Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers. Just the plot and OCs.
Again you wonderful readers. Thank you so much for the reviews.
Chapter 21
Mech Made Monster
It was oddly quiet in the bay for the chaos that was still going on outside. Not that Ratchet often let the stupidity that ran rampant outside his well constructed walls of order and cleanliness in to shatter his peace. There was a reason he'd earned the title Medic of Doom over the vorns. Stupidity was very low on his list of tolerances in this world. As most knew.
This was why the red and yellow medic was ignoring the commotion going on outside and all through the compound in favor of standing over the sink basin in the back of the medical bay scrubbing scalpels. It wasn't the most life altering work, but it was rather processor numbing work.
Which was good.
Because his processor hurt.
There was this dull throbbing behind his optics that seemed to come about every time Jynx stepped within these bay walls. Not that he should probably be surprised. She did seem to have one disaster after another trailing after her. Somehow, Ratchet figured that was far from her fault.
If what the twins had heard come out of that dead glitch that was lying grey and cold in the back corner of his bay behind a sheet wall was true then what he figured was a very damaged little femme might be even worse than he first thought. None of it made any sense to him, but it was kind of hard to think that something very wrong wasn't going on here now that it had been almost a whole orn and the twins hadn't rang.
Not even a short comm to question if she should still be recharging this long after that sedative. Which meant either she was still out cold and they figured it was normal or all three of them were dead because they'd taken each other apart.
Ratchet was trying to assure himself it was the former and not the latter. He wasn't sure he was doing all that great of a job.
"Ratch," Arcee's soft voice drifted to his audios making him look back over his shoulder to let his optics rest on the light pink form standing just a few feet away with her arms crossed over her chest hugging herself while she watched him.
"What wrong?" The CMO left the tools in the sink in favor of turning to his mate and pulling her into his arms. When she did nothing but rest her helm against the middle of his chest his grip tightened. "Cee?"
Taking a deep breath she muttered. "What if that glitch was telling the truth?"
Ratchet had a pretty good idea what she was talking about, but he asked anyway. "What are we talking about here?"
"That damn Ground Captain." A growl vibrated low in her engines as she tipped her helm back and glared at him through those clear, pale blue optics. "What if he was telling the truth about her being a twin?"
If he was telling the truth then they were all in way over their helms here. Ratchet wasn't about to admit to that though, even if Arcee could feel the thoughts rolling around in his spark as well as he could. He settled for a sigh of what they both knew and yet now were questioning.
"Twins don't survive on their own."
"Yes," She agreed. "But spark chambers don't often bare that kind of damage and still function. Her whole frame is screwed all to pit. We have no idea what is going on in her processor and worst than that we have no idea what's going on in her spark."
"We're not going to know until she decides to share, Cee." He shrugged. "I'm not digging into that spark when its just going to become another reason for her to be afraid of us. I . . . you weren't here when Aid and I were trying to stop her frame from burning out over that dose of slag she took from that dealer. The way she looked at me . . . . We're medics, Cee. We're the ones bots are supposed to know will help them not hurt them. I won't give her another reason to fear me. When she wants help I'm all for it until then we'll have to wait."
"And what if she doesn't, Ratch." Resting her helm back down against the powerful pumping of the spark on the other side of that thick yellow armor Arcee gripped tightly to the arms that were wrapped around her. Even she needed a little stability about all this. It wasn't adding up with everything she thought she knew about the world she lived in. None of it made any sense.
What they were discussing wasn't a physical possibility.
And the idea of it hit far too close to home in the optics of the femme that had adopted a pair of twins that had stumbled into her and her mate's medical bay one orn long ago. She's got to stand back and watch as those two violent, angry, misunderstood mechs grew into the magnificent pair they were now. And she'd been holding onto the possibility that maybe it could happen again. That after all that had changed and happened in the last handful of vorns she'd let herself foolishly believe that they would be able to save this wound tight little troublemaker that had no idea how to begin to process that everybot in this family wasn't out to kill her.
Now, she was reminded of a lesson she'd learned long ago.
They couldn't save everybot. No matter how hard they tried. Sometimes there was no turning the way the cogs of fate spun.
And if it was true that this broken spark was somehow still living with half her spark dead and gone then Arcee had no idea how they were going to go about saving her now.
"Really?" The question wasn't supposed to come out. At least not to Jynx. It did though and as soon as the sound came out Sides smacked his jaw back closed, flinched, and waited for the refusal he knew he just brought up with questioning her.
Damn it!
Why the frag did he say anything?
Why didn't he just nod like a good mech and take the little thing he was supposed to be looking after to Ratchet as quick as his peds would carry him? Why did he have to go and open his big fat—
"Yeah." The even softer than the whisper of before derailed the crimson mech's thoughts and left him blank faced there on the couch beside her trying to figure out a response before he really did blow it with this suddenly speaking to them femme that was between him and his twin. The one that just said she was some kind of lab experiment gone right.
Honestly, he was still kind of trying to process that little confession. He wasn't sure the truth of it and what it meant had hit him yet. He was too busy trying to come to turns with keeping a grip on his own emotions to stop him from putting himself in the place of what that must be like. Living without half his spark . . . .
His own life force rolled in a flare of burning pain in his chest at the very idea, screaming for confirmation from the other half of it that it wasn't alone. That it was all in his helm and that he wasn't sitting where this broken little thing between them was.
A soft reassuring pulse echoed across the bond causing Sides to catch his breath and glance to his brother's bright optics. It wasn't a true expression Sunny pushed to him. More of a jumble of his own inner battle to remind himself he was listening not experiencing the biggest fear split sparks had. What washed over Sides was a mess of emotions; fear, love, anger, joy, reassurance, and a tight grip of control all wound up into a short expression of 'calm down' that left the younger twin holding the others gaze for a nano longer then he probably needed to before he nodded slowly and returned his optics to Jynx.
She was the one they needed to focus on now. Not their own fear.
