Ratchet Is My Husband

NAME: Melody

RACE/ETHNICITY: Autobot -

AGE: Unknown

FAMILY: Ratchet (parent), unknown second parent, Hymn (brother)

PRONOUNS: She/They

HEIGHT: 14”4

METAL COLOUR: Green #6da16f with pink accents #bf77b8

EYE COLOUR: Blue

OTHER FEATURES: Has several storage units built into their legs and torso, as well as smaller compartments through her arms.

‘DRESS’ STYLE: Nissan Figaro

DISLIKES: Fighting, rude people,

LIKES: Reading, learning, music, medical related things, photography, nature, helping people, flowers

FEARS: Being a nuisance to or bothering others, Atychiphobia (failing)

WEAPONS/ABILITIES/RANK: Medical trainee, intense knowledge around poisons and toxins

FLAWS/BAD HABITS: Doesn’t speak up for defend herself until pushed to the very edge, refusal to take a life, trusting to a very big fault, will isolate herself when ashamed or scared

STRENGTHS: Will defend her patients without mercy, evasive, persuasive and good at calming down situations, optimistic

OTHER IMPORTANT FACTS:

Born from Ratchet and an unknown spark mate, possibly Ironhide or Drift (Deadlock)

Was separated from her parents during the last battle of Cybertron and remained in hiding with her younger brother

Started searching for other bots to offer medical assistance on neutral terms

Is firmly against Decepticons despite this but holds true to her vow to heal and not harm

Despite this is combat efficient

NAME: Hymn

RACE/ETHNICITY: Autobot - Iaconian

AGE: Unknown

FAMILY: Ratchet (parent), unknown second parent, Melody (Sibling)

PRONOUNS: He/Him

HEIGHT: 17”9

METAL COLOUR: Primary: #658596, Highlights: #968b65, #553d57

EYE COLOUR: Blue

OTHER FEATURES:

‘DRESS’ STYLE: Lamborghini Miura (‘vintage’ style cars)

DISLIKES: Rain, ignorance, plain/boring things, minimalism,

LIKES: History, architecture, design and arts, exploration, dad jokes/puns, cultural study

FEARS: Astraphobia (storms), Autophobia (being alone)

WEAPONS/ABILITIES/RANK: Expert marksman, skilled in ranged firearms, wields short swords and daggers for close combat

FLAWS/BAD HABITS: Very untrusting, struggles to work in a team (outside of his sister), cannot shutdown until he has check the area even if he has been there for a prolonged period of time, pessimistic

STRENGTHS: Resourceful,

OTHER IMPORTANT FACTS:

Younger than Melody

while it takes him a while to trust, he shifts a lot from a brooding longer to a cheeky nerdy personality

Wishes to stop fighting but won’t until he knows his sister will be okay

Doesn’t think that will ever happen

At first he thinks it’s nothing and it’s only years of combat through his technology and being a medic that he even spots that something is different about it.

The one difference in the file is a punctuation at the end, a single full stop that is something humans do instead of the cybertronian symbol.

He opens the file, works his way through it for over two earth hours, and when he’s finally done everyone has gone to have their shutdown and the humans are at home safe and sound.

Part of him thinks it could be a trap sent my Soundwave but there’s something in his spark that’s telling him to trust it. He’s been a doctor for years, he’s learnt that trusting your instinct is the most important part of the job. It’s a combination of prior knowledge, subconscious awareness and thinking and the thing humans call a ‘gut feeling’.

Ratchet opens the last link and finds a message that reads,

“Hello Doctor.

I am aware that we are not friends and work for opposing forces, but I am desperate. I am not sending this because I have had a change of spark or something dramatic like that, though I can’t say I have never thought of that.

No, this is far more important than any sides of a war or Megatrons foolish little game.

I am with sparkling.”

Ratchet stalls for a moment at that sentence before stealing his nerves and continuing.

“I found out around two deca-cycles ago and was afraid to tell the Sire, and now he is gone.

If Megatron finds out about this, both that I am with sparkling and that I can conceive, I will never be safe. He hasn’t been too focused on it, but we all know he has put plans in place should he have the chance to have an heir.

I’m not stupid enough to think he won’t find out, and I’m not too prideful to put my ego and desire to been correct over the life of my sparkling.

So I am asking you as both a medical professional and a close friend of Optimus for help.

I don’t need you to let me join you or live among you, but please help me get out.

I am begging you to help me make sure my sparkling doesn’t end up like Shockwave or Megatron or, Primus forbid, Starscream. I want my to have the chance to choice who it wants to be, and I know that it’s Sire would have wanted for us all to be with you Autobots.

But I have accepted this too late.

Turn me away if you wish, but please help my sparkling.

