Ironhide rested his battered but slowly healing frame against the wall, the old scars mixed with what would certainly become new ones. The scratches and dents were not as visible now, the room having gotten gradually darker as time had passed, the blue light fading away only to be replaced by a dim white one that came from the hallway. Ironhide for his part welcomed the almost inky darkness he was left in, primarily because it afforded him the privacy he needed to relax a bit. He cycled air through his vents, optics shuttered, feeling distinctly tired now.

He had refused the energon that the Decepticon guards had brought him earlier, not trusting what might be in it. They had then tried to force him, and in the resulting struggle a majority of the precious fuel ended up getting spilled on the ground and the weapons specialist expended more energon than he ingested. They would probably try again later, when he was weaker, but for now they were leaving him alone and so he did not worry excessively about it.

Rather, what did worry him was what was going to happen after that. Ironhide spent his time trying to quiet his processor, hoping to lull himself into recharge and alleviate the uncomfortable feeling settling in his spark, the one that had nothing to do with low energon levels caused by nearly depleted reserves in his all but empty tanks.

He had almost made it into recharge too, when an indeterminate noise woke him up. He blinked, glancing at the dim light on the hallway ceiling.

This base was full of noises. He had come to ignore them.

Ironhide turned away, as much as he could considering that he was chained to the floor at least, and shuttered his optics. As long as no one came into his cell, he had no reason to care about what was going on on the outside.

Knock Out had only brought Ironhide's energon levels up to the minimum when he did his repairs, leaving the weapons specialist tired and a bit weak. Ironhide tried to spend as much time in recharge as he could, just to avoid expending any more energy than he needed to, but the seemingly constant interruptions were not making it any easier.

The noise was getting louder too. It sounded like yelling, a commotion down the hall, and Ironhide muted his audio receptors to avoid having to listen to it. Then he sighed faintly, leaning his helm toward his shoulder.

He was not sure how long they intended to wait, but in a way he wished they would just get it over and done with. He would fight it of course, but there was no way he could win. In the end he would not remember...

Ironhide startled as he felt someone slam against the bars of his cell, the vibrations strong enough to through the floor. He opened his optics instinctively, also restoring power to his audios.

There was a Vehicon guard with his back to Ironhide's cell, in a scuffle with another mech that Ironhide could not really see. The mech was yelling, "Get the frag off me!"

Ironhide cocked his head.

That voice... it sounded familiar...

Ironhide finally got a look at the mech when the guard threw him against the bars again, sparks flying from his yellow-green armor at the force of the impact. The weapons specialist almost did not believe what he was seeing.

Ratchet?

The Autobot medic was putting up a valiant fight, hurling a fresh wave of insults at his attacker even as the purple Decepticon threw him into the adjacent cell and locked him in. Ironhide said nothing, not understanding how Ratchet had gotten captured or why Prowl was not with him.

Had something worse happened to the black and white enforcer? Did their ship get shot down before they made it out of Decepticon territory?

Ratchet seemed flustered, his vents heaving from exertion as he stood in the cell, but he did not appear overly upset.

"Ratchet," Ironhide breathed as soon as the guard had left, "what are you doing here?"

Ratchet did not move from his position right away, instead glancing down the hall as if making sure they were alone. Then he quickly walked up to the bars that separated them, getting as close to the weapons specialist as he could and speaking quietly. "I came to find you. Are you all right?"

Ironhide replied, also quietly, "You shouldn't be here. It's dangerous."

"Don't worry. I'll be fine," the medic reassured him. "We're going to get you out of here."

"We?"

"Yes." Ratchet paused, looking away for a second as if he heard a noise, but then determining that it was nothing. He asked again, "Are you all right?"

"My systems seem to be functioning adequately," Ironhide said, having already ran a diagnostic.

That did not seem to be the answer Ratchet was looking for. "No, I meant are you all right," the medic amended.

Ironhide hesitated, caught off guard by Ratchet's obvious concern and not really knowing if he was all right in that regard or not. He knew he should have felt something, some bit of relief or comfort in the fact that Ratchet apparently cared deeply enough about him to risk his own life coming back here and trying to save him, but for some reason the weapons specialist did not feel anything at all. Maybe his CPU was just too muddled to process the situation correctly. "I'm fine," he finally answered.

"Are you sure? Because you look like scrap." Ratchet tried to lighten the mood. "Do you always get yourself into this much trouble?"

Ironhide smiled a little at that, imagining how terrible he probably looked right then. He usually made a point of keeping himself clean and polished, not out of vanity like a certain Decepticon medic he knew, but rather because it gave the appearance of a mech that had his act together. "No. Just recently it seems."

"How long have you been chained up like that?" Ratchet wondered.

"I'm not sure. The better part of an orn at least."

Ratchet glanced aside, calculating the time. "That seems about right, considering when Optimus last saw you."

The weapons specialist seemed to perk up at that. "He made it back all right?"

"Yes," Ratchet replied. "He got back just fine."

Ironhide turned his helm away, looking suddenly guilty. "I didn't mean to abandon him."

"I would hardly say you abandoned him," the medic responded, noting how Ironhide's mood had seemed to fluctuate so quickly. "If anything, he feels that way about you."

Ironhide did not respond to that, also not meeting Ratchet's gaze anymore. Ratchet wondered what the visibly tired mech was thinking, but he also knew that Ironhide was a fairly reserved individual and would only reveal his innermost thoughts and feelings if he was ready to. And at the moment, Ironhide did not seem inclined to share anything personal.

Ratchet waited for a few moments, then decided to try changing the subject to something less direct.

