Thundercracker's Fate
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Chapter 4: Something Beautiful
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Ratchet found himself with a huge pile of copper wire and random pieces of the metal later that day when Duster's friends returned, which he sent immediately to the machine shop's smelter to be reprocessed for his needs in the medbay. And the three toshers gave as much information to the intelligence office as they could. Afterward, they were escorted back to the medbay, and at Ratchet's insistence the medical team did a round of maintenance and repairs on Stellaris and Chunk. The toshers had not expected this additional kindness, but for it they were completely thankful. And the following day, also at Ratchet's insistence, they brought back two other toshers who were in dire need of some work as well.
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A few days later the three were back again, without an invitation but set upon seeing Ratchet. "W-We have a g-gift for h-him," said Stellaris, patting the large crate they'd brought to the gate of the base.
"A gift?"
"Yeah. Just something we want to give him. He was so good to us, and went to a lot of trouble for us. He even hired a washbot to clean me up," said Duster, grinning broadly.
"You needed cleaning," Hardline sneered. "So what's in the box?"
"Just a little present for him."
"Scan that thing," Hardline commanded.
The three tensed.
"P-Please. It's t-to be a s-secret, just for h-him," sais Stellaris, putting his arms protectively across the top of the crate.
"A secret?" Hardline glared at them. The Decepticons had yet to breach his gate. "Open it!" he commanded the three toshers.
"But we're giving it to Ratchet."
"Open it now!"
"No explosives, but there's a body inside," called back the mech with the security scanner.
"A body?"
"Yeah. Scan shows one body."
Hardline advanced on the lead tosher. "A body? What's the meaning of this?"
Duster drew himself up out of his usual stooped posture and was suddenly standing optic to optic with Hardline. "Ratchet, your CMO, has been so good to us. He's been taking care of us. You know that. We brought him a gift to pay him for everything he's done."
"Open that crate!"
The toshers did so disappointedly, having been looking forward to watching Ratchet himself open their present. And when the lid came off, they pulled open an inner casing, a fine box of stainless steel, to reveal an amber-yellow femme lying inside, held into stasis cradles by several cables wrapped with sparkling ribbon. Reverently they pulled the hood from her head, at which all present gasped. Even Hardline was speechless.
"Oh my goodness! You're giving Ratchet a femme?" asked Blastshield, still Hardline's second-in-command despite having been found to be the one who'd summoned Ratchet when the dying tosher had been brought in.
"Yeah. Well, sort of. It's just a frame, a frame for an upgrade or something. No spark inside."
Blastshield stepped up and reached for one of the femme's hands, encased in a mitten of the same fabric as the hood. "Where did you find her?" he asked, sliding off the mitt and admiring the thin, delicate appendage. "Look at these joints. These joints are amazing!" he declared, bending her fingers to curl about his own.
"We found her in the sewers, like everything else we find."
"We didn't steal her," huffed Chunk indignantly in his deep voice, "if that's what you're thinking."
"And you're giving her to him?" Blastshield asked.
"We thought he might have someone special he might want to reformat. That's what she's for... a new frame for a sparkling or someone special."
"And she's too good for us. Far too delicate."
"Far too pretty," mumbled a voice from the back.
Hardline was still amazed but managed to find his voice. "I've called Ratchet. He'll be here at the gate soon."
"Oh my goodness! Would you sell her?" asked Blastshield quickly, stepping up to Stellaris. "I've got a bit of money tucked away."
Stellaris shook his head. "N-Nope. We're g-giving her to Ratchet. B-But maybe h-he'll sell her to you. It's up to h-him what he w-wants to d-do with her."
Blastshield looked again at the lovely femme, a masterpiece of craftsmanship, an unusual mix of amber-yellow plating and glass-like aqua-blue detailing. "I'll pay you in gold. I have it."
"S-Sorry. We've m-made our d-decision. And we t-toshers are stubborn f-folk," said the mech with a certain pride.
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Ratchet was impressed by the gift, knowing this to probably be the finest, most valuable thing the toshers had ever salvaged. They'd found the frame in its packaging beneath the ruins of a ritzy high-rise where once the finest mechs in the city had lived. From what they'd been able to tell, the purchaser had tucked the never-used body into safekeeping beneath the building, hopefully to hide it until the end of the war when such lovely things were safe to have again. But the war hadn't ended and the entire neighborhood had been bombed out, and the toshers had done well scavenging the broken sewers beneath, despite the risks of cave-ins.
"Have you named her?" Ratchet asked.
"We've been calling her Citrine, for her color."
"She's very beautiful, and certainly quite valuable. This is some magnificent workmanship." He paused and looked at the three again. "Are you really sure you want to give her to me?"
