A/N: I considered removing the 'humour' bit from the FFNet category on this little fic what with the more serious chapters and all (even if it's still written very firmly tongue-in-cheek and Will's favourite way of coping will keep being snark and a mental running commentary, Seeker issues be damned) but the beta vetoed it rather firmly. Don't cross your beta, man. The betas reign supreme.
Jolt had the personal theory that the entirety of planet Earth was bonkers. A human term, that one. Cybertronian, for all of its creative insults, didn't hold a candle to the endless variety of the human languages when it came to terms for insanity – and that really didn't help the planet's case at all. The fact that they needed that many terms in the first place only cemented his theory that the planet was completely and utterly mad and that the dominant species that inhabited it really wasn't any different from the planet that had created them in the first place.
And he meant it, too, he had told Bumblebee emphatically on more than one occasion. Not just society, not just the people living in this new organic world, but the very planet itself. Cybertron had been nice and orderly and predictable – which was half the reason why Jolt had enjoyed pranking so much, because he knew what he was dealing with and he knew every single electrical disturbance or oddity of the surface or whatever else he might use to have a bit of fun – but planet Earth was completely and utterly schizophrenic, from its weather and to its oceans and plate tectonics and sheer randomness of it all sometimes.
Jolt wasn't the most religious of mechs but he knew his creation stories and if Cybertron's calm and steady predictability was a sign of Primus' state of mind – being, after all, the planet itself as their legends told him – then planet Earth made him wonder just what sort of strange deity had been behind the organic world, and it was no slagging wonder that their new home had so many different religions, then. On Cybertron, Jolt could prank and know he would end up having a laugh at someone else's expense. On Earth, he got the distinct impression that half the time he tried to prank someone, the planet messed it up on purpose to have a laugh at his expense instead.
Some days, he really suspected that humanity was in on it as well. He knew from experience that special forces of any kind tended to be interesting types and yes, he did expect that anyone that small and squishy who was still willing to pick up a weapon and go after the Decepticons again and again and again probably wasn't standard on the planet, but there was a long way from that and to... well. NEST.
"With Mikaela's assistance and human-sized hands it should not take long to have one of those human crash test dummies turned into a suitable test flight subject for Will," Ratchet commented as he went through a collection of neatly-ordered boxes of small bits and pieces of mostly-Earth origins, and Jolt wasn't above admitting that he was still 'junior' apprentice enough that he only recognised about half of them. Not that he thought those bits or the project were particularly important but it would be good training for him and the small, human femme who frequently hung out in Ratchet's domain, and he knew their medic enough to tell that something about that project mattered to him. The human general had just landed, Optimus Prime was going over intel with their new human NEST commander... and Hurricane Ratchet had descended on the infirmary only minutes earlier and brought out a minor human project that had been added to their lists only because the former Major's NEST team was so enthusiastic about it.
Their medic had been busy lately and Jolt had heard enough from Sideswipe about Seekers that unlike some, he hadn't been that surprised at just how much attention one of those things could demand – and never mind a brand new, just onlined one that happened to have been human before. Ratchet should have plenty of other things to worry about than a small side project like that, but no one really knew what went on in their medic's processors, so Jolt just nodded and listened like a good junior apprentice.
Ratchet had been busy and there had been several days where they hadn't even seen the shadow of him, but what Jolt did hear in between Seeker-related crises only cemented another fact he had long suspected: NEST was bonkers, too.
"They... know that he's a Seeker, right?" he asked dubiously. He hadn't spent that much time among their organic allies but the ones they worked with didn't strike him as being... stupid. Certainly not sane or normal by any definition, but they were quick on their feet and could keep a clear processor in the middle of combat. They didn't strike him as the types to be that... reckless. He understood the human soldiers' fascination with jets, he really did – the design was not objectionable to a Cybertronian – but the fact that their new Seeker looked like one of said jets did in no way mean he behaved like one, too. They knew that, didn't they? They had to. Right?
