Trials of a Seeker - tfanonkink - Ironhide/Will/Ratchet, part 4

[sorciere]

Original request is here: http://community.livejournal.com/tfanonkink/491.html?thread=792299#t792299 – Seeker!Will, car fetish, Seeker libido, more humour and plot than smut, and my general fail at writing anything above PG-13.

Title as suggested by requester: Trials of a Seeker
Rating: R
Pairing: Eventual Ironhide/Will/Ratchet, as things are looking now.
Summary: Will gets turned into a Seeker. Things go downhill from there.

Link to part 1
Link to part 2
Link to part 3



Ironhide had always suspected that Primus hated him. Evidence of this particular theory currently came in the shape of the embodiment of the wrath of Primus – that at this particular moment happened to answer to the designation 'Ratchet' – and that string of curses that followed as said medic removed one bit of Ironhide's shoulder plating none-too-gently and set to work on the lines and wires underneath.

“Imbecilic front-liner,” Ratchet growled and twisted something tightly around Ironhide's damaged Energon line. “It's a wonder you haven't offlined yourself aeons ago.”

Whatever he had done to the line, it hurt – not enough for Ironhide to bother complaining about, because the medic undoubtedly knew already and didn't care, but enough to be annoying – and Ironhide bit down a snarl before it could make its way to his vocalizer. The pain wasn't as familiar as most kinds were but then, most of the time when he needed Energon lines fixed, the rest of him was in pieces, too, and he would be out cold or have much more painful things to worry about.

A painful jab of something against the line, and Ratchet kept cursing all the while.

“Plate-headed-” Jab. “Aft-minded-” Jab. “Spawn of a drone.”

A particularly painful jab concluded the tirade and this time Ironhide yelped in surprise.

“Watch it, medic!”

“Then stop provoking him!” Ratchet snapped right back. “Perhaps this will get it through the bits of scrap you call a processor. At the rate this is going, you two will cause more damage to yourself and each other than a full-scale Decepticon attack, you antiquated piece of scrap.”

There wasn't really anything to say to that so Ironhide bit back an insult to keep from annoying the medic any further and settled for silence as one injury was patched up and Ratchet continued on to the next one, marginally less vicious about it this time.

“It's mostly superficial,” Ratchet continued, a bit calmer. “He has no serious injuries, so I'll deal with him afterwards. The wings will annoy him until then, but that might teach him to think before he acts next time.” Another, fainter twinge of pain followed as a string of sensor nodes lit up again after Ratchet reconnected a torn wire, then faded again as the initial flood of information returned to normal levels. “Most of your injuries are superficial as well. This is the only serious one you had. From the looks of it, he didn't aim to harm you, but it is a vulnerable spot and his grip is more vicious than he likely knows. Also, be grateful that it was the human in charge out there. If not, it wouldn't be that flying pest you had to worry about.”

Ironhide just nodded, accepted the threat for what it was – genuine concern about their new brother-in-arms – and let Ratchet finish up with the wires in silence. It didn't take long – a testament to how often Ratchet had performed a procedure that would only occasionally have been needed before the War – and then there was the absurdly relieved feeling he always got when he felt his armour click back into place. It wasn't a big piece but he still felt vulnerable without it and he didn't like it one bit.

“There, you big sparkling,” Ratchet added with a bit of disgust. “I'm done. You can handle those scratches on your own.”

You fix Will's scratches, Ironhide sent over their bond and very firmly did not let the faint, sulking feeling he had come through as well... not that he doubted that Ratchet didn't already know, Pit-spawned, all-knowing medic that he was.

Will doesn't squirm so much that I have to knock him out to get any work done, Ratchet sent back with a snort. Fix it yourself, you sparkling. I'm in no mood to do it today when you caused those issues yourself.

Medics. Ironhide huffed and while he was tempted to just leave, there was something that had been nagging him since his ruffle with his new human-turned-Seeker partner. Two ways to handle a sulking Seeker, his aft.

“You could have told me,” he said, a bit annoyed. “Ignore them or grovel, you said. You didn't mention beating him up would fix his issues a lot faster.”

Ratchet snorted again, and Ironhide never ceased to be amazed just how much of an insult the medic could put into that one gesture when he put his mind to it – and right now, he clearly had. “What you just did to him was the equivalent of asking for an interface. By proving your dominance, his instinct would be to yield and prove to his mate – that would be you, in case you wondered – that he submitted.”

Which explained a lot more than Ironhide had really wanted to know, and he had the sudden urge to go beat himself up for doing something as stupid as that... not that he intended to let Ratchet know, whatever other ways the mech in question might have of finding out.

“I knew that,” Ironhide muttered and didn't quite lie. He should have known and it did make sense when he thought about it. “You could have warned me anyway.”

“I could,” Ratchet agreed in a voice that suggested that this particular could of action would have been about as likely as Megatron voluntarily handing over command to Starscream. “I chose not to risk you getting tempted. He had done his utmost to annoy you for two days straight by the time you showed up to complain to me, and judging by appearances, he succeeded quite well, too. If I had reminded you, you would have tried it when he made too much of a pest of himself regardless of what I told you, and I didn't particularly want to put the human in there through that sort of thing. Yes, they handled themselves quite well when it did happen but it wasn't the way I would have preferred to see if they could actually compromise in a situation like that.”

Ironhide was about to argue when Ratchet gave him a Look and cut him off before he could even begin. “You are a front-liner, Ironhide. You shoot first and think later, and if possible, he has even less common sense than you do. It was a medical decision.”

Argument over before it could even begin, Ironhide made an annoyed sound but didn't try to object again. It wasn't like he could really have made it credible, anyway. Good intentions or not, he knew himself well enough to know that if he had been told, he would have attacked first and regretted it later. He had less of a temper than he had once had but Seekers could be fragging offensive when they put their mind to it, and Ironhide had never been the type to tolerate that.

“Medics,” he rumbled, although there was no heat behind the word, and Ratchet just snorted again.

“Medics,” he agreed. “Now out, you big sparkling. Fix your own scratches. I have a patient to take care of.”

Ironhide, wisely, did not object.


---------------------------


The wings looked... chirpy. Ratchet really had no other way to describe them. They shouldn't be, not with the annoyance the Seeker would undoubtedly feel from the damaged sensors that covered the wide expanses of grey, but chirpy they were nonetheless. The energy build-up in their owner was all but gone for the moment and there was an almost imperceptible, low rumble of a purr, but the wings were the surest sign of the human-turned-Seeker's mood. Perked upwards, occasionally moving in small, sweeping motions, and most telling moving in tune to that low sound of a purr. The wings looked chirpy and that more than anything was the reason why Ratchet was currently not tearing William Lennox a new exhaust.

At the most he was being a bit more rough with the damaged sensor nodes across Will's throat but even that didn't seem to bother the other mech in the least. If Ratchet hadn't been so determinedly ignoring that faint beginnings of a bond, he also didn't doubt that he would have felt the same emotion echoed there as well.

“You look happy,” Ratchet observed after the silence had stretched on for too long and he had listened to nothing but the rise and fall of that low, contented sound as he worked. “Did you finally lose what remained of your sanity?”

The last had been added in a drawl to show that he wasn't completely serious and his patient smiled slightly in response even as those wings kept up their cheerful little movements. “Pissing 'Hide off? He likes it. I had fun. I'm starting to see what the Seeker likes so much about him and I wouldn't mind having another go.” A shrug. “I learned some new tricks, too. I don't think I'd get close enough to a 'Con to use them but I guarantee that if I do, they'd get the surprise of their life.”

“Oh, I have no doubts about that,” Ratchet snorted, and then turned his attention to the wings and pushed aside the tiny bit of him that almost felt bad at restraining such an obvious sign of good cheer. Almost. The other wing kept up those slight movements even as Ratchet kept the nearest one still and he was silent for another long moment. “Are you certain this is what you want?” he finally asked.

“Ironhide?” Will looked bemused at that, glancing at his hands and flexing one absentmindedly in a gesture that Ratchet had learned to recognise as a sign of their new Seeker thinking about his situation. “It's not the Seeker dictating things, if that's what you're wondering.”

Translation – even Will wasn't quite sure what he wanted, then, but before Ratchet could ask, Will had already turned his head slightly to watch him over his shoulder and continued.

“I'm never going to be human again, am I?”

Ratchet froze mid-motion at the question and then a moment later finished with the sensor-node he had been working on. He knew the answer, he knew that Will knew the answer, but that didn't mean he didn't need to hear it; didn't mean that there still hadn't been that infinitely tiny spark of hope buried somewhere deep within.

“No,” Ratchet finally said and settled for being straight-forward, because he knew the human well enough to know that it would be appreciated, however harsh that truth might be. “You shouldn't even be alive as it is. Primus brought you back in this shape. I... wouldn't know if it would even be possible to create a human body for you. I'm sorry.”

Memories of a conversation long since over with-

“Sam got brought back from the dead, too. In his own body.”

“Sam actually had a body that could be revived.”

- and then Will nodded and turned his head to look at the wall straight ahead again.

“That's what I figured, too.” The low rumble had stopped and the movement of the wings had become more muted, even if it was still there. “We've learned to get along. It's a pain to deal with sometimes, like having a six-year-old with weapons, sex drive, and no common sense, but it probably thinks the same thing about me when I frag up. The thing with Ironhide is a bit weird to my human brain but he's attractive, and beating up each other in a make-out session was a lot more fun than I'd thought it would be. We've learned to get along,” he repeated, “because there isn't much of an alternative, is there? We're stuck together so we might as well make the best of it. Moping because I'm stuck like this won't do me a slagging bit of good, so I might as well not bother. I took some time to feel sorry for myself; now that time's up and I get to suck it up and cope, because that's life.”

“Eloquent,” Ratchet said quietly, never stopping his quick, efficient work with the damaged wings.

Will snorted. “That's what Bobby said, too.” Silence again. “I'll never be human again, Ratchet. The closest thing I get to a human shape these days is the hologram in my cockpit and even that wouldn't pass inspection up close and personal. Solid holoforms are useful for mechs like 'Bee or you or Barricade, but not for Seekers. We were never built for it, were we?”

Ratchet had wondered before just how much that Seeker had taught their former human and now the question returned with renewed strength, and he kept his voice deliberately low and even as he answered. “It sounds like you already know the answer to that.”

Will made a sort, sharp sound of laughter, even if there wasn't the remotest sign of amusement in his voice, and then he sighed, and Primus, but Ratchet had forgotten how fast those things could switch from one emotion to the next.

“Yeah. It takes a fragton of energy and processing power and it's pointless for a Seeker. We weren't built for it. Even if we could work around it and get that mod installed later...”

“It would be a drain on your reserves and processing power better spent focused on flying, it would slow you down in battle, and would be a potentially fatal liability,” Ratchet finished, even if he didn't doubt that Will knew that just as well as Ratchet himself did. “As you said, holoforms are worthless in a Seeker's domain. It was never a consideration.”

And it had presumably been the right thing to say, because the former human just nodded in response and Ratchet watched the unrestrained wing sag tiredly.

“Is this what I want, Ratchet? I don't know. He's a good friend, he's attractive, and sure, he's a giant, alien robot, but I'm starting to realise that so am I these days. It doesn't change the fact that I still believe myself to be married, regardless of the shape I might have now, and that I'll need time to come to terms with that, too. I'm not going to hurt him, Ratchet, and I know what I'm getting into. I'll never be human again. The sooner I can make myself come to terms with that, too, the better it'll be for everyone involved. We have a bond, too, and I might have gotten better at that, but I still can't block it when emotions run a bit too high, and considering the fact that I'm a Seeker...” A shrug. “I'm pretty much one big ball of emotions. Do you really think 'Hide didn't already know everything I just told you?”

“Point.” One wing done, Ratchet set to work on the second one and this time he couldn't quite keep a sigh from his vocalizer. “He does see more than the Seeker in you,” he added with a glance at his patient, even if said mech wouldn't see it. “In case you wondered.”

“I never doubted it,” Will said quietly. The fixed wing moved a little again, almost hesitant. “It's weird, being like this, but it's not like I've got a choice and it's not all bad. There's slag to deal with, a lot of it, but there are some good sides to it, too.”

“Like flying?” Ratchet asked just as quietly as he continued with the minor, but numerous, repairs.

“Like flying,” Will agreed, and that free wing spread out and up again to mirror its owner's change in mood for the better. “And 'Hide, and being able to actually do something to keep the rest of you safe without having you worry that the humans are going to get themselves squished.” A pause, hesitant again- “I think... even Sarah's getting used to it. She knew I who I was when she married me and she still did it, and she's going to have my aft the first time I do something stupid, and we're still wondering what we're going to do about Annabelle, but...”

“But she loves you,” Ratchet finished the sentence. “The human you used to be, certainly, and going by observations, I would say she cares a great deal about this shape you now hold as well.”

“She's amazing,” Will agreed, almost reverently, and then the wing settled down a bit again. “I was supposed to have died and she knows that. I would have died if it hadn't been for this. Big, alien robot and all... it's still better than being dead. I have her and she has me and I'm not human anymore but at least I can still be there for her.”

“Yes.” Ratchet tightened his grip on the wing as he handled one particularly damage sensor-node, then lessened it again as he continued. “And you are rambling.”

“I know.” Will fell silent even if the unrestrained wing still spoke volumes about his mood as it moved slowly, thoughtfully, and almost cautiously, and Ratchet once more resisted the temptation to take the easy way out and make use of the bond he still hadn't mentioned to their new Seeker. Then Will sighed and finally seemed to work up the nerves to say out loud whatever was making his wings respond to that degree. “Monogamy isn't a Seeker trait, is it?” he asked quietly.

There were a lot of ways to answer that one but Ratchet already knew from experience which one would work the best.

“No,” the medic said and settled for honesty.

It was silent as Will seemed to consider that and then he sighed again. “I sort of guessed that. I feel bad about being attracted to Ironhide, I feel bad about the fact that I'll probably get down and dirty with him eventually... I don't want to cheat on my wife but whenever that thought pops up in my head, the Seeker just wonders why I can't have both of them. Sarah and 'Hide and whoever else it decides to claim. It doesn't want to share those mates with anyone, mind you, but it still wants to claim them for itself.”

“It's that Seeker-ego,” Ratchet offered as explanation. “It is a Seeker. As such, it should be have its every wish fulfilled and its every whim for a mate granted, and to share would be to imply that something lowly and ground-bound would be equal to it.”

“Bird-brain in a nutshell,” Will agreed. Another moment of pause as Ratchet finished up with the last of the sensors on the second wing and let go, and both of them stretched out before dropping a bit in what Ratchet recognised as nervousness. “Is that offer of... instructions still open?”

His voice had been quiet but stubborn, determined to ask no matter how stupid or embarrassed he might feel, and that was all Ratchet needed to know that he actually knew what he was asking.

“Whenever you may need them,” he confirmed.

Will nodded and when he spoke again, his voice was a bit closer to normal. “Not now, I'm still... figuring out this whole thing; how much is the Seeker, how much is me... rolling around with him out there, I was definitely attracted but it's a bit harder just to go with the flow when my head clears again. I know some of it is me, I just need a little while to figure it out. But later... I'd appreciate it.”

“And so would my infirmary, I assure you,” Ratchet added dryly, and the words had the desired effect as Will smirked and the wings perked up again.

“Someone needs to give Ironhide's record for repairs a run for its money.”

“Not here, they don't,” Ratchet snorted. “There, done. Out, you're fixed, go fly. You need it and Ironhide's going to rope you into fixing his scratches if he sees you.”

A grin was all the response he got before the Seeker was gone and the roar of twin engines broke the silence not fifteen seconds later. Then they faded and were gone, and Ratchet sent his little kingdom a cheerful smile and set to work putting everything back where it belonged.


----


When General Morshower had first been presented with the Autobots, it had been right after the mess that was Mission City. While what remained of the Qatar survivors and the Sector Seven troops might have thought they were busy, Aaron Morshower strongly suspected that none of them had a clue about what sort of chaos had broken out in the higher circles of the military after that disastrous battle. There was a cover-up to handle, dead civilians, soldiers, aliens – good and bad – and a government agency so secret that it made Morshower's own black ops boys look practically legit in comparison.