"We can take you to Ratchet." Sunstreaker's deep, rich tone echoed low and smooth across the far too quiet room for the red twin's standards. Those vibrant blue orbs of his resting on the femme's bowed helm as she hugged herself tightly. The low rumble of his voice changed something though. Her grip loosened ever so slightly from its death grip on her own knees, the sensors pinned tight in their grooves atop her helm flickered the tiniest bit as if they reacted without meaning to at the sound, and she leaned—just a bit—in her ball toward him. Unsure as to why the golden twin let his engine take up the low rumble. Not a growl, not a purr, something along the lines of a neutral note that just echoed slightly in his throat for a few moments.
She uncurled even more.
The sound . . . ?
She responded to the sound?
Well mental note and file that one away.
Jynx trembled a little between them as his voice registered somewhere in her processor and spark making her sensors flex and itch to stand tall to make sense of the strange calm it settled in her aching chest. She fought it though, until the sensors settled again and she tried to ignore the response she couldn't help even when she found herself tilting further into the golden mech's field space. Mustering up a verbal response after all she'd just spilled didn't seem to be in the cards at the moment.
Her lips parted to respond but only a quiet whine made its way out her vocal processor so she settled for snapping her jaw back shut and nodding. Because even that damn medic's questions looked better right now then this burning misery in her chest. If nothing else he'd drug her up some more. At this point she didn't care.
She just couldn't take it anymore.
It hurt.
And Off Road leaking out all over the ground under her claws didn't do a damn thing to change that fact. That alone was enough reason to have her helm spinning, but the actual notion of trying to figure out why made her want to ball back up and cry. So . . . that was out for now.
She was far more willing to lean just a bit too far sideways and nod like a helpless sparkling leaving the two embodiments of everything about her that hurt to figure out how to get her off the couch for themselves. She couldn't quite gather the gumption to do it herself.
In the end Sideswipe tried his luck with how she'd react should he scoop her up into his arms. He sort of figured she would either handle it about like she had since they got back from the mission to pit or she'd try to rip him to pieces. Either option was probably pretty likely at this point, but neither of them could keep sitting there watching her shiver any longer. If she'd talk to Ratchet then by pit they were taking her to Ratchet. So the red brother tried his luck, moving slower and with more gentleness then the warrior had since way back when Bumblebee could still fit in his hand.
But Jynx didn't really react.
At least not in the extreme they had grown use too. Besides curling as tightly as she could, plating locking down as tightly as it could over protoform too thin, while her claws locked onto her own arms instead of his when he pushed himself upright. Sideswipe didn't know what part of that bothered him more. The fact that she still reacted as if he'd hurt her when he got a hold of her, or that she didn't trust herself enough at this point to take her dangerous claws away from her own hide. Neither really set well in his tanks.
However, for now there was nothing he could do but to glance at Sunstreaker and take her to their adopted sire's bay. The trip didn't take more than a few klicks. Even with their new residence several floors up the twins had a well learned skill of being able to find Ratchet and Cee quickly when they needed them. With the almost weightless bit of femme in his arms and a quick elevator ride Sides and Sunny managed to avoid the running around in circles that was going on all around them before they found themselves stepping through the hissing slide of the medical bay doors.
Two sets of bright optics swung to the sound only to widen when the door closed behind the pair.
"What happened?" Ratchet demanded as he closed the distance across the large bay in a flash, Arcee right beside him motioning Sideswipe to put the trembling mess of plating and protoform down on one of the berths. She curled away from him as soon as she was put down. Legs curling back to her chest, arms wrapping tight, chin resting on her knees, and optics dull behind a visor that was clearer than it should be with her emotions as wound as they were.
"Mechs," Cee pressed, glancing between the twins and the femme. The sound of her voice got her the brothers' attention. Their own bright optics leaving Jynx in favor of Cee. "What happened?"
"She said she's a lab made twin, and that her fabricated twin is dead, and now she wants to talk to you two." Sideswipe said in his normal smooth tone even if the haunted look in his optics didn't match the pitch of his voice.
Because the words weren't normal and they left the pair of medics standing there staring at them over the top of the femme's bowed helm. For a really long time. Until Ratchet finally picked his jaw up off the floor and got his processor to start functioning again. Not that his response was all that clever.
"What!?"
Sunstreaker's optics rested on Jynx again while she huddled there between the four of them picking absently at the paint nanites on her arms. He wasn't sure she could even hear them, or if she cared.
She'd talked to them, and then she clammed back up.
She didn't trust them—not that the golden mech blamed her—but worse than that was that she didn't trust herself. She was more then willing to turn those claws of hers against herself. If Sunstreaker was living in a world without Sideswipe though . . . he couldn't say he'd be doing anything all that different then the things she had.
"It's what she said." He told his chosen sire evenly. "Then she said she wanted to talk to you."
"So we brought her down here." Sides nodded along. "We didn't know . . . what to do."
With wide, almost disbelieving optics Ratchet and Arcee turned to share a look before they both turned their full attention to the shivering bundle that had found her way back to their bay again. Swallowing down the building panic in her own chest Arcee very slowly waved the twins back before sending a sharp pulse to Ratchet that had her mate taking a few steps back from the table as well as he watched her with apprehensive optics to what she had planned.
If there was nothing else they had all learned since this femme landed herself into their lives it was that just because Jynx looked manageable didn't mean that she was. The femme reacted badly at the worst possible moments and they hadn't yet learned just what it was that triggered her flight or fight reflex.
Because a reflex was all that it was.
Ratchet knew that now. He'd seen enough.
Jynx was quite capable of being cruel. She was actually quite good at it, but he also didn't think she knew how to do anything else anymore. She responded to everything around her the only way she knew how. Which yes was badly, but the more they kept digging up the more that made sense to the tall yellow and red medic.
That didn't mean he was all that fond of his mate crawling up on that berth and sitting cross-legged in front of her though. Arcee was quite capable of looking after herself—Ratchet knew that well—but one swipe of those dagger like claws and there would be a puddle of energon on the floor. In the end, there was no telling who's energon it would be.
Jynx was doing her best to ignore them all. She didn't really want to hear them hash out the specifics of all she just spilled to the twins. She was still trying to convince herself of how asking this medic for anything wasn't going to come back and bite her in the aft.