"Y-You've done so m-much f-for us, Ratchet," Stellaris assured him. "You s-saved a l-life and so much m-more."
"You know you can sell a frame like that for a lot of money. It's yours legally by salvage law. I've already received two messages from one of the mechs here. He wants to buy her from either you or me."
Duster laughed. "The big burnt-red fellow at the gate?"
Ratchet nodded, and Duster shook his head. "He asked us as well, but we're giving her to you. Someday perhaps there will be someone in your life that would like such frame." His optics rolled over to Jetty, whom they'd noticed the CMO had a certain fondness for over the course of their dealings with the medical staff. The intern, not missing the insinuation, coughed and turned away with some embarrassment.
"Well thank you very much," he said. He was used to the gratitude of those whose lives he'd saved, and he'd often been gifted small services and black-market high-grade. But no gift had ever been as valuable as what these scavengers were presenting him with. "You're all very kind. And perhaps someday there will be someone... a sparkling or a bondmate maybe."
The three toshers were smiling happily. "We hope there will," they said nearly in unison. For once Stellaris did not stutter.
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The beautiful frame sat unused in Ratchet's office for ages, his favorite decoration. When he was eventually assigned to Optimus Prime's unit, he'd struck up a close friendship with the nutty engineer the Autobot leader kept around to work on weapons and solve problems. Wheeljack dubbed Citrine "Madame Ratchet," and often treated her as if she were already alive. He'd ask her permission for certain things, or let her know that her bondmate would be away for several orns on a mission or expedition. He'd flirt with her as well, mostly for Ratchet's amusement. Occasionally the engineer would adorn her with something pretty and leave her lying in Ratchet's berth or posed suggestively atop his desk.
Later, when a newly arrived special-ops agent was in Ratchet's office on some errand, he was immediately drawn to Citrine and stared at her, wanting to know how Ratchet had come by the lovely frame.
"Eh, she was a present to me," he told the blue and white mech.
"A gift?! Someone gave her to you?" He was stunned.
"Yep. I saved a spark and did a lot of repair work for some guys a couple of vorns ago. They insisted that I have her as payment."
The agent turned back to look at the pretty thing, who was currently sitting upon one of the industrial shelving units in Ratchet's office. "She's one of Halcyon's creations. He was one of the finest framers in Iacon. This..." he moved forward and traced his finger down one of the glassy bands of enamel atop her plating. "This is his signature work. Others copied it but no one could match it. And you have an unused frame of his here...?" He looked over at the medic, who sat smiling lazily with his feet upon his desk. "You probably have no idea how much it's worth, do you?" His accent betrayed an upbringing in the Towers.
"It's worth the gratitude of the mechs who gave it to me," he grinned.
"Have anything special in mind for her?" the mech asked curiously. He gently ran his thumb across her cheek as if to brush away a tear.
"Eh... dunno. Maybe someday I'll have a use for it."
"If you ever decide to sell it, let me know. I was on Halcyon's waiting list... but the war changed things."
"A new frame for yourself or for someone else?"
The blue and white mech only smiled enigmatically.
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"Thundercracker's Fate" continues in Chapter 5: "Prelude"
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Author Notes:
Citrine's Packaging – I tried to envision how such a valuable thing as her would arrive at a purchaser's home. In the end I decided she was much like an old-fashioned luxury doll, arriving in an outer box and an inner box designed to be kept. Those of you who've opened modern doll packages, know of the ties that keep the doll nicely positioned within the inner box, so I had to add them in as well.
White Elephant – Citrine really is a white elephant for the toshers... too valuable to keep, and during the war it's going to be hard to find a buyer for her. I can see them giving the frame to Ratchet in hopes that he could make use of her. And yes, as easily as they could have sold her to Blastshield, they'd made their mind up to be as generous to the mech as he'd been to them. Besides, if they'd sold her to Blastshield, there'd not be much of this story left.
Madame Ratchet – I can so easily envision Wheeljack's treatment of the empty frame and the fun he might have posing her about Ratchet's home and workspace. And the identity of the blue and white mech is pretty darn obvious, though I'll leave it up to the reader to decide upon his intent regarding obtaining one of Halcyon's frames.
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And please give my other TF stories a look over as well:
Grapple's Choice – Grapple/Hoist & Grapple/OC gestalt
The Broken Camera – Red Alert/Sideswipe (pre-Red Alert/Inferno)
Pet Canary – Rosanna/Scrapper & Rosanna/Soundwave
Stung – Bumblebee/Carly & Bumblebee/Everyone
Sunset Dreams - Jetfire/Swoop
Closer Than Ever Before – Soundwave/Ravage
The Wayward Series (four stories) – Humorous misunderstandings between mechs and humans
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