He had been introduced to the concept of aliens in the middle of an international crisis and had dealt with that in the best way he could – he had nodded, mentally delegated it for later, and gone right on with his job. By the time he actually had time to deal with the fact that not only were they not alone in the universe, but their room-mates were giant, alien robots... by then, Morshower had found himself officially holding the reins of a military alliance with said robots that was only marginally less classified than the recently disbanded Sector Seven had been.

How anyone intended to keep alien robots the size of minor houses secret, Morshower didn't know, and he had expected said military alliance to end up on the front page of every media outlet in the world within a week. The fact that they had only shown up on the fringes, in between stories of possessed babies and alien abductions of national monuments, was a testament to the sheer skill and determination displayed by the so-called communications department that worked around the clock to deep-six anything that might blow their cover.

When NEST had still been classified information three months later, Morshower had finally started to accept just what he was dealing with and arranged for his first visit to the new NEST base on Diego Garcia. It hadn't been Morshower's first visit there but it might as well have been – the part of the base that had been claimed for the team and had been adapted for Autobot use, and the feeling of being very small and very, very insignificant had stayed with him for a long time.

Optimus Prime hadn't helped on that, either. He was respectful, he had presence, he was well-spoken – the sort of leader that could ask his men to follow him to the gates of Hell and expect to have them follow. Morshower couldn't claim to be unaffected by that, either, and he had made a mental note to keep a close eye on anything to do with NEST. He wasn't on the front lines but they were good people, good aliens, and he would do what he could to help.

There had been issues, of course – the Autobot Sideswipe all but going rogue had been one – but all in all it was a sensible alliance, led by sensible people, and Morshower had trusted them to do what was right. Lennox had proven himself and was allowed much more freedom in commanding the human NEST force than most people would have been, and Morshower could sleep somewhat more easily in the knowledge that between Optimus Prime and William Lennox, NEST would stay its course and not venture too far into the temptation of power that any sufficiently large secret organisation held. He didn't for a moment doubt that the NEST teams themselves would probably end up more loyal to the Autobots than to the mostly-faceless commanders in Pentagon – Sector Seven had first and foremost been loyal to Sector Seven, too – but he could live with that as well. He trusted the commanders, and the commanders trusted their troops, and that was good enough for him.

His suspicions were confirmed when said human commander had disobeyed direct orders and talked his pilots into going to Egypt instead, but Morshower had still trusted that decision and given his own support in the shape of the military back-up they had so desperately needed. It had taken some hard words and quite a legal team to get his young NEST commander out of that particular bit of trouble but Morshower had done it gladly. NEST had never been a normal organisation and more than a few debriefings had reminded him of just how bizarre their missions could get, too, and how much of a mistake it would be to pick apart a team that worked and replace a key member with someone untried and unknown.

And perhaps it was a sign of how used he had gotten to the strangeness of the group that even watching an alien jet in an F-22 disguise in the distance and knowing that it had once been human still wasn't enough to make him speechless. Close, but not quite there.

“The big boys want a report on your new flyboy,” Aaron Morshower finally said and turned to look at the massive Peterbilt-turned-robot next to him – and by God, if there ever was a day when he didn't feel that bit of awe, he'd hand in his stars and let someone else get the job. “We'll make up something nice and safe and they'll stay off of our backs for a while again. Imply that he's shy and scared of humans after what happened – I've got some bright boys working on it. He'll be safe.”

“It is appreciated,” Optimus Prime replied in that calm, commanding sort of voice that never quite carried over in the video debriefings and which never failed to make Morshower straighten a bit, no matter how many times he heard it. “He has drawn enough attention already as it is, and not just from the human military.”

“The 'Cons are being obvious about their plans,” Morshower agreed. “We know it, they know we know it, and they want us to know. If it were just a normal raid they had planned, they could hide it a whole lot better than that. He's the target?”

“He is a Seeker.” A moment of pause, watching that alien jet in the distance as it turned too sharply for any human to have survived, and Morshower could have sworn he heard a sigh from the alien at his side. “Seekers are Decepticons by programming. Their personality, their instincts, everything in them serves the Decepticon cause well. There have been Autobot Seekers but they were but a small group of them. Seekers were the cause of Megatron's air supremacy. Even one Autobot Seeker in the skies would be one too much for Megatron's preference. He will lure the Major to his side or he will destroy him. In Megatron's world, there are no other options. Starscream has tried and failed twice now to accomplish that. Megatron will not accept a third failure.”

It was silent as Morshower considered that. It was a messy situation any way you looked at it, and it wasn't made any less messy by the circumstances the former human Major found himself in. Once upon a time, back when that young commander had still been human, Morshower would have trusted him. Could have trusted him. Odds were Lennox would have ended up dead but he wouldn't have caved and he would probably have gotten in a few shots in the process. Aaron Morshower was familiar with his young commander's ability to beat the odds but he was also intimately aware of the number of casualties the human-alien alliance had caused, be they military, civilian, or allied aliens. He had demanded a list and NEST had obliged. Classified it into non-existence but they had obliged because like hell he was going to send young men out to die if he didn't have the balls to face that fact and he had been very firm in telling NEST that, too.

Lennox the human was someone Aaron Morshower would have trusted. Will the Autobot Seeker, with an alien name Morshower could barely remember, much less pronounce... he didn't know nearly enough about that person to say for sure that he'd trust that thing to have his back and that was all that was needed to make the answer a resounding 'no'.

“Which one is it going to be?” he finally asked. The human-turned-Seeker was still doing air acrobatics above the island and Morshower couldn't quite keep out the sudden, slight chill in his bones. Fast, clever, heavily armed, and with inhuman reflexes... no wonder they hadn't manage to take one of those things permanently offline yet. Three of them was bad enough. Adding another one to that collection...

“General...” Optimus Prime's voice didn't sound like it was something he felt like talking about but it wasn't something Morshower had the time to accept anymore. Not with the Decepticons mobilizing and one friendly combatant on the battlefield that could potentially turn on them at a moment's notice.

“I didn't get my stars by being a pencil pusher,” Morshower responded, quietly and firmly. “We both know the kid. Before all of this, I know he would have flipped Megatron the bird with a rocket launcher, consequences be damned. Now? Frankly, I don't have a clue what I'm dealing with and I would very much like to change that before that thing out there decides Megatron offers prettier missiles than we do. You're a leader, Prime. We've both made decisions that weren't particularly pretty. Now, between the two of us... which one is it going to be?”

It was silent again as the towering alien stared into the distance, at the sky or the Seeker or whatever else alien optics could see beyond that, and then Optimus Prime made the sigh-like sound again.

“Even he does not know at this point. He is not one person anymore. He is two beings merged into one and while they have learned to compromise, there is still a large element of uncertainty in play. He is possessive, stubborn, arrogant, and while his temper is still reasonable when compared to an average Seeker, it is far more than he ever displayed before. Furthermore, Seekers are attracted to the company of other Seekers and Starscream is quite adept in capitalizing on that.”

“So he's a ticking bomb and no one knows who's going to be the target when he goes off,” Morshower summarised.

The only reaction he received was a small nod but that was all he needed to understand the seriousness of it all, too. Optimus Prime believed in the best of people. Morshower didn't always, he had dealt with bureaucracy for too long for that, but he appreciated the sentiment and recognised it when he saw it. Optimus Prime believed in the best of people and that meant that when he warned about something, NEST listened. Morshower wasn't technically a part of NEST but he knew damn well to listen just fine, anyway.

Another moment of thought and then Morshower's eyes hardened slightly.

“If it comes to that, take him down. I don't care what that thing in his head says. He wouldn't want to be used as a weapon against us.”

Another small nod from the Prime at his side, and even if Morshower hadn't expected his alien ally to object, he was still relieved. Experience recognised experience but sometimes you could still misjudge people.

“He already asked Ironhide for the same promise himself,” Optimus Prime said quietly. “It will be honoured.”

Good kid, Morshower said silently and ignored the faint twinge of regret that accompanied it. War was brutal, war demanded sacrifices, and their side lost entirely too many people for every one of the enemy they took down. He felt the loss of all of them, whatever rank or nationality they had been, whatever planet they might have come from, but some struck closer to home than others. A lot of them had been little more than names and faces and a few exchanged words at the most – he hadn't been the one to recruit most of them, after all – but some he knew well; knew their personality and skills and families and grieved them as the friends they had been.

And speaking of which...

“His wife seems to be adapting. Better than I would have, that's for sure.”

Sarah, she had once insisted he called her but he didn't think he had that right anymore, not with the kind of order he had just given regarding her husband.

“Humanity is a remarkably adaptable species,” Optimus Prime agreed quietly. “That is especially true of the younger ones of the kind. ”

“Like the Witwicky kid,” Morshower snorted softly. “I doubt I would have gotten into that alien car on a whim, friendly or otherwise, never mind the rest of the stuff he's pulled off.”

There was a soft sound of what Morshower could almost imagine was humour, and then that suspicion was confirmed when the towering alien spoke and he could all but hear the smile in its voice. “You underestimate yourself, General.”

“Let's call it common sense instead,” the human responded dryly. “I may not be a pencil pusher but I'm still an old fart and I'll leave the recklessness to the young and stupid. Let the kids handle the world-saving. I'm too old for that.”

Amusement again. “For someone a mere half a century old, you do sound remarkably like Ironhide at times.”

“He's got a point sometimes.” A pause. “And I could use his cannons, but taking pot shots at Galloway and his breed would just make our headache that much worse. We'll keep an eye on the 'Cons and keep you updated, Prime. Give the word and you'll have back-up, too. Wings or not, he's still one of my boys and I'm not letting Big and Ugly get his paws on him if I can stop it.”

“It would be appreciated,” Optimus Prime responded quietly.

Morshower nodded and sure, he knew that they could manage just fine without human help, and sure, he knew that there were forces within more than a few governments who would rather see those aliens, good or bad, get the heck off of the planet, but that didn't particularly matter to him. It was a show of support as much as anything, added firepower in a battle that could turn nastier than usual at the drop of a hat, if intel was anything to go by, and if that meant sending his boys into a trap, then he would do that. He suspected they would do it with or without his blessing, anyway, and that meant it was easier just to have the legal side of it in order.

Silence fell as they simply watched the air acrobatics again, two leaders dealing with the kind of situation that neither of them had probably ever expected, and Morshower didn't even mind that. He had days of doubts, times when he wondered just what he thought he was doing, but when it all came down to it, this was what he wanted, what he had chosen and what he had stuck with.

The NEST boys would take on hostile, alien war machines on his words, and if he couldn't be out there helping them, he would damn well make sure they had the best back-up he could supply them with.

And for now, that would have to be enough.


---------------------------


He could feel Ironhide in the back of his mind. It wasn't the result of an actual scan, not something his processors had done on routine, but rather a strange way his spark simply knew where Ironhide was in a way it hadn't before. He would be able to pick up the mech's emotions if he didn't shield them, he knew, would be able to talk across the bond with half-words and half-thoughts, but the ability to pick out his location on the island was something new and interesting and Will was never, ever going to admit that half of his current air acrobatics were aimed solely at seeing how that knowledge of Ironhide's presence responded as he moved.

Half an hour and several death-defying turns later, he came to the conclusion that it didn't respond at all. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he pushed himself, it was still there, still constant, still adjusting instantly as either of them moved. He had wondered for a moment just how badly it was going to frag up his focus when the two of them ended up in the middle of a combat situation, but another fifteen minutes of copying every single way of shielding a bond that he had learned about in the past few weeks had finally managed to mute that presence almost completely. It came right back the moment he lost focus, of course, but it still meant that it was possible to block and that was one problem less to deal with.

He had almost contacted Ironhide to ask him about it but had changed his mind and kept their bond shielded at the last moment. Neither Ironhide nor Ratchet had ever mentioned it, which meant that it was probably a Seeker thing... and Ratchet had never said if he'd had anything more than casual relationships with those things.

William Lennox still figured the Seeker companion in his processors had the brains and daunting self-restraint of a pigeon for the most part but it was still a Seeker... and since this was Seeker business, it also meant it was only reasonable to ask it about the whole thing. If nothing else, Will decided, it was a nice little sign of cooperation before he headed off to ask Ratchet instead.

So? he asked and tempered the word with the curiosity that he didn't even try to hide.

They turned to follow the edge of Diego Garcia's airspace in a lazy arch, still with the curious knowledge of Ironhide's presence, and he got the mental feeling of a shrug from his companion-in-processors.

Mine, it replied like it was the most logical thing in the world. Ours. Mate. We shield. Mates protect.

And protecting your mate was a whole lot easier when you knew where said mate was even if someone decided to fry your gear with an EMP... even if he got the clear impression that those kinds of situations weren't all the Seeker had in mind.

You can't go shoot someone just because they like someone you want, he said, exasperated, and the Seeker offered a clear feeling of annoyance in return.

Mate. Mine.

A sharp turn, the Seeker making its annoyance clear, or Will doing it, and neither was really sure anymore-

We had a make-out session! It wasn't a fragging marriage proposal!

- and every time he finally thought the whole thing was starting to make sense, something else showed up to remind him that whatever else the Seeker might be, 'smart' and 'reasonable' weren't high on the list.

“Fragging bird-brain,” he bit out and didn't realise that his more or less permanent communications channel with Ratchet – for reasons of likely future stupidity, the medic had explained – was active until the mech actually responded.

“Is there a problem?”

He was halfway tempted to say something not very polite about the other half of his schizophrenic processors, because they really didn't think he was unreliable enough as it was, did they, but he settled for a sigh instead.

“Seeker issues. Minor stuff, it's nothing. Sorry for disturbing you, sir.”

He almost expected Ratchet to press the issue but the medic apparently saw it as his duty to keep Will on his toes because he changed the topic easily and let Will have his bitchings to himself.

“You didn't. I was about to contact you myself to see how you were doing after your...playtime with Ironhide,” the medic explained dryly. “The world can look very different once the post-overload haze wears off... even if there was never an overload involved in the first place. How are you handling it, Will?”

How was he handling it? Will paused and realised with some surprise that he hadn't even considered that question until Ratchet brought it up. True, the pleasurable haze had faded a while back, but...

“I'm not going to freak out, if that's what you're asking,” Will responded cautiously. “It was me as much as the Seeker out there with 'Hide. I could have said no if I didn't want it and I would have, too, if that had been the case. I had fun, Ratchet. I wouldn't mind having fun again. It's weird from a human perspective and I'm sure I'd be freaking out if I didn't have bird-brain in my processors, too, but it's not like 'Hide threw me on the ground to have his way with me. I'm dealing with it. I'm enjoying myself. The Seeker might've decided one make-out session makes a mate but that doesn't mean I just have to go along with that, either. You put the fear of Primus into it. We're getting along a lot better than I ever thought we would.”

“And how do you feel about him, then?” Ratchet asked and Will got the sudden and very, very unwanted mental image of a robot Dr. Phil. Then again, given what sort of mechs that made up Optimus Prime's first contact team... a robot shrink would probably be pretty high on the wishlist. And Ratchet had probably learned the hard way, too, that sometimes people and problems were just easier dealt with before they became a real headache.

There was sky and there was water and there was island and Will settled for a mostly-even course to focus a little more on Ratchet.

“He's my friend. He's a giant robot, Ratchet. What do you want me to say? I admire him for the sort of things he's gone through and survived. I admire him for the fact that he's still sane and able to function with the rest of you after that long on the front lines. He's got my back in battle and I've got his. He's attractive to a Seeker, he's interesting to me, and I liked playing rough with him on the tarmac a lot more than I probably should, considering that I'm still technically married. I know it's how things are and I know it's probably the Seeker affecting me some of the time to help me deal with it all, but that's okay, too. He's a friend, Ratchet. He's attractive. It doesn't mean I'm going to show up with an uprooted rosebush to tell him I love him.”