So she sat there picking at her nanites as she stared blankly at the medical white berth cover under her while silently reminding herself that breathing was a good thing. And she was quite content to stay that way for a good stretch of her foreseeable future until a blob of pink took over the white.
She blinked.
Her optics refocusing slower than they should have with the aid of her visor making her plating pull even tighter together on instinct before she lifted the silver orbs and found herself looking up into the femme medic's pale blue ones.
She looked away again just as quickly.
Watching her nanites fade under the pressure of her claws when she pushed and then slowly return to their bright white color was a far better pastime then looking up at that femme was. Why was she stupid enough to think she wanted to ask for help again?
"Jynx," The light, song type of tone made her loosen her grip ever so slightly, but she didn't look up. She couldn't. However, her sensors flexed once again showing that she was listening. Noticing it, Arcee pressed on. "You wanted to talk to us?"
Maybe.
She wasn't sure anymore.
Just then her spark let out a flare of hot, empty energy crying out for the bond it knew well and good was gone but wouldn't expect. Couldn't except. Even if she knew it was true. Even if she could feel it. Her spark couldn't.
It wouldn't.
Because how exactly was it supposed to?
How was she supposed to keep on functioning when she was missing the other half of her very self?
How much longer was she going to fool herself into believing it was possible?
"Jynx?"
"I . . . ." Staring hard at her toes she sighed.
Asking for help.
It wasn't actually something Jynx had ever done before. Clamping down on her trembling bottom lip she pretended that she didn't have a hand clutched over her spark again as if that would stop it from silently screaming.
Arcee didn't push her again, and the mechs didn't speak, they all just stood there around her with the feel of a cage leaving her to tremble until she mustered up enough anger at her own damn idiocy so that she could speak again.
"I have a question." She finally forced out. It wasn't what she wanted to say, but for now it would have to do.
"For us?" Arcee tilted her helm ever so slightly, optics locked on the hand that was clutching at her plating even if Jynx wasn't looking at her to see.
When Jynx only nodded in return Arcee went on carefully, building the conversation as if for a sparkling, knowing if she demanded an answer for what the twins had said she'd most likely never get it.
"What is this question?"
"You said . . . ." Damn why did this have to be so hard? "You said . . . when I let you look at these," A hand pushed over one of the vents tucked through the network of interlocking plating from the protoform underneath. "That . . . there were things you wouldn't be able to fix."
Arcee straightened on the end of the berth, unsure of what she was asking or what the best way to respond was, but knowing that assuring the younger femme they were willing to help her if she wanted it was something she had to do. "Well, we're not completely sure what we can and can't do in regards to . . . all of you. We'd have to get a good enough look. With time I'm sure we can come up with whatever you would like us too, Jynx. Ratchet is a very talented medic and I'm not half bad myself. Between the two of us we've managed to keep most of this place alive through quite a few scrapes. There isn't much we can't fix."
"What about a spark that's been sliced open, sectioned up, and spliced into another it was never supposed to be connected to with no consent whatsoever? Can you fix that?" She asked with such an empty voice it actually made Cee flinch almost as much as the words did. Optics wide and lips parted in horror she forced out a gasp.
"What?"
Absentmindedly Jynx tapped at the plating over her chest while her gaze settled somewhere between her toes and Arcee's. "My spark is cut in half and spliced in with another in a bond I didn't want."
It seemed quite a plain way to put it from Jynx's standpoint, but after she said it all Arcee did was stare at her. Much like her and her mate had done to the twins when they told them what they did when they walked in. Arcee simply proceeded to blink though, and when the smaller femme finally gathered the courage—or maybe it was the anger—to meet those pale optics and hold them all she did was blink in return.
"What do you mean your spark was cut in half?!" Ratchet finally found his voice standing there a few feet back from the table with his jaw hanging open again.
Her optics slid to the curved edge of her visor while she glared at him as one of the hardest thing in her memory slid off her tongue smooth as oil even if it tore her spark to shreds. "I mean a sick glitch with a sharp knife cut open my spark chamber when I was twenty-two vorns old while he had me strapped down to a lab table and spliced my spark together with my cousin's and turned us into this abomination of a lab made pair of twins. Was that clear enough or would you like to see it for proof? Believe me it's a salggin' fragged up mess."
Empty silence echoed across the bay after that and more staring was done until Jynx felt about ready to come out of her hide when the CMO finally swallowed hard nodding.
Arcee banished the twins from the room again, though this time it got a few low snarled retorts of something Jynx was a little too confused by her own words to listen too. Whatever they'd said had ended with one sharp glare from the much shorter femme leaving them to tuck their tails and scamper out like scolded pups. If Jynx wasn't so screwed up in the helm at the moment she might have laughed at that.
She didn't laugh though.
Because her helm was spinning while her spark was burning itself from the inside out and she'd just agreed to let a medic look at her spark . . . .
It was official.
She really had gone insane.
Arsine would be so proud.
With a shaky breath she buried her faceplate in her hands then borrowed into her own knees.
This is such a bad idea. She hissed to herself only to have her spark roll and flare out a scream when once again there was no answer to the desperate searching it was still doing. Cursing it, herself, her damn brother, and Blackice to the moons and back she forced her plating to stop trembling while she waited. Taking breath after ragged breath through the vents that these two medics had been the ones to fix trying to remind herself that they didn't hurt her when they did that. That they'd made those better. That they hadn't done more than they said they would when they did that. She'd been so drugged up she probably wouldn't have been able to stop them had they wanted to sync up and see just what it was she ran from in her own helm, or pull back her plating and pry into her spark chamber. They could have done it then.
But they didn't.
They hadn't actually . . . hurt her per say since she'd got here. Not really. Which was a weird thing to realize as she sat there. Mostly because it wasn't often she had ever said that about anything in her short miserable little life. Really the only one she ever had attached that statement with was Nook, and well, that bright yellow little mech that was running around this place smiling with those big baby blue optics of his looking pathetically naïve in the way he seemed to think there was good and reason behind a creature like Jynx.
Yeah.
Sure.
Of course there was.
Could she categorize these two medics in the list of bots that had never drawn her energon in one way or another? They were nothing like Nook or Bumblebee. They were medics, which was what Rashact was.
