#viney writes

It was Leo who found the grassy slope just this side of blinding. The four of them ran up the slope and flopped down to bask in the sun.

"Ger off," Raph mumbled, shoving Mikey from his stomach. The turtle in question chirped in surprise as he fell, sliding down only to run into Donnie's face. Donnie squawked and pushed away. Mikey chirped again as he slid down the hill, and ran back up to jump on top of everyone. They called out "oomph" and "hey!" before resettling.

premise: Shredder causes an abandoned building to collapse during a fight. Raph is struck with rebar that very narrowly misses his vital organs. Leo is trapped under some rubble, and goes unconscious. Mikey jumps out of the way of a huge collapse of debris, and escapes with a broken arm. He tries to run after Shredder and the others loose track of him. Donnie realized what was happening a little bit earlier and hung back, about to call his brothers out of the way when everything fell. Donnie was already becoming a sort of second-in-command for Leo, and gets his brothers to a hospital while he can. It's a risk, he knows, but it's one he's willing to take. Bashir, Mags, and June (from the tv show Transplant, 2020) care for them at the hospital. I wanted to look into the turtles meeting humans while vulnerable. Donnie will do most of the talking over the course of the fic, but everyone will interact with both friction and friendliness.

this is just a scene that I wanted to hash out before some of the other ones, as I feel like Raph has the most un-dealt-with feelings about humans. and, Bashir seemed like he'd be good at this sort of thing

"Why are you fixing me up?"

It-he's still sitting on the edge of the bed, and Bashir wants to coax him back to lying down. It would be better for his stitches...

He's standing in the door, in that wary state between his help and a distrustful patient. "I'm a doctor, Raph. That's what I do, I help people."

Raphael's face flickers through pain and fear, but settles on a floor-facing glare. "I'm not human," he spits, and his shoulders are shaking a bit now, his fists clenching despite the clear exhaustion.

"I know you aren't," Bashir says, stepping into the room. "That's not what I mean when I say that you are a person."

He glances up quickly and winces at the sudden movement, his eyes bright green against the dull red tatters of his mask. "What the hell could that mean? I-"

Raph falters, then stops short.

"It means that you are intelligent. It means that you aren't an animal."

"I sure look like one..."

Bash sighs. "Yes. But, looks can be deceiving, can't they?"

. . .

Raphael does lie back down, eventually. At least now he looks a little less... taut. A little less like he's trying to snap in half by pulling himself in tight enough.

"Did you see their scars, Bashir?" Mags asks at the front counter, as they stop to pick up the rest of the day's clipboards. "I mean, when they came in I thought that was bad enough, but--"

"I saw them."

chaper 1 of my fluffy h/c emotional fanfic-of-a-fanfic au in which everyone finally learns that the little sparkling Ratchet adopted is Starscream:

"Your involvement will be a necessity.”

"Why, what're we supposed to do?”

. . .

“If Shockwave fixed it, I saw we just go and get him ourselves,” Skywarp said, waltzing around Shockwave’s lab like he wasn’t chased out last week just for stepping too close to the door. “I mean, we have the thing that’ll turn him back, right? Why can’t we just—”

“No.”

Skywarp flinched as Soundwave appeared in the doorway.

“Thundercracker and Skywarp: will need backup.”

“But you already said you’re too tired to do it tonight! Why can’t I just teleport us in, with the zappy thingy, and turn Screamer back to how he was?”

“No,” Soundwave replied simply, grabbing something from a cart in the lab and turning on his heel to leave again.

Skywarp raised an eyebrow at Thundercracker, smirking. With a sigh, he mumbled to himself, “I don’t know how to manage to convince me of these things…”

. . .

It was early night when the alarms were activated. Starscream was asleep in the medbay cradle, but the blaring alarms, running feet, and general panic startled him awake.

The air seemed to prickle with drawn charge. Starscream’s wing-nubs perked up at the familiar sensation, then flattened down tight out of instinct for what he knew was about to follow. He dampened his audials a bare instant before the sonic boom blew up from two levels below, the shockwave rattling the deck and cracking the nearby viewports. The alarms stuttered and restarted, faint and off-tune, speakers damaged.

“Finally!” He cried, furious but relieved, in what he was sure sounded like gibberish. “It took you two morons long enough!”

Neither of his trine reacted to his outburst. Thundercracker stood blankly in the middle of the medbay while Skywarp stood next to him, one servo still hovering over Starscream’s machine. The machine that started all this nonsense. It’s here!

Thundercracker’s optics were wide at the sight of Starscream’s embarrassingly disproportionate frame- but it was Skywarp who had the audacity to chuckle. Starscream turned the full force of his ire on him, and every iota of it was justified.