“Rosebush aside,” Ratchet pointed out, “that might not be your fault, and it's very likely that might never change. Things are... different to Seekers in quite a few ways.”

A flicker of something from the Seeker – guilt, agreement, indifference, but no objection at all, and if he had still been human, his eyes would have narrowed.

“In English, Ratchet. Preferable in nice little one-syllable words this grunt can understand.”

A slight adjustment of the course, following air-currents in a way that was second nature by now, and he could almost hear the medic wonder how to approach the subject... and the longer he waited, the more Will could feel himself tense, waiting for whatever bad news that was about to be dropped on him.

“Cybertronian was the main language spoken on Cybertron,” Ratchet finally began, and damn it if he didn't sound vaguely cautious and it only served to confirm Will's worry. “We switch between Cybertronian and Earth languages on this planet – Cybertronian and English for the most part – but the human part of your processors instantly translates that Cybertronian into English, with English idioms and English counterparts to Cybertronian words whenever possible. We have dialects, of course – the Decepticon and Autobot dialects have subtle but important differences – but for the most part, all of us spoke Cybertronian as our main language. Seekers, the exception to the rule, spoke it as their second one. They had their own language which they all but stopped using as the War claimed an ever-increasing number of lives. Stopped using it, Will. It didn't die. That language is a part of Seeker programming, of your very personality, and if you encountered it or thought about it, you will understand enough to make some sense of it... with some exceptions. There were a lot of cultural aspects to the words that only came from experience with their world and that experience, I'm afraid, is something neither you nor that Seeker has. The language itself is programmed but the cultural aspect was learned, and there are precious few left to learn it from these days.”

A curious thought directed at the Seeker in his mind and strange symbols flashed through his processors and became knowledge a moment later; alien and unnerving and comforting and still strangely familiar in a way that sent a shiver through his mind.

“It's more than a language, isn't it?”

“It is part of a Seeker's personality. It is who you are, Will. The language of Seekers shares no similarities with Cybertronian and reflects the differences between those two kinds of beings as well. Cybertronian has terms your human mind would translate as 'love'. The Seekers' language doesn't. Seeker programming does not comprehend love as a human or Cybertronian might express it so their language has no term for it. You may speak Cybertronian but your core programming is that of a Seeker, with a Seeker's world-view, and that will carry over in your Cybertronian as well. Your human brain might comprehend human love but your Seeker one won't – and your Seeker one, I suspect, is the one that carries the most of your attraction to Ironhide.”

“So even if I showed up with a rosebush, I wouldn't be able to claim I loved him... because I'm not programmed with the right word for that?” Because Seekers didn't know the concept? Because they were too selfish, too dominant, too possessive, too brutal, too- “I assume there's a reason for that?” Will continued, as calmly and quietly as he could as he pushed that train of thought aside. “I love Sarah. I love Annabelle. A new language won't change that.”

“And it shouldn't,” Ratchet agreed, just as calmly and quietly. “There is no Seeker word for the human or Cybertronian concept of love, but they have other concepts that express the importance of someone with all the more intensity. Ask your flighty companion to define Annabelle to you.”

The human part bristled for a moment at that – like he needed to define what his daughter was! - and then it calmed down again as he forced that thought aside, let sub-routines handle their flight, and focused on the Seeker instead.

Hesitation, curiosity, flickering through memories that even Will had forgotten he had; idle thoughts as he watched a photo of his daughter, laughter and baby clothes and fear and the fierce determination to protect her from anything, and-

Kin, the Seeker said with finality and let the strange symbol impress itself on his processors even as his mind translated the equally strange and eerily familiar sound that accompanied it.

“Kin,” he repeated softly and heard the Seeker echo the word through the communications channel. “She's kin.”

“In that exact tone of voice? Then that is all any Seeker would need to know,” Ratchet replied. “There are very few shades of grey in their world, Will. Most things to them are black or white, trusted or untrusted, friend or foe. Kin is broad concept – you care about all of your kin to some degree, but the way you say it makes all the difference in the world to them. Your voice, the movements of your wings, your actions, the emotions across a bond. Kin as you just spoke it would be all one of their kind – your kind – would need to hear to understand the depth of your feelings for her. It marks her as one of your family, whatever her species or origin or loyalty. It would tell any Seeker listening that you would kill for her, die for her, and tear planets apart if even a thought of harm would ever cross her shadow. She is not a mate or bonded but related to you through choice and heritage and that makes her a part of your being.”

The channel fell silent as Will considered that and the Seeker waited just as silently for his reaction, and Will could find nothing to argue about in it. He didn't like the language – it was entirely alien to his human mind and the way that part of it still rang so true was more than a bit unnerving – but he could deal with that, too, and he could appreciate the depth of the Seeker's emotions for his daughter even if the term it used was less than impressive to human ears.

And Sarah? he asked silently and this time the pause was a lot longer and it wasn't just the flickers of memories, either. Uncertain, bewildered, hesitant, and then-

Mate, it finally responded slowly and then again with more conviction. Mate. Mine. Ours.

“Will?” Ratchet's voice tore Will back to reality before he got the chance to poke the Seeker about its reaction and he heard the unspoken question clearly.

“Mate. It called Sarah mate.”

Sudden, sharp emotions – not his, not the Seeker's, faint but there – and then they were gone and Ratchet snapped out a sharp, angry “No!” before he descended into a rapid-fire rant in that distinctive Seeker language that Will only caught fragments of, in between the medic's accent and the Seeker's sudden anger and his own unfamiliarity with it all.

“-organic--- irresponsible pest of--- no right of claim, you ground-bound spawn of a--- shared-spark, and this is not-”

“Mine,” the Seeker snarled back through Will's voice – and Primus, he had forgotten how horrifying it felt to have it take over and hear himself and have no control of what happened – and then the feeling was gone as the Seeker retreated to sulk and Ratchet fired off one last incomprehensible sound that probably wasn't a compliment.

Tense silence followed as neither seemed willing to say a word to the third party in their little argument, and then Will sighed even as he adjusted their course to swing back towards the island base again.

“Ratchet?”

The Seeker was still sulking in the back of his mind but the medic seemed ready to talk, at least, as he sighed and gave Will the clear impression that if he had been human, he would have rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“I keep forgetting how much of a pain in the afterburner young Seekers can be. A linguistic lesson, Will: Seekers have fundamentally three terms for beings that are important to them – kin, bonded, and mate. You know the language but you don't have the cultural experience to understand the words right and it's too basic a part of your companion there for it to be very likely to explain what little it does know properly to you. You are already familiar with kin. To call a mech your bonded would mean that it was someone you had a bond with – Ironhide, for example, in your case. Bonded does not necessarily imply anything more than friendship. It can be between brothers in arms as easily as it can be between lovers. With other species, the definition becomes even broader – Samuel and Bumblebee are not able to talk through a bond the way you do with Ironhide but any Seeker would consider them bonded, anyway. Samuel is Bumblebee's human bonded, much in the way Sarah is yours.”

“Except it didn't call Sarah its bonded,” Will pointed out and ignored the brief flare of anger from the bird-brain in question. “It called her mate.”

“Which would imply what humans would refer to as... as romantic relations.” Ratchet made a frustrated sound and continued before Will had the chance to even think about that one, and the Seeker snarled right back at him mentally. “Even ignoring the sheer physical impossibility of it all, Seekers are possessive. No Seeker would permit a pitiful inferior to ever touch one of its mates and every single human being on this entire planet would fall into that category! You can't claim her as a mate, you worthless piece of scrap – you cannot possibly feel it's fair to her to expect her to have no non-platonic human relationships again for the rest of her existence, under the likely penalty of death to her suitor. That is not how Earth relationships work!”

If he hadn't already been questioning his sanity, being chewed out by proxy for something the voice in his head had said would definitely have made him start doing it. As it was, he simply directed a bemused feeling in the direction of the Seeker and kept from snorting at the snarl it offered it return.

“It's ignoring you now,” he informed Ratchet.

“Seekers!” The medic made the word sound like an insult and Will couldn't really argue with that. The thing meant it well, he could feel that much. It liked Sarah, it cared for her, it would protect her, but he couldn't exactly expect her to put up with their bizarre new situation for the rest of her life, and that wasn't even getting into the fact that the thing left no doubt at all that any human male who as much as dared to approach her would face the wrath of a territorial bird-brain with enough weapons to make a minor army think twice about attacking.

“Can't we... I mean, it had its sight set on Optimus for a mate, too, but we managed to reach a compromise. If not...” He paused and sighed. “Its sense of time isn't exactly Earth-based. If she moved away, too far away for any casual visits, it wouldn't bother her that much. It would show up sometimes but maybe only every decade or so. It doesn't think about how fast humans age. If she was somewhere away from it and didn't get into any trouble, it would go on with its own business and only show up to see her when it remembered. She could make it work. It'd be a lot easier if the Seeker hadn't gotten involved in the first place, but...”

“But we can't change that,” Ratchet agreed and sighed as well. “It is an option but I would rather it didn't come to that. Talk to it, try to make it see sense. Seekers are rather stubborn once they have made their choices but it is not impossible to make them reconsider.”

By force if necessary, Ratchet didn't need to add, because Will knew that perfectly fine. Sure, Megatron clearly had some problems keeping Starscream in line, even with those methods, but his Seeker wasn't-

Aw, slag, he realised a moment later as memories flooded back, a talk with Ironhide and comments about the Air Commander, and the Seeker in the back of his mind stayed uncomfortably silent about it all.

“Can they change their minds about kin, too?” Because he wasn't enough of a flying disaster zone as it was, was he, and slag it. “The Seeker called him kin,” Will continued with a groan. “It was after the first time we talked with him. It didn't sound like it did with Annabelle but it still sounded kind of serious. I didn't know what it meant at the time, just that it was annoyed when 'Hide made some choice comments about Starscream. Frag it all to the Pit.”

He had halfway expected Ratchet to order him on the ground immediately but all he got was a second of silence before the medic continued in a perfectly calm voice that made Will desperately wish he had a visual and body language to go with the audio. “And the second time you talked with him? You did insult him a few times yourself on that occasion.”

Will considered it for a moment and ignored the uneasy feelings from the Seeker at that line of questioning. “It was shocked more than anything but it backed me once we decided that this was where we belonged and he could go frag himself.”

“You should be fine, then.” There wasn't even a bit of hesitation in Ratchet's voice and Will blinked. “No, we won't ground you. I know you were about to ask. It is programming, nothing more. Starscream is the Air Commander. Opposite factions or not, he is in theory the commander of all Seekers, not merely the Decepticon ones. It is part of any Seeker's programming to consider the leader of the first-among-trines their kin and submit to his orders. It becomes easier to ignore with age but it will always be part of your programming. How do you think Megatron managed to turn the vast majority of them to his cause?”

“Because they're arrogant, self-absorbed, and violent?” Will guessed. “They're pretty much a flying list of Decepticon virtues.”

“So were the Autobot Seekers for the most part,” Ratchet replied. “And there were Autobot commanders who would gladly have accommodated those Decepticon traits. The ones you have met are the survivors, Will. They have lasted through near-endless war. The weaker ones died and the stronger ones adapted. There were different levels of Decepticon-like behaviour in them before the war. They had different personalities, like we all do. If they had all made an independent choice, we would still not have had the same number of them as Megatron but he would still have had less of an overwhelming advantage. He used those lines of kinship. He won over the key figures among the Seekers and the rest followed. When he claimed the loyalty of the first-among-trines, he also gained the vast majority of the ones that considered that trine to be kin or mates or bonded... and with them followed their kin and mates and bonded, line after line, until he had their complete loyalty. The step from neutral to Decepticon like the rest of your kin is a lot easier to take than from neutral or Decepticon and to Autobot when you leave everyone you care about behind.”

Will blinked. The words made perfect sense in his processors, an utterly perfect rightness to them – they were kin and you were loyal to kin – and the Seeker part of him murmured its silent agreement.

“So the Autobot Seekers...” He trailed off, not sure how to put it, but Ratchet clearly saw where his train of thought was heading.

“... Were the more unusual ones of the breed, yes,” the medic agreed. “Some had very little kin that mattered. Some were mated to a ground-bound mech that had allied itself with the Autobot cause. Some felt more strongly about the cause than about Seeker ties. You have strong ties to us as well as to your human family and friends. In this case, far stronger than the Seeker programming that deals with Starscream. You are not a true Seeker, Will. Yes, your programming tells you to be loyal to your true kin, to fight for them and protect them if needed, but the human side has something to say as well. Annabelle is considered kin by both of you. Starscream is considered kin solely by your basic Seeker programming, and distant kin at that. I would doubt that the Seeker part of you would readily submit to him after your show of defiance.”

It should have been comforting but there was something in the words that kept eluding Will, something that nagged at the edge of his awareness even as he spared as much attention as he could from flying, something that-

Submit, he realised. He didn't say we wouldn't have a problem fighting the fragger. He said that he doubted we would readily submit.

“There's a long way from not submitting and to actively fighting, Ratchet,” he pointed out. “If we went up against them tomorrow, would I be able to fire at them? Physically attack them?”

“You would have to overcome that part of your programming the first time,” Ratchet replied, “but it would become easier every time. In a combat situation, it would not take long to be able to do without interference from those lines of code that claim them as kin.”

Not as good as Will had hoped for but a lot better than it could have been, at least, and he didn't want to ask his second question but he needed to know, and he needed to know before it was a life and death situation.

“Would I be able to kill them?”

This time it took a moment longer for the medic to answer and Will could slagging well recognise a diversion when he saw it. “You would need far more training to hold your own against-”

“That wasn't what I asked and you know it,” he interrupted quietly. “Would I be able to kill them, Ratchet? Would I be able to pull the trigger at point blank?”

And the beat of silence gave him all the response he needed, even as Ratchet spoke that moment later.

“To protect a mate or bonded or close kin,” he said and confirmed the sinking feeling in Will's processors. “You couldn't do it unprovoked. Thundercracker or Skywarp, yes, perhaps, but not Starscream. You are not a real Seeker, so there will always be that element of uncertainty, but you have too much Seeker programming to make it much more than a theoretic uncertainty. You could fight back in a combat situation, yes. Cover fire? Self-defence? Yes. Deliberately shoot to kill? No. In a hundred battles, in a thousand... perhaps, but not now.”

Slag.

The world spun; real or imagined, it didn't matter, and engines roared as he focused the flood of emotions on flying, fear and anger and dread and blind panic turned into heat turned into energy turned into flight-

- And Ratchet stayed silent as Will sent them into a dizzying plunge, nearly striking sea before he turned and spun and headed straight up, nothing more than a blurry grey arrow to the people watching below as Mach one turned to Mach two and inched further upwards.

Seconds stretched to a minute, then two, and finally he broke the silence.

“When did you plan to tell me?”

“As late as I possibly could,” Ratchet answered and they both knew he wasn't just talking about Starscream. “Be honest to yourself, William. If I had told you this – all of it – when you had first woken up, you would have done your best to offline yourself. That or defected when the Seeker panicked enough to take over and seek Starscream's aid.”

There was no reason to argue because Will knew damn well there was nothing to argue against. Waking up in an alien body and being told that you weren't human anymore, that the odds were you would defect and turn 'Con, that even as an Autobot you would be as much of a danger to your allies as to your enemies, that any moment of weakness could bring you to your knees at Starscream's feet-

He cut his engines and turned in free-fall and the flare of panic from the Seeker was pushed aside as the world shifted around them and then became the spinning blue and green and white of Diego Garcia and the Indian Ocean as they shot straight down.

“What's to stop me from trying now?” Will bit out as mental calculations fluttered through his processors – Mach one, Mach two, Mach--- “Even you can't fix what's left after an impact at Mach three.”