Technically.
All the same, they were going to be playing around with her insides while she lay on a table under harsh lights. That all rang very wrong in her memory. The pain in her chest was enough to ignore it for now, but she wasn't sure that was going to last once one of them got their hands on her.
Fiddling with her ped claws Jynx sat rather limply there on the berth waiting for the two that were supposed to go about finding out most of her dirty little secrets now.
She couldn't wait.
Only she could.
Really.
She could.
However, then the pink form was in front of her again flanked by the yellow and red one and they were both staring down at her in confusion while she pretended she couldn't sense their open fields while she stared at her peds. The toying she was doing turned to nervous fidgeting as she tried to shrink down and pretend they couldn't see her. Then, just like it had done with the twins, her mouth opened like she meant it too and words came spilling out.
"Did they tell you what I told them?" She whispered softly.
The mated pair paused before Ratchet slowly shook his helm. "No more then what you heard."
"Oh." Oddly enough she was disappointed. Not that she really got why.
"Do you," Arcee stepped just a tiny bit closer to the berth the littler femme was huddled on. "Do you not want them to?"
"No I . . . ." Trailing off she shrugged. "I don't know what I want."
That was the problem.
"Does that include wanting our help?" Ratchet wasn't trying to press her, making her panic at this point was the last thing he wanted. She was doing just what he'd hoped she do. She'd finally realized that she needed somebot else to help her, and she'd come to them. Maybe because she didn't have anybot else at this point capable of what she might need. Honestly, Ratchet wasn't sure.
He and Arcee wanted to believe that it was because she was beginning to trust them, but the flinches and the trembling was enough to tell them that that wasn't true. This wasn't about trust. This was about desperation. She'd finally hit rock bottom and now she was sitting there alone in pain that they didn't understand trying to find a way out of it.
She knew they wouldn't give her the thing she had been using to deal with it. So she was left with this last desperate attempt.
It was the talking that threw them though.
She had told the twins something. They'd been rattled when they came in and she'd just confirmed it here. Neither medic had any idea what the brothers or Jynx meant when she said 'lab made twin', but they were hoping she'd explain it. However, she was going to have to want to. Just as Ratchet said last night. He wasn't forcing her to do anything.
He just couldn't.
He wouldn't.
She was never going to look at him the way she had that night they were trying to save her from the overdose ever again. Once was enough. He couldn't get those terrified optics out of his memory as it was.
"I don't know." She muttered, arms coming up to hug herself trying to keep her rapidly slipping grip on her emotions under control. Not that it was working.
Arcee stepped the rest of the way, slowly and very obviously pulling herself up beside Jynx, and keeping a careful distance folded her hands in her lap watching her mate instead of the shaking femmeling beside her. Her optics stayed away, but the question was very clearly for Jynx.
"Well how about we just wait until you do know? We are not trying to make you feel forced, Jynx. The twins simply thought this was what you wanted."
Because she told them this was what she wanted . . . but she was pretty sure she wouldn't know what she wanted if it came up and punched her in the nose. She'd never had a choice of anything that she wanted.
Ever.
It had only ever gone from what her carrier's brother wanted, to what Rashact had wanted, to what Gambit had wanted, to what Arsine had wanted, to what her desperate craving for drugs and the need to forget had wanted. Never what Jynx had wanted.
She . . . she didn't know what Jynx wanted. All she could think of was what others would want for her or from her. Sitting there slumped beside that medical femme in front of her medical mate the little bright white femme realized something completely and utterly terrifying.
She didn't know what she wanted because she had no fraggin' who she was.
Damn.
That was freaking pathetic.
"I . . . ." Arms tightening even more she stuttered. "D-d-do . . . th-they . . . . They said that . . . that I'd have to tell. All of it."
"All of what?" Ratchet questioned.
She peaked at both of them. "All of," A hand waved at all of her. "this."
"What happened to you?" Arcee offered.
A hesitant nod.
"You don't have to tell us anything you don't want to." Ratchet told her sternly. "Optimus hasn't forced any information out of you before and he won't do it now. The same rules with the Underground apply here. You only share what you want to. We'll work with that."
"He's paying me for what I give up about the Ground. I give or I don't get anything." Which was how it had always been. Same job, different requirements.
"Okay," Ratchet resisted the urge to roll his optics. "Not all the same rules. Optimus may be Prime but I rule within these four walls. What I say goes, and if I say you don't have to fess up anything you don't want to in regards to your own frame and spark then that is for me to decide."
"And why wouldn't you force me to talk?" She mumbled with a hint of a sneer returning to her voice. Vindictive was better than vulnerable. "If you really want to figure me out as bad as all of you say wouldn't the simplest thing be to strap me down and dig the answers out of me? That way you could have it all. All I know about the Ground. All of everything. Then you don't have to wonder if I'm lying. Just sync up and dig in. Then you can get me for all the slag I've done. All your problems would be solved."
"Except they wouldn't." Arcee slowly shook her helm. "And as I know somebot here has already told you. That isn't how we do things."
"It was how you did things for all of the war?"
"This isn't the war." Ratchet replied.
"Yes it is." Finally Jynx looked up, locking her gaze with the much larger mech's. "Your war might have ended, but mine never has."
It was supposed to be the jab that the medic couldn't counter. At least that was the way Jynx saw it. However, it wasn't defeat or submission that flashed through Ratchet's optics. It was something else all together.
She couldn't feel the pulse of triumph that flared through his spark, but Arcee could and she quickly understood why.
"Maybe Jynx," There was no anger or challenge in his tone. Only a quiet right that when the words came out even Jynx knew there was no argument for. "But you can't fight a war on your own."
To those words she stalled with no response inside herself other than to stare blankly through her clear visor before her optics lowered in defeat. Because he was right.
Very, very right.
She couldn't win this war on her own. She knew that—she'd always known that—even with she was spiraling out of control she knew it. That was why she didn't try to rip Blackice's throat out through his mouth all those damn times he'd pinned her under him and took from her again and again. She knew it would have changed nothing. Even if she could have managed to get the better over the mech one of the times he came to collect, if he died something worse would take his place. She'd never be free of the pit Arsine threw them both into, because she couldn't destroy the Ground on her own.
