Chapter Text
Panicked voices echoed down the side entrance tunnel. Wheeljack drew his swords with a controlled shnick! Those were the children. Jack, Raf.. and Miko — the most fearless wrecker he knew.
He broke into a run, screaming his battlecry as he burst into the main room.
Instead of decepticons or scraplets or some other easy-to-slash-through foe, he was greeted with… he wasn’t sure. Nonetheless, his swords clattered to the floor as he ran to Ratchet.
Several alarming details jumped out at him — most glaringly the long-extinct Cybertronian flowers growing from his friends body. Wheeljack grabbed the medics’ pauldron and shook him, to no avail, “Doc?”
No answer.
For a moment, he closed his optics and took a deep vent. Then, he pressed a digit to a pulse point, counted it — it was fast -- and turned to the children while he began taking his temperature. “What happened here, Jack?”
While Jack listed off everything that went down from almost two weeks ago ‘til now, Miko tried to grab his attention. He ignored the young warrior to the best of his ability. This really needed to wait until after he’d helped out the unwell medic.
“I’ve never seen anything like it…” Jack finally trailed off.
Miko quite literally got up into Jacks face and screeched in it, frustration clearly leaking through. Her fists balled up. “Well lucky for us, I know exactly what is wrong with him, if you’d just listen to me!”
Jack looked somewhere between chastised and irritated. “Well, you could have said something sooner!”
It was looking to become an argument fast, but Raf jumped in before Wheeljack had to get all medieval on their afts (awkwardly parent two children more bull-headed than himself). “Stop it! While you’re fighting, Ratchets getting worse! And please, Wheeljack, move him off the floor!”
Wheeljack was beginning to feel just as chastised. The boy was right though, and he hooked his arms under the medics’ and hefted him up onto the medbay berth. The mech looked… awful.
A sickly hue coloured the medics cheeks. It reminded him a bit of the synth-en report. Wheeljack adjusted Ratchet on the berth so his hands were tucked at his sides and his pedes didn’t hang off the edge.
Once the medic appeared comfortable on the berth, Wheeljack began the steady process of hooking him up to all the medical slag. Some fancy intravenous lines with all sorts of fluids - energon, painkillers etc. Then, extra pain patches for good measure. Finally, he paused to look at what was clearly an intubation tube… he didn’t know if he could do this.
“Miko, talk to me. What do you know?”
Clearing her throat, Miko straightened. “It’s a disease called Hanahaki.. it.. ah.. infects those who suffer from unreciprocated love.”
Silence.
If he strained, he could probably hear that idiom pin drop just about now.
Jack was the first to recover. “Miko, this isn’t time for jokes.”
Wheeljack let the children fight it out while he scanned through the files Ratchet had sent him only a week back. All medical slag. Ratchet needed a reality check if he thought anyone was capable of the majority of this without any medical school or training.
He flicked through it until he found the datapack for intubation. Administer sedative. Check. Scan his throat to ensure he threaded it through the correct tube —
“—erm, hello??! You need to clear his airways first. The flowers?” Miko said, hands on hips and all serious.
Wheeljacks hands’ shook with the pressure of it all, coolant already dripping from his forehelm. Tension snapping, he finally hissed, “Miko, I need to concentrate.”
Miko turned to Raf, desperation leaking into her body language, “do you remember what Optimus said when he returned from his mission a week ago? That first meeting with Starscream — he said he’d made a bioweapon to “weaponise Megatrons love for Optimus”. Please, Raf!”
Raf lowered his laptop. “That’s true.”
“This is what that is! It all makes sense.”
“How would something like that even work?” Jack asked seriously.
Wheeljacks servos shook as he fiddled with his cable, and it took him several attempts to connect with Ratchets medical port. While Wheeljack didn’t have medical overrides, Ratchets’ systems let him in. Before he could lose his nerve, the wrecker sent a command to open the medics chestplates.
Clumped petals and twisting vines clung to the soft blue glow of the sparkchamber. Within its protective casing, the spark ebbed from bright to dark to very bright in fast intervals. The medic winced, assumably at the cold air touching the sensitive organ, but he did not stir either.
“Tell me everything you know about this hanahaki then.”