“I can't,” Ratchet admitted quietly, “but you won't. You will pull up because that Seeker is innocent. Whatever else you might be, William Lennox, a cold-blooded murderer is not it, and that Seeker you share your processors with was never given a choice in this matter. You will pull up because your bond with Ironhide is too strong to break without consequences and because you will not abandon your wife when she still loves you. You are too much of a Seeker now, William... or perhaps just enough. When you first woke up, we had no way to know for certain how much Seeker programming you had been given. To explain those possibilities to you would have sent you into panic at best, and over something that might not ever have come to pass. Now you adjust instead, because you have enough of the Seeker's traits in you to handle this with a somewhat level head. Perhaps not gracefully, perhaps not willing, but you will not offline yourself. You think too clearly for that, even now.”

The world spun; blue and green and white, and with a sickening lurch twin engines kicked in again and turned the view from sea and to sky again and he tried not to notice the almost panicked relief of the Seeker in his mind.

I'm sorry, he whispered and meant it.

Trine-mates, it murmured in response and fell silent again in the back of his processors and he was surprised to find that he understood. You trusted trine-mates and you were loyal to trine-mates. Come what may, you were loyal to trine-mates – into battle, into war, and into the Pit itself if needed.

“What else did you forget to tell us?” he asked quietly as his course levelled out again and the surge of emotions in his systems evened out with it as well.

“Some things that matter. Some things that don't,” Ratchet responded just as quietly. “A Seeker would have been raised by Seekers. I understand their language and their culture to a degree but I was always an outsider looking in. I can teach you what I know but I will never have the same understanding of their culture as a born Seeker with Seeker programming, who grew up in their world. Even Megatron's command trine likely doesn't, these days. Seekers are focused on family. They were, essentially, one immense flock of metal birds, connected in trines and kin and mates and bonded. There are, perhaps, a few dozen of them these days. It was never a natural state of the world to them and they all know it, those few remaining ones. They are Seekers but they have been without their large circles of kin since the destruction of Cybertron. They have been without sparklings because war is no place to raise children. They have been without the ability to reach out through their bonds and be surrounded by people they consider family. None of them are sane or stable these days and eventually, in a hundred years or a thousand or ten thousand, that will be your fate as well if your kind remains on the brink of extinction. What is left of their culture is their programming and bits and pieces of what they once were. You will be unable to kill Starscream unprovoked, but that programming goes both ways. All Seekers are kin to their leader in the way he is kin to all of them. Your natural place would be with your kin and until Starscream sees indisputable proof that you are not kept here by force or by manipulation, he will see you as a misguided youngling that needs saved. He always considered most Seekers to be pathetic wastes of resources but he still put them far above mere ground-pounders because even Starscream can't deny his programming completely. He is the supreme Air Commander of all Seekers and until you turn against him, he will see you as kin.”

They were silent, Will and the Seeker both, and he couldn't even blame Ratchet for not saying anything about it before. It was too much, too soon, and he had never asked for it. He could have lived the rest of his life perfectly fine without ever knowing any of it and if he ever got his hands on Primus, he would gladly see if the God of the Cybertronians was worth anything in down and dirty black-ops fighting.

Seekers needed family, Seekers needed kin and trusted ones around them, and the slagger had brought them back as one of the last members of a near-extinct species to... what? Repopulate the whole fragging lot of long-dead Cybertron single-handedly, or die in battle, or feel that basic programming tear on them until they went the way of Starscream and Skywarp and Thundercracker – borderline insane and probably aware of it, too, and unable to do a slagging thing about it?

He shuddered, felt the tiny motion from his core and to the very tips of his wings, and then he finally refocused on the still-open communications channel.

“I can't deal with this, Ratchet. It's too much.”

“You may not have a choice. The Decepticons are mobilising and they are obvious about it. They wish to make sure we know they will put in their full forces and in return force us to do the same... and in doing so, either leave you undefended here or bring you into battle with us.”

“Ratchet...”

“I did not want to tell you now,” Ratchet continued. “Perhaps never, but I was not given a choice. You needed to know before you encountered them in person, and you needed time to come to terms with it, too. This is as long as we can afford to wait.”

“I need...” he trailed off and fell silent and the soothing murmurs from the Seeker were worried and confused and it took the edge off the sudden panic and that small gesture was a blessing now.

He needed more time, maybe, or more information, or less, and the shudder brushed his wing-tips again and finally Ratchet spoke.

“Fly,” he said quietly. “I will be here.”

No further words were exchanged but as Mach two edged towards Mach three again and the world became nothing more than speed and cold and the roar of engines, that silent channel stayed open in unspoken support and for now, that was enough.


---------------------------


Jolt had the personal theory that the entirety of planet Earth was bonkers. A human term, that one. Cybertronian, for all of its creative insults, didn't hold a candle to the endless variety of the human languages when it came to terms for insanity – and that really didn't help the planet's case at all. The fact that they needed that many terms in the first place only cemented his theory that the planet was completely and utterly mad and that the dominant species that inhabited it really wasn't any different from the planet that had created them in the first place.

And he meant it, too, he had told Bumblebee emphatically on more than one occasion. Not just society, not just the people living in this new organic world, but the very planet itself. Cybertron had been nice and orderly and predictable – which was half the reason why Jolt had enjoyed pranking so much, because he knew what he was dealing with and he knew every single electrical disturbance or oddity of the surface or whatever else he might use to have a bit of fun – but planet Earth was completely and utterly schizophrenic, from its weather and to its oceans and plate tectonics and sheer randomness of it all sometimes.

Jolt wasn't the most religious of mechs but he knew his creation stories and if Cybertron's calm and steady predictability was a sign of Primus' state of mind – being, after all, the planet itself as their legends told him – then planet Earth made him wonder just what sort of strange deity had been behind the organic world, and it was no slagging wonder that their new home had so many different religions, then. On Cybertron, Jolt could prank and know he would end up having a laugh at someone else's expense. On Earth, he got the distinct impression that half the time he tried to prank someone, the planet messed it up on purpose to have a laugh at his expense instead.

Some days, he really suspected that humanity was in on it as well. He knew from experience that special forces of any kind tended to be interesting types and yes, he did expect that anyone that small and squishy who was still willing to pick up a weapon and go after the Decepticons again and again and again probably wasn't standard on the planet, but there was a long way from that and to... well. NEST.

“With Mikaela's assistance and human-sized hands it should not take long to have one of those human crash test dummies turned into a suitable test flight subject for Will,” Ratchet commented as he went through a collection of neatly-ordered boxes of small bits and pieces of mostly-Earth origins, and Jolt wasn't above admitting that he was still 'junior' apprentice enough that he only recognised about half of them. Not that he thought those bits or the project were particularly important but it would be good training for him and the small, human femme who frequently hung out in Ratchet's domain, and he knew their medic enough to tell that something about that project mattered to him. The human general had just landed, Optimus Prime was going over intel with their new human NEST commander... and Hurricane Ratchet had descended on the infirmary only minutes earlier and brought out a minor human project that had been added to their lists only because the former Major's NEST team was so enthusiastic about it.

Their medic had been busy lately and Jolt had heard enough from Sideswipe about Seekers that unlike some, he hadn't been that surprised at just how much attention one of those things could demand – and never mind a brand new, just onlined one that happened to have been human before. Ratchet should have plenty of other things to worry about than a small side project like that, but no one really knew what went on in their medic's processors, so Jolt just nodded and listened like a good junior apprentice.

Ratchet had been busy and there had been several days where they hadn't even seen the shadow of him, but what Jolt did hear in between Seeker-related crises only cemented another fact he had long suspected: NEST was bonkers, too.

“They... know that he's a Seeker, right?” he asked dubiously. He hadn't spent that much time among their organic allies but the ones they worked with didn't strike him as being... stupid. Certainly not sane or normal by any definition, but they were quick on their feet and could keep a clear processor in the middle of combat. They didn't strike him as the types to be that... reckless. He understood the human soldiers' fascination with jets, he really did – the design was not objectionable to a Cybertronian – but the fact that their new Seeker looked like one of said jets did in no way mean he behaved like one, too. They knew that, didn't they? They had to. Right?

“I'm fairly certain that listening to the sound barrier being broken consistently right above their heads has given them some idea that he is by no means an ordinary F-22, yes,” Ratchet replied. “To call him a 'Seeker' means very little to a human, Jolt. He is a jet to them, even to those aware of the true circumstances. A jet that used to be human and which can fly faster and better than an Earth-based one, but a jet nonetheless.”

Sometimes, Jolt was amazed that the human species hadn't just managed to simply... human themselves into extinction, what with the combination of fragility and mental traits they had been created with, but then, he had also seen them in battle and reached the conclusion that the human version of the femme Luck seemed exceedingly fond of them.

Too fond, possibly, if the NEST team's current idea was anything to go by. They were starting to get a bit reckless in their undying trust in her.

“Will they listen when that... test dummy is returned in pieces?” Jolt asked hesitantly. “Seekers like to push the limits. He's not going to play nice. Is that the plan? Get the idea out of their head before they any worse ideas?”

“Or remind him where he belongs,” Sideswipe's darker voice remarked from the doorway. “You know he doesn't have the focus to keep a human alive. It's nothing but a way to keep him busy with the humans and remind him of his loyalty.”

“Which,” Ratchet threw back without missing a beat, “was exactly his reason for asking me to do this. I do not lack work to a degree where I need to make up things to keep from boredom. He was told about the recent Decepticon activity and he considered his choices and felt that being around his former comrades would be the best option now. Training would be useful for whatever the Decepticons plan for him but to do so excessively would only serve to weaken the human side at a time when we cannot afford to do so.”

A pause, and Jolt could have sworn he had missed something important because Sideswipe remained in the door as Ratchet levelled a hard look at him, and it couldn't just be because of the 'Vette's comment – he would have chewed him out, then, instead of just... watching him in a way that made Jolt feel more than a bit on edge.

“Being front-liners doesn't mean we're stupid,” Sideswipe finally said and his slightly darkened optics said plenty about his mood, even if the hard tone in his voice hadn't been more than enough to get it across on its own. “Did you think Jet Judo was all we knew?”

'We', Jolt knew, had nothing to do with him. Partners in crime and combat or not, 'we' had always meant Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Always had, always would, until all was one and beyond. That they didn't know Sunstreaker's current location or even if he was still online didn't matter. It was 'we', Jolt knew. Always 'we', and Jolt was just the stand-in until time reunited them.

Sharp optics turned to Jolt instead and he instinctively straightened under his CMO's attention. “Jolt-”

“-Is staying,” Sideswipe said flatly. “I'll tell him and to the Pit with any orders. If he's going into a combat zone with an allied Seeker and have my back, he needs to know what he'll have to deal with. He's staying.”

Stuck between the unstoppable force and the immovable object, Jolt did the only reasonable thing he could do – he ducked his head and hoped they would forget about him and that he wouldn't end up in the resulting disaster zone, because front-liner or not, he still knew better than to be in the middle of an argument between Ratchet and Sideswipe.

“Key word being 'allied', Sideswipe,” Ratchet said in the low, dangerous voice that was usually reserved for people getting between the medic and a patient... and a moment later Jolt realised that Sideswipe probably was. Sideswipe didn't look happy about the situation at all – and Jolt couldn't really blame him after what happened in the training match – and Ratchet...

Don't cross the medic! Jolt gestured with frantic little motions as Ratchet's attention turned back to the 'Vette, because Ratchet was a medic and could probably hear if Jolt commed his partner... and Sideswipe, being Sideswipe, ignored it completely and it was all Jolt could do not to whimper in a very human fashion as his partner replied.

“For now. I told you, Hatchet – we're not stupid,” Sideswipe said, as low and dangerous and unrelenting as the medic's voice had been as he refused to back down. “I know the flying frags. You don't survive Jet Judo if you don't know what you're dealing with.”

Silence stretched for long second as Jolt watched the two combatants and stayed very, very still and then something flared in Ratchet's optics.

“Talk,” he commanded, and even Sideswipe wouldn't disobey that voice.

“You know them, Ratchet. You know too much about the fraggers not to have lived with them. They're a hive mind and they're Decepticons to the core of their programming.”

“Some have been Autobots,” Ratchet bit back and not for the first time, Jolt wondered how in the name of all that was holy Sideswipe had ever managed to survive for so long, picking fights with mechs like that. “They have independent thought.”

“You've never faced them in battle like we have. You never deal with just one Seeker there. They know where their trine-mates are without communicating. They move like one spark. They think as one and they obey their Air Commander.” He laughed, harsh and mocking and in a way he would never, ever have done when Sunstreaker had been at his side. “Some of them hate Starscream. Some of them want him dead and would be happy to tear out his spark with their own hands but they never do, Ratchet. It's hard-wired in their processors to obey. The only ones who ever seriously tried to kill him were all ours and they were always fragged up slaggers, even for Seekers. We don't know them like you do, we're not medics, but we know enough.”

“Enough to know how a half-human Seeker is going to react?” Ratchet asked and reminded Jolt that no one did burning, acidic sarcasm like Ratchet in a bad mood. “Considering that there has never been a recorded case of one before, I'm impressed, Sideswipe, truly, I am. Do tell us about your stunning medical insights. I would recommend a thesis on this, perhaps even a complete scientific survey of the implications of an organic-mechanoid personality merge, but I'm afraid there are no Cybertronian peer-reviewed publications available these days, so I suppose you will have to make due with us as your enchanted audience.”

Something about his tone made Sideswipe stand down slightly – the genuine anger, probably, at Jolt's best guess, because while their CMO might snarl at them for their stupidity, he was rarely genuinely angry – and his voice and stance had lost a bit of the hard challenge they carried before as he made a sound that could almost have been interpreted as frustration.

“I know you like him, medic. He wasn't bad for an organic. They're a useless species as a whole but there are some that have stood by us in battle. I respect that,” Sideswipe allowed and then his optics glowed harder again. “It doesn't change the situation. He might still be part human, but he talks, acts, and flies like a Seeker. He's Starscream's.”

“He defied him,” Ratchet said flatly. “Twice.”

“On a comm-channel, with Starscream halfway across this dirtball,” Sideswipe gave back, every bit as flat and relentless. “We'll face them in combat and he'll cave. I know it, he knows it, and the flying glitch of an Air Commander fragging well knows it, too. He's a warrior. If he thought he had any chance of resisting this, he would have spent every moment out of recharge training. The fact that he doesn't tells me everything I need to know.”

Jolt had the feeling that he was missing about half the conversation and every actual useful bit of knowledge it revolved around but that was one piece of logic he could follow after fighting and training at Sideswipe's side for as long as he had. If the human thought he could stand his ground, he would have trained so he would be better in combat. If he didn't... then every bit of improvement would mean more skill in the hands of the 'Cons and make it that much harder when they had to take him down. The former Major had asked Ratchet to focus on an insignificant, little project that put him in contact with humans a lot. Out of all the things to do, he had asked for... that.

Oh.

Silence stretched again, if less tense this time, and then Ratchet gave a tired sigh. “You know about their coding.” It wasn't a question but Sideswipe nodded, anyway, and Ratchet continued. “In that case, I find it remarkable that you haven't brought it up before.”

“You've never made us doubt you before,” Sideswipe finally said and Jolt felt the tension in the room slowly, slowly begin to return to normal levels again with no small amount of relief. “If you thought it was a danger, you'd have acted on it. You haven't, so you trust him.”

“And you don't,” Ratchet pointed out.

Another long, uncomfortable moment of silence, and what with the amount of time Jolt had spent around Sideswipe, he should probably have gotten used to it already.

“You're the medic.” That response meant little to Jolt but it obviously made more sense to Ratchet, because said medic relaxed almost imperceptibly at that. “You're getting too close to him but you would have stepped in if that thing was a real danger. I say it's a mistake but that doesn't matter. You trust us. We owe you the same in return.”

Ratchet would have stepped in, Jolt realised. Ratchet. Not Optimus Prime or Ironhide or whoever else was capable of taking down a Seeker in an emergency, because they weren't medics, either, and so they trusted the medic to let them know if their Seeker was just moody or a genuine threat, and that was just another note on a mental list a mile long of all the things Jolt had learned from Ratchet that left him more than a bit uncomfortable.