She knew that.
She'd known it for a long time.
It was why she'd agreed to all this insanity in the first place. It was why she was still being led around this compound by a pair of twins pretending that being here, sober and compliant, wasn't burning her alive. Pretending that she had a damn clue who she was or what she needed to do.
It was a bad joke really.
Just how utterly stupid it all was.
The little femme that was slowly going mad—or probably already was—because of all the things she couldn't forget couldn't even remember what it was like to make a choice for herself. To decide for herself.
Probably because she'd never done it.
So what the pit was she thinking when she decided that she could do this? Ask for help and then expect it to actually work. No bot could help her. No bot could fix what Rashact had done.
Not even the famous CMO of the Autobots could repair a broken bond, or stitch up a sliced open spark. She was broken, wasted, and forgotten.
No bot saved Jynx.
She . . . she wasn't the kind that got saved. She knew that.
So why was she sitting here?
"I don't care how good you are with those claws." Ratchet sighed, pulling her from her helm. "You can't do it all on your own."
"I take care of myself." She was pretty sure she'd tried this argument before, and it sounded fake on her tongue as it rolled off. She didn't know what else she was supposed to say though.
Arcee smiled even if the femme wouldn't look at her. "If you couldn't take care of yourself even we know you wouldn't be alive, but looking after yourself and accepting help when you need it are two very different things."
Jynx hated that she had a point.
"I don't know," Taking a ragged breath she rubbed at her chest. "If you can help me. Even if you wanted too. Even if I let you."
"How can you know that until you let us try?" Ratchet pressed.
Let them try?
Isn't that why she was sitting here in the first place?
With a shaky breath, she shrugged to him and to herself. She had no idea anymore.
The only thing she did know was her spark was roasting her alive and at this point she'd do anything to make it stop. Even if the anything involved this.
She was so tired of hurting and of crying.
It was time to stop.
"What do I have to do?" She mumbled.
It was harder than she thought it would be, and that was saying something. Whole frame trembling Jynx dug her claws deep into the cover of the berth under her while she stared up at the white tiles of the ceiling to ignore the lights shining down at her. The shadows of the two medics messing with numbed parts of her was just as awful as she figured it was going to be. Even not being able to feel it for the first time didn't change the fact that it was happening sober.
Sharp fangs dug deep into her bottom lip she did her best to control the rabid patterns of her vents.
Arcee's pale blue optics fixed on the trembling femme's faceplate while Ratchet bit back a curse as he slowly went about overriding her systems to get her plating to fold back and revel once again the scared mess that lay underneath. The second view of her protoform was no better than the first. The mutilated protoform covered in poorly formed nanite and weld scars made his spark ache and his tanks roll just like it had when he'd stripped her of her chest armor after that dose. A spark window that had been shattered and tried to heal on its own leaving it a patchwork of jagged lines and fractures on what should have been a clear piece of protoform that was the last barrier between the outside world and the spark that lay in the chamber on the other side. It should have been flawless. The retractable panels that allowed a bot's protoform to fold away enough to where the spark was accessible after a youngling hit their second frame growth spurt. It was a milestone. A wonderful thing that made it to where when a bot was fully grown and the choice was made they could share their very spark with another.
Jynx's, however, wasn't anything other than a story of pain.
It hurt both medics to look at. Almost as much as watching her struggle to keep herself calm.
They hadn't drugged her. She hadn't asked them too. His medical overrides numbered her enough that she wouldn't feel anything if he did manage to accidentally hurt her, but there was nothing either medic was planning on doing that was supposed to hurt. They just wanted to look. To see what she meant when she said, sliced open and spliced together.
Jynx couldn't rationalize that though.
She was trying.
But she just couldn't.
Her fangs dug deep enough that she started drawing energon before Ratchet just dropped his hands to the table and shook his helm. She was terrified. Again. And he wasn't sure he could keep doing this. "Are you sure you want this, Jynx?"
No.
No she really, really wasn't.
Her spark gave another roll of agony though and made her mind up for her.
"I don't . . . wanna . . . hurt anymore." She panted through her grip on her bottom lip as her vents whined with the stress of how hard they were trying to cycle to keep her frame from overheating with stress.
"Alright," Ratchet nodded slowly sharing a look with Cee before the light pink femme reached down to the claws that trembled in their hold against the berth. Carefully, as not to scare her, Arcee slipped her own digits through the vice like grip. Jynx flinched, her gaze snapping down to the blunt thin fingers that worked their way through her long sharp claws and took a gentle hold. Staring in confusion as the hand tightened in what she didn't know was an attempt at reassurance Jynx let her optics drift up to the pale blue ones that were shinning down at her while Arcee offered her a small smile.
"We won't hurt you." It was hardly a whisper as it left the larger femme's lip leaving Jynx laying there looking up at her. She didn't believe them—she reminded herself of that—but the trembling stopped and she squeezed back.
It took a while, but Jynx finally found herself sitting in a relatively loose ball sipping at a cube of warm, smooth, supplement rich energon watching as Ratchet stood with his back to her in front of a table of a lot of different colored liquids and chemicals. Arcee was still beside her—the older femme hadn't strayed far since she took Jynx's hand, but that might have more to do with the fact that Jynx couldn't seem to let go of the pale pink hand—typing with one hand on a datapad of notes about what they'd found while the other was still in Jynx's grip as she sipped. The burning ache in her chest remained, but according to the mech with his back to her he thought he might have an idea.
She hadn't been all that thrilled with the snap shots the medics took of the destruction that lived inside her chest, but once they'd gotten a look neither one of them had said another word to her besides the short 'wait' Ratchet shot at her after he'd snapped her protoform closed and reattached her plating.
She wasn't sure what to make of all this, but she'd come this far. Backing out now would make her even more of a coward.
A harsh snort left Ratchet as he turned from the chemicals and returned to the berth she was perched on beside his mate holding a vile of black powder. An optic ridge lifted above the rim of Jynx's visor as her cube of energon lowered to her lap and her claws slipped from Arcee's fingers as she looked up into the taller mech's optics.
