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Part 16 of Wish Fulfillment Drift AUs
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2025-07-06
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2025-07-13
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For No-one Else To Hear

Summary:

The long search is over. They've found Cybertron, stopped its runaway trajectory, and they're all heading home.

It doesn't mean a damn thing until Ratchet finds his missing patient.

Notes:

Holy shit this one did not want to be written for a while there, oof. BUT. With thanks to TheUniverseLost for the inspiration, consider this a kind of AU for Midnight Rider - it's less obviously space cowboys because they're in a less obvious kind of setting, but hopefully the references sprinkled through will make up for that. ^_^;

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

"...the fuck did you do?"

*

The medbay was all right, he supposed. Obviously only really used for everyday scuffs and bumps, maybe long-term management of older problems, but a far cry from Ratchet's own meticulous system of frontline surgery. The couple of doctors they did have - about his age maybe, with the plummy accents of Iaconian-trained practitioners who knew just how much they could charge per visit and whose secretary to send the bill to - they looked down their noses at first, as they showed him inside.

"And...where was it you trained?" one of them asked, like it was a delicate question. His gaze trailed over Ratchet's coat and broad-brimmed hat like they might stain if he lingered on them too long, boots dusty and coat-hem spattered with carbon scoring, the armour poking out underneath.

"Iacon General," Ratchet replied absently, heading in past the neat little admin's desk and its gleaming white-and-chrome finish. Like everything else in here, it looked halfway to being an art installation - glossy, barely-used. Not even a scuff on the corners. "Worked up from paramedic to major surgery, before everything went to hell. You do cybernetics in here too?"

"Of course," the other one huffed. They were starting to look invested now, though, if edgy about it - nobody here'd had fresh gossip since they'd abandoned the planet years ago. If Ratchet had any real interest in keeping them dangling for more- well, he didn't, and he started opening up storage units instead. Damn fool storage system they had in here; nothing was in the right place. "Surgery, is it? I suppose you must have seen Piers Farrah at work."

"What, Pharma?" Another pair of wrinkled noses; nobody liked the reminders of reality around here either, callsigns or the actual worse things. "Sure. Classmates, before we dated. One of the other outrider teams is heading out that way to pick him and his up if you wanted to say hi later."

"Dated?" one of them echoed, the odd note in there that only came in around when Ratchet's reputation started swinging through. "But then that would make you-"

"Ah, your pardon." ...and thank the damn stars for ground support, because all at once Ratchet was not in the mood for this anymore. 'Doom loped into the room and past the gawking Crystal City medics - surgeons, excuse him - with his bootheels clicking on the polished metal floors and spurs jingling softly, the badge naming him as one of what were fast becoming known as Roddy's Rangers shining on his coat. "Apologies, Medic Ratchet, there was some issue of where to store the ship."

"What, that little thing?"

'Doom smiled, though it didn't touch the grim look in his eyes that hadn't really left since they'd entered this sector. "It seems that the City is uniquely unequipped for visitors. Or evacuation, given the empty state of their own shuttle hold. All that are in full repair are the blast doors."

"The city is secure by design," one of the other doctors huffed, and that was it, that was all he could take.

"All right, all right, thanks for the tour, you can go now," Ratchet rapped out, and bullied them both out of the door by sheer physical presence. "Out! Go on, get! Patient confidentiality, shoo."

"I must say, that is very satisfying to watch," 'Doom said, and swung himself up onto the nearest medbay berth with- well. It wasn't what Ratchet was looking for, even after all this time, mostly because 'Doom was two-thirds leg and swept his deep red duster coat out of the way like he was taking a seat in a salon with an electroharp at his feet. He didn't need to boost himself up with both hands, or forget himself and start swinging a foot in the air when he couldn't reach the damn floor.

Ratchet shook his head, more at himself than anything, and came over with a grumble that he didn't really mean. "Yeah, well, if they don't start the 'ooh, where did you go to school?' game then I don't have to finish it, but they did, so here we are."

"Here we are," 'Doom said softly, and neither of them spoke for a moment as Ratchet pulled out his own damn tools, thank you, and set to tuning up 'Doom's knee braces now they were working with actual gravity again. They didn't need it, but finding out the medbay wherever they landed always left him feeling more settled, and unsurprisingly 'Doom was almost as obliging about getting a tune-up as...other people he'd known. Most settlements calmed down at sudden strangers once they realised the stranger in charge was a medic, who would rather wait for their leaders to show up in all their pomp in his natural environment and maybe do some free basic care while he was at it. "...do you know, I recognise some of the statuary here."

"Yeah?"

"Mm. It's all very tastefully arranged, to be sure, with their natural-grown crystals refracting the lights they placed about it, and yet." 'Doom shifted his knee obligingly to let Ratchet get at another screw; he learned quick, but it still tore Ratchet up inside at times 'Doom was a patient, but not his patient. Still. Having him here helped. "I recognise some few of the pieces from the Towers; I had heard that there were many wealthy donors who had chartered their own luxury cruise liners to escape the Slingshot Event, and then were utterly horrified to find that their expensive art pieces had been co-opted in the name of preservation and...rescued, from their collections. By civilians, no less, instead of either grubby warmongering faction, who claimed they had more right to preserve them off-planet - I forget the exact logic of why."

"How dare," Ratchet said dryly, and 'Doom huffed in wordless agreement.

"Several of us were up in figurative arms when the wealthy scattered," he said, though it came out softer and more sad than bitter. "Those who had never been permitted inside of a museum, much less an elite gallery. Why were we denied a right to beauty, to see what was possible for a person to make? ...you know why, of course."

"Sure do." It'd come up in a general kinda sense back at the beginning of things, though a bunch of rogue culture lovers hadn't been the ones in focus at the time. He'd been furious at having to leave so much behind on Cybertron as it span out into the darkness, but it'd been about medical equipment, scanners, hospitals. What they'd managed to throw into the Ark had barely been enough. Ratchet wished he could go back and have those arguments all over again, now, riding dusty meteor herds or scrambling for cover on some far-flung rock in between getting shot at - at least he'd known where his asshole cactus of a partner was. "Do me a favour and flex that? ...thanks. Well, you know what'll happen if some bright spark tries scooping up anything that was quote-unquote public access now."

"Ah yes. Disappointment from the one Prime and outrage from the other, and whichever one is which take turns," 'Doom said, with a laugh that managed to come out genuine. Ratchet grinned back at him, closed up his braces' access panels and topped up the lubricant wells, just in case. This city-in-a-cavern-in-an-asteroid might not be as thick with stardust as the outer frontiers they'd passed through to get here, but no need to take chances.

