A/N: Yeah, this one's a little short, but I promise I'll make it up to you next chappy!
Special thanks to VAWitch for beta-ing, and to all my wonderful reviewers for reviewing! Love ya!
Ratchet came online slowly. Out of curiosity he checked his chrono; he was unsurprised to find that it had been several hours since he had offlined.
Primus, he thought woozily. I don't think I've ever had an overload that strong. He frowned at a niggling sensation of pleased amusement—it felt somehow… foreign.
He unshuttered his optics to see Sideswipe watching him with heavy-lidded optics and a kind of lazy joy in his expression. He could feel Sunstreaker still curled up against his back, and somehow, without turning to look, heknew that the yellow twin was still offline.
"Sideswipe…?" he murmured questioningly, returning his attention back to his red lover.
Sideswipe merely smiled enigmatically and kissed him with a tenderness that made Ratchet melt—until he suddenly felt the tentative brush of another mind against his own.
His new, uncanny awareness told him that Sunstreaker was awake—that it was him reaching out almost instinctively to touch Ratchet's consciousness, that he craved the contact with an almost desperate need.
Memory came flooding back.
Ratchet scrambled off of the berth with a panicked yelp and turned to stare with wide optics at his two lovers.
"What have you done?" he asked, making a conscious effort to still his trembling.
"We didn't do anything. You bonded yourself to us last night," Sideswipe said, good humor fading from his optics and worry taking its place.
And Sunstreaker—Ratchet nearly flinched at the black wave of fear rolling off of the yellow mech. He thinks I'm going to reject him, the medic realized, and before he knew what he was doing, he had sat back down and wrapped Sunny up in his arms, projecting his love along the newly-paved paths of the bond.
He clamped a tight lid down on his terror at this instinctive reaction to his bondmate's distress. Primus! If I act like this just because he's upset, what happens if he gets hurt?
There was a good reason lovers didn't bond to one another very often anymore—the war made such things impractical, if not downright dangerous, especially for the newly bonded. The desire to place your bonded as your number one priority was often overwhelming, particularly at first, and it made for a poor decision-making ability. For mechs like Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, who had been dealing with the effects of being bonded for their entire lives, it was something that could be worked around and dealt with. For a mech in the upper echelons of the command element like the Chief Medical Officer—who'd never even had a sibling, let alone a twin—such an impairment could be deadly, and not just to himself.
Not to mention the fact that being bonded to a set of twins was, as far as anyone knew, entirely new territory—there were certainly no records of it having ever happened, even before the war. It had been the general consensus that twins felt no need to be that close to another being—they already had each other.
"Whoever thought up that load of tripe was off his rocker," Sideswipe said quietly, and Ratchet realized that his thoughts were not quite as private as he'd hoped. "Besides, how do you know that no one else ever bonded to a set of twins?"
Ratchet absently stroked Sunstreaker's back to soothe the yellow brother's trembling and replied, "Because every set of twins ever created on Cybertron—including you two, whether you know it or not—were carefully documented. A twinned spark was a rare enough mutation that a lot of mechs felt it warranted studying."
Sideswipe blinked in surprise at that; apparently he hadn't known. "Oh," he said sheepishly. "You know fragging everything, don't you?"
"My data storage capacity is not endless," Ratchet returned dryly. "It only seems like I know everything. And you'll be pleased to hear that not much data other than your existence was recorded in your file—the war interfered."
"Gee, that's comforting," Sideswipe said sarcastically, leaning his head against the medic's shoulder opposite his brother. After a moment, he raised back up to look at Ratchet again as something occurred to him. "Were you one of the ones who felt it 'warranted studying'?"
The CMO regarded him thoughtfully. "I won't deny I thought it was a fascinating subject—but I didn't actively seek knowledge of it until we had a set come through the facility where I worked as an intern. It was at the beginning of the war, and they were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"So what happened?" Sunstreaker asked, finally deciding to calm down and contribute to the conversation.
"One died. The other went into shock and followed soon after, even though his wounds were relatively minor. There was nothing anyone could do, and Primus knows we tried." Ratchet shivered as, unbidden, the image of his twins superimposed itself over the one of the dead pair in his memory—
"Don't think that," Sunstreaker said harshly, wrapping his arms more securely around the medic.
"Yeah, you might scare Sunny," Sideswipe drawled, and they both got the distinct impression that he was deliberately trying to lighten the mood. Sunstreaker went along with it.
"Shut up, you aft-head," the yellow mech snarled, reaching past Ratchet to take a swing at his brother.
Sideswipe leaned out of the way, laughing. "Can't you come up with better than that, you smoking pile of scrap?"
"I'll show you smoking pile of scrap—"
"Alright, that's enough," Ratchet interrupted, tired of being in between the squabbling twins—and still feeling more than a little overwhelmed at realizing he was now bonded to the two rowdiest mechs on the roster.
Which made them the two most likely to be injured.
Primus, his head hurt.