“All you need to worry about is getting him stable,” she turned to the boys, “and we need to contact Optimus and get him here now. He is the only one who can fix this.”
Jacks mouth opened to argue, or to ask, or something, but Miko cut him off again, “Raf, I know you’ve been working on your Cybertronian. Get Ratchets datapad he was working on earlier and see if he’s left anything to help us.”
“Why would—“
In sync, Miko and Raf said, “It’s Ratchet.”
Everyone got to work. It’s what Ratchet needed right now.
——
Optimus tapped his pede, a rare indicator that he was becoming impatient. His patience wore thin the longer the traitorous seeker attempted to butter him up all while wasting his time. He wanted to return to Ratchet as soon as possible.
Bumblebee nudged him with a neutral EM field. Releasing a tired vent, Optimus offered Bee a small smile, barely a quirk of his lips, and focused back on the task at hand.
He valiantly ignored Starscreams drivel.
“Really, you should be quite pleased to have me as an ally, Prime,” Starscream bragged with an exaggerated flourish of his wings and gesturing expansively with finely manicured claws. “In fact, I can guarantee Megatrons demise is drawing ever near with the spectacular success of my bioweapon.” Starscream hesitated. Here we go. This is what he had been building up to say for the past twenty minutes. Optimus barely pushed down an optic roll. “I assume when the war ends I will be granted.. full immunity for my crimes..?” Starscream gave a nervous look to the exit of the cave, where Arcee stood guard staring daggers.
Distracted, it took the Prime a moment to realise he was supposed to answer. “Ah. No. You will likely be offered a fair trial and we will take into consideration your efforts in ending the war. Though, upon Megatrons “demise” we may instead offer.. rehabilitation to all decepticons willing to defect.”
A flowery way of saying he hadn’t a clue.
Surprisingly, Starscream took his non-answer in stride. “Right, of course,” and they turned to the half-decent vein of energon once more.
Optimus had originally planned on having Bee and Arcee standing guard and Bulkhead inside with him. It would be a bad idea to have Arcee within any sort of proximity of Starscream and Bee could keep her temper in check better than anyone. However, Bee hadn’t wanted to leave his side since they’d left Ratchet, and Optimus didn’t have the spark to say no to him.
Their equipment had seen better days. The filters only half-worked. This machinery was incredibly inefficient. Optimus sighed heavily. That sounded a lot like Ratchet.
Optimus was just thinking about the merits of calling Ratchet to tell him exactly that, but then—
—Halfway through filling the energon cubes, the emergency comm line blared to life, urgent and foreboding. Something about this particular comm made his lines run cold. The kids were all screaming down the line at once, but he focused on Raf who seemed to make the most sense.
::Optimus, you have to get back here now. There’s something wrong with Ratchet—:: Optimus’ engine revved as he prepared himself to enter the groundbridge that would surely soon follow that terrifying sentence. When nothing happened, he gave his fellow autobots an expectant look and gestured to the decepticon before tearing off full throttle. Or at least he thought it was full throttle until Raf finally explained the reason for the lack of groundbridge. ::we can’t send a groundbridge because we need all the energon we can get for Ratchets surgery:: and now Optimus was truly speeding.
Surgery?
What on Earth had happened while he was away?
Burnt rubber and squealing tyres washed over his senses as he tore out of the cave. On the roads, he swerved and honked and very very briefly considered nudging someone going twenty under the speed limit. He refrained, but the thought crossed his racing processor as he overtook the loitering idiot. He had to get to Ratchet.
All of his usual self-restraint and stoicism seemed to go out the window the second Ratchet was involved. A part of him knew that probably wasn’t a good thing for a Prime. He found he didn’t really care.
Ratchet… did things to his spark. Made him feel things no one else could. Made him feel like himself. Optimus and Orion. Butterflies too. That’s what the humans called it. He felt butterflies. That terrible and wonderful feeling in his tanks that only made itself known in the presence of his medic.
Optimus took a turn far too quickly. With his tyre treads entirely burnt out, he skidded. Knowing he was on the final stretch of road to base, he transformed painfully fast. Time slowed for a moment as he veered dangerously close to faceplanting, before he caught himself with his hands. Pain shot up his wrists as several struts snapped.
He barely processed it. Scrambling back onto his pedes, he took off in a sprint.