*

"So y'- what, just fuckin' robbed some art 'n ran? Who gave you the right t'take it, who gave- You fuckin' ran away 'n stole anythin' you thought was too good for us fuckers in th'gutter? Y'think that makes you better, y'think that means your conscience is clean?"

*

The fleet wasn't far behind. There'd be work to do when they landed planetside at last but Ratchet'd needed to get away for a while when he still had the chance, some time to get out into the black and maybe do some good now that the raids had petered out and the damn planet had been found. Sure, they were still working on getting Cybertron back into a stable orbit, but at least they'd managed to get the goddamn thing to stop.

At least they didn't have to listen to Megatron or Starscream throwing a hissy fit about the science involved. Small mercies.

Ratchet didn't like to think about how he'd put up with all the stupid schemes and idiotic plots on far-flung rocky moons all over again just to know what'd happened to his patient.

One small mercy. Just one.

"...anyway," he said out loud, the words echoing a little inside the fancy audience chamber. Everything here was paved with metal or crystal, like it'd been grown up the walls and polished to a mirror shine. "It's up to you. You wanna stay here and do your own thing, the Primes are gonna be fine with it. Hell, they'll just be glad to know there's people out here. If you wanna come back, though, it won't be perfect right off when we still have to get everything back up and running. It won't be comfortable at first, but you can re-settle on Cybertron again. Be part of what we make of it."

Murmurs started up around them; Dai Atlas and his council stared back at him from their little platform, stony-faced. "Part of what you make of it," Atlas echoed, and Ratchet gritted his jaw. "An interesting turn of phrase."

"Yeah, well, you don't wanna join in on the work then you don't get to complain," Ratchet shot back, and heard the soft, approving huff of a laugh from where 'Doom stood at his shoulder. "You do come back, then it's following the charter: everyone gets fed, everyone gets housed, everyone gets free medical care and fair treatment under the law. We're not gonna make the same goddamn mistakes twice."

"All new ones instead, it seems, given that you are an Autobot standing beside a Decepticon," Atlas said - subtle as a brick to the face was just his marker, apparently. "Although it seems that you've managed to civilise this one."

Ratched inhaled sharply. "If you would prefer to continue the division and fighting, Dai Atlas, then by all means feel free to do so," 'Doom said, bright and vicious as the biting ice in a comet-tail. "But you would not be welcome in the inclusive society we aim to build. Some of us have a very different view of what classes as civilised."

"Meantime, anyone who can keep a civil goddamn tongue in their head and wants updated vaccines or similar medical care's welcome to come see me," Ratchet added, because like hell was he going to let them think he wouldn't back 'Doom to the hilt or sit quiet for that kind of assholery. "Any of that kind of talk and I'll boot you out on your ears, but there's no charge for seeing a medic under charter rules. We'll be heading out and hooking back up with the fleet when it passes by, so we're on a deadline to leave but you aren't for an arrival date." Good luck trying to bury us or pretend to the Primes we were never here, he didn't say but thought real loudly. They hadn't been quiet coming in, not with having to navigate a whole field of asteroids surrounding this big one, and they hadn't made a secret that the fleet knew exactly where they were. Ratchet was no fool, and 'Doom had been conscientious as hell sending back their position markers.

Dai Atlas' lip curled, and he waved them off with a dismissal that mostly covered over the fact that Ratchet was heading back to their medbay whether he liked it or not. Ratchet cast his eye over the watching citizens as he and 'Doom turned and headed back for the doors - mostly older folks, middle aged and up, with a small handful of maybe-twenties kids that likely barely remembered Cybertron at all. There was a bit of interest, if he was any judge, but it looked more reluctant than he'd figured, even amongst the younger ones. He'd thought there'd be those itching to get out into the wider galaxy, if they really had been entirely self-sufficient and had to make their own fun - you couldn't eat fine art or fancy crystal, no matter where it'd come from, and he'd been enough of a hellion that he would've been chomping at the bit to get out there and see something new. Still was, honestly.

At least on the medical front they had a decent hydroponics setup and their own doctors weren't skimping on the vitamin supplements.

A small few did look eager, though not many and not that openly - bright eyes, excited whispering to their neighbours, that sort of thing. Ratchet didn't stop and look, if only so he didn't snuff that enthusiasm out by calling disapproval down on the heads of the young-and-reckless; one here, one there, and a couple at the back against the wall wearing the theatrical armour they seemed to like here, vacuum suits layered in matchy-matchy panels done up in the kind of glossy white that'd get ruined the minute they actually went outside without something to protect the finish. One of the kids was whispering hard to the other, visor up on a pale face that'd likely never seen the sun; his other half had their helmet sealed closed like they were in hard vacuum, standing still enough that - heck, maybe they were a companion drone or assistive device, Ratchet'd seen weirder things. Still...something about the fixed pose and how the kid was holding on tight to their companion's arm bothered him, and he kept part of his attention on the pair until Ratchet couldn't see them out the corner of his eye anymore.

*

"Y'can't keep me here. -I mean it, what, am I indenture now? Gotta work off how much it cost t'do this t'me?"

*

'Doom stuck around for a bit, until Ratchet got a rhythm down with the trickle of patients coming to see him. Mostly just for the novelty, he was sure, but given that their arrival and the little speech they'd made had to be racing around the cavern city's gossip network, he was willing to wait and see what came of it. They had a few days before the fleet was due to pass through.

A few days inside a hidden city, even - one that bristled at passers-by, that looked at the Autobot fleet and the Decepticon raiders and called each as bad as the other, with leaders that leaned hard on staying hermeutically sealed inside their borders with the remnants of the Golden Age they'd managed to salvage, and dug their heels in saying that was for the best?

Yeah, they were pretty much duty-bound to snoop just a little bit, if only to see if there was anyone who desperately needed an escape.

(Besides. There'd been the faint, fading ghost of a distress signal that caught on their sensors like an echo of a scream, the last fading light of a star that'd died millennia ago and crossed the galaxy to find them. There'd been fine fragments of metal in the asteroid field, too small for a hauler to pick out through magnets and manual handling but just enough to register on their little hopper's scanners. There was reason to look. ...there was a reason 'Doom'd defected and then stuck to Ratchet's side ever since Turmoil'd shown his face back at the 'Con raiding network, had thrown himself all-in on this wider sweep of the path the remainder of the Autobot fleet was taking towards Cybertron. If there was even the slightest chance...)

So. 'Doom made himself visible for a bit, then made himself an excuse and slipped away. Ratchet puttered, looking over delicate cybernetic parts that had never seen a chop shop clinic or mine pit in their entire functioning, went over comm installations that were more art than anything because there was nothing out here to pick up, and tried not to get all tight around the chest remembering treating affluenza in the Senate. He'd had the Rodion clinic to do some real good at, back then.

