10I've learned my lesson with 'Old Acquaintances' and 'Tips and Tricks.' I always start out strong with a chapter or sometimes two, then the inspiration dies and I lose my motivation. So, this is hereby declared my Island of Misfit Oneshots. All of these are up for adoption to anyone interested. I hope someone out there can do something with one or more of these, or I'd even be glad for some brainstorming feedback to maybe kickstart my creativity lobe again.
Please note that these are pretty rough. I'm mostly just transferring them from paper to the computer. I didn't refine them much into the 'final product' and only gave them a cursory once over with the spell checker.
Working Title: Surrogate
Rating: T
Pairing: Arcee/Ratchet
Summary: Ratchet offered Arcee the only comfort he could after Cliffjumper died, but he realizes he bit off more than he could chew.
Notes: This was going to be a prelude to 'What Little Femmes are Made Of,' exploiting the warm, tingly feeling I got when Ratchet rushed to save Arcee in 'Stronger, Faster.' If you go back and reread the last chapter, she mentions she had help forced on her to get over Cliffjumper. It could totally be a standalone fic though.
He liked the rain. It didn't rain often in Jasper, but when it did, the coolness in the air and the rumble of thunder under his peds soothed the old mech's stressed circuits and made it easy to concentrate on his work.
The others recharged like they were in stasis. Optimus had been the last to go, fighting the crash every step of the way. He really needed to catch up on recharging more than anyone. Ratchet needed it too and should have gone to his own berth hours ago, but there was so much work he could get done when he had the place to himself.
Arcee was coming back from patrol.
A few minutes later, her signal came back into range of Jasper for the alert to sound. He glanced up at the monitor out of habit, even though it couldn't tell him that she was cold and her hydraulics were sore from being tensed up on the oily, slick roads most of the night. Or, that she was upset. For an instant, the mech considered reminding her to stay cautious in the home stretch, but he shook the idea away as quick as it came. The femme knew how to drive in the rain.
And, he never used their bond like that.
It was easy enough to ignore each other when they spent most of the time apart. It was impossible to shake the general awareness of the other when they were in close enough proximity though. But, they were accustomed to mutually tuning each other out when they were both at the base. He managed to let Arcee ignore being undercharged or unwell without nagging her – at least not any more than all of the other bots when they waited until something broke or failed. Arcee didn't bat an optic when his thoughts disagreed with her ideas or felt she was being childish.
Then, there were times he couldn't ignore it, hard as he tried. Like tonight when Ratchet would feel Arcee thinking about Cliffjumper. Even more often, he felt her loneliness at night. She'd reach out for a ghost in a dream or search for her bonded out of habit when she powered up. It hurt the medic in more ways than one, but it wasn't his place to act on it. The bond Ratchet now shared with her was purely medical. If he'd not taken Cliffjumper's place after the mech's sudden and violent disconnection from Arcee, the void would've been filled in by fragments of his code and personality that Arcee had memorized in their time together, and enduring the surge of emotions and confusion all over again might have easily driven her to the breaking point.
It had been a miracle she'd recovered from Tailgate. That had been the worst case Ratchet had ever seen, and he'd seen more than his share of bonds torn apart in the war. Somehow she'd gone all those centuries alone with her offlined partner tormenting her processor. It was so bad when Cliffjumper had brought her to Earth she didn't consciously know which thoughts and actions were her own and which were phantom emotions she was picking up from the bond that her system couldn't comprehend had been severed. He knew how Arcee had endured. So had Cliffjumper. She was a fighter. And, they both knew the team couldn't afford to lose a fighter like her.
Arcee had submitted to everything he offered to try. She wanted Tailgate out and her life back to normal. But outwardly, the offlined mech's personality had rooted itself in her processor so completely that it surged to the surface to protect itself, making the femme fight and snap and swear at him and Cliffjumper. Ratchet was determined though. It stung at his spark to see the warrior femme break down into tears and beg him to keep trying in her moments of clarity. She needed him.
Tailgate wouldn't let her accept a surrogate then. Ratchet had tried everything else he could think of for her. He tried defragging her memory banks. He spent weeks of rechargeless nights trying to unravel its code like a virus.