I don’t have much time and I do not want to terminate it, it’s all I have left of Breakdown.

Yours truely,

Knock-Out.”

Ratchet actually had to sit down once he’s finished reading, serve pressed to his chaises in both shock and heavy understanding. He helped many with their sparklings during the war and knew well the grief of it, even if it was never something he went through.

He sits there for a long time, considering every thing he knows, before he stands again and sends a message back with identical encryption.

“Knock-Out.

I am sorry for what you are going through, both your loss and your situation.

Whether my team wants you here or not I will find a safe place for you, this I promise you on the All Spark. I am sure Optimus will understand but we must act quickly, so listen to my instructions and I will be able to keep your family safe.”

Ratchet lays out the plan quickly and with no room for miscommunication, even going so far as to send a ground bridge for the Mech at a certain point during the next cycle.

Ratchet, knowing full well he’s about to rebirth the Dinobots: so, just theoretically here, if my sparklings are, oh let’s say, another species how would you react?

Optimus: …

Optimus: how…?

Acree: oh no, one of the kids got hurt!

Optimus, going full leader mode: we will teach you to evade danger and get to safety in the event of an attack. Now, obviously human weapons can’t do much-

Me, cutting him off: what if we keep a vat of acid in the ceiling and then if Starscream attacks we can break the ceiling with a rocket launcher and melt him to death with acid and then he won’t be a problem anymore

Optimus: …

Ratchet: …

Arcee: …

Bulkhead, covering bumblebees ears:

Bumblebee: *just happy to be there*

His oldest brother: oh yeah you’re fucking weird.

Raf: am I weird?

Optimus:

• big dumb blue bitch

• how were you a librarian yet you can’t get people to be quiet

• pulling all the hoes with that autism rizz, hey big guy?

• single dad

• Have you ever been fragged from both ends at once?

• pookie smookie bear

• magnificent blue bitch

• you’re shaped like a friend

• Is your spark secretly a cat?

Ratchet:

• Nurse Ratched

• Cuckoo

• Can you step on me but like not kill me?

• actually you can kill me

• I’m going to bite you on the face

• handsome

• Transformers can get pregnant right? Would you like me to try get you-

• Big Boy

• Pretty Boy

• I want to show you Hacksaw Ridge but I think you’ll cry and I Optimus would get mad at me

• toots

• heya sugar tits

• what would you do if I swallowed a coin

• what would you do if I throw up blood a week ago and didn’t tell anyone

Arcee:

• Sis

• Shadowheart wannabe

• “Hello Darkness My Old Friend~”

• Sonic The Hedgehog

• baddy with an addy

• I wanna chew on your legs is that weird

• girly pops

• girl you should get your nails did

Bulkhead:

• You have a squishy kind of vibe about you

• bubba

• bulky boy

• you are a sweet potato and I will not elaborate

• mean green mother from out of space!

• just a little guy

• a sweet baby

• I’m adopting you as my brother sorry about it

Wheeljack:

• slut

• sorry

• pleasure bot

• ARE YOU ITALIAN OR SPANISH I DONT KNOW?

• is being in a jet like being inside another bot to you or…?

• did you bite as a sparkling?

• have you heard of One Direction?

• they totally did break up

• …

• like the wreckers-

• pookie

• Lone Ranger behaviour

Bee:

• MY SON

• a wittle baby

• with knives

• Scout’s Honour!

• your puppy dog eyes could save the war I’m so serious right now

• bumble baby

• honey bee

• honey pie

• cutie pie

• I would commit so many war crimes for you

• starch that I will like right now don’t even test me

Smoke Screen:

• swiper no swiping

• twin~ where have you been~?

• have you considered war crimes?

• sparkly boy

• stoner screen

• vape screen

• Vapor screen

• shiny baby

• I have… another child?

Ratchet, about to break his vow:

He was neither Autobot nor Decepticon, but a medic for those who were caught between fire fights or who couldn’t fight. Sparklings, injured civilians, lower class citizens who couldn’t get shelter from either side for whatever reason.

Ratchet would go out himself and find them, brining them back to one of several hidden infirmaries he set up with volunteers and past students of his.

First Aid always stayed in the biggest one, which held all the sparklings as it was the safest.

Fixit would sneak between them all to make sure that all the set false safes were in order. He helped show the little ones where to gin in the case of an attack.

He believed Optimus Prime wanted to help, but the mech was too busy fighting the fight to be able to spare much time on the broken bots that had a chance.

They knew each other and Prime had worked to keep their bases a secret even as Ratchet resumed to let them sway him into fighting with them.

Megatron’s men were allowed only in one base where other soldiers were kept, guarded by Pharma and Remedy both. Autobots and Decepticon both had an understanding that it was neutral ground and no fights would be had, the two keeping in seperate wings of the fragile clinic.