Maybe it was the remembered feeling of being trapped in a gilded cage that was making his chest ache. Maybe it wasn't. Either way, it'd have to wait.

He took a deep breath. Glanced up at the next shape in the door, blinked away anything that might've even hinted at making the shape a blur - pain, tears, all of it. The ache was partly why he was out here - helping, healing, and maybe finally getting some goddamn answers, and it could wait its turn to take hold of him until he hit the bunk at night.

"Oh," he said, startling as his focus sharpened - it was the companion model he'd seen in the audience hall, standing half in and half out of the doorway, tall and blocky and strange. "C'mon in, I don't bite."

The model - hesitated. Or - wait, was it actually one of those clunky old servitors they used to have around the place in the snobbier echelons? Like a miner's exosuit but hollow, a fancy bit of clockwork compared to functional prosthetics but expensive as hell, which was the real draw, along with not looking like a more organic, dense but inoffensive support model. If the kid in the hall wanted to ask him about leaving it was the least subtle way to send information back and forth, but if that was all they could think of...

He squinted. The feet were too big by far to be a companion model, now he could see 'em, set too far apart for the typical human pelvic structure just to get all the fancy platework in on the legs; servitors were old tech, like the four-legged mounts that'd roared back into practicality when Cybertron had gone spinning out into the wild black yonder, and didn't have the little quirks of personality that the mounts had developed. A companion model picked up things you could call habits, which servitors didn't have the processing power for, but something about that little dither in the doorway...

"Hey," he started, but too late; the shape was already moving away, soundless on the metal floors, and Ratchet could hear booted feet coming the other way in the corridor. "...well, hell. Next time."

He had work incoming, but...something was bothering him about that frame.

*

...'s not me. It's not me it's NOT ME it's not ME get it off, GET IT OFF-

*

"Oh, hey," Ratchet said, and this time his visitor didn't disappear on him. "C'mon in, I've got some downtime if you want a job."

Maybe he was being too optimistic - or maybe luck was on his side for once. The white armoured frame came inside, slow, and Ratchet watched with ferocious attention while his hands went through the practised motions of washing up without him. Steady gait, but the steps are lagging; if those were cybernetics I'd say they were underpowered. If it's a servitor, it's definitely underpowered, and even for a companion model I'd want to get under the hood and turn up the gain there. Directed, even from an unclear prompt, which says maybe nuanced companion. Diagnosis.......hell if I know.

"I've got screws to sort if you're not busy," Ratchet said, and nodded to a tray he'd set down on the sole (thinly-padded, uncomfortable, barely-used) berth. His visitor turned to look at it - or to scan it, maybe, Ratchet didn't have anything set up to check that yet - and headed over, one slow, deliberate footstep at a time.

Despite himself, even if they vislby weren't human, despite everything, Ratchet still looked for Deadlock's gait in every stranger's walk. Just in case. It hurt every time he didn't find it, but he refused to fucking stop.

They didn't sit - made sense, they were too damn stiff to sit and twist at the waist and maybe too heavy for the berth's rating - but instead bent over it in a way that made Ratchet's back ache in sympathy. One at a time, slow, they picked up one screw and then another, sorting them into different types into different little pockets in the tray, fingers a little too big for detail work but being so damn careful anywau. Ratchet finished washing his hands, then sterilised his equipment, then got a couple batches of water pellets and antiseptic gels brewing up as he pretended he wasn't keeping an eye on his visitor. Isolation didn't exactly breed innovation, and medical treatment had advanced in part because of the raids and the roving, not despite it. Sure it might stink, but Ratchet'd gone nose-blind to it years back and Iacon General'd had the most effective goops - like hell was Ratchet losing the formula just for the smell of the stuff. It tended to drive most off when he was batching, even 'Doom when Ratchet got into the swing of stocking up, but at least servitors didn't mind smells - this one just let out a little huff of vents like a sigh and kept going.

It was an odd, quiet kind of company, and something at the back of Ratchet's mind itched about it. It wasn't- 'Doom chattered, cheerful, filling up the quiet with nothing much unless Ratchet joined in and it turned into an actual conversation, which he didn't mind. Kind of like having Bluestreak around, in a way. But this was - it was almost like having Prowl sitting in the corner to finish up his reports while Ratchet worked, company that didn't need anything from him but appreciated that he was around. Or like when Deadlock-

...his visitor stayed the entire rest of the shift, and only slowed to a stop when the crystal chimes sounded through the corridors to mark the artificial end of the day. "Well, hell," Ratchet said, stretching out his hands and arching his back, rolling his shoulders out. "We got more done than I thought. Thanks, kid."

It just...slipped out without thinking. Quicksilver and stabbing his own damn-fool self in the heart, rather than waiting for someone to do it for him. Ratchet turned around on his heel and leaned on the workbench, taking a sharp breath, then another; it didn't help, but it did more than knotting his damn hand in his coat and holding on could do for him, and what else was the too-sleek showroom piece of a workbench for, anyway.

He'd have to clean it down again after this. Get rid of his fingerprints. Wipe his grief away until he knew. He wasn't giving up.

A shift in the air, a prickle in his blind spot, and a too-long too-square hand touched tentative fingertips to his back. Just under his shoulderblade, just where Deadlock's hand should've rested. Where he should've been. For a moment, just for one single smelter-heat moment, Ratchet would've burned down the world and everything in it to have him back, and almost reared around to smack the touch away for being the wrong damn one. His temper sputtered out before he so much as stiffened up, sick and hollow with all the things he was trying to bury, and he couldn't do this now. He could rage and curse in his berth while 'Doom pretended not to hear in the next room over, and next shift they would damn well keep looking.

Ratchet hauled in another rasping breath. There were voices outside. Shift change. People. ...right.

"Go on, get," he said, rough and stubborn. "Don't go getting in trouble with the assholes in charge. I'm fine."

Like fuck y'are, Ratch.

Shit, Ratchet could just hear him now. Always more worried about Ratchet than about keeping himself in one piece, the goddamn diamantine cactus. All prickles until he let you into the sweetness underneath.

But his visitor wasn't His Patient, and likely had orders to stick to anyway. The hand slid away, slow, and Ratchet counted the beat of his heart until he could stand up straight again.

*

"Fuck you. Fuck you, this ain't about safe, d'y'even understand that? Nobody's gonna come for some worthless colony with nothin' but statues 'n bad attitude! I get out, there's no fuckin' point t'me tellin' anyone this place is here 'cause the only value it's got's if the fightin's already over! What fuckin' good are y' to anyone as needs feedin'? I got people waitin' on me back there!"