"So what do the Decepticons usually do with their prisoners?"

Ironhide looked at him then, the mechanisms in his red optics shifting subtly as he contemplated his answer. "It depends on how useful the prisoner is. A mech like you, that isn't a real danger and probably doesn't have a lot of intel, would probably be used for bargaining."

Ratchet nodded. "What about a mech like you? I see that they made some repairs to your leg."

"Yes, they did." Ironhide glanced down at the shiny welds along his upper thigh, still feeling the faint wisps of pain from when he had turned his own weapon on himself.

"And they disarmed you as well," Ratchet observed.

"Yeah. Only problem is I'm of little use without any weapons."

"That's not true. You're intelligent."

Ironhide huffed lightly, shaking his head. "Intelligent enough to get into trouble, but not to stay out of it. Otherwise I wouldn't be here right now."

"You're strong," Ratchet pressed. "You're the only mech I know that would stand a ghost of a chance against Megatron."

"Not even your Prime would?" Ironhide questioned him.

"Optimus has come a long way," Ratchet explained, "but the fact remains that his past is that of a data clerk. He was never designed for this, and it's not a skill he's learning without difficulty."

"I was designed for it, and Megatron can still fight better than me. I lost to him enough times to be certain of that."

"But did you ever win, even once?" Ratchet asked.

"Once," Ironhide replied. "That was all."

"And that's all it takes to prove that you're stronger than you think you are." Ratchet shifted his weight, resting against the bars. "Megatron knows it, or he wouldn't have bothered restraining you when you're completely unarmed."

"Perhaps that's true," the weapons specialist conceded, "but where has it gotten me?"

Ironhide sounded utterly defeated, and Ratchet's spark ached for the mech but he felt that there was nothing he could do to comfort him right then. He would just have to wait until the others arrived.

In the meantime, what could he say?

"It's kept you online," was what Ratchet finally decided to go with. "You wouldn't still be with us if it wasn't for that."

"Sometimes," the black Decepticon replied, "I think there are worse things than returning to the Well of AllSparks."

Ratchet was not sure what to say to that. He had admittedly not known the Decepticon for all that long, but Ironhide was clearly in a frame of mind that was far beyond what Ratchet had ever seen him in. He could not hope to help him, unless he knew what was upsetting the mech so much.

"Ironhide," Ratchet addressed him gently, trying to be as sensitive as he could, "what has you so worried?"

Ironhide looked away again, not feeling like talking about it but at the same time not wanting to seem rude to the only mech since before the war that had cared enough to ask such a question. Eventually, the latter outweighed the former. "Based on what Starscream told me, they're going to do a forced reformat."

The medic blinked in surprise. "You mean erase your memory?"

Ironhide nodded. "Part of it, yes."

Ratchet stepped back from the bars, crossing his arms over his chest momentarily before then dropping them to his sides. "How is that even possible?"

"Have you ever heard of a device called a cortical psychic patch?" Ironhide asked him.

"Of course," Ratchet replied. "But I thought it was just another impractical Decepticon idea."

The weapons specialist shook his head. "No. We've been using it for a while now."

Ratchet paused, likely considering the morality of such a device. "And that would allow them to access and remove any file from your memory banks, without your consent?"

"Precisely."

The Autobot paused again, shifting his bright armor as he pondered exactly how the Decepticons had managed to accomplish that. It was of course possible to modify a Cybertronian's coding, and in fact it was a quite common practice when treating viruses that had progressed beyond a certain point, but memory files? Even if one succeeded in gaining unauthorized access to them...

"The files are encrypted," Ratchet finally said. "How could they possibly know which ones to target?"

They would certainly not want to reformat all of Ironhide's memory. After all, how much use would he be to them if he did not even know the basics of Cybertronian society? He would be almost as helpless as a sparkling...

"It's quite simple really," Ironhide explained. "You target only the episodic memory banks."

"But how can you tell which banks are episodic, and not semantic or any of the others?"

"It's not really my specialty so I don't know exactly how the process works, but basically you can monitor a mech's processor activity and then see which memory banks are triggered when you mention certain things."

That made sense to Ratchet—every thought had some physical manifestation, no matter how small. "Have you participated in such a procedure?"

It was not something they did often, only a handful of times, but Ironhide had In fact participated in every procedure. He was the one who would ask the questions that would generate the unconscious responses. And every time, he would secretly duplicate everything that was erased, quietly filing the packets of data away among his own memory banks. He never read the files, never could, but he saved them nonetheless.

He was not sure why he did it. Perhaps because they should not go to waste?

Or perhaps it was because that was the only way he could feel less guilty about what he was doing.

"If you prefer not to say, that's all right," Ratchet interrupted his thoughts. "I was just... curious about how it worked."

"I'd give you a first-hand account," Ironhide said impassively, "but I don't think I'll remember it."

Ratchet tried to stay positive. "Well, with any luck, it won't get to that point. The others will be here tonight."

Ironhide said nothing, leaning into the wall a bit more and privately giving in to the feelings of negativity and hopelessness that seemed to be plaguing his thoughts. It was not like him to think that way, not at all, but lately he could not help it.

"You look tired," the medic noted, not even needing his trained optics to determine that. "If you want to rest, I'll keep watch for you."

"Pretty much all I've been doing is resting," Ironhide informed him, his crimson optics swiveling to look at the Autobot.

"And it's obvious that you still need it," Ratchet persisted, knowing that a reprieve would do the mech some good. "Go ahead. I'll wake you if someone comes."

Ironhide let out a sigh, his armor sagging a bit as he finally gave in. "Very well. Thank you, Ratchet."