"What's that?" She asked quietly.
"The only thing I can think of at the moment." Ratchet sighed. "This is going to take me time to work on. Your spark is . . . ."
"A shredded mess of agony?" Jynx offered.
His optics closed to hide the pity that wanted to flash through him while he nodded. "Yes."
"Well I wasn't joking." Her helm lowered as she stared down into the half empty cube of energon.
"We never thought you were." Arcee's voice couldn't hide the anger or the pain she was feeling to what she'd just seen, but she was doing her best to make in less noticeable. She wasn't doing a very good job.
Jynx said nothing.
For she didn't know what to say.
So she settled for tilting her helm toward the vile. "What is that supposed to do?"
"Well it won't fix your spark." Ratchet admitted. "Like I said that is going to take some figuring. It will, however, help."
With that he reached forward, took the cube from Jynx's hand, and dumped the strange powder inside.
"But what is it?" She watched him swirl the purple liquid and black powder in the cube then handed it back to her.
"It's not addictive."
"That isn't what I asked."
"A chemical compound a lot like the sedative I was giving you. Only this won't dilute you in the sense that did. Basically all it's going to do is trick your spark into thinking it isn't missing a bond."
Jynx's jaw all but fell off.
"It is a rather simple chemical mixture." Arcee tried to explain seeing that her mate's explanation threw the femme. "We've been using it for vorns."
Jynx's helm swiveled between the two of them so fact her neck hurt. "What?"
"Jynx this was a war." Ratchet shrugged. "Bots lost bonds almost every orn around here. Wheeljack didn't like watching bots come to pieces from something we had no way to fix. When he isn't blowing himself up or running back toward an explosion to save a damn kitten he really is a brilliant mech. He figured out a chemical mixture that combines with energon that when it reaches a spark chamber it settles for around an orn or so. Basically what it does is ease the burn of a broken bond. It's like a salve. It's never gonna take the hurt completely away. Nothing can truly fix a broken bond. Sparks aren't something medics can truly put back together one they break. But this will help."
Once again Jynx was speechless, letting her optics fall from the medic's to the cube in her hands.
A chemical mixture that made it better? A chemical mixture that sounded like it worked a lot like RED. Only instead of blowing up it softened the burn.
Where the pit had this been her whole life!?
"But I can't tell you how much more I can do until you tell me just what happened to you, Jynx. What you mean when you say fabricated twin. The damage to your spark is . . . well I've never seen anything like that before. Bonds can't be seen and neither can the damage to them, but your actual spark is hurt. Badly."
Yeah.
She knew.
Without comment Jynx lifted the cube of the mixture to her lips and took a long drag. Tipping her helm back she drained the whole thing like it was a shot. She actually wished it was a shot. At least then the burn as it went down would be justified. It tasted like carbon and mercury, the two substances overpowering the tang of the energon leaving her to force it down with a choke to keep it from coming back up.
She'd tasted worst slag in her life, and she reminded herself of that as she coughed a few times to the taste. If it would help she'd take it. She wasn't going to be getting any CN to make it go away and she guessed if it was really all the medic said it was then . . . maybe this slag was better anyway.
When the cube clanked back down to her lap Jynx shuttered to the aftertaste with a shake of her helm.
Arcee laughed softly. "It doesn't taste all that good, but then again medicine isn't supposed to."
"So if it can't heal what is it good for?" Jynx asked, ignoring the medic's question for now.
"It makes things bearable." Ratchet explained. "Without being drugs that will fry you or highgrade that will kill you."
"And why didn't you give me this straight off?" Her tone had turned back to a bit of a snarky growl again as she pinned him in a glare again. "I thought you wanted to help me."
"We do." He held her optics. "But I didn't know you had a broken bond."
"So you thought I was a druggy psychopath by choice!?"
"In the beginning, yes." Ratchet said.
Well that made sense considering she thought she was too. Now even she wasn't sure.
Her optics lowered all over again. She wasn't sure how to have any kind of conversation about any of this. No bot that hadn't been there knew the whole story. Well besides Nook, but Nook only knew because tears and pain added up to binge honesty curled in Nook's lap in the wee joors of morning.
She wasn't in any way ready or any more kinds of spilling her guts to any of them . . . but she was going to have too. She'd told the twins what she was. Off Road had said what happened to Arsine.
They knew.
She couldn't hide it anymore.
But hiding and running was what she'd been doing for so long. She didn't know how to do anything else. She'd been fighting her whole life. Whether she liked it or not.
Her life was a war. It always had been.
She was a mech made monster that destroyed everything she touched. She'd accepted that a long time ago, and yet here she sat. Asking for a medic to make her pain go away. Like she deserved to be helped or something like that.
What the pit was wrong with her?
She knew better than this.
"Jynx," Arcee's voice was quiet and yet grasping for her attention. She could see the little femme slipping back down that slippery slope of hers that left her ready to fight again. If she took up arms against them again now somehow the older femme knew they'd lose their chance forever. This was that fork in the road. This was where they either gained her trust or said goodbye to the chance forever.
She was open.
She was vulnerable.
She'd laid on a table between the two of them and let them pry back her hide to find the ball of life that lived inside. The glowing orb of burning bright white light. The pulsing, withering, twisting, living, breathing ball of energy that fueled her very being. Made her what she was. The one that looked like somebot took a butcher knife and rammed it in the middle of it and went to shredding.
Neither medic had ever seen anything like that.
Sparks weren't supposed to hold damage like that. They weren't supposed to be able to survive that kind of physical trauma. It was a bots very soul. Everything that they were.
It was fragile and yet it was a fortress.
It could survive eons of life and death, but it was not indestructible.
A well aimed hit, a powerful enough blast, it would destroy a spark. The actual scar that ran down the middle of her inner most core, her very being, the thing only medics and a trusted—loved—few were ever supposed to see should have killed her. Arcee couldn't process the wound that had to have been made to inflict that kind of damage. It should have snuffed her out a long time ago.
But it didn't.
She was still here. Still breathing.
She wasn't okay—far from it—but she was alive when she shouldn't be. In more ways than one. They had to find out why.