It was a lot of trust to place on the shoulders of one lone mech. Ratchet didn't seem to mind but Jolt knew he couldn't claim the same thing himself. One wrong word in an emergency could get someone killed, and that bit of knowledge would keep gnawing on his processors for a long time to come.

“He deserves a chance,” Ratchet said, with something in his voice that Jolt couldn't quite identify. “Like a pair of front-liners I used to know.”

Sideswipe's smile was toothy. “Twisted, slag-spawned Decepticons in disguise that would get us all violently offlined in combat someday in a killing frenzy? I think I remember those.”

“They haven't killed me yet,” Ratchet pointed out with a ghost of amusement in his expression as a bit more of his tension drained. “They've been a pain in my aft more times than not but I think I owe them my continued online status a few times over as well.”

“Call it even,” Sideswipe offered with that same toothy smile, like some long-lost and rather unnerving sibling to Ravage. “It makes up for all the spare parts you've used on them.”

And just like that they were back to being reasonably friendly again and Jolt could rest a little more easily where he stood, away from the worst of the disaster zone if it should have come to that.

“I trust him, Sideswipe,” Ratchet said quietly. “Even if I didn't, there wouldn't be much we could do. To keep him locked away is something I wouldn't even wish on Starscream. He fought for us as a human. He carries our symbol and sees the world through blue optics. He is aware of the risks; as am I. He deserves a fighting chance.”

“One, Hatchet,” Sideswipe agreed, and it was as much of a threat as a compromise. “One chance. If he fails, I'll take him down.”

“As it should be.” A pause, and then Ratchet sighed. “Now go, you pest. I'm busy. Go bother someone else instead.”

And Jolt had expected Sideswipe to snarl at that but all the smaller mech did was offer a nod in return before he turned around and left again as silently as he had arrived, leaving one CMO and a very confused junior apprentice and partner in crime in his wake.

As silence continued to reign, Jolt finally worked up the nerve to ask the question that had been nagging him for most of the conversation. “Why do I feel like I missed half of whatever just happened?” he said hesitantly.

Ratchet paused for a moment and his optics dimmed in the way Jolt recognised as someone talking to him over a comm-channel and then the medic focused on him again. “Sideswipe will fill you in, I'm sure,” he said dryly and his usual patience around the junior apprentice slowly returned. “In graphic detail, too. I would appreciate it if whatever he tells you makes it no further than the two of you.”

He didn't wait for Jolt's answering nod before he grabbed a small, empty box and quickly filled it with what looked to Jolt to be a strange assortment of human-sized doohickeys, a couple of human-sized datapads, and a brand new, shiny test dummy. He paused for fragments of a second, added a few more random-looking bits, pushed the remaining boxes back where they belonged, and then handed the small box with the collection over to Jolt. “Here. Materials and instructions. Mikaela will know what to do. It shouldn't take you much longer than this afternoon. It will be good practice and a decent challenge for her and you are overdue working on human-sized patients. The instructions contain only the basics. In your place, I would have a word with the NEST team in question in regards to their suggestions and see if there are any sane ones among them. A medic needs to know when to listen as well as when to put his foot down. Consider this a good way to practice that without the risk of endangering anything but their... considerable enthusiasm.”

Jolt's optics shuttered in a very human display of surprise as he instinctively grasped the small box and tried to wrap his processors around the sudden shift in topic and quick list of instructions. “Sir?”

“Mikaela. NEST. Test flight subject,” Ratchet repeated in a voice that left no room for arguments and made Jolt start to suspect to an uncomfortable degree that the small project mattered a lot more to their medic than any of them knew. “I have a Seeker to talk to.”

And with that, Hurricane Ratchet left the infirmary as swiftly as he had descended upon it in the first place, leaving only a box of human doohickeys and one very confused junior apprentice medic behind.


---------------------------


Even in retrospect, Will wasn't entirely sure where the idea had come from. He suspected it had actually been his own fault because while the Seeker was more than a bit enthusiastic about the idea of claiming a future mate properly, the possible combat uses of it had never entered its mind, however useful those kinds of things might be. All it had done was share its feelings on mates and kin and bonded when Will had asked, nothing more and nothing less. The resulting conclusions from listening to that... even if it was getting increasing hard sometimes to tell the Seeker side from his human one, Will strongly suspected that it had been his own Pit-spawned military training that had taken that information and run with it in some desperate attempt to find something useful about it... and then shared it with Ratchet, to get a second opinion on it all.

He wasn't sure where the idea had come from, and that was probably as much because the human and the Seeker side had begun to merge as it was a result of the still-lingering, bone-deep dread sparked by Ratchet's words. It had taken a while to calm down enough to get at reasonable grip on himself again and even longer before the medic had been willing to turn his attention from them for long enough to set things in motion in regards to Will's NEST team's curiosity and endless fascination with their new Seeker. It wasn't much of a useful plan, and he knew it, too, but it was something to do, something to distract him and remind him just where he belonged, and more than anything, that was what he needed now. In any other situation, he would have thrown everything he had into training... but not now, not when it felt like everything new he learned, every bit he improved might soon be turned against the people he considered friends and allies, and who'd had his back in combat. Whatever their medic might think, it was still a very real risk, and both Will and the Seeker knew it.

In retrospect, the whole idea had probably been a result of too much to handle in too little time, and desperately grasping for some way to make it all make sense – a bit of stability in the chaos, however much of a stretch it might be. Most likely, the caged feeling of restless apprehension and anticipation of an attack they knew would come sooner rather than later had affected them and sent them on a frantic search of something they could do beyond watch and wait and do nothing... and hope that being around humans once they'd calmed down would be enough to keep them on the right side of things. Apprehension and anticipation and the feeling of being driven forward by instincts he didn't understand, towards something that existed only on the edges on his mind, brought almost into focus by his talk with Ratchet and still impossible to actually get enough of a grasp on to recognise, no matter how hard he tried. Maybe the idea had been there in the back of his processors already and maybe it hadn't and in the end, it didn't really matter when they decided on it as their course of action. The Seeker had held the pieces of information they needed and Will had spent long enough in the military to see the advantages, and that had been it. Not the most romantic reasoning, he would readily admit, but it didn't change the fact that Ironhide was a warrior and would probably understand, and that driving emotion beneath it all had still been a desperate, bone-deep need to keep his guardian-turned-friend-turned-future-mate safe, whatever reasons might have been piled on top. The same instinctive desire to protect was there whenever he thought of Sarah, too, but Sarah was safe, Sarah was sheltered, and Ironhide was the one on the frontlines, drawing fire so someone else didn't have to.

So really, it had been mostly his own faults that had drawn him into what looked like it was going to be a more than a bit uncomfortable talk with Ratchet. All the Seeker had done was offer him that information and let him know that it certainly wouldn't object to those ideas. Will's own fear of ever making Ironhide have to go through with his own promise had been enough to trigger the rest... and his trust in Ratchet had made him pause for long enough to ask for the medic's opinion, knowing perfectly well that the mech would be less than pleased and probably even had enough control of both of them to forcibly stop the idea if it came to that.

Everything considered, life had been a lot easier before he had to deal with Seeker politics and mating instincts and every single mental theory he'd thought up about Primus' grand plans and exactly where the God of the Cybertronians could shove those, too.

He had expected that Ratchet would probably frown more than a little at the idea of a spark-merge with Ironhide but he hadn't expected to be ordered on the ground immediately in a voice that offered no arguments, or to find the medic waiting for him when he landed, clear displeasure radiating from his entire being to a degree that Will could feel it all the way to the core of his spark, and even the Seeker had cringed slightly as they settled on the runway and watched their CMO – warily.

“I thought we were past the period of impulsive stupidity,” Ratchet said when it became clear that neither Will nor the Seeker had intentions of making the first move. “Dare I ask which one of you thought up that suggestion in the first place?”

Which was a perfectly justified question, too, and Will sighed.

“The human part,” he responded and hoped he was actually telling the truth. “I asked it for a little more information about what I was dealing with but it's not really wired to think about emotional things in that sort of way. Maybe Starscream and the others have learned but this one's too young, Ratchet. I know it sounds like something it could have cooked up but it's not.”

It was silent as Ratchet just watched him, like a bug under a microscope – or Ironhide on the training ground, when someone had been particularly stupid with a weapon – and then Will raised his head slightly and continued, determined to at least get the chance to say his piece.

“I got curious. I wanted to know what I'm dealing with and while you're better at explaining it, the Seeker knows things that you don't. Right now, it's confused by where to put 'Hide in its mental little boxes. He's claimed as a mate but since we haven't interfaced, he's not a proper mate yet. It'll still protect him and get jealous and possessive and be a general pain about it but he's not a proper mate until it gets to... claim him, in one way or another,” Will explained as he tried to put the feelings he got from the Seeker into words that actually made sense.

Ratchet nodded a sharp agreement but made no move to interrupt and so Will continued.

“That got me curious about mates.” He paused, remembered sharp flares of emotions and demands and the hesitant feeling of the Seeker as it tried to explain concepts that had always been a part of it and implicitly understood by its own breed, and then forced it all aside again to focus on Ratchet. “Seekers mate for life, don't they? That's why they stayed neutral for the most part until Megatron claimed Starscream. They mate for life so getting involved in factions and civil war isn't something any Seeker would want because you might end up on the opposite site as a mate.”

“For the most part, yes,” Ratchet agreed and a bit of the sharp displeasure seemed to drain from him even if he hadn't as much as shifted and Will wasn't sure if he should feel grateful or apprehensive. “There have been mates who left each other but it was never a common choice. Your coding is made to adapt to the mates you choose, to help ensure a successful union for however long to come. Not much, mind you. It is minor changes, much like human relationships require a few compromises at times, but it is enough to write that small bit of your mate into your very coding. To undo a bond like that again is never lightly done, by Seekers or by any other Cybertronian.”

Which matched what Will had gotten from the Seeker in emotion-focused little bursts of information and explanation and he nodded in confirmation and forced aside the sudden apprehension he felt. Somehow, saying it out loud was a lot harder than through the comm-link.

“Seekers mate for life,” Will repeated, “and no Seeker – or any other Cybertronian, for that matter – would target their mate outside of a life-and-death situation. If it's done with a spark-merge...” He shrugged and tried to make it sound calm, thought-through, planned, and knew he was probably failing miserably. “With a spark-merge, it wouldn't matter if I turned traitor on you. There'd be nothing I could do to target Ironhide. I know the same would be the case for 'Hide with me but it wouldn't matter with Optimus around. He's good enough to take me down.”

There. Nice and simple and logical and the Seeker in the back of his mind felt hesitant about it all but couldn't find anything to argue with, either, and Will strongly suspected that it was nothing more than the lack of strong emotions that it didn't feel sure about. It was a mate, after all, and it was supposed to feel passionate about claiming a mate. Not treat it like a military operation. Something nagged, kept nagging, but he pushed it aside – now was not the time and he couldn't afford the distraction, his current restlessness more than enough to handle as it was.

“So of course the logical course of action is to spark-merge with Ironhide on the off chance that Starscream may affect you stronger than we suspect,” Ratchet said in a distinct drawl and brought Will right back to boot-camp or strict teachers trying to get an hyperactive nine-year-old under control – and he obviously wasn't the only one, because bird-brain with a lack of actual prior knowledge and memories or not, the Seeker winced right along with him at that. There was something in the back of his mind nagging him about that, something the Seeker was trying to grasp that Will couldn't even begin to put a clawed, metallic finger on, but it was there and it was enough to keep the Seeker distracted even from a conversation as important to the both of them as the current one was.

“Not on the off chance, Ratchet, and you know it. If it was that unlikely, I would have been out there getting my aft kicked in training by Ironhide. I'm not. I'm here with you, and once that test dummy is done, I'll spend time with my old team, too. If any of us thought Starscream would just be a minor little headache, we wouldn't spend this much time cementing my loyalty to this side to the Seeker.”

“So of course the logical course of action is to spark-merge,” Ratchet repeated, and the emphasis the medic put on the last word gave Will the increasingly uncomfortable thought that there was something he was missing. “There are perhaps a handful of mechs still online who are older than Ironhide. He has pitted himself against Seekers – against Megatron – and lived to learn from the experience. He has lived through more battles than most mechs will see in a lifetime and you wish to spark-merge with him because it may improve his safety in some hypothetical future that may not even come to pass?” A pause, just long enough to make sure Will caught the incredulous expression that came with the words, and then he continued. “You are aware that our sparks are our souls?”

“I'm not stupid, Ratchet,” Will said quietly. “I know what it means.”

“Do you? Do you really, William?” Ratchet demanded. “Your Seeker part is young and inexperienced and despite it all, you are still human at mind. Mere weeks are not enough to adapt to your situation or learn to see the world from a Seeker's perspective, rather than a purely human one. Interfacing, in all its creative varieties, can be as intimate as anything the human species could think of, but you have no equivalent of spark-merging. You can, for that matter, live a perfectly well-adjusted life as a Seeker without ever even entertaining the thought of a spark-merge. A spark-merge would be preferred in a mate but it has never been a requirement for your kind. Pure interfacing could create a more than sufficient claim on a mate to keep your Seeker part content.”

“But there'd still be the possibility of me or the Seeker getting so bad under Starscream's influence that we'd go after him, anyway,” Will pointed out. “You can't deliberately target someone you're spark-bonded with, I got that much from it.”

Ratchet sighed and Will really wasn't sure if it was just his standard reaction to such mind-blowing stupidity that it went beyond what a swift smack to the back of his head would fix, or if it was because they were actually starting to make sense to him, and the Seeker sent him a quick succession of emotions in an attempted explanation – concern-worry-exasperation-fear – and then it was gone again, distracted once more.

“A generalisation made by an inexperienced youngling,” the medic said tiredly. “There have been cases of such deliberate incidents between spark-bonded mechs in the past. But yes. It is rare and never without serious consequences to the offender. You would, in essence, destroy the part of your own spark in your bond-mate as well as the bit of your bond-mate's spark that had merged with you. I doubt even Starscream would be capable of such a thing.”

“So he'd be safe,” Will said quietly. “The Seeker wants this. Sooner or later, it'll want a spark-merge because that's the closest sort of bond you can get. This way it would be my choice. Not Seeker-hormones or excess energy or programming demanding it. Right now I'm as clear-headed as I ever get like this. It's said its piece to me and it's been letting me do the talking now. If 'Hide agrees to this, it'd be most fair to him to do it when he'd know it wasn't just the Seeker pushing things.”

It was silent for one second, then two as Ratchet watched them again and this time it was less the feeling of a bug under a microscope and more the close scrutiny of someone who knew that they were serious and looked for any weakness in their words.

"A choice made with no genuine alternatives available is not much of a choice," Ratchet pointed out and Will couldn't help a soft snort at that, very human amusement clear even in his new body.

"I wouldn't say that. I can be fragging stubborn if I want to. You think 'Will' is always a good thing?"

Sure, not much of a choice but with things as they were, Will was reasonably sure he could keep the Seeker from forcing the issue if it came to that and the impression he got from the bird-brain was the same. It wasn't as much a truce as a simple analysis of the choices and consequences that could rise from the situation and he got the clear impression that in the end, the Seeker had understood that a spark-merge without Will's agreement would cause more harm than good to everyone involved... and bird-brain or not, it would not hurt a trine-mate or a potential future spark-mate like that.

"Waiting," Ratchet finally said with a strange gentleness, "can be a curse of the Unmaker, can't it? It leaves you too much time to think and too much time to grow restless before an inevitable attack."

Implied, he wasn't making this decision with a level head and it was nothing more than battle-nerves - understandable, considering the sort of attack they would face and the things that were at stake for both the human and the Seeker - and he might very well regret it all when the dust had settled. And even if he had no idea of how, he got the clear impression that it was a test, an attempt to get him angry and make him confess – and it was working, too, because he could feel his anger rise even as he tried to force it back down.