*

//Ratchet,// 'Doom short-burst into his comm, static and urgency hitting like a hammer. //Ratchet, I found justice.//

"Wait, you what?" Ratchet blurted, hand going to the jut of the comm implant at his hairline on reflex; there was no-one else in the medbay right then, save for his unofficial medical assist. His visitor had come back every shift Ratchet was in the medbay after that first day, and Ratchet had no idea what it was the mech actually did before him and 'Doom had shown up but they seemed perfectly at home working as his assistant. Maybe he'd got it wrong, and the kid he'd seen hanging off the mech's arm was sending it down to keep an eye on him? Joke's on them, he'd share his recipes for free, and 'Doom was too smart to be anything but smooth and bland as hell when they were in the same space as the mech.

(He'd finally started getting numbers coming in for all the variant vaccines - still not many, but enough to make Optimus smile when they met up in a couple days time - and he'd restocked all the tonics and poultices they had resources to make here. Fancy underground cavern glittered like a geode in the artificial lights but Iacon General's bacta recipe beat theirs out in testing, hah.

(...he tried not to think about who else loved the smell of the damn stuff, not when just seeing someone else moving around Ratchet in the medbay made 'Doom blink hard and turn away. He'd said to 'Doom, that first false-evening, that there was something- 'Doom didn't even blink at him, just inclined his head at how desperate Ratchet must've sounded, and Ratchet still couldn't figure out what it was.

Maybe they were both desperate. Maybe they both missed him too much, in their own different ways.)

//There is a storage area beside their mothballed shuttle hangar,// 'Doom said, his voice starting to crack. //I was looking for coolant.// He laughed, low and gasping over the comm, and Ratchet's heart started to beat fast in his ears. //I was looking for coolant, and I found her. On standby, in storage, hidden under a tarp. She was here, in the next room over from us. One day more, and we would have left.//

...oh fuck. 'Doom hadn't meant justice.

He meant Tiss.

Ratchet dropped forwards, hands closing on the stupid, impractical glossy worktop's edge, staring blindly at the wall as his heart tried to beat out of his chest.

Justice. Deadlock's mount. Huge and black and blocky, the contrariest stubborn script ever to come off the welding rack with hooves the size of shuttle exhausts and an opinion to share on everything, and Deadlock adored her. He'd hauled Ratchet off a battlefield over her back more than once, when the raids were still more like grudge matches instead of the grubbing for resources and brief rounds of stolen territory they'd become. He'd never leave her behind. Not if he had a choice. If Tiss was here-

Deadlock had been here. Deadlock had been here, somewhere, and there were no other ships in the hangar but theirs, and Tiss was here.

"He's here," Ratchet said, mouth running ahead without him, tearing himself away from the workbench and already reaching blind for his kitbag. "He's gotta be here, maybe he crashed or something happened, dammit, why didn't I ask, even if it's just a damn memorial-"

//Ratchet,// 'Doom said, and Ratchet made an impatient noise as he wrestled his kitbag over his head and onto his shoulder. //Ratchet, she was hidden. And there is no intact ship here to explain her being here - be careful. We are surrounded by potential hostiles, and whenever the time may come I cannot face him having lost you too!//

Damn it. That little waver ringing in 'Doom's voice hit home, even if Deadlock interrogating 'Doom about improper care and feeding of a medic in the afterlife was a load of goddamn woo, and Ratchet hauled in an unsteady breath.

"Then hurry up and get here fast," he rasped. "One way or another, I'm finding Deadlock and bringing him home, even if it's in a damn casket!"

...there was a clunk, and a clatter of glassware. Whatever 'Doom said after that Ratchet didn't hear it; his visitor had fumbled a tray of vials, the little stoppers bobbling together, and Ratchet wanted to explode with impatience and rage and terror and this was one more damn thing. "Hey!" he snapped. "I need those, vaccinations save lives even if they are morons!"

The maybe-a-companion took a lurching little half-step towards him. Twitched, hunched, tapped their fingers against their thumbs like a reset, one after the other.

One-two-three-four. Four-three-two-one.

He'd seen that little fidget before. He hadn't even flagged it it was so goddamn familiar, aside from a little lag on the right hand-

Ratchet knew that reflex check.

Deadlock had taught him that reflex check, all the way back in the Dead End, and Deadlock was here.

"No," he whispered. "Kid - Deadlock? Is that you?"

That goddamn opaque visor was locked on him, on eye level with him, Ratchet's reflection pale as a ghost and the whites of his eyes showing. They- he didn't move, only - only one hand, the left hand, jerking up and out a little at a time, like fighting against a stuck motor. A cold, sick horror sank claws into Ratchet's spine, clawing as he lurched forward. "...please. Please, sweetheart, if I'm talking to a drone I'm gonna be the biggest idiot on this damn rock but if there's even a goddamn chance it's you-"

The heavy plating twitched and spasmed as the left hand rose with a growling whine of effort. Ratchet caught his breath, held still, and the chill of an armoured hand rested so, so gently against his cheek. Too big, too broad, but-

Slowly, clumsily, the solid block of a thumb brushed over the crow's feet at the corner of his eye. And then poked him in the damn eyebrow, and Ratchet didn't care.

"Oh fuck," hitched out, and then his hand was at his comm. "'Doom - 'Doom get down here, get down here now. Bring Tiss and don't stop for anything, I think- Hell, no, I know, I found him. He's the medical support. He was right here the whole damn time."

'Doom cried out, something wordless and torn between joy and grief, then cut himself off in a hurry; Ratchet's hand somehow went from his comm implant to holding onto Deadlock's hand without anything conscious getting in the way of it, holding him against Ratchet's skin, keeping him there so he'd never disappear again-

This close he could hear the faintest sounds of breathing, over the regulated hiss of mechanical vents. This close he almost imagined he can hear a heart beating against his cheek.

"...let me see," Ratchet says, hauling up the last bastion of his goddamn medical ethics against the howl of his own heart. "Come on, kid, you're gonna be all right now. I got you. Let me see. ...let me see you."

The hand against his cheek twitched. Ratchet waited, holding on with everything he had to be patient damn it, and blinked in confusion when Deadlock took a faltering half-step back. "Wait," burst out of him like it or not, only - Deadlock was turning, a little, and shifting their hands around until he was pressing Ratchet's fingers against-

Ratchet's breath caught, and horror ignited into white-hot rage.

That ornate helm was a helmet, and it was bolted into place at the back of Deadlock's goddamn skull.