Out of desperation, Cliffjumper had talked him into trying to bond with her the old fashioned way. There was a good chance Ratchet's much older spark would trick her system into rejecting what it thought was Tailgate. Maybe if his spark had been in it, it would've worked. He still felt ashamed and disgusted with himself, even though there hadn't been a real mech online that he would've been stealing her from. Arcee had been willing to try – more so than him. But, she'd lost her control over Tailgate, and her protective systems had nearly shocked Ratchet into stasis.
It had torn him up inside that he'd been so useless to help her. Of course, she'd said it was fine. He'd done more than anyone on Cybertron had attempted for her. But, it wasn't fine to him.
Her signal went out of range again instead of coming back to base. It wasn't unusual. There was something about the rain. While it relaxed everyone else, it made the femme restless and uneasy. Something had happened in the rain – something with Cliffjumper a while back. He couldn't determine if it had been good or bad, and Arcee wasn't about to volunteer the memory. He could've taken it from her through their bond, but again, that wasn't allowed.
It had been Cliffjumper who finally broke Tailgate's hold on her processor over months of hard work and often thankless effort, drawing Tailgate to the surface with his banter and goading until she lost control, then letting her fight it out until she was too exhausted for Tailgate to influence. She learned what part of her was the real Arcee again. The difference had been like night and day. They had their fighter back. But, almost as soon as her wounds had healed, Cliffjumper replaced Tailgate's bond with his own. They hadn't seen a Decepticon for years, so neither of them could have known what would happen. At least for a little while, she'd been happy.
When Cliffjumper's life signal had gone out, and Ratchet saw Arcee beginning to crack again, he hadn't thought twice about offering his bond as a surrogate to keep her memories of Cliffjumper from backfilling the raw and painful void. For a medic, this kind of bond was easy, clean, and about as intimate as changing a fuse. It was what any medic would have done, and it had been done before thousands – maybe millions – of times. But, Ratchet doubted very many medics that did it before him had had to live in close quarters with their patient and see them every day and feel them reach through their bond in their recharge when they dreamed about their lost companion.
The idea was to not respond to her, so it would fade from disuse naturally. That could take decades though. Ratchet had hoped he'd be able to relinquish it before it came to that. But, the fighting was back in full swing again. Bulkhead, and Bumblebee saw Arcee as their teammate and superior officer, and she didn't see them any differently than they saw each other. Ratchet told himself that that was alright however. He had nothing against Bulkhead or Bumblebee. Both were good soldiers and exceptional fighters. It was just that – even before he'd made the surrogate bond with her – Ratchet had seen that Arcee was a very special femme. Not special like some pampered breeder-bot on a colony planet. Special in the opposite way. Arcee had the potential to spark and mother great warriors if she bonded with the right kind of mech. It was something the Autobots couldn't afford to squander.
However, the only mech that made a good candidate had been long-blinded by his programing to finish fighting a war first. Optimus saw her as a valuable fighter and an irreplaceable second in command. Wooing a femme was the last thing on his processor. Ratchet couldn't exactly drop a suggestion like that either. It would be awkward for all parties involved.
There was Wheeljack too. Ratchet saw the way the wrecker looked at her. He didn't doubt Wheeljack would bond with Arcee, given the chance, and if it was as simple as siring sparks, Ratchet would've grudgingly played matchmaker. But Wheeljack was a reckless drifter with an unhealthy appetite for revenge. He was determined to get offlined as fast as possible or drop everything to follow Dreadwing. No. Wheeljack was the last mech she needed in her life cycle.
Ratchet folded up the microscope neatly and put it away, debating whether he should go to his berth or wait up in case Arcee got into trouble and called for help. He reasoned to himself that the femme could more than take of herself, but still … it wouldn't hurt to work on Bulkhead's spare actuator. It wouldn't take a mega-cycle to fix. Then he'd go power down whether Arcee was back or not. But, then again, his frame welder had been acting up too.
No. He shook his helm determinedly. This was it. He was not staying up all night worrying about her. He had to get used to ignoring the bond like he was supposed to.
The medic opened the access panels and began disassembling the part with his usual meticulous precision. It was almost relaxing when he had some peace and quiet and wasn't being rushed by a spark-threatening emergency.
Loneliness caressed his spark, and he looked up expecting to see Arcee's signal on the monitor. But, the map was empty. Strange. To his surprise, sadness followed that shook him to the frame, and he felt tears in the corners of his optics.
