To the kind anon that left such a nice review—Oooh yeah, this chapter definitely gets bumped up to mature! It brings up an issue that hits home to a lot of people, so I'm gonna bump up the rating to be safe.
And at Doc Bot, I am SO GLAD someone finally brought that up! This is most certainly not the Ratchet we know and love. We are so, so many vorns away from that Ratchet and he still has a long, hard transformation ahead of him to get him to that place.
Thank you guys for the continued comments—they really do motivate me to write. I'm on quite a bit of a streak with this story though and hopefully the next chapter will be up soon! Thank you again for the support and comments! Also, as a personal side note—I researched the SHIT out of this chapter! BLAM!
Ratchet's optics wouldn't stop glitching. After his run in with Soundwave the day before, his helm had been sparking and aching at a near constant level, confining him to his bunk and giving him very little chance to rest. The few times he did manage to cycle down without his head waking him, nightmares took their place, jerking him out of recharge. It wasn't until the early hours of the morning, when the first shift for the medbay would be taking over from the night shift, that Ratchet carefully crawled out of his bunk. Exhausted and finally admitting defeat, he blindly felt his way towards the medbay, relying on nothing but a hand against the wall and his memory. His optics relentlessly flickered on and off with each step but through the split second glimpses, he managed to find the automatic doors to the medbay and walk inside.
He hung onto the door frame for support, not able to focus long enough to see much of anything. It was a few long minutes he stood there, looking rather lost before he saw Spec's disjointed approach through the strobe effect his optics were giving him. "You feel down a flight of stairs," the Con said, not a question.
Ratchet gave a short laugh and gratefully held onto his mentor as he led him to a berth. "No, definitely didn't," he said and laid down on his front, pillowing his head against his arms.
"Well, what the pit happened?" Spec asked even as he plugged into the port at the back of his neck.
Ratchet tensed at the touch, hands clenching into fists as he resisted the urge to dart. "I don't want to talk about it," he said quietly.
Spec stopped his ministrations for a moment and Ratchet could almost feel his optics boring into the back of his head. He tensed, waiting for the inevitable question, but it didn't come and he couldn't begin to describe how grateful he was for that. Spec was silent and only offered a comforting pat on the shoulder before getting back to work.
Ratchet relaxed and closed his optics, keeping them firmly buried against his arms. "I'm going to take your helm cover off for a second—get a good look underneath," Spec said and Ratchet just nodded. He felt the numerous clips that held the metal of his helm into place disengage and Spec lifted the helmet off, carefully setting it aside. "Ah, I see what your problem is. You got a loose connection. It's making an incomplete circuit every time ya move." He reached in with a pair of tweezers and carefully set the loose wire before soldering it with a quick burst of heat. The results were instantaneous—Ratchet's optics flickered on and stayed on and he sighed in relief as the ache dulled. "Looks like autorepair's taken care of the rest of it though. You'll be good to come back tomorrow."
Ratchet finally looked up at him, a small frown on his face. "Not today?"
Spec gave a sad smile and patted his shoulder. "You look like you could use one more day off."
Though his head had stopped aching, the nightmares came out in full force as he laid in his bunk that night. Terrible images plagued his processor, as though waiting for him every time he closed his optics. Bluestreak lying dead in the burning buildings of Praxus, Meister holding a gun to his head and pulling the trigger, Wheeljack and Perceptor disappearing in an explosion of white and a red visor that seemed to bore into his head like a drill. He woke screaming more than once, much to the annoyance of the other mechs in his barrack. It was a hard fight and eventually, he gave up trying to sleep. It was almost a relief to escape his bunk and go back to the medbay in the morning, but Spec noticed the change in him.
Concerned glances followed Ratchet wherever he went as lost himself in the menial tasks of the medbay that had gathered in his absence. He went about things ritually, mechanically, lacking his usual attitude and humor, and simply kept his mind blank. He didn't want to think about his situation, about Bluestreak and Meister or Wheeljack and Perpector or the Autobots that may or may not realize he was here. Thinking had only gotten him into trouble. It was easier just to accept and get back to work—the perfect drone.