"That's not why I'm doing it." Will couldn't quite keep the edge of temper from his voice, as much the human side as the Seeker being insulted by it all, and he forced his voice to be calm again. "I know all about waiting and being restless and just wanting the slagheads to attack so you can get it over with. That's not why I'm doing it. I owe him, Ratchet. He's my friend - my kin, my bonded, and my mate, and if there's anything I can do to keep him safe if we snap, then I'll do that."

“Mere weeks are hardly enough to make a decision like that," Ratchet pointed out and yes, when he said it like that it did sound like nothing more than restless stupidity, and Will desperately tried to find the right words to explain it all.

"I've known him longer than that."

"Not as a Seeker." Ratchet paused, stared at nothing for a moment and then refocused on them. "If you forced yourself to do this, you could lose control to the Seeker - perhaps permanently - and none of us can afford that now. If you have any doubts at all, any hesitation about this, Ironhide would know, and it could poison the bond beyond repair."

Bond.

Something about the word clicked, made the last pieces of the Seeker's puzzle fit together with blinding clarity and brought the nagging feeling into perfect focus, and he spoke before he got the chance to second-guess himself, felt the Seeker's fierce, silent support and the distinct presence of the first, hesitant strands of a bond he hadn't even been consciously aware of until then, and threw everything he had into that one sentence. "Then let me prove it."

And if there had been any doubts, the were gone the instant Will recognised the flicker of surprise for what it was – Ratchet's reaction through a bond that was still too tentative to block completely – and he pushed his advantage before their medic had time to dismiss the idea immediately.

“Bonds don't have to be romantic. Bonds can be between brothers in arms or friends or kin. I trust you. You're our medic and a friend and you've been there for every Pit-spawned bit of slag I've been put through thanks to this.” Flickers of emotions, almost too faint to feel at all, but Will latched on to them, anyway, and tried not to wonder what Ratchet felt on the other end of the bond – or Ironhide, for that matter, with the sort of emotions that kept his processors in their grip. “I know you knew about it, because there's no way you didn't, and I'm sure you thought I had enough to deal with, and I appreciate it, but I can handle this, Ratchet. Let me prove it. Please.”

It was as close as he got to begging – and he was starting to do that uncomfortably often as a Seeker, come to think of it – and Ratchet's expression revealed nothing but perfect neutrality.

“And if you change your mind? To break a bond is not something done lightly.”

“I won't,” Will promised quietly. “I trust you, Ratchet. That bond wouldn't have had anything to latch on to if I didn't, and you're too controlled for it to have started from you. I'll understand if you say no, no hard feelings, but don't do it on my account. I never minded the bond with 'Hide. I don't do a very good job shielding it but I'll learn. I like it, it's comforting, and even if the Seeker was the one to complete that one, I wouldn't change it back if I could. It feels right, like it's supposed to be there, and what little I get from yours feels the same way. This isn't the Seeker. It's me. I want this, I trust you, I like you, and you spend enough time as it is keeping an ear on me through the comm-link. This would just make that connection a little easier.”

“And allow me to see if you are, indeed, being truthful?” Ratchet suggested with a telling look, and while Will didn't doubt that the medic knew that safety from a possible Seeker-turned-'Con was part of the reasoning as well, it wasn't the point now and they both knew that, too.

There were only fragments of a second of hesitation before Will raised his head defiantly. “Yes. I know it sounds stupid. I know it sounds like one of the bird-brain's half-boiled plots but you know it wouldn't have asked for a second opinion first. This isn't just about 'Hide. This is – it's everything. This isn't a compromise. This is who I am now, who I'll be for however long until someone gets in a lucky shot, and I can deal with that. Would I undo this whole thing if I could? I don't know, and it doesn't matter, because I can't. This is who I am now and for all that I'm stuck with a Seeker running on nothing but basic instincts, it's not all bad, either. I want this bond. I want the spark-bond with 'Hide, too. I'm trying, Ratchet. I know it sounds stupid and impulsive, the words won't get out right, but I'm trying. Give me a chance to prove that.”

Flickers of something – doubt, hesitation, calculated concern, and underneath it all a lingering sense of trust that offered Will a glimpse of just how much confidence any ground-pounder needed to bond with something as volatile as a Seeker – and then the medic held out one strong hand in a soundless offer. This time there was no hesitation at all as Will offered his own clawed hand in return, his own silent acceptance of the agreement as their hands touched and the word spun and the only thing he could think of was how different it had been with Ironhide.

Ironhide had been strength in battle, older than the War, older than their Prime, older than Megatron; strong and scarred and unrelenting, with an undercurrent of just as strong emotions but still unshakable against the torrent of impressions from their bond. Ratchet was strength in the aftermath that always followed war – just as old, just as strong, just as scarred, and just as unrelenting, but the feel was different; cool to Ironhide's heat, tempered to the forge of battle, and with the calm, ruthless ability to do what had to be done sometimes, to make life and death decisions and live with them as the War carried on through endless aeons. Dealing death through necessity, to focus on the ones that actually stood a chance, was very different from the act of pulling a trigger in a split-second decision and the emotions that flooded them now reflected that.

With Ironhide, there had been lust from the Seeker, the love of the sky and the thrill of the flight. With Ratchet it was just as all-consuming but it was trust that was the foremost emotion, trust and fierce determination and the feeling of a presence as old and unshakeable as a mountain, and he reached out before he was aware of it, his own thoughts and emotions wrapping around Ratchet until the raw impressions of the Seeker joined with the tightly controlled emotions of their medic, and it took him long seconds to realise that the sound at the edge of his processors was the Seeker crooning its affection.

Pleasure joined confidence joined trust and the raw feeling of right as he consciously reached out and tried to explain without words, show that it was what he had wanted; that while the Seeker was happy, the human side was pretty damn pleased, too, and the rush of acknowledgement and careful affection he received in return was all the answer he needed to know that Ratchet understood.

This is right, the Seeker murmured and Will nodded his silent agreement.

Do you trust him? Ratchet asked, and it wasn't a voice as much as a mix of emotions and impression that was distinctly Ratchet, and Will's intakes vented softly as he tried to get it all under control again and keep from flooding his new bonded with emotions.

With my life, Will replied and couldn't have lied if he had wanted to. With Sarah and Annabelle.

The bond was still for a moment, wisps of caution and careful consideration snaking through, and then he felt a whisper of a frown.

A spark-merge is more than that. Our spark is our soul, Will. Everything we are, everything we were, everything we ever will be. Every moment, remembered or not. Everything you ever did. Every decision, every triumph, every shameful secret, every thought you would not even admit to yourself. Every moment of jealousy and hate, every moment of love and affection and despair. Everything you are, Will – and with a spark-bond, you share it all with him and in return, you are given the same by him. There will be no secrets, no shadows; no doubts or hesitation or festering uncertainties.

Ratchet fell silent, let Will have a moment to take it all in along with the feeling of seriousness that came with it. Will understood what the medic was doing – making sure that their new Seeker knew exactly what he was getting into, with no illusions and no false certainties – and he appreciated it on a level that he suspected Ratchet understood, considering Will's unstable-at-best ability to shield a bond, and never mind a brand new one.

That is what a spark-merge is, William. He paused and the emotions that followed through the bond as he continued were strong and unrelenting, ice and steel, and made the Seeker shudder in their mind. Everything you ever were, everything you are, everything you ever will be.

Memories flickered through his processors, slow enough to see but too fast to grasp, and he felt his hand grip Ratchet's tighter, felt the hold tighten comfortingly in return as that stability remained across their bond, and he could do nothing but watch and remember and feel the Energon rush faster as the full weight of it all settled on his spark. Every memory to make shame surge through his processors, every nasty, narrow-minded thought he had tried to ignore, every lie, every hurt, every insult-

And he forced it all aside, because it didn't matter. It was Ironhide. The mech knew him, had seen him at his worst; had seen him through hangovers and blunders and battlefield losses and a Seeker he couldn't control, and when Will was finally able to focus on Ratchet again, there was steely defiance in his thoughts.

I know.

It was silent again as Ratchet watched him over the bond but this time there was something else in it, serious thought behind it as Ratchet just watched, and finally the shield relented again to let through a whisper of hesitant approval.

If he agrees... Ratchet said carefully. ... I suppose I have heard of worse reasons for spark-bonding.

There was a surge of relief that Will couldn't quite hide; relief and satisfaction and silent pride, and he carefully reined it in as he tried to keep it from flooding both of his bonds and knew perfectly well he was failing, too – and Ratchet's presence was probably the only thing that had stopped Ironhide from poking him about what was happening, too.

It wasn't unconditional approval, Will knew, and he still had to bring it up with Ironhide, but it was still permission and for now, it would have to do.


---------------------------


Sunset arrived on Diego Garcia with the swiftness that always followed when you were as close to the equator as the NEST base was. That fact wasn't what had made William Lennox curse when his mind finally cleared up enough to be able to focus on something other than the nagging drive to do something. It was the fact that it wasn't until shadows clawed their way up the hangar walls and fading sunlight stained the clouds red and yellow and orange that Will actually noticed that evening had arrived... and looking back, he would be able to pinpoint that as the exact moment when he realised that he was inescapably, irrevocably entwined in the Seeker programming and that pretending anything else would be a waste of time at best and potentially fatal at worst.

However much he'd had on his mind, he should not have been able to miss something as blatantly obvious as a sunset. Granted, it wasn't that sunset was important in any way as anything more than a mental reminder of what time it was – it was the fact that he had been able to miss it in the first place. If he could overlook a sunset right in front of his pointed, alien nose, only Primus knew what else his processors would be able to overlook in a moment of distraction, and that was what had made whatever alien version he had of adrenaline kick in and his non-existent stomach tie into a knot. He had missed the sunsets often enough as a human, but that had been indoors and buried in paperwork. This had been outside. Talking with Ratchet, sure, but the medic wasn't exactly wide enough to block a whole evening sky from view, and nobody sane would be stupid enough to insinuate that, either.

The fact that he hadn't noticed a thing until he had managed to convince Ratchet that a spark-merge with Ironhide wasn't a completely brain-dead idea wasn't lost on him, either, and the sudden clarity of mind that had followed the medic's reluctant agreement was more chilling than reassuring.

He had thought he had been clear-headed, he really had. He had thought he had been clear-headed but it wasn't until that hazy and almost obsessive focus on the idea was gone that he realised how influenced by Seeker-programming his mind had really been... and if he was able to completely fail to notice something like that, too, it didn't bode well for his general attention-span at all.

He was used to having his life depend on his observation skills in the field and the ability to spot a threat before it spotted him or his men. What Seeker-programming was doing to his mind was slowly but steadily making those skills unreliable at best and utterly useless in the worst-case scenario that Will had the sinking feeling was the most likely outcome of the whole thing.

Feeling vaguely pissed about the whole thing, Will offered a muttered curse at letting himself get distracted like that, pushed aside the gnawing fear that it might happen again, and offered every mental oath he knew that he would slagging well keep a better eye on things in the future, programming and voices in his head be damned.

A flare of annoyance with himself surged across the newly-formed bond and was gone again before Will could shield it properly and he sighed even as he saw Ratchet give him a Look and a silent demand for details and Primus help both human and Seeker if the medic actually had to ask.

"Seeker stuff," Will offered in half apology and half explanation. "I can't even say it has the attention-span of a goldfish, can I? It's got great focus, after all - if you can overlook the fact that it ignores everything else that goes on around it."

The Seeker didn't feel as insulted about that as Will had expected - unimportant-indifference-irrelevant the Seeker sent by way of explanation - and maybe it was a matter of adapting to each other or maybe it was because it was growing up and had enough self-awareness to know that it was true and not mind, either, because it considered it a useful ability.

"The ability to remain intently focused to the exclusion of all else is a rather Seeker-ish trait," Ratchet agreed quietly and a clearly deliberate feeling of calm followed through their bond. "It has helped them survive as a breed. If you consider it for a moment, the purpose will be clear."

Flight, the Seeker murmured before he could ask, a surge of memories of spinning in freefall and skimming the sea with mere feet to spare, and it was all that was needed to make it click and sudden understanding settle with the human part. Seekers were fast, faster than most human aircrafts, and the stunts they pulled off for nothing more than the sheer thrill of it defied anything a human jet would be able to handle. They were neither heavily armoured nor heavily armed for something of their size and relied on their speed and skills in combat rather than raw firepower and when he thought of it from the Seeker's perspective, that single-minded ability to focus made perfect sense.

Flight, the Seeker repeated with an echo of pride in the words and there was nothing in that one word that Will could argue about.

The tunnel vision that freaked the every-loving slag out of the Ranger was a life-saving necessity to a Seeker. You didn't hesitate or allow yourself to get distracted when you were going at Mach three through a canyon. You trusted your instinct and you lived, or you hesitated or let your attention wander and removed your faulty self from the breed. It only made sense if it carried over in their behaviour outside of flying, too, and looking at it from that point of view his lack of attention over the course of that conversation made perfect sense - tunnel vision brought on by Seeker programming that had been well aware of the importance of the conversation and decided to give him the best odds possible by removing any outside distractions. It hadn't been the Seeker's fault that the human side wasn't familiar with that sort of programming and decided to freak about something the Seeker considered perfectly normal.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Will muttered and rubbed a clawed hand against his face. "At this rate I'm going to be useless on the ground."

Another item on the long, long list of things to bring up with Primus whenever he got the chance and at the rate things were going, it would probably be sooner rather than later. He fragging well wasn't going to just roll over and submit but if his mind could be that taken over by Seeker-programming without the human part ever noticing while it was going on, it really didn't bode well for his state of mind when he finally ran into the 'Con Seekers. The stronger the Seeker-influence...

... the stronger the programming that says I can't just shoot Starscream out of the sky. Frag it all to the Pit.

"I need..." Will trailed off, rubbed his face again as he tried to get his thoughts back under control and find some way to express the emotions circling his mind. Need to get away, need to get a grip, need to-

- Needed to something, and the words didn't make sense to him, and his processors wouldn't cooperate, and something must have seeped through his shields or maybe he was just that predictable, because Ratchet only nodded.

"Jolt and Mikaela will have the test dummy finished by tonight. You will be able to assist the NEST team in testing it out in flight tomorrow."

Because right now he needed to get away from Cybertronians and Seeker-influences, needed to be reminded of what that other half of him was and where it had come from, and maybe being around human brothers in arms would be enough to do that and maybe it wouldn't, but he would at the very least give it a serious try. The less he thought like a Seeker when the ambush hit, the better for all of them. The NEST team... he needed to work with his NEST team and get them imprinted on his flighty little interfaced-obsessed mind. NEST... and Sarah, and Annabelle.

Something stirred in the back of his mind, an instinctive response as Seeker-programming confirmed that it was still aware of its mates' locations – Ironhide on the shooting range and Sarah...

One, two seconds, and the Seeker snarled its frustration and made Will wince and be grateful it had only made that sound in his head and not actually voiced that near-screech out loud.

She's human, he pointed out. 'Hide couldn't feel me when I was human, either.

We are Seeker, the presence snarled back and managed to put a truly impressive range of insults and ego in those three words.

Another mental tug on the one-side bond with Sarah followed and failed, and Will could almost feel the Seeker's optics narrow as it dredged through never-used bits of programming with all the grace and virtue of the newly-created, inexperienced, impatient Seeker that it was.

Something flicked through his processors – symbols and glyphs and things he couldn't even begin to understand – and he felt it draw their strength too late to do anything but brace himself as the Seeker snarled its displeasure out loud and a soundless shockwave of raw energy tore itself from their body.

He felt more than heard Ratchet's sharp wince over their bond as the mech got the energy-burst at near point blank, felt the world spin and his strength drained-

- And as the shockwave rolled across the island, his mental map of Diego Garcia lit up like a Christmas tree. Autobots, humans; anything sufficiently advanced to be even reasonably sentient, and Ratchet was a minor sun lighting up the world beside him, glowing points of blue-spark and pink-Energon and red-blood as programming sorted through the staggering amounts of inputs it had just received and Will desperately tried to stay on his feet as the world only slowly stopped spinning at that dizzying pace.