"Oh, Arcee …" he sighed, wiping the coolant off of his faceplate. She must have thought she was far enough away to not bother him, but the emotion was strong enough to make up for the distance.
It faded as quickly as it had come at least, and he made himself return to his work so he could ignore the nagging voice in his processor telling him that it was a bit counterproductive isolating herself whenever she felt lonely. He'd get Bumblebee to go check on her, he decided.
But, before he could step away from his workbench, another sensation swept over him through the bond that left him weak in the knees. Warm, hungry arousal flooded his senses.
Scrap. He didn't have to guess what she was doing. Ratchet thought he could just ignore it, but it turned out the femme was either worse at guarding her spark than he gave her credit for or better at taking care of her needs than he'd expected.
"Sweet mercy … " he seethed through clenched dente, his fingers digging into the edge of his workbench.
Ratchet's intimacy circuits surged dangerously close to embarrassing himself as Arcee's spark sang out to his in her overload. He felt his lower plating try to retract at her urgency, but Ratchet caught it and held everything closed. He struggled to ventilate the sudden heat away from his core, and he thought his spark was going to pulse out from behind his chest plates. Of course she was just getting warmed up, he realized with dread as his engine's rpms spiked to give him more power that he didn't want.
Please, he begged whatever powers would listen. Don't stop raining. If anyone else woke up and heard him out there having an interfacing conniption … he didn't want to think about it.
Primus. She could be on the other side of the galaxy right now, and he'd still be vividly aware of her spark rate, her hunger, the ache in her back of her winglets under her weight. His jaw quavered as he took in another ragged breath of the cool air before she could start again, and he could practically feel her heat against his chassis. His free hand clenched for plating that wasn't there, and his interface panel felt almost painfully hot under the other. Ratchet's face contorted with effort as his back arched and vents bristled open across his shoulders. He swore colorfully in his native tongue, involuntarily stomping a ped on the floor as he felt the inevitable sear through the bond again like hot lead.
"Oh … Primus …" he whimpered. "Don't stop …"
It would be so easy to let his plating retract and return the favor, he considered through the haze.
"Ratchet. Are you alright?" Optimus' voice hit him like someone had dropped a tanker of coolant on him, and he froze, hoping he'd wake up from this nightmare.
Slowly, he turned his helm, still trying to cool off. Optimus, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee were all looking down at him with genuine concern. His processor raced for an answer to the inevitable question.
"I'm … fine." More than fine, in fact.
"What are you doing on the floor?"
He should just tell his friends, his leader, his teammates the truth. There wasn't anything with symptoms to match what he was doing.
So, Ratchet looked Optimus dead in the optic and took a deep breath. "Albino processor nano-parasites," he said in his gravest voice.
The three took a few steps back, exchanging worried looks.
"Are they contagious?" Bulkhead asked uneasily.
Bumblebee whirred a question excitedly.
"Yes. Very contagious and extremely rare – I haven't seen them in any recent texts, in fact," he added for good measure.
No, no, no! He felt Arcee again. Her fingers running up his back, the warm exhaust from her coolant system against his audio receptor. He shuddered, struggling to get to his peds.
"What can we do to help you?" Optimus offered.
"Nothing," he insisted. "It's a simple fix, really. Nothing to worry about." A ghostly touch on the friction nodes on his hips made him jump with a grunt. "They'll follow me because I'm white! The antidote is simple, really." A soft, efficient spark beat fluttering against his thunderous pulse made his engines rev up again and his turbochargers began to whistle. "I'll administer it outside of the base," he said, taking a few steps back, "and if no other Cybertronians are around me for them to go to, they'll die off in a couple mega-cycles."
"Are you sure, Ratchet?"
"Positive!" he yelped when his plating tried to retract again. It would be a titanic feat of self-control if he would be able to transform. She had to stop, and there was only one way to tell her without the commlink.
~Arcee! Stop this instant!~ He voiced through the bond urgently and angrily.
Their link snapped off like an exploding light bulb, dazzling and instantaneous. His systems spun on at top speed a moment longer as they searched for the femme, confused, but he could think straight again. Ratchet steadied himself against the wall. He tried to feel relieved, tried to think he might possibly be able to go on with his evening, but that wasn't going to happen. Now, she was out there somewhere in the rain alone, and not even a direct order from Primus himself would bring her back.
"We will keep communications open if you need us," Optimus stated.