And Spec was having none of it. "What the pit's wrong with you?" he asked at last, cornering Ratchet at one of the wash stations. Ratchet barely even heard him and just shrugged on instinct, not looking up from the pile of tools he was sanitizing. He felt a hand on his shoulder and grabbed a dirty razor from the pile even as Spec yanked him around. The surprise on his mentor's face mirrored his own as he realized he was holding the razor up protectively in front of him, like a weapon. Spec slowly reached out and grabbed the hilt of the tool before carefully pulling it out of Ratchet's unresisting hands.
"Please, just let me get back to work," Ratchet said quietly.
"No," Spec said flatly. "Something's fragged you up big time—you're never this productive." Ratchet didn't even smile at the joke and that sealed the deal for Spec. "Don't tell me I have to send you in for a psych eval as well?"
"I'm fine," Ratchet said.
"No, you're depressed," Spec said.
"I am not."
Spec glared at him before he sighed, his voice softening a little. "Kid, I can't even imagine what you're going through. Yeah, I've lost a mate—I've never lost my entire city," he said. "Yeah, you're depressed. You have every slagging right to be." Ratchet didn't know how to respond, so he looked down, crossing his arms over his chassis. "But that's not the whole story, is it? What's eating at you?"
Ratchet finally met his optics, his normal bright blue dim and subdued. "I don't want to think about it," he said.
The flier sighed before murmuring, "There're only a couple instances I can think of that can traumatize someone enough to retreat into themselves like you have, Ratchet and I hope to Primus I'm wrong."
Ratchet's optics widened a little and he shuddered as he realized what Spec must be thinking. His training kicked in and he managed to look at himself like an outsider— distancing himself from acquaintances, severe mood shifts, nightmares, aversion to physical contact—he was the textbook example of a rape victim. "Of course not!" he said, mortified at the thought.
Spec snorted though he relaxed a little bit when he finally got Ratchet to react. "Can ya blame me for thinking it?" he asked. "What happened? You were screwed up after you came back from Praxus, but not like this."
Ratchet ran a hand over his helm and looked down again. "I'm afraid to talk about it," he whispered even as his optics darted around the medbay, searching for any signs of small black paws. "In case he's listening."
His mentor looked at him in surprise before he put a gentle hand on his shoulder and steered him towards the storage room. He had no choice but to followed him inside and the door slid shut behind them, blocking out the noise of the medbay. Ratchet shuddered as he looked at the dead optics of the mechs hanging from the walls, feeling like he had somehow stepped back into one of his nightmares. Fear gripped his chassis and for one moment, the deactivated frame of a native Praxian that hung next to him seemed to gain Bluestreak's coloring. Ratchet shuddered and had to look at the floor, hands gripping the back of his helm as his vents cycled hard.
He jumped when Spec cupped a hand under his chin and made him look up, optics expectant and waiting. Ratchet swallowed thickly before whispering, "A-a telepath—Soundwave, I think they called him, grabbed me the other day and interrogated me about Meister. They t-think he's passing along info to the Autobots—he asked me what I knew about him and, Primus— it felt like he was tearing my fragging head open. I-I couldn't stop it! Ever since I-I've been having these—these nightmares and I-I just can't think straight anymore!"
Spec put his hands on his shoulders and gave him a moment to calm down before he said calmly, "Ratchet, think about what you just said. Use that expensive University training and tell me what you're going through."
Ratchet rubbed his optics, a tired, stressed groan escaping his vocals. "Post-traumatic stress," he muttered at last.
"Exactly. My guess is it started developing after Praxus and only got worse with the Decepticon third-in-command rummaging around in there," Spec said and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "You got to get your head on straight, Ratchet."
"You think I do know that?" Ratchet snapped angrily and jerked out of his grip. "You try getting mind raped and then tell me how slagging good you feel afterwards!"
Spec winced at that opened his mouth to speak, but a loud commotion in the medbay interrupted him. Even through the thick metal doors, they could still hear the shouts of urgency. Spec gave him a concerned look, but Ratchet could tell his sense of duty was tugging at him. "This conversation isn't over," he said and Ratchet didn't meet his optics.