"...all right," Ratchet said, voice steady, and didn't miss how Deadlock rocked back the tinest bit on those oversized goddamn feet. Relief, maybe, the surety that Ratchet would make it all right. For damn sure, when he found out who'd locked his prickly ball of issues and a good heart into armour plate he couldn't smelting remove himself he was going to burn them to the ground. "I see the problem. Good job, sweetheart, you did so good. You stay right there and I'll get you out of this thing."

By this point in his career, Ratchet had added more than a few non-standard bits of kit to his go-bag. Including a pair of metal shears, and once he'd isolated the connections to the rest of the suit and magnetised the cutters to the damn bolts keeping the helmet locked into the top of Deadlock's exospine, he bore down with all the precision and fury he had in him. The head of the bolt snapped and flew off who-knew-where, and Ratchet was onto the second and the third before the sound had stopped echoing. "All right, you're probably gonna," and "Hell," and Ratchet jammed his shoulder under the arm of Deadlock's goddamn mobile prison before he could crumple to the floor. "Hold on, sweetheart, I got you, I got you," and the absolute bare minimum of thanks to whatever practical asshole that'd built the medbay berth into the floor, because it meant that Ratchet could prop Deadlock up against it without the thing crumpling or skidding away under their weight.

"I got you," he said again, both hands working over the back and the underside of that damn helmet. "Hold on, I've- gotcha." Snaps, stiff and built in flush to the lines of the helmet, so Deadlock couldn't get his fingers under them to take the smelting thing off himself, and Ratchet breathed through the rage eating him alive and eased the miserable thing off. Something caught and dragged as he pulled it away from the mounting around Deadlock's collar, circuitry sparking, and Ratchet made a distant note in his mental patient file to piece that back together later - Deadlock hadn't said a damn word the entire time he'd been ghosting around Ratchet's medbay, and something like that wired up around his throat was immediately suspect.

Someone'd muzzled his patient.

He saw Deadlock one line of stellar latitude at a time as the helmet pulled up and away. A sliver of brown skin that peeked out from the ribbed neck of the vacuum-sealed undersuit. The familiar sharp jawline, Deadlock's thin mouth with lips bitten half to shreds and gone slack and alarming as he breathed. Hollow cheeks clammy with sweat, pale hair cut off in clumpy tufts around his temples where his comm implants had been shared down to nothing, the scars trailing into his cropped hair, and amber eyes locked into a thousand yard stare that Ratchet never wanted to see again.

"Kid," Ratchet breathed, and dropped the helmet without looking back. He slid both hands up Deadlock's neck, cradled his jaw, checked automatically for head injuries and then just - just held him, squashing him between Ratchet's weight and the berth, heart beating out of his chest. He could hear the familiar little rasp in Deadlock's breathing, the legacy of antibiotic-resistant chest complaints that he'd given Deadlock grief about when he'd showed up like a ghost in the gloaming with one of those skinny black-chip cygars dangling between his fingers-

Deadlock's face was wet. He stared past Ratchet's shoulder, his expression shut down as blank as a bolted-down blast door, and his face was wet. His lashes were wet. Oh, his baby.

"I got you," Ratchet croaked, and gave in just long enough to press their foreheads together. Deadlock's breath hitched, more felt under his palms than heard. "I got you, I got you. We found you. It's gonna be okay, sweetheart. I'm taking you home."

A tiny little shiver twitched against Ratchet's skin. "...acht," Deadlock whispered, thin and cracked, and Ratchet wanted to sob and wanted to crow. His stubborn, stubborn script! "Racht."

"It's me. It's me, you got me, I'm here." Deadlock breathed in, deeper, faster, and Ratchet's arms were around his shoulders, guiding Deadlock's wet face into the bulwark of his shoulder. It didn't matter he was taller, it didn't matter, it was all wrong but it was his Deadlock. Everything else they could handle. "I'm here, I'm here, sweetheart, I found you."

Deadlock shuddered all over, then all his weight was leaning on Ratchet and he was sliding down and Ratchet was just off-balance enough to lose his grip when he grabbed for the kid and only caught slick plating, heart leaping into his mouth. Deadlock's clumsy fingers knotted in the back of his coat, sliding down with fistfuls of old leather slipping through his hands. "Ratchet," Deadlock sobbed, his knees thumping against the metal floor, and buried his face against Ratchet's stomach with his arms wrapped tight around Ratchet's waist.

"I found you," Ratchet choked out, and bent over Deadlock as best he could, fingers curling into what was left of his hair. There was an uproar coming their way, a rattletrap clamour of crashing metal and the sounds of one really pissed off mount careering through the halls, but Tiss could wait her damn turn. Ratchet's eyes were wet and his throat was burning and he'd found him, they'd found him, he was alive. All of Ratchet's stupid impatient slaggin' emotions were trying to come out through his face at once, but with his mouth pressed against Deadlock's shorn-off tufty hair with his patient alive and shuddering in his arms, who the hell cared. "You're here. You're really here. I love you so damn much, don't you ever scare me like that again, you're getting a full workup the second we're off this shithole asteroid-"

"Okay," Deadlock gasped into Ratchet's shirt, and then all they could do was cling to each other.

When Tiss reached the medbay Ratchet had eased Deadlock down to the floor, and was gathering him up into his lap with all the tenderness he never thought he'd get to pour out on Deadlock again. Sparks snapped under her hooves as she thundered through the door, cornering so hard that she slid clean around the medberth and leaped back over it to reach them, those massive hooves of hers just-barely missing taking Ratchet's hat off his head - and maybe his head off his shoulders, but who was counting. He knew the feeling. "Easy," he said anyway, but wasn't about to argue when Tiss threw herself into a loafing barricade between them and the door and shoved her entire head into Deadlock's chest. "Easy, goddammit, don't dent him."

"'S okay, Ratch," Deadlock rasped, one unsteady hand resting on Tiss' neck as she headbutted him again and almost knocked them both over, servomotors whining from stress. "They took'r. Scared her too."

"She is twice your weight class," Ratchet said, but his heart wasn't in it. Deadlock babying Tiss was another part of the foundation of his life starting to put itself back together, and he hadn't missed that too. "Until I've got a proper look at what's under that armour we're being gentle with you, and and that's gentle by my standards for you, not yours, understand?"

"Whatever y'want, Ratch," Deadlock said, and it cut him to the quick. His arm was already tucked under Deadlock's neck, cradling his head against Ratchet's chest, and he took a minute to drop down and press his mouth to Deadlock's awful mess of hair-prickles and rock a little until he could get his face and his breath back under control.