He must’ve blacked out because one moment he was sprinting down the road, and the next he was bursting through the main entrance of their base.
The kids immediately clamoured to the edge of the platform, but Optimus froze in the doorway. He covered his mouth — blood and clumps of something littered every corner and crevice of base. It all lead back to Ratchet, unconscious and open on the medberth. Optimus could see his spark. It glowed dim — but stubborn, much like the mech it belonged to.
Optimus shocked the kids with an uncharacteristic display of emotion — a tiny sob. With hands full of road grit and painful fractures up his arm, the only ache that truly registered was that of his spark. It harrowed him, his spark, to see his love so wounded and small. He rushed over to Ratchet.
Optimus… didn’t know what to do.
It was his job. His responsibility.
And yet, his optics quivered with unshed tears and his bottom lip ever-so-slightly wobbled behind his mask. He needed to focus, but everytime he tried to, he’d look at his medic again.
Those powerful, knowing optics were dark, when they should be aglow, or calculating, or full of his quiet humour that Optimus adored oh so much. That humour he shared alone with Optimus.
Those hands — once steady and strong — fisted the medberth in unconscious agony.
Those lips, glistening bloodied blue and open around an intubation tube equally bloodied in half-processed energon.
Those pretty medic stripes… faded and sickly.
Everything about the medic screamed wrong.
The flowers scared him the most. The Prime had never seen anything like it: not in his time in the archives, or any of his experience in this thousand year war. What really frightened him though — neither had the wisdom bestowed upon him from the matrix.
He was utterly alone without Ratchet. He would know what to do. Optimus did not.
The blooms tore through Ratchet as if they were blades and he was mere paper. Poking through his armour, peeling off his flaking paint, and dripping with his blood.
Optimus carefully ran a hand up the medics arm kibble, collecting the dangling vines and putting them on the stasis-bound sleeping medic. That way, they wouldn’t pull so much from wherever they connected. Like his spark…
Optimus tried to keep his eyes away.
His frame crawled uncomfortably.
It was wrong to look but the sight was intoxicating — Ratchets spark was as beautiful as his mind. Optimus grimaced, and with bite, he said “Wheeljack. Basic etiquette is to keep patients covered. He will catch a cold.”
Wheeljack scoffed, “I think a cold is the least of his worries. And it’s nice to see you’re finally listening again, boss.”
“What are you doing to him? You are not a trained medic,” Optimus briefly turned to fetch a sheet, which he found easily as he tended to help Ratchet with medical inventory. He paused to make sure he didn’t impede on Wheeljacks work before gently covering the vulnerable spark.
Wheeljack sighed. “Nope, still not listening at all.”
Optimus watched as the wrecker continued to snip away at the foliage, complaining all the while about listening to stupid fifteen year-olds. “That seems.. inefficient. Surely, you should be removing them from the roots.”
“Optimus.” Wheeljack looked incredibly tired now that Optimus really paid him some mind. The Wrecker pressed a gory hand to the Primes pauldron. “Ratchet is stable. What Miko says may sound crazy, but I’m starting to think she might be right.”
Optimus didn’t move from Ratchets side, but he turned to at least look at the girl. She pursed her lips, wincing before a whole bunch of words tumbled from her mouth. “Okay, this might sound crazy but the only way for you to save Ratchet is for you to confess your love to him.”
Jack scolded her while Optimus choked up his vents and his smokestacks, well, smoked. Was he that obvious? “I do not— that is— how could you think?—“
“You two look at each other with such — eugh — love, it’s kind of hard to ignore. Really, we all think you should get a room and you aren’t even a ‘thing’ yet.”
Optimus gawped.
On Cybertron, it probably would have been considered blasphemy to speak to him in such ways. While he utterly hated all of that nonsense, it would’ve been a nice defence just about now for all the knowing optics on him.
“Listen to me, Optimus!” Miko hissed, drawing his attention again. He blinked. “Ratchet loves you. This disease is a physical materialisation of that love and it’s killing him. When Ratchet wakes up, I need you to put your big-bot boots on and tell him exactly how you feel. He left you a datapad. We didn’t read it fully, but…”
With a minutely clearer head (a complete lie, his mind whirled), Optimus shakily took the datapad from the platform. He clicked it on with a shakier digit, and began to read.