Silence for a long moment, the questioning feel of both Ratchet and Ironhide's attention focused on him, and then he felt an echo of Ratchet's mental firm, shooing gesture at Ironhide before only the medic's presence remained.

Another moment, then two, and whatever-he-had-for-a-stomach settled slightly again – enough, at least, for Will to bring optics back online that he hadn't even been aware of offlining in the first place, and then Ratchet took a cautious step closer.

“William?”

The Christmas-lights of a map in his head had turned down the overwhelming brightness a little, too, but not enough that actual sound didn't make him flinch slightly, however low and cautious it might be.

“Can Seekers puke?” Because slightly-less-nauseous or not, he still felt like he was about to purge his tanks or whatever the hell they called it when it was a Cybertronian doing the hurling. His own voice almost made him twitch as well but it would probably still be better than trying to focus any sort of coherent thought in his processors as it was, and whatever the Seeker had done, his body did not appreciate it.

Ratchet paused. “Do you really wish to know, given your current state?”

Point, there, and Will subconsciously shuddered as the dizziness slowly – slowly – faded. “Not really.” This time, he was the one to pause as he tried to sort out what the Seeker had done – and whatever it was, it had affected both of them, because the Seeker sounded strangely muted as it responded, miserable, little murmurs that sounded as pathetic as he felt. “It did a normal little 'keep tag on the mates' thing and couldn't pick up Sarah. She's human so she can't have a real bond with it. It didn't take that too well. I think it tried to scan for her because I just picked up on every single sentient being on the whole fragging island, human, Autobot, and otherwise.”

“Ours scanners are not intended to be able to identify one human among thousands without a tracker of some sort to mark them,” Ratchet said carefully – still on edge from the shockwave, maybe, or just making sure he wouldn't rattle Will enough to put the tank-purging theory to the test, and either reason was fine with Will as long as it meant no sudden, sharp sounds.

“Yeah, well, I don't think anyone told bird-brain,” Will muttered and rubbed what would have been his temple when he had still been human and felt a headache take over bit by bit where the nausea had been. “Because she's on one of the beaches with Anna and 'Bee.”

Well, he assumed that second presence to be Annabelle, at least, but it was significantly smaller than Sarah and the Seeker had responded to it as well with a flicker of recognition so Will would put good money on that guess being right. Sarah, at least, there was no doubt about. Her presence didn't light up in the same blinding way that Ratchet or Ironhide did at the insane level the scan had been set at but it was still impossible to mistake for anything but mate and lit up like a minor sun against the rest of the humans on base. Brighter than the blue-spark he had recognised as Bumblebee, at least, and all but drowning out the wisp of light right next to it that he assumed was Sam, if Ratchet had put Jolt and Mikaela to work.

Cooling fans kicked in to lower the temperature that for once had nothing to do with arousal and another - mercifully weaker - wave of nausea followed as faint vibrations from the fans were enough to unsettle him again. Ratchet took another cautious step closer and brought up a scanner, then lowered it again long moments later.

"I would recommend against attempting that again. Your core temperature rose sharply and your Energon reserves dropped by four percent. Your scanners weren't meant to handle that sort of strain."

Recommend against attempting that again.

Understatement of the fragging decade, Will decided, and the headache - or processor-ache, or PCU-ache, or whatever the proper term was for the vice that was crunching the inside of his skull - was steadily getting worse, and all he wanted was to find somewhere nice and flat and be unconscious for a few days. Frag recharge. Out cold was the way to go.

"Yeah, I got that part of it," he rasped as the vice tightened another notch. "Fever and hangover. Got it. Not doing that again."

Ratchet nodded and then his optics dimmed for a moment in what Will had long since learned to recognise as a sign of silent communication over some comm-line or another. "Optimus," he said by way of explanation. "The effects of your scan were felt base-wide by Cybertronians. I let him know that it was a controlled test of your capabilities and that we underestimated your Seeker's ability to override its safety protocols."

The ghost of something against his bond with Ironhide, restless impatience slipping through even what Will knew to be Ironhide's considerable mental shields, but his body had settled down enough that it didn't bring on a new wave of nausea, at least. "'Hide's not happy."

"He did not get the same effects of it that I received but it still affected him," Ratchet confirmed, then continued with an undercurrent of a distinct threat aimed at the black mech in question. "I also told him to keep his wretched cannons out of this matter and refrain from putting your systems under any more stress."

"I think it slipped through on accident," Will defended him. "It wasn't much, just... 'Hide."

Ratchet made an unimpressed sound. "He should have more control than that."

Someone was definitely going to get their aft chewed out, no doubt about that, but his head hurt too much to be able to muster much more in way of defence of his mate before even Seeker-programming conceded to the superior power that was a thoroughly annoyed Ratchet and settled down again in the back of his mind with a morose feeling.

It took several more long moments before his processors managed to start up again and made him frown slightly as he realised something else.

“How about Sarah?” he asked. “You said base-wide with the Autobots. She's human but she shows up a lot clearer than, say, 'Bee does it in my head. Not as bright as you or 'Hide, but... you think she might...?” A small gesture with his hand followed, trying to explain what his processor couldn't work up the energy to put into words, and Ratchet frowned slightly.

“Interesting question.” Blue optics dimmed, for a lot longer that time, and then lit up slowly again as the medic refocused on Will with an intent look that neither human nor Seeker was entirely comfortable with. “It scanned specifically for her?”

“... I guess?” Will frowned as he tried to make sense of what little his tired, morose Seeker was able to give in way of explanation amidst the still-building headache from the stunt it had pulled. “She was the one it wanted to find. It focused on her but I'm not sure if it did it to the exclusion of everyone else. I don't think it's got the focus for that, to be honest. I picked up on a lot more humans than her, at least, I just couldn't identify them the same way as Sarah.” He paused and watched the medic frown as well and he had been around enough medics in his career to know that a frown was never good news. “Ratchet?”

“Bumblebee reports that she felt something at the time of your scan,” Ratchet finally said. “Samuel was within twenty feet of her and felt nothing. It would appear it has more control of itself when necessary than we assumed... or that your prior connection as humans had a role in the effects of the scan.”

Frag.

Sudden panic forced its way through the vice and the haze of pain for long enough to make his processors actually focus. “Is she okay? Both of them?” Because frag it all to the Pit, that blast had been enough to make Ratchet wince and every human on base show up on his mental little map, and if that had been focused on-

“She is well. I will see to her later, to ensure a human doctor unfamiliar with your build wouldn't miss something vital on accident, but she is perfectly well. It was faint enough that she first thought it to be nothing more than her imagination. Her – your – young one felt nothing at all, it seemed. She is well, William. She is perfectly unharmed. They both are.”

Low, confident, soothing, and it doubtlessly wasn't the first time the medic had needed to talk down some concerned relative or another and Will's intakes made a shuddering sound as all strength left him again and the headache returned with a vengeance.

There was something else nagging him and however much he didn't want to ask, the Seeker was pretty much out for the count and the programming that came with it all but knocked out cold by the Seeker's little stunt, and he would probably never be as clear-headed again as he was now.

"I'll apologise to her tomorrow.” He paused, tried to find a way to put it to make it all make sense, and the sighed in resignation. “About 'Hide... how can you be sure it's me who wants this? I'm not even sure any more, these days. Whenever I think I've got it under control, it shows right back up. When I think I've finally got a clear head, it turns out I'm just so far under Seeker-control that I don't even notice the programming affecting my head in the first place. I'm scared, Ratchet, and I can't even work up a good panic about it because the programming just takes a look at it and decides there's nothing to panic about because it's really just improving my stupid little human ideas for me and I should be grateful for it instead. How the hell do I know it's not just programming that's telling me to find a good, strong mate and roll over and take it and get to breeding? I like him, Ratchet. I liked him even when I was human, even if that was as a comrade in arms. I want to do this right and not because the voices in my head told me to."

He almost expected Ratchet to use that bond to take a closer look at the situation and kept a hard grip on the desperate relief he felt when it became clear that the medic had no intentions of that – it could have been useful, maybe, but his head hurt too much to even consider how much worse it would get if he got the full effects of a bond to join the headache... and never mind that Ratchet might have ended up with a mirroring headache from poking around with the bond in the first place.

“Have you changed your mind?” the medic asked quietly and the anger Will had almost expected from him never materialised – anger at his indecisiveness, maybe, anger at hearing him second-guess a decision he had sounded so sure about, but it never showed and Will shuttered his optics for a moment.

“I... no,” he said and meant it even as fear settled in between images of spark-mate and strength and gleaming, black metal that almost shimmered in the unearthly glow of twin cannons. “I'm worried. Scratch that, I'm scared out of my fragging mind about this. I don't know if it's me or the Seeker who wants this. I don't know-”

-What would happen if we caved, if Optimus had to take the shot, if we ended up dead from sheer Seeker-related stupidity, and he slowly cycled air through his systems until he was calm enough to cut off that train of thought before it went any further. “I worry. Period.”

“Ironhide is a competent mech,” Ratchet pointed out. “His level of common sense was never awe-inspiring and he has been known to cause more destruction than most Decepticons can ever dream of, but he has survived nonetheless. He has lost spark-merged mates before, William. Not many, and never easily, but he has survived. The story of a spark-merged mate following the other into deactivation is all very romantic, I'm certain, but the fact remains that a strong mech surrounded by trusted companions or other mates will survive. The loss will be felt but will rarely be enough to bring about an offlining by itself. This is his choice to make and if he decides to agree, he will have done so with first-hand experience of the potential consequences of it.” He paused to allow Will's much-tried processors to catch up with his words, then he continued with a slight bit of amusement in his voice. "In any case, your Seeker is still too young and impulsive to be able to argue coherently for something it firmly desires, much less argue logically for it at that. If you did not agree with its choice of Ironhide as spark-merged mate to a fairly large degree, you would not have been able to argue your case so strongly. Seeker programming may have driven you to bring up the option much sooner than might otherwise have been the case but there was far more human than Seeker arguing for a spark-merge. Bonds may lie at times but not one as new as ours. Can I be certain about the human influence? No. But the feeling you gave off was far more human than Seeker. Influenced by instincts, certainly, but it was still your own decision."

Which... made sense. Possibly. Or maybe it was just the Seeker programming affecting him again, and at the rate things were going, he'd be a paranoid lunatic in one month flat. Less, if he spent too much time thinking about programming versus personality and human free will, and a change of subject was definitely in order.

“So what do I do now?” Will asked with a sigh. How the frag did giant, alien robots go about it? Go pull up a rosebush and ask him out? Offer him high-grade? A wax? The spark-cage from a dead Decepticon?

“What is your Seeker half's suggestion?” Ratchet's vaguely amused tone suggested he had some pretty good ideas and Will almost kept from groaning at the images he got in response to that, tired, miserable Seeker and headache or not.

“Whack him over the head and drag him off by his non-existent hair, caveman style? It's a Seeker, Ratchet. It's a bird-brain running on basic programming, not Casanova, you fragging well know that.”

“It simply makes my task easier when I know what I have to work with,” Ratchet corrected him with deceptive mildness that probably covered for more than a little amusement behind those carefully maintained shields. “Although no, I don't recommend following that particular course of action. For one, Ironhide outclasses most Seekers – and certainly you – by several magnitudes in regards to ground-based combat. The more culturally acceptable version was a mating flight... and still is, I suppose, even if it is rarely used these days.”

Which made sense, too, and it was a testament to just how miserable the Seeker felt that the images that accompanied the words – glorious sweeps against clouds and death-defying spins and claiming the sky itself for mate and the glory and awesomeness that was a Seeker – was enough to draw a soundless whimper from the thing as it shuddered and curled up in its misery, and invited Will to join it as another wave of nausea followed.

Something had obviously shown on his face because Ratchet merely held out a hand. “It can wait, William. Recharge before you get into any more trouble. Doctor's orders.”

And with a careful, careful nod of agreement, Will accepted the outstretched hand and followed Ratchet back to the hanger and the blissful, blessed oblivion of unconsciousness.


---------------------------


Ironhide made a point to never voluntarily visit the infirmary if he could in any way avoid it. This obviously had nothing to do with fear of their CMO – Ironhide merely spent enough time being repaired as it was and didn't want to intrude on his busy friend and occasional interface partner's domain without reason, since they all knew how very busy their medic was. That was his explanation, that was what he was sticking to, and Primus help anyone stupid enough to insinuate otherwise... which, unsurprisingly, was very few of them, since anyone sane shared his perfectly healthy level of affectionate respect for their overworked medic.

Ratchet, all-knowing, Pit-spawned medic that he was, obviously seemed to know that, too, and took a sadistic kind of pleasure in hauling Ironhide into the infirmary for that very reason. There was absolutely no reason why they couldn't just talk in Ironhide's quarters, or Ratchet's, or the fragging runway for that matter... and still somehow Ironhide found himself stepping through painfully familiar doors to find Ratchet clearly waiting for him, and for a moment Ironhide wasn't sure if a surprise Decepticon attack wouldn't be preferable.

A glance around revealed the infirmary to be clear of any patients and Ironhide gave their medic a cautious look, feeling the trap start to spring around him and for the life of him not able to see where it was leading him. Ratchet could be an intimidating mech when he wanted to be and right now he clearly did and Ironhide had been on the receiving end of a fragged-off medic often enough that his sudden, responding caution was pretty much imprinted on his processors.

“Where's Will?” Ironhide asked carefully and took two steps further into the room just to prove that he wasn't intimidated in the least, however much they both knew otherwise. “I'm surprised he's not here. I would have thought he'd sent himself into stasis with that stunt he pulled.”

“He almost did,” Ratchet replied with an unimpressed sound. “He's in recharge. Deep recharge but recharge nonetheless. They are a more resilient build in that regard than most suspect.”

An almost-straightforward answer, Ironhide noted, and adjusted his own approach accordingly. If that was how their medic wanted to play, he wasn't going to get in the way, not if it meant a stay of execution for... whatever the frag he had done this time to piss the mech off. Tried to get an answer over the bond with Will against orders, possibly, although it hadn't been all on purpose... not that it would make a difference in Ratchet's view.

“What happened?” It wasn't all playing along, either – it was his friend and likely future mate and he was genuinely curious about what was going on. For all the the Seeker was shaping up to be a Megatron-sized pain in the aft, it was still his friend and the first Seeker he had been up close and personal with outside of combat, and he wasn't so old that he'd forgotten how to be curious.

“You felt him search for you shortly before, I assume,” Ratchet replied and didn't wait for Ironhide's affirmative response. “He doesn't have the self-control yet to do it unnoticed. He attempted the same with his human bonded... mate and did not take kindly to the discovery that he could not reach her through their bond. As a result, he scanned for her instead.”

And wasn't that a fragging harmless way of expressing what had turned into a still-lingering processor-pain for Ironhide... and judging by Ratchet's body language, probably made their medic more than a little uncomfortable in the process, too.

A moment later, he realised something else.

“Mate?”

They'd called her his human bonded before and Ironhide was well aware of the difference between those two words and knew just as well that Ratchet wouldn't have used it without reason.

“It claimed her,” Ratchet explained with the deceptive sort of mildness. “As a mate. Not a bonded. My theory is that it's a result of their bond as humans but there is little chance of ever finding out for sure. For now, we're still considering our options. I will talk to her once I'm done with you here.”

And however much Ironhide wanted to find out what the frag was going on with Sarah Lennox – because he slagging well owed that to his friend if nothing else – Ratchet's last sentence had reminded him of just what he was doing there and Ironhide's optics narrowed slightly.

“I wasn't injured last I checked.”

It was a deliberate attempt to play stupid and it obviously didn't work as Ratchet planted both hands on a berth and leaned forward slightly in another long-practised display of pure intimidation.

“There is nothing physical to fix at the moment, Ironhide, I assure you. Instead, we are going to have a long-overdue talk... before there is something to repair.”

No surprise there. Ironhide was quickly getting a fairly good idea of what the reason for the whole uncomfortable situation was and he interrupted before Ratchet ever had the chance to even begin.