"Yeah, well, she's gonna have to share," he said thickly, and shifted a little to make it easier for Deadlock to curl in his lap and cling. "All right. Tell me everything, sweetheart, I want all that damn armour off so I can see what I'm working with."

...Deadlock stiffened up in his lap, and not the way Ratchet liked to play. "Kid?" he said, voice as steady as he could make it, but part of him had already been cataloguing. Part of him already knew it was bad.

"I didn't land that rough, Ratch, I know I didn't," Deadlock said, which didn't make sense at first. What did that even- "I fucked up, I- Megatron stuck me under Turmoil, I mouthed off one time too many, Turmoil don't do leadership that ain't my way or the highway."

"I'll kill him," Ratchet said without thinking, and Deadlock shuddered out something like a laugh only awful instead. Like he thought Ratchet was kidding, or there was just nothing else he could say.

"Picked a fight. ...picked th'highway," he confessed, and Ratchet's entire thought process blew out clear across the galaxy, entire star systems revolving between any chances of a thought coming together. "I just. I wanted- I needed some time t'think. Nothin' was working, 'n you - y'kept saying-"

"You left?" Ratchet's voice didn't sound like his own. It sounded small. He needed to see Deadlock's face right now.

"...I didn't wanna come find y' til I got my head on straight," Deadlock admitted, like that was something to be ashamed of. Like him coming to find Ratchet again was a foregone conclusion. Like he'd never meant to diappear. "Grabbed a hopper'n ran. Only Turmoil caught up, kinda blew up half th'hopper engines so I figured I'd hide in th'field out there, 'n..." He gestured, vaguely, with the hand that wasn't wrapped in Ratchet's shirt like he'd never let go. Lagging a little, with a faint whirr that immediately made Ratchet bristle up with outrage at someone giving his brave, foolhardy, too damn loyal ball of prickles substandard work. "I dunno what happened. Sensors didn't trip, just - everythin' went wild, somethin' hit me, 'n..."

There was a tremor through his bones, a hitch in his voice. Ratchet gathered Deadlock up in his arms and held him tighter, his chin on Deadlock's head, and Tiss grumbled and pushed her head into Deadlock's lap with no nevermind paid to Ratchet's stomach being in the way.

"And, what - let me guess. You woke up here, and they'd fitted you up with shoddy cybernetics they didn't even bother to calibrate." Deadlock twitched, and Ratchet let him squirm around enough to see his face. He'd never been afraid of Ratchet, even all the way back in the Dead End - only wary, because he wasn't stupid - and whatever terrible thing Ratchet's face was doing, Deadlock didn't pull away from it.

"You're mad," he said, like it was a surprise. Ratchet's face twisted, and he shifted his grip to take Deadlock's right wrist in his hand. Gently, always gently with his patients.

"I'm gonna find whoever put this slipshod excuse for an assistive device together and tie them to the back of the Ark," he snarled, and gave Deadlock's hand an illustrative little shake. Deadlock didn't even tense up, his arm tucked against his side in Ratchet's grip and his hand flapping about like a chunky, oversized exosuit glove, his gaze shocky and locked on Ratchet's face. "And when I'm done dragging them through the worst patch of titanium thornbush I can find, then I'll get started on their medical ethics! Baseline guess is this arm, both legs, maybe a pelvic reconstruction up to lower spine, not just a cosmetic or a comm set implant but major goddamn surgery. Did they calibrate this for you? Did they do any kind of PT afterwards? Hell, kid, did they even wake you up and ask you first before they just did what they wanted?"

Deadlock's face crumpled. Ratchet had a split second to wonder if he'd done it again, gone steamrollering over some line he hadn't even noticed was there in all the romance stuff he barely picked up on day to day-

"'S a. In th'helmet. I dunno what- I couldn't. Talk, or. I forgot things," cracked out of him, and Ratchet lost his breath all at once. "Where I'd been. My fuckin' name. Anythin' past that shift. So I'd shut up. Stop kickin' off. ...only there was you, 'n 'Doom, 'n I - 'Doom was on mission, but medbay's safe with you..."

"It's always gonna be safe with me," Ratchet swore in a fit of furious devotion, and Deadlock choked and curled into him and there it was again, the response delay in his legs, and Ratchet could hardly stand it.

Which was at least partly the reason why, when the kid in the white armour came bursting in full-tilt through the door and Deadlock flinched, whole body and immediate, Ratchet didn't hesitate. Tiss' flank cannons ratcheted out, but he was faster and didn't have to bow to physics to get in a decent shot, and Ratchet hauled out a pistol and shot him in the face. The kid went over backwards, feet flying up in the air and crashing into a heap in the doorway, and a shout Ratchet recognised came up from somewhere nearby. 'Doom! Good, reinforcements.

"Ratch," Deadlock whispered, sounding shaky.

"You're my goddamn patient," he snarled, hand perfectly steady from years of surgery and defending his medbay with his own body if he had to. "And you don't flinch at nothing, kid."

"Don't," the intruder wheezed, and Ratchet loudly and pointedly racked his pistol. Deadlock huffed a startled little laugh - he knew it was just for the intimidation factor. He'd built the damn things for Ratchet himself. "Don't - you dare - hurt him, he's not a Decepticon any more-"

"The fuck'd you know?" Deadlock demanded, though he never let go of Ratchet's coat. Ratchet tightened his other arm around him and kept his pistol aimed. "Never listened to a fuckin' word I said-"

"I listened!" the kid protested, pushing up on one arm - Ratchet hummed a warning, and the crack all across his visor seemed to've made a point in his favour, since he more or less stayed put. "I've been arguing with Dai Atlas this entire time to keep you safe - if that Autobot so much as touches you-"

"Bit late," Ratchet drawled, and Deadlock snorted. Some of the iron-hard tension in his shoulders eased, just a little, and the kid scowled through the cracks in his visor glass.

"I won't let you execute-"

"What!"

"The fuck, he's a medic."

"He's an Autobot! And you can be so much more than a Decepticon, if you just stayed I know you'll love it here eventually! Everything you wanted back there, you can have it here, you can do so much good-" Ratchet's head was spinning, torn between outrage and disbelief. "I won't let Dai Atlas just turn a blind eye to him killing you!"

"What in the name of little baby sprockets," Ratchet said blankly, and apparently that was enough; the kid gathered himself up and sprang forward like a damn acrobat with an oversized knife in each hand, and Ratchet threw himself forward over Deadlock with Tiss as an engine-snarling barricade.

"Commander!"

Deadlock let out a startled wheeze under Ratchet's bulk, and the kid's heroic charge turned into a crash-landing as 'Doom threw himself through the door, didn't even pause to take in the situation, and leaped forward to slam into the kid so hard they both went airborn, headlong over top of the medbay berth.