"I'm fairly certain that listening to the sound barrier being broken consistently right above their heads has given them some idea that he is by no means an ordinary F-22, yes," Ratchet replied. "To call him a 'Seeker' means very little to a human, Jolt. He is a jet to them, even to those aware of the true circumstances. A jet that used to be human and which can fly faster and better than an Earth-based one, but a jet nonetheless."
Sometimes, Jolt was amazed that the human species hadn't just managed to simply... human themselves into extinction, what with the combination of fragility and mental traits they had been created with, but then, he had also seen them in battle and reached the conclusion that the human version of the femme Luck seemed exceedingly fond of them.
Too fond, possibly, if the NEST team's current idea was anything to go by. They were starting to get a bit reckless in their undying trust in her.
"Will they listen when that... test dummy is returned in pieces?" Jolt asked hesitantly. "Seekers like to push the limits. He's not going to play nice. Is that the plan? Get the idea out of their head before they any worse ideas?"
"Or remind him where he belongs," Sideswipe's darker voice remarked from the doorway. "You know he doesn't have the focus to keep a human alive. It's nothing but a way to keep him busy with the humans and remind him of his loyalty."
"Which," Ratchet threw back without missing a beat, "was exactly his reason for asking me to do this. I do not lack work to a degree where I need to make up things to keep from boredom. He was told about the recent Decepticon activity and he considered his choices and felt that being around his former comrades would be the best option now. Training would be useful for whatever the Decepticons plan for him but to do so excessively would only serve to weaken the human side at a time when we cannot afford to do so."
A pause, and Jolt could have sworn he had missed something important because Sideswipe remained in the door as Ratchet levelled a hard look at him, and it couldn't just be because of the 'Vette's comment – he would have chewed him out, then, instead of just... watching him in a way that made Jolt feel more than a bit on edge.
"Being front-liners doesn't mean we're stupid," Sideswipe finally said and his slightly darkened optics said plenty about his mood, even if the hard tone in his voice hadn't been more than enough to get it across on its own. "Did you think Jet Judo was all we knew?"
'We', Jolt knew, had nothing to do with him. Partners in crime and combat or not, 'we' had always meant Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Always had, always would, until all was one and beyond. That they didn't know Sunstreaker's current location or even if he was still online didn't matter. It was 'we', Jolt knew. Always 'we', and Jolt was just the stand-in until time reunited them.
Sharp optics turned to Jolt instead and he instinctively straightened under his CMO's attention. "Jolt-"
"-Is staying," Sideswipe said flatly. "I'll tell him and to the Pit with any orders. If he's going into a combat zone with an allied Seeker and have my back, he needs to know what he'll have to deal with. He's staying."
Stuck between the unstoppable force and the immovable object, Jolt did the only reasonable thing he could do – he ducked his head and hoped they would forget about him and that he wouldn't end up in the resulting disaster zone, because front-liner or not, he still knew better than to be in the middle of an argument between Ratchet and Sideswipe.
"Key word being 'allied', Sideswipe," Ratchet said in the low, dangerous voice that was usually reserved for people getting between the medic and a patient... and a moment later Jolt realised that Sideswipe probably was. Sideswipe didn't look happy about the situation at all – and Jolt couldn't really blame him after what happened in the training match – and Ratchet...
Don't cross the medic! Jolt gestured with frantic little motions as Ratchet's attention turned back to the 'Vette, because Ratchet was a medic and could probably hear if Jolt commed his partner... and Sideswipe, being Sideswipe, ignored it completely and it was all Jolt could do not to whimper in a very human fashion as his partner replied.
"For now. I told you, Hatchet – we're not stupid," Sideswipe said, as low and dangerous and unrelenting as the medic's voice had been as he refused to back down. "I know the flying frags. You don't survive Jet Judo if you don't know what you're dealing with."
Silence stretched for long second as Jolt watched the two combatants and stayed very, very still and then something flared in Ratchet's optics.
"Talk," he commanded, and even Sideswipe wouldn't disobey that voice.