That understanding was crushed after one fateful cycle.

Ratchet had responded to First Aids distress signal as quick as he could, travelling over half of Cybertron to get to the infirmary as quick as he could.

He arrived just in time to see Shockwave leaving.

With dread in his spark he had rushed through a secret exit and into the main room and instantly fell to his knees.

Over two hundred sparklings lay desecrated in the entire place.

Most of them were missing some part of their body, some burnt into nothing.

Ratchet only made a noise, a wailing sound of pure grief, when he saw the remains of First Aid clutching three little ones.

All dead.

His screams had only grown in intensity as he looked around the room and found that Pharma and Remedy had come to aid and fallen as well.

Ratchet could have stayed there and rusted over if he hadn’t notice some of his patients weren’t there, hope burning his spark as I rushed to the feeds to try and figure out where they had gone.

He watches the footage with grime determination even as he feels his spark shattering into pieces.

It falters for several moments when he watches Shockwave order some of his men to take some of the sparklings. He hears the disturbing mech say something about ‘suitable test subjects’ and feels the energon in his systems freeze. Ratchet’s heard of what Shockwave has done, how the unfeeling monster doesn’t care for the notion of ethical conduct and onto for results.

Eventually Optimus as some of his most trusted come by the hidden location in the hopes of stopping a massacre, only to find Ratchet sitting on the floor with the body of a sparkling in his hands.

He had tried to bring the femme back after seeing a slight flux in her tiny spark, but it was useless.

Bumblebee is hurt the most as it was the same clinic he had been raised in before he became a scout, seeing Ratchet work for years and being the main reason they had even known something was wrong.

He falls to his knees as Elita moves to check for Decepticons, if only to distract herself.

Optimus approaches Ratchet with grief in his spark, carefully removing the deceased sparkling from his hold.

“I… I am truely sorry, old friend.”

Ratchet looks up and sees Orion Pax, the young mechling who had once asked him for an autograph.

When he speaks it’s distant, like his mainframe as gone on autopilot, “He took some of the sparklings. We need to find them.”

Optimus nods, helping him stand on unsteady pedes, “We will, I swear we will it stop until we have.”

Ratchet looks at Optimus with a fire in his eyes, “I know. But Optimus, I don’t care about you code. I don’t care about your morals or war crimes, Shockwave will pay for this.”

For the first time since the war began, the Prime looked around the room and nodded with a darkness over his optics.

Maybe it’s from being a doctor or being in war, but something about utter silence makes his survival instinct go haywire. His fight or flight immediately assumes that something is waiting around the corner, telling him to raise his guard even higher than usual.

Considering it pretty much always means everyone is out on patrol or in shutdown, his mind makes up a hundred different things that could have gone wrong. It tells him that he needs to check on everyone because if he doesn’t they might be dead or dying and he did nothing to stop it.

Ratchet knows his survivors guilt controls him majority of the time but he’s stubborn and won’t acknowledge it fully.

It might even be related to a human condition called Obsessive Compulsion Disorder, or OCD, because he genuinely can’t handle not checking on his team mates and friends, even the humans, because he thinks if he doesn’t they will die.

And it will be all his fault.

Thinking about Ratchet and his prototype energon and how it’s so clearly meant to be like a steroid of some kind.

We saw him use it once and the effect it had, but what if he didn’t stop?

He’s a medic, he was able to figure out energon enough to have it help him even if there were bad side effects and he, y’know, figured out how to save Cybertron. So, it’s not all that unrealistic to think about him finding a way to lessen the effects some.

Now, if he did it so he wouldn’t have none of the side effects that he would have just made energon.

That’s not what I’m thinking, but more him finding a way to micro dose to give short burst of energy when he, oh I don’t know, pulls an all nighter to do work? Starts to get tired or saw from his older joints? When he feels like he’s not doing enough and needs something so he can be ‘better’ for his team?

It would be so easy for him to fall into addiction, especially with an enhancement drug that does actually sustain his life force some.

Of course he’d have to be careful about his optics turning green, but it’s Ratchet, he’d either find a fix or a way to hide it.

It’s not abnormal for any kind of medical personnel to self-prescribe drugs and the fact that he’s so well informed would make him convince and gaslight himself into thinking he’s in control. He’d definitely know what he’s doing is wrong, but he’s also so sure that he’s the reason his team gets hurt or suffers even if there’s nothing to suggest that.

I think that it would take the team a while to notice, but conceiving him to stop?

Ratchet is a stubborn old man at the best of times, but when you try tell him he’s wrong in any way?

Me: HONK JONK BARK BARK MOEW MOEW WOOF WOOF HI RATCHET OMG HI HOW ARE YOU HI OMG OMG OMG OMG