Hey, y'all. I haven't died! Sorry for not updating in… well, forever. For those of you still following this, you have my most sincere gratitude! I have a couple more installments currently in the works and hope to be posting those soon.

Musical Meme

Chapter XII

Song:

'Superman (It's Not Easy') – Five For Fighting

Lyrical inspiration:

I can't stand to fly
I'm not that naive
I'm just out to find
The better part of me.

I'm more than a bird, I'm more than a plane
More than some pretty face beside a train.
It's not easy to be me.

Wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
About a home I'll never see

It may sound absurd...but don't be naive
Even heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed...but won't you concede
Even heroes have the right to dream
It's not easy to be me

Up, up and away...away from me
It's all right...you can all sleep sound tonight
I'm not crazy...or anything...

Its not easy to be me.

Ratchet was having one of those days. Again.

They had just returned to Diego Garcia from a particularly fruitless battle, and he was currently listening to a very ticked-off Weapons Specialist rant and rave about how undisciplined some of the younger bots were, and how the humans relied on the autobots too much and how frustrated he was about coming out of a battle with nothing to show but losses, yet again. After humoring the black mech for a good twenty minutes, Ratchet finally snapped.

"We've all been there, Ironhide. It's frustrating, but it'll pass."

"Like you would know, medic. You don't understand."

Ratchet's defenses went up immediately. "You think I don't know what it is to be emotionally pushed and stressed to the limit?"

"Yeah, Ratchet. What you do is so difficult. Patching up scratches, throwing things. Yeah, very stressful," Ironhide shot back in an odious tone.

"Not only am I out there fighting beside the rest of you ninety percent of the time, I'm the one picking the pieces up after you get yourselves scrapped afterward! You think you know stress? I've had to watch countless patients- mechs, femmes and sparklings alike- offline on my own table, under my care," Ratchet hissed venomously.

"That's your own fragging fault, isn't it?"

Ironhide regretted the words the instant they rolled from his vocalizer. Ratchet recoiled as though he'd been slapped, his previously angry optics betraying his hurt and shock at Ironhide's words. The weapons specialist's optics widened in response and he slowly reached a hand out toward the CMO, his anger and frustration evaporating.

"Ratchet, I'm… I'm sorry. I didn't mean…" he stuttered, but the chartreuse mech only shook his head in response, the wounded look still plastered to his face as he turned his back to Ironhide and stalked out of the hangar, fleeing onto the black asphalt of the base.

"Ratchet!" Ironhide called after him desperately, but found himself unable to move from where he was standing, hand still extended out to the empty air. "Slaggit!"

Ratchet transformed the instant he reached the outside of the hangar, spinning his tires as fast as they would go before careening off base and onto the road at top speed, determined to get away from everything behind him. Once on the road, the search and rescue hummer was able to control himself better and he allowed the soothing curves of the asphalt to still his raging processor. Several miles off base, he took an abrupt right onto a dirt road and followed it until it let him to the same place that he always came to think. He transformed, shifting his feet slowly as he took in the scenery; the grass under his feet extended out several more meters before cutting off suddenly as it hit a steep outcrop which formed a cliff overlooking the rocky sea below. A single tree stood among the tall grass and shrubbery. After spending a few moments staring out over the edge of the cliff at the sea and the sun setting on the distant horizon, the CMO picked up the nearest thing to his feet, which happened to be a hulking mass of rocks and dirt and hurled it out over the edge of the cliff and into the water, letting an angry shout tear from his vocalizer as he watched it sail over the ledge before hitting the waves below. He staggered backward, colliding with the tree and sliding down to a sitting position. He drew his legs up against himself tightly and let his forehead fall to his knees in defeat. There were times like this when he missed Cybertron more than anything. Things were much more simple, then. Sometimes he thought it would have been easier if he had just been extinguished at the moment the war had broken out. Sometimes he though it would have been easier had he not been a medic. Sometimes he thought he was taken for granted… someone who was there to do his job mindlessly. Sometimes he thought they assumed he had an easy job. A stress-less existence. Duties that did not leave him emotionally exhausted and somewhat depressed at the end of most days. But then again, maybe it was his fault. His patients put their sparks in his hands after all. Was it not his responsibility to make sure they stayed activated? He gritted his dental plating almost painfully hard, digging his fingers viciously into the armor on his knees.

Through his anger, he neither sensed nor heard the GMC Topkick rolling up slowy behind him. He started slightly when Ironhide transformed, but barely glanced in his direction as the black mech came to stand beside him. Ratchet could feel the Weapons Specialist's optics on him and he huffed a sigh of frustration through his vents.

"How many times have you been on the verge of offlining and on my table with your spark in my hands, Ironhide?"

"I know, Ratch. I'm sorry."

"You… You just- you can't even fathom…" Ratchet struggled, shuttering and unshuttering his optics slowly, his gaze never leaving the horizon in front of them.

"Primus, Ratchet… Please don't… I didn't mean to hurt you," Ironhide pleaded. "I didn't mean what I said. I was angry and it just- it just came out! I don't really think that! I… my processor… I was just looking for a way to make someone else feel the same thing I thought I was feeling. I was selfish and just wanted to lash out at something. Shouldn't have taken it out on you."

"No," Ratchet said quietly. "You were right."

Ironhide's spark clenched painfully at the CMO's words. "I was wrong, Ratchet. You have saved all of our sorry afts more times than I care to count. You're the one who is always there, forsaking your own wellbeing for ours and putting yourself at risk to repair us. You put yourself in the center of the battlefield and blindly in harms way to fix fallen mechs. You wear yourself thin in the medbay making sure we all stay functioning. You take losing mechs harder than any of us, I know that. But it's never your fault, Ratch. You do everything in your power to save a spark, no matter the cost. How many medics can say that now?"

Ratchet said nothing, but Ironhide noticed his gaze softened slightly as he stared ahead into the distance.

"Ratch, even if you can't forgive me for being a cranky old scrapheap that doesn't think about things before he says them, at least know that I did not mean it, I don't think it's your fault, neither does anyone else… and that we all know that you were the best thing to ever happen to the Autobot faction."

At this, Ratchet turned his head to look Ironhide in the optics. The sincerity he saw there made all the air his intakes had held expel slowly, his whole form relaxing as he felt the tension leave him. The Weapons Specialist graced him with a small grin. "Besides, who would keep us in line by wrench-throwing if you weren't around?"

A clang rang out over the cliff and shore below as a large rock collided with the metal of Ironhide's face.