"You know them, Ratchet. You know too much about the fraggers not to have lived with them. They're a hive mind and they're Decepticons to the core of their programming."
"Some have been Autobots," Ratchet bit back and not for the first time, Jolt wondered how in the name of all that was holy Sideswipe had ever managed to survive for so long, picking fights with mechs like that. "They have independent thought."
"You've never faced them in battle like we have. You never deal with just one Seeker there. They know where their trine-mates are without communicating. They move like one spark. They think as one and they obey their Air Commander." He laughed, harsh and mocking and in a way he would never, ever have done when Sunstreaker had been at his side. "Some of them hate Starscream. Some of them want him dead and would be happy to tear out his spark with their own hands but they never do, Ratchet. It's hard-wired in their processors to obey. The only ones who ever seriously tried to kill him were all ours and they were always fragged up slaggers, even for Seekers. We don't know them like you do, we're not medics, but we know enough."
"Enough to know how a half-human Seeker is going to react?" Ratchet asked and reminded Jolt that no one did burning, acidic sarcasm like Ratchet in a bad mood. "Considering that there has never been a recorded case of one before, I'm impressed, Sideswipe, truly, I am. Do tell us about your stunning medical insights. I would recommend a thesis on this, perhaps even a complete scientific survey of the implications of an organic-mechanoid personality merge, but I'm afraid there are no Cybertronian peer-reviewed publications available these days, so I suppose you will have to make due with us as your enchanted audience."
Something about his tone made Sideswipe stand down slightly – the genuine anger, probably, at Jolt's best guess, because while their CMO might snarl at them for their stupidity, he was rarely genuinely angry – and his voice and stance had lost a bit of the hard challenge they carried before as he made a sound that could almost have been interpreted as frustration.
"I know you like him, medic. He wasn't bad for an organic. They're a useless species as a whole but there are some that have stood by us in battle. I respect that," Sideswipe allowed and then his optics glowed harder again. "It doesn't change the situation. He might still be part human, but he talks, acts, and flies like a Seeker. He's Starscream's."
"He defied him," Ratchet said flatly. "Twice."
"On a comm-channel, with Starscream halfway across this dirtball," Sideswipe gave back, every bit as flat and relentless. "We'll face them in combat and he'll cave. I know it, he knows it, and the flying glitch of an Air Commander fragging well knows it, too. He's a warrior. If he thought he had any chance of resisting this, he would have spent every moment out of recharge training. The fact that he doesn't tells me everything I need to know."
Jolt had the feeling that he was missing about half the conversation and every actual useful bit of knowledge it revolved around but that was one piece of logic he could follow after fighting and training at Sideswipe's side for as long as he had. If the human thought he could stand his ground, he would have trained so he would be better in combat. If he didn't... then every bit of improvement would mean more skill in the hands of the 'Cons and make it that much harder when they had to take him down. The former Major had asked Ratchet to focus on an insignificant, little project that put him in contact with humans a lot. Out of all the things to do, he had asked for... that.
Oh.
Silence stretched again, if less tense this time, and then Ratchet gave a tired sigh. "You know about their coding." It wasn't a question but Sideswipe nodded, anyway, and Ratchet continued. "In that case, I find it remarkable that you haven't brought it up before."
"You've never made us doubt you before," Sideswipe finally said and Jolt felt the tension in the room slowly, slowly begin to return to normal levels again with no small amount of relief. "If you thought it was a danger, you'd have acted on it. You haven't, so you trust him."
"And you don't," Ratchet pointed out.
Another long, uncomfortable moment of silence, and what with the amount of time Jolt had spent around Sideswipe, he should probably have gotten used to it already.
"You're the medic." That response meant little to Jolt but it obviously made more sense to Ratchet, because said medic relaxed almost imperceptibly at that. "You're getting too close to him but you would have stepped in if that thing was a real danger. I say it's a mistake but that doesn't matter. You trust us. We owe you the same in return."