His frown grew as he read, brow furrowing. Thankfully, he was spared reading the rest when a spike in the monitor alerted them to Ratchets growing consciousness.
The others left the room.
Optimus weakly vented.
Everything was happening so suddenly—
How was he supposed to—
The spark monitor surged as Ratchet panicked, trying to sit up. In an instant, Optimus moved back to his side and softly pressed him back into the berth, so so careful of the vines and open spark.
Those unwavering medic hands scrambled to withdraw the tubing from his mouth, choking and spluttering. Optimus knew exactly how to perform this procedure — he had been on the other side more times than any bot should.
With tender care, he rested a servo over that of the fidgety medics’, while his other found the controls for the berth. Optimus winced. It was a very slow med berth. Eventually, Ratchet was settled in an upright position so Optimus could proceed.
Belatedly, Optimus remembered, “ah.. I am moving you to an upright position — to remove the tube. I’ll deflate the cuff when you are ready—“
Ratchet nodded his head quickly.
Optimus deflated the cuff and his poor medic immediately started to cough again. “Getting ahead of ourselves,” the Prime joked before he could think better of it. Guilt struck him but Ratchet surprised him with a laugh. A proper laugh.
“I’m sure you know this is the bad part. I’d like you to cough whenever you are ready so I can remove the tube. Is that okay?”
Ratchet nodded and began to cough.
Optimus fought back a gag as he pulled the tube loose, wincing when it caught on something. Once out, Ratchet did gag. The Prime took the opportunity to launch the grisly tube across the far-side of the room.
“Are you alright, old friend?”
Something in Ratchets expression crumpled. Then, it smoothed over like it never happened at all. “I am a little cold…”
“Here,” Optimus ran his frames fans, dumping hot air into the medics space. “I am still running hot from my journey back.”
Ratchet eyed him, “I noticed.”
Silence.
“Ratchet, I—“
“Your berthside manner needs work though. You aren’t supposed to make jokes while you’re doing an extubation,” Ratchet said, a small humour in his hoarse voice.
Optimus opened his mouth again, but clearly the medic was feeling talkative, or more likely, avoidant. “How are the children? Raf was—“
“Ratchet.” Optimus threaded his digits through the medics steepled hands, and allowed his mask to retreat. “Do not do that. Talk to me, please.”
“I— I don’t know what you want me to say..”
Optimus stilled. Deep down he knew he’d have to be the one to talk. To be vulnerable. “I read the datapad you left behind.”
Dread exploded in Ratchets EM field. “Truthfully, I have no recollection of what I wrote in that datapad, I was in a bit of a daze at the time…”
It was clear that the medic could hazard a guess though — one Optimus suspected was right.
This was happening.
Optimus paused for a very long time, trying to find the words. Ratchet let him.
For the whole silence, Ratchet grimaced, clearly expecting rejection. It pained him. This beautiful mech thought so lowly of himself and it cut Optimus’ very spark.
“I am.. very upset with the contents— ah, that’s not— mm.. I mean, Ratchet. You are my dearest friend and I hate that you cannot see yourself the way that I see you.”
“I thought that what I said after the synth-en… incident.. might have gotten through to you. Clearly, it did not. Every word I said to you, is true. The team needs you, yes.. but really I need you.”
Ratchet stared at him, wide-eyed. Optimus plowed on. He needed to hear everything. “The datapad.. the way that you talk about yourself makes me feel so incredibly sick. I simply cannot grasp how you can think so little of yourself. You are the kindest, smartest mech I have ever known.”
Optimus let himself smile a tiny bit, the reluctant hope in Ratchets face a beacon to guide him. He allowed himself a moment of humour, “I ever hear you speak so poorly of yourself again, I may just have to short your mouth circuits.”
Ratchet, recognising the reference to what he himself had said only a week back, laughed wetly. He scoffed, “I feel this may be considered a life-threatening injury…”
Optimus nodded. “Yes, but it won’t be for long.” The mood shifted again. Optimus could not let Ratchet balance in the unknown for any longer. “I am mad at myself for not seeing this.. your suffering.”
Ratchet opened his mouth again, clearly to argue. Optimus shook his head.