"You dare," Ratchet caught, "you dare threaten my commander's beloved, my friend, when we had finally found him-"

"Don' kill'm," Deadlock coughed, and Ratchet hastily sat back up to let him catch his breath. Fuck, who knew what kind of compromised lung capacity Deadlock even had now- "Not yet. Ratch - can. Will y'help me up?

"'Course I will," Ratchet said, heart in his throat, and took a minute to just - cling, before setting about to actually help. "Hell, kid, I thought I was gonna lose you again."

"Wasn't me he was goin' after, Ratch," Deadlock said grimly, and - oh. Huh. Guess it wasn't. ...still.

Ratchet helped lever Deadlock back up onto the too-big feet he'd been lumbered with, Tiss acting as a prop until she could get back on her hooves and nudge up against his other side, and hovered close with an arm around his waist until Deadlock was steady again. "...don' much like bein' your height, Ratch," Deadlock murmured as they rounded the end of the berth, and Ratchet took a minute to let the world go blinding red with rage.

"Full medical workup, remember?" he said when he could breathe again. "I'll rebuild everything you've got if you want it. ...you're my priority, kid."

Deadlock turned and gave him the kind of look that always made Ratchet want to cradle his face and hide Deadlock's expression away from anyone else who might see it - vulnerable, sincere, achingly grateful for the kind of care and attention he should've been getting all along. He deserved better than the bare goddamn minimum, but for some reason he was always so happy with anything Ratchet gave him.

"Yeah, Ratch. ...please."

"What are you doing, get off me," the kid was saying, kicking and squirming and all but pleading as 'Doom held him down. "I won't let you kill him!"

"Fuck if I know why," Deadlock said, and the kid stilled as his enormous feet came into view. It took some doing; 'Doom had him face-down on the shiny metal floor, kneeling on his arms and a pistol of his own jammed under the kid's chin. "All I did since I woke up's tell y' how much I hate this place's principles. Kickin' my ass when I couldn' walk straight can't be that much fuckin' fun."

"He what," Ratchet and 'Doom snapped together, and the kid startled - far as he could under 'Doom's weight, anyway.

"That's not what- That's what faction types do," he said, and had the gall to sound confused and Ratchet was gonna shoot him again. "You needed to bed in the cybernetics-"

"Physiotherapy ain't sparring, dumbass," Deadlock said flatly. "What, did you think I was havin' a good time, you tossin' me around?"

The kid's face flushed red. "Oh, I believe he was having a marvellous time," 'Doom said, and now Ratchet was definitely gonna kill him. "Well. I believe I have heard quite enough."

"The other knights will avenge me," the kid threatened. 'Doom just scoffed at him, and sat back with his knees still pinning the kid's arms down.

"Once again, you misunderstand the world we wish to make," he said. "As such - with the power vested in me by the Duology of Primes, you are under arrest until such time as the Primes will convene or your your own colony hears your case, whichever may come first. Although given that the leader of said colony has apparently conspired to place a prisoner in what he believed to be a most literal line of fire, you may be more likely to see the Primes' judgement after Dai Atlas himself."

"What? But - I was trying to help you! I - you could have stayed where it was safe, you could be happy here!"

"With you?" Deadlock said flatly, and deliberately leaned into Ratchet's arms. "Not fuckin' likely. ...c'mon, Ratch. Said y'd take me home."

"Sure did." Ratchet held him closer, and Tiss huffed and stepped that bit closer on Deadlock's other side, his cybernetic hand resting on her shoulder. "It's a date."

Chapter 2

Summary:

Deadlock wakes up on the Ark. Not for long, sure, but he wakes up, and he gets the important questions answered, like where Ratchet is and can they cuddle.

Notes:

Just a little bit of additional fluff, admittedly mostly because I thought it would be very funny if some 'Cons just Did Not Recognise Optimus without something covering his face, and also because everything always needs more cuddles. Warnings for brief discussions of amputation (in the past) and ends-of-bones in general (in the more recent past) but nothing graphic.

Chapter Text

There was a pillow tucked under his arm.

There was a pillow under his arm, and a smell that he knew.

He lay there in the dark a while, figurin' that out, and just - lying, when he had. Comfortable, propped up, like it mattered. He didn't wanna move, pretty sure he wouldn't get back that feeling of being supported and tucked up so nice if he did. It felt - really good.

After a while, though, his eyes cracked open on a slow breath in, and he blinked vaguely down at - white, and. Lumpy shadow.

Pillows, and a white sheet.

"Hey there, sweetheart."

Oh. Oh, he liked that. He closed his eyes again a click, just to savour how it made his heart turn over, and when he opened them again Ratchet was there. Kind of fuzzy, but Ratchet always looked a million creds even when he was a kinda smudgy blur.

"Hey," he rasped, low and quiet, and Ratchet smiled at him. Today was the best day.

"How're you feeling?" Ratchet reached out, touched his forehead; Deadlock hummed softly, eyes wanting to close again but pushing it back for this. "Any pain anywhere?"

"Nn-nh. ...sleepy."

"Heh, not surprised. You need all the rest you can get." Ratchet's hand smoothed his hair back, settled on his forehead again, his thumb moving gently up and down the gap between Deadlock's eyebrows. His lashes drooped lower without his say-so, but. Ratchet said it was okay. "Get some sleep, kid, go on. I'll be right here."

That. ...good. Ratchet was safe; Ratchet wouldn't let anything happen in his 'bay. Deadlock breathed out, and. Was gonna say okay, or something, he had manners. But.

His eyes closed, and stayed closed, and Deadlock sank back down into sleep easy as a starry sky.

*

"How is he?" Optimus asked quietly, and Ratchet craned backwards without getting up.

"Could be worse," he said critically; Optimus made his way over, and did his best to get a better look at his friend without Ratchet realising as much. It wasn't too difficult, this time around - Ratchet was tired and looked it, smudges under his eyes and leaning back heavily in the visiting-the-patients chair he kept in the room, his arm slung over the back. "Seems Crystal City medics do half-decent nervework, for a bunch of ethically-void tenderfoot pomades-"

"Ratchet," Optimus tried.

"-but if that miserable excuse for a colony head of theirs didn't have plenty of say in the state Deadlock's prosthetics were in I'll eat my hat and his, wherever it's got to-"

"I was just going to say-"

"Did they tell you he thought we'd shoot him?" Ratchet demanded; Optimus had been told, by Ratchet himself in fact, but he wasn't foolish enough to take that as anything more than a rhetorical question. "That bastard actually thought I'd shoot him. Put him out of his misery, can you believe that?"