He looked up as Spec left the room, catching a glimpse of the chaos outside. Mechs were crowded around one particular table, and through the throng, Ratchet caught a horrifyingly familiar glimpse of red and teal. Suddenly, he was pushing through the mass of mechs, shoving a slate grey triplechanger out of the way without a second thought as he shouted Perceptor's name. His training kicked on immediately and he didn't care if there was another medic already in charge of his friend, he took control.
Perceptor was on the verge of consciousness, optics flickering dimly, his frame twitching and convulsing as he seized. His mouth was frosted around his lips and from his throat down to his tanks, frost had crystallized thickly on his armor and steamed in the comparative warmth of the medbay. Moving quickly as he could, Ratchet hooked his friend up to a scan and asked, "Does anyone know what he drank?"
"Liquid helium," someone answered, but Ratchet didn't bother to look up to see who.
Ratchet paused for only a second at the information. No time to think about the implications yet. Instead, he honed in on the problem in front of him. Liquid helium had a temperature a few meager degrees above absolute zero. Cybertronian frames were designed to withstand extreme cold but that only applied to outside temperature. As soon as that cold managed to get inside to the energon and coolant lines, all bets were off. Splits in the lines were a guarantee, not to mention the frozen lines were blocking energon flow to his spark. The second, even more pressing problem was the pressure caused by the helium rapidly returning to its gaseous state as it evaporated. If Perceptor had consumed enough of the stuff, his tanks could have ruptured from the internal pressure.
"How much?" he asked.
The same voice answered. "Not sure—quite a lot though. He was hoping for death." The mech sounded careless, uninterested even.
Ratchet didn't have time to dwell. "I need anything that generates heat—lamps, compresses, whatever's available. We have to thaw out his system. If his tanks haven't ruptured already, we need to relieve the pressure," he said even as he started removing the armor plates that covered Perceptor's internals. When no one moved, he turned bright optics onto a couple of the medics around the table. "NOW!"
Instantly, a few of the medics jumped to obey and Ratchet turned his attention back to his patient. Perceptor's armor was cold enough to burn his fingers as he quickly unlatched the plates and tossed them to the side. He made it to the protoform underneath and plugged in to his system, using his medical overrides to unlock the frozen and steaming plates. He was more careful with the inner plates and attached them to the magnets above the berth for safekeeping. Inside, Ratchet was able to see that his energon processing tanks had ruptured, the bottom blown completely out, and his internals were a mess of frozen wires and frost.
"Get me some fresh energon and coolant tubing—none of dead material from the storage room. I want factory new and don't you dare try to tell me we don't have any!" he shouted and carefully started unhooking the main frozen wires from around Perceptor's flickering spark. He'd done inventory enough times to know exactly what supplies they had and he needed to get some energon flow back to his spark soon or else it would simply go out.
Time was of the essence and he was almost glad for the frozen tubing—it meant he didn't have to use valuable time sealing off energon lines. Instead, he cut the ruined tubing about an inch into the ice so they wouldn't leak. A mech brought over some fresh tubing and Ratchet quickly went about sealing the new lines into place. "Where are those heat lamps?" he snapped impatiently.
"They're still looking," Spec said and Ratchet realized he'd been the one to hand over the tubing.
"Give me your gun," Ratchet said and held out an expectant hand.
"What?"
"You heard me! Give me your gun!" he said, voice taking on an authoritative bark Spec had never heard before. Spec fumbled with his subspace before handing his laser pistol over. Ratchet immediately took it, pointed it at the ground and loosed off three quick shots, scorching a hole down to the next level. He took the heated barrel and gently pressed it against the frozen blockage in energon line. It took only a moment for the heat of the barrel to thaw the frozen line enough for the energon to flow again. Perceptor's spark pulsed a little brighter and Ratchet quickly went to work on the remaining lines. With every piece of tubing he replaced and reconnected, Perceptor's spark energy stabilized more and more until it was a steady wavelength on his scanner.
The heat lamps finally arrived and no time was wasted in hooking them up and angling them close over Perceptor's chassis. The energon lines that fed Perceptor's processor energy were still frozen and the longer they stayed the way, the higher the chances of damage. Thankfully, the frost began to disappear and Ratchet quickly went about sealing the remaining energon and coolant lines with quick bursts from his laser scalpel as they thawed and started to leak. It wasn't until the last line was sealed and Perceptor's readings evened out that he relaxed and turned off the heat lamps, wiping coolant from his own helm.