“I'm not going to do anything with him that the human wouldn't want to do,” he bit out. “I know I'm a front-liner. I know we don't have a reputation for being first in line when Primus handed out processing powers but I'm not going to drag him off and have my way with him just because he's got wings. I know he looks like a Seeker, I know they've got a reputation for doing anything big and strong enough to beat them up, but I'm not going to forget there's a human in there, too. I'm not that stupid."

Even if Ratchet hadn't made that particular issue very, very clear to Ironhide on more than a few occasions, Ironhide liked to think he would have worked it out on his own. It was his friend, a human, and he liked to think he would have been able to figure out the difference between the two just fine, shared body or not. He could appreciate what the medic was doing and yes, it was good to know that someone had their Seeker's back even if most of them didn't have a clue about what was going on in those flighty, irrational processors of his, but it was getting just a bit ridiculous. He hadn't survived on cannon power alone. He did have some mental abili---

"That's very good to know, Ironhide," Ratchet interrupted his ranting train of thought in a drawl that Ironhide had long since learned to recognise as a sure sign someone was being exceptionally dense. "I had no doubts about that - you may be a front-liner but you have proven to have at least some amount of processing powers left when it comes to him - but still, reassurances are always nice. Is there anything else you would like to get off of your chest or may I continue?"

A confused stare was all Ironhide could muster in return as his carefully planned-out arguments were neatly swept away and Ratchet clearly took that as permission to go on because he gave Ironhide a long look for good measure and then continued. "Instructions, Ironhide. If you wish to interface with him, you need instructions."

For a long moment Ironhide was silent as his processors went over that bit of the conversation a few more times to made sure he really did hear what he thought be did, and then he snorted in lack of any other logical response. "I'm older than slagging dirt, Ratchet. I know how to 'face. You haven't complained before." Not about anything but Ironhide moving too slagging slow or being a Primus-damned tease, but front-liner or not, even he wasn't brave - or stupid - enough to bring that up at the moment.

"You know how to interface with a mech," Ratchet corrected in that same drawl. "Not with a Seeker. You are aware there's a difference, are you not?"

"He's got wings and he's a bit weird in the processors," Ironhide drawled right back. "And he can spark. He's not an alien. He's still a Cybertronian, just a different build. We've still got all the same bits and pieces that matter."

"He also has eight feet and more than a ton on you," Ratchet pointed out. "And two jet engines that can offline you if you get in their way. He may not have your cannons or Optimus' Energon swords but never assume that he is harmless. There is a reason why most of them are proud Decepticons and it has everything to do with their programming. You are his mate. He has no intentions of causing you deliberate harm but that is never a guarantee with a Seeker. Their programming can and will override any kind of common sense and bonds of loyalty if they react instinctively."

Like with Sideswipe. Ironhide had been about to argue when that memory made its way to the front of his processors and he stopped himself before he could say anything, suddenly unsure about the whole thing again. The Seeker hadn't exactly shown itself to be a towering display of stability and common sense as it was and while the human had been sort-of stable before everything had happened, he'd had his moments of reckless stupidity, too. He had been about to argue that the human and the Seeker had more control than Ratchet gave them credit for but the truth was, he wasn't even sure about that anymore.

Ratchet had obviously picked up on that, too – from body language or their bond or even just his silence – and when he continued, a bit of the edge in his voice had faded, too, now that he felt that some of the seriousness of the situation had imprinted itself on Ironhide.

“A Seeker would instinctively know what to do and what to avoid. You won't, because you do not have wings of your own, nor do you have any of the other Seeker-specific, physical peculiarities that make them what they are. This will be a problem considering that both of you have the same preferences for rough interfacing. If you simply went ahead and 'faced with him without regard for your differences, you would damage his wings. Nothing that couldn't be repaired with relative ease as long as I had the necessary parts available but that wouldn't matter to him.” He paused, let those words really sink into Ironhide's processors, and then continued – low and urgent and deadly serious. “There is nothing in this universe that will panic as badly as a young Seeker that has just received its first serious wing-related injury. Nothing. If you cause serious harm to those wings, he will panic. It doesn't matter that there is a human part in there. It doesn't matter if you tell it that it's merely temporarily grounded until repairs are done. It doesn't matter that you are its mate or if it's told that it is easily repaired or even if you use that bond to try and get it under control again. It would panic, Ironhide. At best, it would go into shock and stay that way until I could get there to handle it. More likely, it would go into blind panic and hurt you – possibly quite grievously – in its attempt to get away. The human side might tell it that it would be easily repaired but its Seeker programming would convince it that it would never fly again, that its wings were gone, and that it had lost everything that made it a Seeker.”

One second passed, then two as Ironhide tried to imagine just what would happen if something that strong and that heavy went off like that, and then he shuttered his optics briefly as images came to him far too vividly.

Frag.

Ironhide stayed silent even as he let that feeling of sudden worry make its way through his bond with Ratchet, because there was really nothing he could say that would bring across his feelings better than that bond would, and he felt Ratchet's side of it open as well in response, a mix of mirroring worry and hard determination and the undercurrent of lingering doubt underneath it all... and there was something about it that nagged Ironhide's processors in a way he couldn't quite put into words.

“They are their wings, Ironhide,” Ratchet continued. “Their wings are their everything. A Seeker can be brought to overload through nothing more than caresses of its wings, and you can permanently offline it through those wings as well without ever as much as touching its spark or its Energon lines. You can't ignore them for any period of time and you can't forget just what you are dealing with in them, either. I have seen grounders killed for touching a Seeker's wings against its will. That is what you are dealing with. It's hardwired into them and human or not, the same will be the case with William.”

Ironhide was about to argue that he wasn't that stupid, that he could damn well tell the difference between 'That hurts, do it harder' and 'That hurts, stop!' and that Ratchet, if anyone, should know that, too, but he stopped himself before he could voice anything of the kind. Ratchet was just looking out for their new Seeker – their friend – and if he was a little over-zealous in doing so, then Ironhide would chalk it up to the fierce concern that had always been at the core of their medic's spark.

“He's my friend, Ratchet. Even if he hadn't been mate or bonded or anything like that, he's still my friend, and if I screw this up, I'll beat myself up a lot more than you or that flying fragger could ever do. Be careful with their wings, I get it. Give me a little credit here.”

Ratchet just gave him a hard look in return as Ironhide felt the familiar presence of their bond flare up again as his friend tried to gauge his seriousness... and there it was again, the feeling of something about their bond being... not quite wrong but not quite Ratchet, either, something just out of his grasp as he struggled to pinpoint it; an echo of something that was both maddeningly familiar and unnervingly-

- alien.

And in an instant it clicked and Ironhide almost laughed as a dozen little bits of the puzzle fell neatly into place, but knowing the being involved as well as he did, he skipped the laughter and settled for a vaguely amused look instead that echoed through their connection.

“You bonded with him, didn't you?”

It was rare that anyone caught Ratchet looking surprised and Ironhide knew he would keep that particular little bit of memory for a long, long time as indignation-shock-surprise flooded their bond and the medic just gaped at him as he tried to make his vocaliser work again.

Ironhide answered with his own feelings of cheerful amusement that made Ratchet visibly pull himself together, snap his mouth shut, and shield the bond again... and then a long second later, groan and rub his face tiredly. “Yes.”

Which explained that off sort of feeling to their bond and Ironhide kept watching him with badly disguised amusement as the medic pulled himself together completely and the usual Ratchet-style body language returned as the last bits of Seeker-style behaviour got pushed aside. “He affects you that much? I thought he was in recharge. I don't even feel him right now.”

Ratchet shifted in an almost embarrassed way at that and if Ironhide hadn't been convinced before that there was a good story hiding there somewhere, he fragging well was now. “It's a bit more complicated than mere cause and effect. To deal properly with Seekers requires a certain kind of manner to make them listen at all. He reminded me of that. It's less a matter of influence through the bond as it is a matter of old habits.”

Habits. Habits took a while to form, wartime or not, and none of the files had never even mentioned that their CMO had spent a while working with Seekers, much less how long. Ironhide had never actually asked – if Ratchet had known something that would have been useful in battle, he would have shared with them a long time ago – and he'd always just... assumed that it had been a short stay. Go there, dip in his mech-toes a little, decide they were winged pests straight from the Pit, and then gone on to be a normal doctor and eventually end up as the Autobot CMO.

If he had been there for long enough to develop actual habits, though...

“How long did you actually spend with those things?” he asked and let his curiosity show through their bond, followed by bemusement as he tried to wrap his processors around it. “I always thought you stayed there for just long enough to realise how much of a pest they were and then got the frag out of there again. Sure, they're pretty and interesting and all that slag but they were always 'Cons by nature, you told me that yourself. Not exactly the nicest company around. That's why they were always short on medics.”

Ratchet stayed silent for a long while at that and even their bond didn't give any hint to his emotions before he finally raised his head slightly and that classic unyielding Ratchet was right back again. “They were short of medics because most of the ones that were trained had no bearings, no strength of will, and no desire or ability to learn it, either. That may have worked well for civilized areas and peacetime but they would stand no chance in war or the slum or among beings who value strength above all else. I saw countless medics right out of training come through my clinic there and most of them were gone again before we could as much as put their name on a door. They came there because Seekers were pretty and exotic and attractive and they left again because they failed to realise that they would be dealing with Seekers. They asked and suggested where they should have demanded and ordered. The reason why there were never enough medics among Seekers was because their training was worthless when pitted against something that believes to the very core of its spark that might makes right.”

And when pitted against war and Megatron, too, probably, but Ironhide didn't say that. There hadn't been a lot of medics left by the time the War had finally engulfed the whole of Cybertron and the ones that remained had been the strong ones. Some temperamental, some cold, some downright brutal, but they had all been strong and had all had the relentless stubbornness and determination to survive and fight tooth and claw to stay that way.

In retrospect, Ironhide realised, he should have known their medic's stay around the flighty pains in the aft had been a lot longer than he had ever thought.

Something whispered though their bond, dug up from a deeper level than they normally bonded at – old losses, lingering pain, mental scars that had never quite gone away – and Ironhide's intakes vented softly as images appeared in his processors uninvited; red optics and purple banners and a shift of power that would extinguish countless sparks among their forces as time carried on.

“Were you there when they turned 'Con?”

Loss, guilt, failure, and Ironhide reached back in response, rock-solid and offering nothing but trust and affection in return, and Ratchet didn't look away.

“If I had been slower to leave, I would have been.”

Should have been, he didn't say, even if they both heard it.

“If you had been slower to leave,” Ironhide corrected him, “you would have been offlined. You know that. Medic or not, Megatron would have had you offlined. You're too stubborn to turn 'Con.”

Guilt was something Ironhide was intimately familiar with; the spark-wrenching feeling of failure when you had to leave someone behind, the helplessness of someone you couldn't save because you were too slow, too big, too small, too worthless, and maybe he didn't quite understand where Ratchet's feeling came from but it wasn't going to stop him from trying to offer what help he could, anyway.

“I am aware of that, Ironhide,” Ratchet said quietly. “It does not change the fact that I am a medic. My coding adapts. Like yours or his does when it accepts a bond, mine adapts if I spend enough time around the same type of build. I adapt to enable me to do my duty better and I spent more than enough time among Seekers to adapt to them. They were kin. Distant kin in most cases, but kin nonetheless, and I spent enough time there to become close to some as well. They were kin, Ironhide, and I abandoned them.”

That guilt was still eating away at him and now there was one he could save, Ironhide didn't need the bond to know that. An unstable, confused, borderline-manic one at times but it was a Seeker, it was an Autobot, and it was a friend, and when he looked at it like that, it was no slagging wonder that Ratchet had been so protective of Will from the moment he was brought into the infirmary, still covered in dust and sand and tiny bits of rubble. If that coding never wrote itself out again but just went dormant, then one short-tempered Seeker running on basic coding would probably be all that was needed to drag it all right up again and rip up old wounds that had long since been locked away...

... and with that, Ironhide realised something else.

“Does Prime know?”

The flat look Ratchet gave him was all the answer Ironhide really needed but the medic snorted, anyway, and when he spoke, his voice was closer to what they were all used to again. “Define 'know'. Does he know I worked among the flying pests? Yes. I never hid that for him and I had enough personal items with Seeker glyphs on them for it to be fairly obvious to anyone with even half a processor that I had spent time there. Does he know for how long? He never asked and I never told. I lived there for long enough that more than a few beings would have marked me as a Decepticon sympathiser for that alone. When I left them, I had Seeker mannerisms, I had Seeker instincts, and I had close to a Seeker's temper. It was my luck that most Autobots knew too little about them to tell and that those in the know also knew enough not to write me off for that reason alone.” He fell silent and the only sound was the soft whisper of air though intakes before he continued in a softer voice. “Does he know? He was never stupid – he has personal experience with Seekers and he has always kept good mechs around him. He guessed himself or someone told him – I don't know which one and it doesn't matter, because he never mentioned a thing. Yes, he knew. They also needed a CMO who could run a wartime hospital without being run over in the process and I was at the top of a very, very short list of candidates they had. My experience with those flying frags was exactly what was needed, so nobody ever said a thing about it and whatever files might have been opened on me quietly vanished in the dead of he night.”

Jazz, probably, Ironhide realised with a twinge of lingering loss in his spark, because something like that would have been right up his alley. Put a Seeker-trained medic as the CMO because front-liners were nothing compared to a Seeker in a rage and let him use what he learned from those things to patch up the faction that were now shooting them out of the sky. It had been Jazz behind it, no question about that.

And suddenly Ratchet's overprotective behaviour made sense, too. It wasn't that Ironhide had expected Ratchet not to care but the sort of protectiveness and attention he was showing their new Seeker was a lot more than Ironhide would have expected considering his other duties as CMO and their sole medic with completed medical training behind him. He could have handed Will over to Ironhide or their Prime and trusted them to take care of him, and it might or might not have worked, but he could have done it and lack of experience with the things or not, they would have done their best, too. He could but he hadn't, because the Seeker-trained CMO had taken their young, new Seeker under his wing and he wasn't about to let go easily again, and Primus help anyone who got in his way, because Ratchet himself would not be merciful.

He was testing Ironhide because Ironhide was that Seeker's future mate and Ratchet was going to be fragging sure he wouldn't fail another Seeker, and after another long moment Ironhide slowly released the tension he hadn't even been aware had entered his body.

“I won't hurt him, Ratchet. He's my friend, he trusts me, he's had my back in battle and I've had his. I'd tear out my own spark before doing anything against his will.”

Still Ratchet didn't move and on impulse Ironhide shifted through countless firewalls and deliberately chaotic defences to find an ever-evolving, complex code at the centre of it all, glowing faintly blue. Several more codes were needed to make a copy and for something that happened in his processors, the four seconds that procedure took were close to endless and enough for Ratchet to notice-

- And then the copy was complete and Ironhide pushed it through their bond before he could have any second thoughts, and he could tell the exact moment when Ratchet realised what he now had nestled next to his spark, optics brightening in sudden shock.

“You know the medical overrides to get a spark-cage opened, I know that, you've done it on me before,” he explained quietly before the other could speak. “That's not an override. I trust you and I trust him and if you ever need to use it, I know I'll have had it coming.”

Still silence as shock and pain and trust and ancient scars and an overwhelming surge of raw, spark-deep emotion crossed their bond, and then Ratchet grasped his arm tightly and Ironhide returned the gesture, and there was nothing but their bond glowing brightly blue and their sparks and each other's presence as Ratchet tightened his grip and left ghosts of a hand-print in Ironhide's plating and then nodded once, slowly.

“You've rattled your processors, you giant lump of scrap metal,” he said in a voice that was low and hoarse from emotion, and Ironhide did the only thing he could do and just shrugged slightly in return.

“I'm a front-liner. I hear we're pretty dumb.”

A snort, once more like the Ratchet he knew, and then the grip loosened again and the medic nodded again. “Be careful. For both of you.”

And through their still-glowing bond, Ironhide gave his silent agreement.