"Unfortunately I can, after talking to him," Optimus said dryly; Ratchet snorted, then thumped back against the chair back and rubbed his free hand over his eyes. "...Ratchet. He can't get to Deadlock here. Nor can any of the others. The Ark is locked down, all our people are here, and the medbay is the safest place on the ship right now. Is that enough for you to at least try and take a nap?"

One baleful eye glared at him, and Optimus held his hands up peaceably; he'd come in comfortable clothes, not his armour, left his bandana tugged down around his neck rather than over his face on purpose, and gave Ratchet his best plaintive look. "Prowl is - tempering Red Alert's suggestions, and Wheeljack is spoiling Deadlock's mount. Cardoom is off duty with Roddy and I'm sure will be glad to stay nearby if that would help - I would be happy to sit in, if you would feel better about it. But I'm worried, my friend. You need to get some sleep yourself."

Ratchet glared a moment longer, then his shoulders slumped and he sagged against the chair with an explosive breath. "I know. I know, I know, there's nothing to worry about, everything's just fine. I know."

"...but?" Optimus said gently, and saw Ratchet's throat bob as he swallowed hard.

"But I keep jumping awake thinking he's gone," Ratchet confessed, and Optimus took two steps and bent to wrap himself around Ratchet's shoulders, Ratchet's fingers digging into his shirt. "I can't lose him again, Optimus I can't-"

"You won't," Optimus soothed, heart aching as Ratchet let out a choked, cracking little sound of denial. "You won't, Ratchet, I won't let it happen."

Ratchet's hands fisted in the back of Optimus' shirt, and for a few moments they stayed locked together, Optimus hugging him tighter and Ratchet stuffing his face into Optimus' shoulder.

"If 'Doom hadn't found Tiss," Ratchet said thickly. "If he'd been one bit less stubborn."

"But he did, and he was," Optimus said gently, and Ratchet shook. "...may I make a suggestion?"

"First time one of you gearheads asks first in my damn medbay," Ratchet grumbled, but without any real heat behind it. "All right, fine, shoot."

"Hopefully the results will be worth the momentous occasion. ...the berth looks big enough for two, if you tuck in close. Would you be able to sleep then?"

Ratchet's eyebrows hit his hairline, but Optimus just looked back at him evenly, and after a moment he breathed out slowly. "Y'know what, maybe I could. Hell, if you and Ironhide could fit on one of these together..."

"I'm happy to use my extensive experience to help you get around the monitor patches," Optimus offered, and beamed when Ratchet sent a string of rude gestures his way.

*

Deadlock shifted a little, blearing in the dark. The bed was moving under him, and he- no, no he didn't want it, he didn't- But he could smell medbay, medbay was supposed to be safe.

"Kid," a voice said over a whole rainstorm of little beeps, and he forced his eyes open.

Ratchet, tired face, big and solid and safe. Deadlock blinked at him, blank, because. Because Ratchet was safe. But the bed was moving.

"Ist Wing?" he mumbled, and Ratchet's face went flinty. Fuck, Deadlock loved him so much.

"Hell no," Ratchet said, and. Good. The small, scared version of him running around his innards slowed down some, stopped crying in so much of a panic. "Sorry I woke you, sweetheart. I just - wanted. If you wanted. If you didn't mind me napping next to you. So I know you're still here."

Ratchet wasn't looking at him. He didn't understand that either. He only.

He.

"With me?" he asked, because. "Right here?"

"I won't if you don't want me to," Ratchet said, and that didn't make a fuckin' lick of sense neither. "...woah, easy there, kid-"

"C'mere," Deadlock insisted, and his fumbling got a decent grip on Ratchet's sleeve on a second try. "'S safe here."

"...yeah," Ratchet said after a click, sounding - all kinds of something, and Deadlock wanted him right here where Deadlock could keep an eye on him. "Yeah, it sure is. Okay, sweetheart. Okay."

"Good," Deadlock said, as decisive as he could make it, and stayed awake just about long enough for Ratchet to climb up next to him, all careful, stretching out all legs and shoulders and. Warm, and. Good. He shifted trying to get a grip on the blanket, pull the sheet up 'round Ratchet's shoulders so he'd be close, and stared all stupid at the stump where his hand used t'be when all he wound up doing was poking at it. "...Ratch?" he asked, just to check, and Ratchet tucked an arm over him and wrapped long, gentle fingers around the - the bit just past Deadlock's elbow, what's it called.

"You did amazing, kid," Ratchet said quietly. His thumb smoothed over the inside of Deadlock's elbow, the soft skin there, livewire-sensitive wherever Ratchet touched. "We got all the prosthetics off no trouble, just had to do some fixing up and smoothing out so your bones are in good shape for later. The connector plates were lousy, though. Shoddy stuff, we took care of that right off. Fixing up some bone fractures in your pelvis, stress on the ends, bit of biorepair. 'S why you're tired, you're regrowing some - some bone density."

Ratchet yawned, muffled and cut-off in his ear, and that set Deadlock off, and someone chuckled on the other side of the bed. Deadlock peeled himself away from where Ratchet was cuddling into him, dredging up his slagged-off officer glare, and gave the oversized greenhorn hovering around a good scowl. Freshpaint looked kinda familiar, but. Face wasn't comin' to mind. If he was a nurse, he could fuckin' well have some manners.

"Fuck off," he said, maybe a bit slurred but still fuckin' clear. "He's th'. Best fuckin' doctor, works fuckin' hard."

"I know," greenhorn said, and Deadlock let himself be mollified just a lil bit. "I'll let Cardoom know you woke up. He was worried."

"Heart on his sleeve, the big softie," Ratchet muttered, eyes closed. Well, Ratch weren't wrong, 'Doom was a big soppy romantic, but still. No pokin' his team when there was an audience.

"'Doom's good. He's decent," Deadlock corrected, and greenhorn beamed. Definitely didn't know his face, fuck, 's annoying. "Shoo. Get. Ratch's gotta sleep."

"Yes sir," came the amused rumble, but Ratchet's breathing was smoothing out against Deadlock's shoulder and his arm was still slung over Deadlock's chest, thumb tracing tickly little strokes into the crook of his elbow, and Deadlock.

He was warm, and safe, and.

Ratchet'd promised him legs he could run on, even if he only had stump-ends to work with and a pelvic bone like a broken vase, and a hand and arm all articulated good as new. And when Ratchet promised something, he'd go clear across the galaxy to make it happen.

Deadlock breathed out, closed his eyes, and tucked his cheek against Ratchet's hair.

Safe.

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