"Not necessary!" Ratchet insisted. "I … I would prefer some degree of privacy to take care of this. It's not pleasant."
His commanding officer's optics studied him, boring into his spark it felt like. Ratchet struggled to keep from looking away.
"Please, Optimus." He didn't dare tell his friend to trust him.
The leader vented a heavy sigh. "Very well. But, if you do not contact us by morning …"
"Understood. I will."
Ratchet picked out a few convincing tools and packed them into his subspace. His team watched him walk to the exit, and he struggled to transform into his alt mode even without Arcee's distractions. Once he was away from them and their worried expressions, it was disappointingly easy to focus on finding his bonded again. Ratchet promised himself to feel guilty about the lie later.
Outside in the rain, he swallowed any second thoughts … and reached out for her again apologetically. He felt Arcee shrink back from him.
~Arcee …~ he pressed. ~I know you're there. It's alright.~
He prodded at what small part of her he could feel. If Ratchet had been more practiced with sparkbonds, he might have known how to get past her block. Arcee was obviously much more adept at keeping him out.
~I'm sorry.~ Ratchet tried. ~I should've let it go, but … I couldn't ignore you.~
An embarrassed sensation nudged at him from the southwest, and he was suddenly aware of exactly where she was.
~I'm coming,~ he promised, quickly turning around and speeding into the dessert.
Amusement tickled at him before a cold, hollow sensation accompanied her voice in his processor. ~You don't have to talk, Ratchet.~
His spark lead him to a dry lake bed, and he transformed back to his bipedal mode. His headlights remained on, and he found the femme on an outcropping of rock. Her optics dilated in the bright light, and she raised her servo to shield them. So, he switched to just his parking lights.
"Odd choice of location for … reminiscing."
She smirked up at him. The water glossed over scratches and dents in her battle-worn plating, and she could have been any beautiful femme off of the streets of Cybertron. Any mech would have believed the illusion until she got up. Ratchet admired the incredible strength and confidence in the way she carried herself. No one could mistake her for a pretty civilian when they watched her walk, but it was still undeniably – and irresistibly – feminine. His intimacy circuits tried to flare up again, but he managed to quash it without Arcee's end of the bond urging him on.
"Not really," she said, waving a servo toward the horizon. "This is where me and Cliff used to come and spar … when Tailgate was still in charge," she added, tapping her helm. "We came here to race a few times after that. Any time we had the chance to relax, we'd come here. It wasn't often enough, but it was nice." Arcee smiled to herself, and Ratchet felt the warmth of her memories seep into him. "Then, one time, we drove all the way out here, and it just opened up. A downpour in the middle of the dessert on our one day together. What were the chances?"
Ratchet tested to see if the rock could hold both of their weight, and he sat beside her. She so rarely opened up to anyone. Arcee surprised him when she leaned into him and completely opened her end of the bond. He didn't need to feel the loneliness again to know she missed the feeling of companionship and comfort, so the mech didn't deny her. He'd fragged up all of their progress anyway; what did it matter? He wrapped an arm around her and felt his spark ache with relief at the contact and her openness.
Arcee chuckled to herself. "He tried to make the most of it, but it just ended up getting both of us dirty," she continued. "So, we settled for interfacing … in the rain. We were probably the first Cybertronians to ever sparkbond in a rainstorm."
Ratchet looked up into the darkness toward the clouds. "Possibly."
Arcee shifted against him, and he looked back down at her. "I think we should break it, Ratchet."
"So soon?" he asked doubtfully. "You still reach out for Cliffjumper in your recharge. I don't think it's safe."
"But, what about you? You never complain, but I know it can't be easy. Especially tonight." She grinned, and the memory of her activities made him shiver pleasantly.
"If you can give me some warning next time …"
"No. I promise I won't do it again. I didn't know."
"That's not how you should feel about it," he said remorsefully, shaking his helm. "I don't want you to shut yourself down. It's not what you need right now. Besides," he smirked slightly. "I wasn't exactly miserable – until Optimus and the others woke up."
His plating heated with her shared embarrassment. "Scrap. I am so sorry."
"Don't be," the medic chuckled. "I haven't checked my interfacing systems in so long, it's a little bit of a … relief … to know nothing's rusted over yet."
Warmth permeated his senses without any definite emotion attached, and he realized the femme against him was just savoring the closeness of the other end of her spark bond. Ratchet smiled sadly, squeezing her close for a moment.