“I must be honest with you. I was… scared to tell you and lose a friend. My best friend. You have been by my side for thousands of vorns… and I’ve loved you from the very first day that I met you.”
In all those vorns, he hadn’t ever seen his friend cry. “Optimus, you don’t need to say anything else—“
“I want to. I need you to know,” Optimus noticed the distance between them, and gave Ratchet a questioning look. The medic nodded with a tiny smile. Optimus pressed into the medics space, chestplate to chestplate, servo in servo.
“Ratchet, I love you with my entire spark. I love your kindness, and your bravery, and your humour. I love your passion, and how gentle you are, even when you pretend like you are not. Please, Ratchet, forgive my thousand-vorn-long cowardice, and allow me to love you in the way that you deserved.”
Somewhere in his speech, their servos had shifted. Optimus’ thumb brushed a stray tear from the medics cheek. Ratchet grasped at his chestplates. They both moved at the same time, until their faces were just barely touching.
“May I?” Optimus whispered.
“Please.”
Optimus cupped the medics helm, carefully avoiding pressing himself into that warm open spark. Hyperaware of everything, and a little unsure how to proceed, he allowed Ratchet to drag him the final distance by his windshield.
For the very first time, their lips brushed together, and it was perfect. The scent of their home-world blooms and Ratchets’ polish dizzied the Prime, and he rested a hand against the berth to steady himself. Warmth bloomed in his chest and butterflies pranced in his tanks as Ratchet pulled him impossibly closer. His touch, his scent, his everything was intoxicating to take in.
Optimus felt a little light-headed by the time they parted.
Ratchets optics’ took several kliks to focus again, and when he glanced up at the Prime, his soft lips twisted into a shy smile. Beautiful.
Finally, Optimus looked down to see the state of the flowers. Before his very optics, they simply dissolved away like a bad dream. Ratchet looked down too.
Ratchet pursed his lips, then glanced at Optimus with a small grin, “that was… anti-climatic.”
“Do you feel better, dearest?”
Optimus hid a smile behind his servo as the medic flushed a fierce blue, and allowed himself to be drawn back into another kiss.
It was heaven.
Epilogue
Ratchet fumed.
How Optimus could walk around with multiple arm fractures and road-grit embedded in his palms, he’d never know!
At least Optimus seemed somewhat repentant. That was, until he opened his mouth. “For you, it was worth it.”
“Shut up, you old sap.” Ratchet had already tweezed one palm clean and slathered it with the last of the nanite paste. Optimus had made him use most of it on the tiny scratches and holes in his own armour! Like Ratchet needed it! His self-repair could’ve managed it… but the hurt look Optimus gave him when he initially denied further treatment had him relenting immediately. Eugh. Maybe Ratchet was the old sap. “Your smooth talking won’t get you out of everything.”
Optimus gave him a surprisingly teasing smile, “I’m sure you are right.”
Ratchet was still embarrassed that his fellow autobots had caught them kissing like new builds. Arcee, Bulkhead and Bumblebee had all been in the doorway when Ratchet had deepened the second kiss.
Arcee had wolf-whistled.
Mortification still trudged through his lines at the memory.
He’d never live it down.
Worse still — Starscream was hid behind them too.
Not that Ratchet paid him any mind.
“You need to take better care of yourself,” Ratchet had already secured the splints and now ran his servos up and down them, just barely teasing a transformation seam.
Every time Ratchet did anything remotely close, the rest of the team eyed the medbay nervously — like they’d do anything right there in front of them!! The nerve of some bots. Instead Ratchet rubbed the gauze-wrapped hand with a careful thumb and stared at Optimus with a thinly-veiled adoration.
He could hear the children, well Miko, making vomiting sounds from somewhere behind them.
Then, Agent Fowler barged in making a whole lot of noise. “PRIME! Why am I getting reports of a semi-transforming-into-a-robot in BROAD DAYLIGHT?!”
Ratchet couldn’t help but laugh. Really laugh. While Optimus was scolded to hell about all the paperwork, and the kids continued to make all their noise, and the autobots laughed right alongside him, Ratchet smiled.
This was his family, and he was glad to see them happy once more.
Even if they made him want to short his audial-receptors out sometimes.
——