"He also needs a full fluid flush. There's no telling if any contaminants got into his lines when we were sealing it all up. Before that though… we need a replacement tank. Fortunately when it ruptured, the bottom was the part that burst out—it didn't do too much damage. If it had been on the front, it would have cracked his spark casing and he'd have died before you got him up here—the top would have taken out his all the main lines to his processor. Even if we had gotten him in time, he'd never function at full capacity again," Ratchet said tiredly and wiped the fluids from his hands. "We managed to thaw them out before it could do any irrevocable damage up there."
"Well, I'm certainly grateful that didn't happen. I'll take him from here and replace his tanks in my lab," a voice said and Ratchet recognized it from his earlier questioning. He turned to look at the mech. It was the grey triple changer he'd pushed past earlier and he realized he'd been wrong. His paint wasn't grey, it was absent, a complete lack of color, like a walking corpse. The only thing that betrayed life was the hellish red glow of his optics and the purple Decepticon sigils painted onto his wings that folded down on either side of him.
"Like slag you will," Ratchet said, suddenly defensive. Moving Perceptor in his state would be a very, very bad idea. He had at least an orn of recovery time ahead of him, and that was being optimistic. The triplechanger's optics narrowed dangerously and Ratchet suddenly realized that the mech was a good couple of heads taller than him, but he stood his ground. "This mech just tried to kill himself with liquid helium. Nearly succeeded too! There is abso-fraggin-leutly no way I am allowing him out of this medbay. If anything, he needs to be on full psych watch to be sure he doesn't try a stunt like this again!"
The mech smirked, a cruel twist of his lips that made Ratchet want to shiver. "Oh, I assure you, neutral. I will personally see to it that he never does something so stupid again."
Spec stepped in, putting a hand on Ratchet's shoulder. "Landslide, I have to agree with Ratchet. This mech's in no condition to be moved. As a senior medical officer, I have to insist that he stays here until we deem him fit to return to duty," he said.
From what Wheeljack had told him, he should have guessed that this mech was Landslide. Everything about him, from the cold glint in his optics to the smooth tenor of his voice made Ratchet uneasy. He didn't even know the full situation of what had happened to Perceptor, but he was certain of one thing; the Perceptor he knew would have never even considered such extreme lengths, but something about this mech had driven him past his breaking point. And he hated him for it.
Landslide looked between the two of them and sneered. "You're robbing me of an assistant," he said.
Spec must have felt the heat of anger radiating off of him because he spoke first, cutting off any retort Ratchet might have. "And I do apologize for that. But he won't be your assistant much longer if you don't allow us to tend to him."
The mech snorted before waving a careless hand. "Fine," he said at last. "I want him back as soon as possible."
"Of course, sir," Spec said and put a hand on Ratchet's shoulder to dissuade any parting comments. The triplechanger nodded before heading for the door, not even casting a glance at Perceptor as he left. The crowd around the table was slowly dwindling, going back to their respective tasks, though quite a few of them looked at Ratchet in shock. No doubt, every rumor of Ratchet being worthless as a medic had just been completely tossed out the window with gusto.
Even Spec looked at him with something like respect written on his face. "You did good, Ratchet," he said sincerely. "As soon as I saw the state he was in… I thought he was gone."
The adrenaline of the situation was finally starting to wear off and Ratchet rested his hands against the table, looking down at Perceptor's unconscious form. "He still needs a lot of work," he said quietly and brushed his fingers against his friend's helm, as though assuring himself he was actually there.
Spec patted his shoulder and said, "Let me worry about replacing his tanks. You've done enough today."
Ratchet shook his head. "No. I want to be here when he wakes up. I'll do it," he said.
Spec looked like he was about to argue but he finally relented. He gave the young medic one more pat on the shoulder before he clocked out of his shift. The last thing he saw before he left the medbay was Ratchet pulling up a chair to sit by his friend's side, one red hand sliding out to grab onto the teal hand of his friends' and holding on as if both of their lives depended on it.