"We're sorry… Primus, Ratch, we keep hurting you and we don't mean to," Sideswipe said, sobering in the face of the medic's unhappiness. He gently stroked along the ambulance's crest and down the edge of his helm. "We were so happy that we didn't stop to give you time to adjust."
"I suppose it does take some getting used to," Ratchet murmured, almost brokenly.
"We wouldn't know," Sunstreaker whispered. "We've never known any other way."
Ratchet nodded, then disentangled himself from his lovers and stood. "Regardless, I need to get back to the medbay and relieve First Aid."
It was only after he left the room that he realized none of them had actually spoken a word.
Wheeljack hurt all over.
Nothing on his frame had completely escaped damage—and even the new parts ached with the itchy tightness of fresh repairs.
Ratchet would never let him hear the end of this, he was certain.
The Lancia had awakened less than an hour ago to see First Aid slumped over in a chair deep in recharge, the poor sparkling. Wheeljack felt the familiar pang of regret that his creations had had to grow up far too quickly—it was really not fair that they had been shoved out into the middle of this war without the chance to just be kids.
Nothing for it now, he thought ruefully, watching as 'Aid onlined when an alarm he'd set up warned him that Wheeljack was awake.
After stretching out the kinks in his stiff joints, the Protectobot came to stand beside Wheeljack. "How are you feeling?" he asked solicitously.
"Like I've been mauled by Devastator," the inventor rasped.
"Good!" snapped a voice from the door, and they looked up to see Ratchet stalk into the medbay. "Maybe you'll remember that the next time you feel like trying to commit suicide." The CMO glanced at his apprentice. "Get on back to your quarters and get in some recharge, kid. You look like you've been resting in a chair." First Aid left without protest.
"You do realize what you've done to yourself?" Ratchet asked icily, gathering up his tools to begin working on the engineer.
Hoo boy, here comes Hurricane Ratchet, Wheeljack thought, and, wincing, he replied, "I can guess."
"Just in case you don't understand the full scope of it, let me explain it to you," the medic told him flatly. "First off, you have managed to fuse all of the dermal plating and some of the subdermal plating along the front of your body to your frame. Some of it has even melted into your circuitry. We've already replaced most of your wiring and essential relays, along with your primary energon pump." His voice became unsteady. "We actually lost you for a moment there, and how we kept your worthless spark from guttering out I'll never know—" Abruptly Ratchet's vocalizer shorted out with emotion and he shuttered his optics, unable to continue.
"Slag, Ratchet, I'm sorry…" the Lancia whispered, spark breaking.
"If only you would be more careful—" the CMO managed.
"I don't do it on purpose, Ratch, Primus knows I don't like blowing myself up any more than you like putting me back together—"
A pause, then, softly, "I know."
The medic dragged First Aid's chair over beside the repair table Wheeljack lay on and flopped down into it, head in his hands.
"It ain't just having to fix me that's bothering you, is it?" the engineer asked gently.
"I don't know what to do, 'Jack," Ratchet wailed, distraught.
"About what?" Wheeljack tried to reach out to touch his friend comfortingly, but discovered that he couldn't move—and the attempt sent pain rippling up his arm. He clenched his jaws and kept it hidden until it passed.
"—bonded," Ratchet was saying when he was finally able to focus.
"…What?" he managed.
The medic finally looked at him with miserable optics. "I said, I'm bonded to them, Wheeljack," he whispered.
"Primus," the engineer breathed. "When? How?"
"When?" Ratchet mused. "Last night, or sometime this morning. And as for how, I think you already understand the mechanics of bonding." The medic gave his friend a wry look. His lips quirked in a small smile at Wheeljack's flabbergasted expression.
"That's not what I meant," Wheeljack replied, exasperated. Ratchet's smile withered and died.
"Honestly—I don't know. I was very… upset… last night. I needed them, and they were there—and all my firewalls came crashing down." The medic drew a deep, shaking draught of air into his intakes. "I wasn't really thinking when it happened; it was almost like instinct. And… oh, Primus, 'Jack, it was incredible—"
"Please spare me the details," Wheeljack interrupted dryly. "Right now I have no desire to hear what it's like 'facing with those two hellions."
Ratchet eyed him in amusement. "The first time it happened, you wanted to know all of it," he pointed out.
Wheeljack sniffed disdainfully. "That was then. This is now. Besides, I was only teasing you and you know it," he retorted.
Ratchet grinned evilly. "Are you sure you didn't want me to tell you about how Sideswipe likes to have his—"
"Shut up, shut up!" the engineer interrupted hastily. "La la la, I can't hear you!"
The medic's laughter was music to his audios.
"Feel better, now?" Wheeljack asked quietly, after his friend had recovered from his giggling.
Ratchet nodded and got to his feet. "Thanks, 'Jack," he said gratefully, laying a gentle hand on the engineer's shoulder, and then retrieving his toolkit. "Now, let's get you fixed."