"If we had known it would help we would have given it to you." Arcee tried to assure her.
Jynx just went on staring at her lap though as she fiddled with the empty cube there before she sighed. "How long until it starts helping?"
"A few breems at most." Ratchet answered.
"Can I have more when it wears off?"
"You can have it as long as it will help. Like I said you won't get addicted to it. It won't hurt you."
Huh.
Now wasn't that new to her list of traits of coping mechanisms?
"And I guess this means I have to tell you all what I meant by fabricated twin now right?"
The mates shared a glance again.
"It would help." Ratchet replied slowly. "But as I said, Jynx, I won't force you to tell me anything."
"Your Prime will."
"Not if I don't allow it."
"And why would you do that?"
"Because I think we and our war has hurt you enough."
Her optics narrowed to stop the build of tears as she hissed out in a whisper. "You have no idea."
Arcee shifted on her peds. "Maybe if you would tell us we might."
Tell them?
She snorted. Easier said then done.
They didn't have a fraggin' clue what they were dealing with here. In her or any of what and where she came from.
However, a sigh of defeat flared from her vents before she shrugged. She had no choice now. They knew enough to start asking the right questions. Sooner or later they would find a way to worm in out of her. Might as well at least try to see that it was done on a ground that she stood a fighting chance on. "Fine."
Besides, what did she have to lose at this point?
Killing Off Road hadn't helped. It hadn't made her stop hurting.
But that didn't mean she was done with revenge just yet. Whether she liked it or not she truly was the monster Rashact had made her into, and it was the monster that was to blame for her still being alive.
No matter how bad she hurt or how much she hated it all she was not Arsine. She wasn't going to lay down and die. It wasn't in her to quit. Not until she made sure all this pit was worth something.
For whatever reason she felt that she needed to make that happen.
The pair of bright glitches were hovering again.
Why?
Jynx didn't have the slightest clue, but she did know it was making her want to jump up and pull their throats out. They were only making this harder. Hadn't they figured that out by now?
The apology they'd offered her before flashed through her memory but she shoved it away to wonder over later. She didn't have a good enough grasp on herself to try and come to terms with what that might mean right now. She was doing good to sit there in a swivel chair across the table from the Prime's empty chair and not fidget like some glitched sparkling while she waited. The twins were the only ones in the room with her at the moment. Sideswipe leaning against the back of the chair beside her while Sunstreaker stood statue still and emotionless on her other side.
They couldn't seem any more different from each other than. The red mech's easy posture and open field that occasionally tried to brush at hers before she yanked hers tight to her frame and glared at him through the edge of her slightly tinted visor. He let her be then. A small bit of confusion written across his optics before he dismissed it and took up his carefree smile watching over her quietly. Sunstreaker never did any of that. He went back to the cold, expressionless wall of stern frowning. She could feel his gaze though. He might have kept his field to himself and his faceplate unreadable, but his optics made the plating against the back of her neck prickle.
She was stupid to think that telling them all she had wouldn't change anything.
That didn't mean she couldn't go on pretending it didn't though. That is until the door finally swished open and the bots they'd been waiting on entered. Jynx pretended she didn't shrink down deeper into the chair when the shadow of the Prime fell over the table before his form came into her sight as he rounded the table. The soft dawn colored femme that was his mate followed after of him as they both came to take a seat across the table from her. There was the harsh thud of heavy peds that belonged to a mech that wasn't just tall he was also massively built and he rocked the table when he fell down into a chair a few down from his brother before he kicked his peds up and crossed them at his ankles on the table. She didn't even glance Megatron's way for Ratchet and Arcee took the seats on Sideswipe's other side then—she pretended she didn't see the affectionate pat to the shoulder the femme gave the red warrior—while Jazz and Prowl were the last to join the little meeting. The mates took the seats on Sunstreaker's other side.
There was a few nanos of shifting, systems slowing down to a rested state, and optics glancing around before they all settled on Jynx.
She sank a little lower into her chair, optics low, helm bowed, and defeat swimming in her chest.
Oh how the monster had fallen.
Where was the murderers that terrorized Pax Tran now?
Because she sure wasn't here.
But Jynx wasn't sure that was a bad thing, because the Jynx that carved out a life in Pax Tran and the one that had laughed in Fritzron with Nook while struggling to save Arsine were two very different femmes. Which one was the one she wanted though?
Which one was the real Jynx?
She didn't know anymore.
Just like she didn't know just what she was going to have to come out and tell. But she did know she couldn't bring herself to tell it all.
Bringing all of it back up to bear . . . that might just kill her.
"Good afternoon, Jynx." Optimus' baritone drew her optics slowly to rise. Silver orbs partially hidden behind a slight tint of glass to meet the burning with righteousness brightness across from her.
She frowned. "Is it?"
Optimus shrugged. "Well, the tunnels have been collapsed, Off Road is dead, my city is in chaos, half the news crews are being held for questioning, and the frontlines in the desert have oddly gone rather quiet. As if the Ground shrank back into their tunnels to hide."
"They won't stay there for long." Jynx told him plainly. "When word reaches the Master that Off Road is dead it won't go over well."
"Isn't that what you wanted though? All this? You killed the mech you wanted too."
Yeah but it didn't change anything.
Settling for a shrug of her own to hide that fact she watched the table between them. "Sure. That's just what I wanted."
Watching her closely Optimus knew she was lying. If she was happy about what had happened the twins wouldn't have just spent the last orn and a half with a lap full of panicking femme. He knew now what she'd said, what that dead mech had said. Megatron and Ratchet had told him. He wasn't anymore sure what to make of it then the others were, but he wasn't about to start demanding she tell him.
Demanding anything from Jynx hadn't been something that went over well since she got here. Neither had given her credits for the agreement they had made. However, she'd pulled off her half of their deal. She'd given him information and produced results for his mechs to use. He owed her another bag of credits.
But she thrown the first one back in his face.
He knew this would either be very bad or very good, but he also knew what he had promised her. He knew what he was honor bound to do.
Reaching into subspace the Prime pulled out the bag and carefully sat it on the table between them.
