus was barely speaking to him. It had taken two days for the mess of the Prime's chassis to be put back to rights, and though he'd been discharged on strict medical leave, the mech had still been able to busy himself for most of each day without an official breach. Clearly he did not wish to dwell any further on that disastrous time on the floor of his office, and Ratchet had given him that space.
He'd snarled to himself that his motives were far from professional - selfish and cowardly – but there was enough going on with the Wreckers to excuse himself. Just.
This morning, Ratchet was taking Wheeljack for a more thorough tour of the base to discuss modifications in Optimus's stead, whilst Ironhide showed Bulkhead around the areas that were primarily NEST. The medic had yet to stop smiling. A month ago he could not have conceived of spending a full hour away from the Medbay like this, without thoughts of the failing sparklings dogging at his processor. It was a welcomed change.
"There's a store room two levels down that could easily be overhauled into a proper lab. Power-wise it's more suitable that that makeshift space your mechs are occupying now," Ratchet went on as they came into the Medbay. Wheeljack immediately began exploring, obviously pleased to be amongst the familiar equipment. "If you want the same set-up as you did on the Ark, we can attach quarters straight off of it."
"It'd have to be roomy," Wheeljack replied, turning away from the workbench. "Bulkhead will be in there too." To Ratchet's stunned, though happy expression, he shrugged with a grin. "Mech's gotta keep warm in the black."
Though the words were casual, there was no mistaking the obvious affection and devotion in them. Ratchet leant against the side of the examination berth with folded arms. "That's good. I'm glad for you. Though to be honest, 'Jack, I wouldn't have thought him your type."
Wheeljack nodded a little, conceding the point with a raised brow. "We stuck together after the Ark was lost to increase our odds, and over the years… He's a good mech. Spark bigger than his fists." The scientist cocked his head with a rueful smile that immediately put Ratchet on edge. It was only fair that they both divulged their personal lives, after all. "For you, though, I couldn't imagine anyone better than the Prime. Looks like we both got lucky."
Ratchet blinked at that, then realized that they had walked past the door with Optimus's glyph on it, recently made adjacent to the Medbay. Ironhide had pushed for Prime to move with far more tenacity than the doctor himself had, and had begun petitioning for his office to be relocated closer to the Medbay as well before Optimus had dismissed them both. Ratchet was beginning to think that Ironhide perhaps needed to know the truth behind Optimus' 'affliction' and regular need for his care.
For the moment, Ratchet dismissed the train of thought with the same hum as he did Weeljack's assumption.
"There's nothing going on between myself and Optimus." A pause as he considered his words and his colleague. Wheeljack was now to be a permanent fixture of the base, and would pick up the scuttlebutt soon if he hadn't already. "He's undergoing long-term treatment, and it was practical to have his quarters adjacent to the Medbay for the time being."
The part of Wheeljack's processor that hadn't had much opportunity to come to the fore in centuries was suddenly roused. Though a scientist at spark and a warrior in build, he'd spent innumerable hours in Medbays putting his transferable skills to use. "Treating him for what?"
Ratchet held his gaze stiffly, giving nothing away, though he knew that Wheeljack as he was now wouldn't back down. Likely he could help, perhaps even figure out what was glitching every time, secrecy be damned. And above all, this was Wheeljack. He trusted no bot more with this information than himself.
Wheeljack braced himself when Ratchet sat back up onto the berth, shoulders low and hands dangling into the space between his legs. He could never have guessed the cause behind this pose.
"I built and installed a gestation chamber at Optimus's request," the medic finally uttered, feeling a strange mix of relief and shame at saying it. "We're trying to continue the Prime line now that the All Spark is gone."
Wheeljack held up a hand. The idea was so overwhelming that the 'how' didn't immediately enter his processor. "Prime's carrying? Carrying a sparkling within his own frame?"
Ratchet's expression flickered, twisted as the neutral mask failed utterly in front of one of his oldest and dearest friends. "Not since last month."
The Wrecker took a slow vent, the intelligent brightness of his optics softening at the edges. "I see. I'm sorry."
Heavy silence fell between. Ratchet felt it keenly, and felt the shame of his failures and the emotional turmoil he was subjecting their leader to anew.
Wheeljack suddenly straightened, turning on the wall screen with a wireless command. He knew when it was important to query and when it was more important to simply act, and he wanted that look out of Ratchet's optics. The medic had been working alone in this 'bay with this audacious idea for too long, shouldering all its failures with no trained mind to reason him out of the guilt of it. But no longer.
In the past, Ratchet had come to his lab and his audacious projects to help when he could. Wheeljack had every intention of returning that long overdue favour.
He kept his back to the medic, fingers sliding over the controls to bring up everything in the computer about gestation and organ transplant, respectively. His field was professional and interested, but tellingly thread through with warm assurance and support. "Show me the data and talk me through what's been happening."
Once again, though not as widely as before, Ratchet was smiling. He took place alongside Wheeljack and called up the encrypted files.
The next chapter is quite dialogue-heavy and about halfway written. Hopefully it won't be too long in the posting. Thank you to everyone who's stuck with me, and for reading this chapter. A review of any kind would be greatly appreciated.