Ratchet would have stepped in, Jolt realised. Ratchet. Not Optimus Prime or Ironhide or whoever else was capable of taking down a Seeker in an emergency, because they weren't medics, either, and so they trusted the medic to let them know if their Seeker was just moody or a genuine threat, and that was just another note on a mental list a mile long of all the things Jolt had learned from Ratchet that left him more than a bit uncomfortable.
It was a lot of trust to place on the shoulders of one lone mech. Ratchet didn't seem to mind but Jolt knew he couldn't claim the same thing himself. One wrong word in an emergency could get someone killed, and that bit of knowledge would keep gnawing on his processors for a long time to come.
"He deserves a chance," Ratchet said, with something in his voice that Jolt couldn't quite identify. "Like a pair of front-liners I used to know."
Sideswipe's smile was toothy. "Twisted, slag-spawned Decepticons in disguise that would get us all violently offlined in combat someday in a killing frenzy? I think I remember those."
"They haven't killed me yet," Ratchet pointed out with a ghost of amusement in his expression as a bit more of his tension drained. "They've been a pain in my aft more times than not but I think I owe them my continued online status a few times over as well."
"Call it even," Sideswipe offered with that same toothy smile, like some long-lost and rather unnerving sibling to Ravage. "It makes up for all the spare parts you've used on them."
And just like that they were back to being reasonably friendly again and Jolt could rest a little more easily where he stood, away from the worst of the disaster zone if it should have come to that.
"I trust him, Sideswipe," Ratchet said quietly. "Even if I didn't, there wouldn't be much we could do. To keep him locked away is something I wouldn't even wish on Starscream. He fought for us as a human. He carries our symbol and sees the world through blue optics. He is aware of the risks; as am I. He deserves a fighting chance."
"One, Hatchet," Sideswipe agreed, and it was as much of a threat as a compromise. "One chance. If he fails, I'll take him down."
"As it should be." A pause, and then Ratchet sighed. "Now go, you pest. I'm busy. Go bother someone else instead."
And Jolt had expected Sideswipe to snarl at that but all the smaller mech did was offer a nod in return before he turned around and left again as silently as he had arrived, leaving one CMO and a very confused junior apprentice and partner in crime in his wake.
As silence continued to reign, Jolt finally worked up the nerve to ask the question that had been nagging him for most of the conversation. "Why do I feel like I missed half of whatever just happened?" he said hesitantly.
Ratchet paused for a moment and his optics dimmed in the way Jolt recognised as someone talking to him over a comm-channel and then the medic focused on him again. "Sideswipe will fill you in, I'm sure," he said dryly and his usual patience around the junior apprentice slowly returned. "In graphic detail, too. I would appreciate it if whatever he tells you makes it no further than the two of you."
He didn't wait for Jolt's answering nod before he grabbed a small, empty box and quickly filled it with what looked to Jolt to be a strange assortment of human-sized doohickeys, a couple of human-sized datapads, and a brand new, shiny test dummy. He paused for fragments of a second, added a few more random-looking bits, pushed the remaining boxes back where they belonged, and then handed the small box with the collection over to Jolt. "Here. Materials and instructions. Mikaela will know what to do. It shouldn't take you much longer than this afternoon. It will be good practice and a decent challenge for her and you are overdue working on human-sized patients. The instructions contain only the basics. In your place, I would have a word with the NEST team in question in regards to their suggestions and see if there are any sane ones among them. A medic needs to know when to listen as well as when to put his foot down. Consider this a good way to practice that without the risk of endangering anything but their... considerable enthusiasm."
Jolt's optics shuttered in a very human display of surprise as he instinctively grasped the small box and tried to wrap his processors around the sudden shift in topic and quick list of instructions. "Sir?"
"Mikaela. NEST. Test flight subject," Ratchet repeated in a voice that left no room for arguments and made Jolt start to suspect to an uncomfortable degree that the small project mattered a lot more to their medic than any of them knew. "I have a Seeker to talk to."
And with that, Hurricane Ratchet left the infirmary as swiftly as he had descended upon it in the first place, leaving only a box of human doohickeys and one very confused junior apprentice medic behind.