Jynx's optics brightened, her helm snapping up at the clinking of the credits in the bag as it came to sit there before her. Confused for a moment the little femme stared down at the bag before the pieces came together.
She'd done what she said she would.
She'd delivered the Ground and killed Off Road.
And he was paying her for the service she'd done for him.
A cold feeling settled in the bottom of her tanks that made her want to purge up everything the medic had given her, but she forced it back in a hard gulp as she reached forward with only slightly trembling claws and took the bag. Pulling it back she tossed it into subspace trying to ignore the knowledge that she hadn't accepted the last one.
Off Road was dead.
And Blackice was going to be pissed.
It was better in the long run if at this point she took the credits.
However, that didn't stop her from looking down in something that some might call shame.
"Jynx, I want you know you don't have to tell us anything."
All of a sudden her optics flashed, a growl settled in her throat, and her helm snapped back up. "Oh really? Then tell me Prime, how about you turn me lose again and we'll get some more answers for you? How about you let me lose outside your walls this time without a guard and I'll bring you some more conspiracies?"
His optics hardened.
She sneered.
"That's what I thought. Off Road told and I told so now you know what I am. You're not going to let me out of your sight until you find out all that I'm hiding."
"Yep."
Every set of optics around the table swung to Megatron where he was propped back in his chair lazily playing with a dagger against the edge of his wicked claws. The absent fiddling ended though when Elita smacked him hard in the arm leaving him to flinch and pull away.
"Oww! What the pit!?"
The Lady Prime glared at him. "Stop helping for a while, alight?"
The huge grey mech snorted and shook his helm. "I'm not trying to help. I'm being honest. Isn't that what I'm supposed to try and do more of?"
"Well yes but—"
"But nothing, Elita." His deep snap cut her off. "I was down there. I saw it, and I for one am not going to anymore Ground slaughtering parties with her until she tells me just what 'fabricated twin' means."
"What it means?" Jynx straightened in her chair her glare burning into Megatron's dark red optics. He narrowed his in return, mouth set in a tight line. Sometime later Jynx might realize she was being played. That Megatron had only said it to rile her up and get the answer he wanted to know.
It might not have been the way his brother wished to go about it—and it earned him a burning glare over the top of Elita's helm, but it was ignored—it was going to get them answers though. Because that fire was back in Jynx's optics, and that was easier for the ex-tyrant to look at then the beaten looking femmeling crouched in her chair staring at her claws.
"Yes," He growled back. "Just what does it mean?"
"It means that you damn fools thought your slaggin' mad mech was bad." Jynx's lip curled back over her fangs in a snarl that didn't seem to fit the scared little creature of moments before. "You thought Shockwave was a monster. Mech he was a fraggin' sparkling playing with glitch-mice compared to Rashact. You don't know the meaning of the title mad mech! You don't know anything about torture. None of you do! That slaggin' bastard used your war to get everything he wanted. He used you!"
Megatron's growl faded off as confusion took its place.
Used him? Used them?
What was she talking about?
Jynx rolled her optics. "Don't act like you don't slaggin' know what I'm talking about. It was you that let your damn underlings sell off their sparklings because they were in the way!"
Megatron flinched like she'd struck him across the face.
"It was your war that made it possible for him to buy and steal all the test subjects he could ever need! He had hundreds of thousands of us! Stolen and broken, locked in cages on top of cages, starving, screaming, crying, dying, strapped down to tables and taken apart, burned alive, or pitted against each other. You think your gladiator rings was a living pit. You don't know the meaning of the place."
Leaning forward against the table Jynx spread her claws wide against the surface to keep herself in her seat more than anything. He'd made her angry again, angry and hurt and saying more than she meant too, but maybe that was for the best.
Because the more she said the further down the mighty Megatron seemed to shrink and the wider all the optics around her got.
"That fraggin' bastard killed more sparklings and younglings then even you did when you bombed the Sectors and none of you even fraggin' knew! You all were too busy trying to destroy the planet you didn't bother to look up and see what was happening on Pritum. You didn't care! Then you jetted off to who the pit knows where looking for the very thing you shot off into space while Rashact finally figured out how to do it. How to make the perfect weapons. Sure he only got it perfect once. He only managed to get Arsine and me to survive the splice, but it's not like that was the only way he was trying to pull it off or that he didn't butcher hundreds trying. He made me into this monster! He made us into twins! All of us pre-programmed to do whatever he wanted. You have no slaggin' idea just all I've survived to get here. You have no fraggin' idea what it's like trying to live with half a spark! And you can't! Because I'm a messed up lab play thing that should have never made it off the moon that I ended up blowing up."
Her angry optics slid down to her spread claws, the anger twisting with the sadness and the pain that burned in her chest that the meds the medic gave her had yet to really do much to change. Sighing she deflated in the chair and bowed her helm again sensors pulled down so tight they ached in their grooves while her visor darkened to a mirror black surface.
She didn't know how to explain it.
How to tell what had really happened.
How exactly did she put into words just all she'd gone through? Even her memories had trouble dealing with the truth of it. That was why it was so hard to bury them and the pain. And it was even harder when she sat across a table from the very two bots that caused it all in the first place. The two that didn't even know they did it.
Had no idea just how many lives they'd ruined.
"Rashact might have turned us all into his personal monsters. He might have been the one that twisted and broke us all until only a handful of us were still breathing to be his accomplishments, but it was your twos fault." She tilted her visor up to find both the royal brothers sitting across from her looking lower then she imagined they ever had. The sight made her feel just a little bit better. "Your damn Autobots who didn't care what they did to get your dirt, and your damn Decepticons were willing to throw away anything of now so that they might have more tomorrow. You both opened the door to the worst kind of evil there is. It's your fault. Rashact made monsters to play with, but you two gave him the ability."
Asking for help doesn't necessarily mean ready to forgive.
Jynx refused to go where I wanted her to this chapter so here is where we ended up. She wanted to put the royal brothers in their place once again, so there you have it. She asks for help and then she starts ripping them to verbal pieces again.
It will be interesting to see what you all thought.
Oh and side note.
Ninetails: Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I love it! That picture is so beautiful. Would you care if I use it as the cover art for the story? I wanted to ask before I just used it.