"We should get back to base," he whispered.
Dread spiked through the warmth painfully, but Arcee made herself sit up again, drawing her end of the bond away. The medic was surprised at how cold it felt without her. How had it felt for her when she'd lost them?
"You go ahead," she said softly. "I … I think I'll stay out a little longer."
"Arcee …"
"I'll behave. I promise." She tried to smile.
"It's not that. You need to recharge," he excused lamely. "Come back and keep me company a while. It'll make it easier for …"
"It's not supposed to be easy, Ratchet." Arcee folded her winglets tightly against shoulders and hugged her knees like a sparkling. "I know your medical texts don't say that, but I've done this a couple times. If a bond break didn't feel like the Pit, no one would be afraid of any consequences and loving someone wouldn't mean anything."
He scoffed. "It's supposed to hurt when you lose an arm or a leg too – so you don't do it again, I suppose," he reasoned. "But, it's my job to relieve that pain. Why not yours?"
The femme smiled slightly, not meeting his optic but looking back out over the landscape toward where the moon was trying to glow through the cloud cover. "Call it therapy then, or rehabilitation. It's something I have to get over myself."
He vented a heavy sigh. Ratchet didn't like feeling useless like he had the first time he'd not been able to help her. On top of feeling like an inferior medic, there was the issue of his bond mate being upset and lonely. It was all congealing into one big ugly processor ache.
"Fine," he surrendered abruptly. "I can't make you come back to base with me. But," he emphasized, "I can insist you at least get out of the rain. I won't stand idly by while you rust."
"Alright." Arcee nodded.
"I will escort you if I have to." he threatened. "I wouldn't want you 'getting lost' on the way to the Darbys."
"Not there. I'd rather have some time to … think. But, I know a place," she explained dismissively.
Ratchet caught himself before he growled in frustration. She was missing the point. But, he only transformed back to his vehicle mode and started his engine.
"Lead the way."
"Ratchet …"
"Epp, epp, epp …" he interrupted. "I want to be sure you're safe and dry, so I don't have to come back out in this weather later."
She studied him a moment until she was certain he was serious then jumped down from her perch and transformed into her two-wheeled mode before starting northward. He took a collective ventilation and followed after her, trying to convince himself he wasn't making things worse.
The motorcycle stopped outside an abandoned gas station fifteen minutes later. Around the back were several service bays with boarded-up doors and windows. One of which had said boards rearranged so that the door could be opened without losing it's disguise. He parked and watched her transform and open it to her height before disappearing into the dark interior. A moment later, blue and lavender optics looked out at him, and he transformed into a crouch beside the door, optic to optic with the femme.
"It's dry, and it's safe," she reported. "Satisfied?"
The medic forced the door the rest of the way up on it's rusted track and ducked in. What he saw in his headlights stunned him.
The garage had been repaired from the inside to stand up to the elements of the desert. Several signal blockers lined the rafters. There wasn't any dust like one would expect, and the windows had been blacked over to make it completely dark except for the ambient glow of an energon lantern – ideal for unfocused, developing optics. She'd fashioned an intricate geothermal system from the underground tanks to regulate the temperature – so a tender protoform wouldn't be at the mercy of the desert's wild temperature fluctuations. The old lift had been converted into a berth, and he recognized the heater coils that had been attached to keep it warm to a femme's liking. Tarps covered what he suspected to be scraps of metal. If he'd been willing to pry even further, he didn't doubt he'd find a sizable stockpile of energon.
"Arcee …" he whispered. "I'm sorry. I didn't intend to invade …"
Ratchet felt uneasy. The only mech that might have known about this place, much less been in it had been Cliffjumper.
"You aren't," she dismissed, taking a seat on her berth facing him. "I should've told you where I hid it a long time ago anyway – in case I was hurt or hiding or … something."
"I promise I won't tell anyone."
She smiled up at him, and arousal tickled under his plating through the bond. It was quickly swept away though and replaced with embarrassment.
"I should go," he announced quietly.
"It hasn't even been a mega-cycle," she pointed out. "Are you just going to park out in the rain all night?"
"Oh. You heard about that?" It was his turn to feel embarrassed.
"Optimus commed me right before you showed up." Arcee smiled, jumping down from her berth so she could step close to him. "You can stay here until morning. There's enough room."