As he screeched at them, Red Alert, Ratchet, and Optimus raced into the room. Thundercracker barely had time to yank open the cradle and grab Starscream before Skywarp fired up the machine with much less than methodical grace, smacking it to press the activation button.

The boom that followed, for all its blinding light and noise, didn’t affect anyone but Starscream. His helm throbbed, and as he placed a servo on it and blearily looked up from the ground, he noticed himself feeling… larger. His limbs felt much longer, and the servo on his head had actual, proportionate digits.

Scrambling to his feet, Starscream whooped with joy as he patted himself, relieved to find everything intact and back in place, including a few—but not all of—his weapons.

“YES! YES! THANK PRIMUS, FINALLY! I—” he looked around, at the shocked faces of his trine and the autobots, who all looked utterly bewildered. They were also much, much taller than him.

Realization dawning, he grasped his helm with both servos and moaned, “No… NO! SKYWARP WHAT THE PIT DID YOU DO TO MY MACHINE!?”

Optimus and Red Alert looked too startled to move. Ratchet looked murderous, but through the sparkbond, Starscream could feel the utter confusion and laced betrayal in his ire. Thundercracker was glaring daggers at Skywarp, who didn’t even have the sense to look mildly sheepish.

“Right! Now they know it’s you, Screamer, so we’d best get going-!”

“OH, NO YOU DON’T!” Ratchet yelled, snatching a huge wrench off of a nearby cart. Prime, Red Alert, Thundercracker, and Starscream all powered their weapons at once.

“Put it down, decepticons!”

“You first, Prime!”

Everyone was yelling and aiming at each other, with the smell of burning ammunition rising in the air. The standoff lasted until, with a quick pivot, Starscream found himself staring down his barrel at Ratchet and flinched, startled, dropping his blaster.

Reaching out on either side, Skywarp grabbed Thundercracker and missed Starscream’s arm by an inch, and teleported off Primus-knows-where.

Beyond the rushing in his audials, the medbay fell silent. Starscream looked up from the ground in front of the autobots, who had lowered their weapons by now, except for Ratchet, whose optics, beneath his murderous gaze, held the slight sheen of gathering coolant. Pathetic.

Through their sparkbond, he felt Ratchet’s betrayal assault him in waves, each one stronger and more indignant than the last. He glared back, trying to catch his eye, projecting as much certainty and self-righteous anger as he could. What little sympathy he felt for the autobot would be smashed under his better, more right, more decepticon emotions!

Beneath all of that slagging betrayal, Ratchet was feeling… hurt. A deep, aching pain, almost like losing a sparkling.

Well.

It wasn’t his fault Ratchet had gotten so attached only to find his “sparkling” had other ideas.

Serves him right.

Starscream turned his attention back to the Prime, who looked a lot more confused than his oltfrent. But then Red Alert started screaming.

“TRAITOR, I KNEW IT! I KNEW THAT SPARKLING WAS TROUBLE—”

“DON’T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT MY SPARKLING THAT WAY!”

“HE ISN’T A SPARKLING! IT’S STARSCREAM!”

“HOW CAN YOU KNOW THAT?”

“YOU HEARD HIM, DIDN’T YOU? I KNEW THIS WAS A BAD IDEA—”

“HOW THE PIT DID THIS HAPPEN?!”

The yelling was grating on his partially-upgraded audials, and far more distressing than he cared to admit. All three autobots were now alternately glaring at each other and pointing at him, and when he’d finally had enough, Starscream powered up his blaster again and aimed it at the lot of them. If Ratchet was standing slightly out of the way, that was his fault, not a fault of Starscream’s aim.

Venting heavily and still tense, everyone finally shut up. The three autobots looked at him, wearing looks of varying mistrust and betrayal.

Starscream’s spark was spinning so quickly he might have worried about going into spark arrest if he didn’t know it was likely the combined effect of both his and Ratchet’s sparks. The stress of the night was getting to him, and the old mech on the other end of the bond wasn’t given any peace, either.

Optimus raised a servo placatingly, and said, “Look, we aren’t gonna—”

“Oh, like slagging pit I’m not your fragging prize, after you’ve seen who I am—”

“C-comet—Star—!”

“I am not your sparkling!” He shouted, unaware if the spark seizing with emotion was his or Ratchet’s. Then, with a murderous glare, he spat, “Neither was Comet.”

The wave of emotions fighting within Ratchet seemed to have finally burst. He stormed out of the room. Starscream felt a rush of pain through the sparkbond that threatened to destabilize him, but swiftly regained his balance with a quick shake of his head.

As he looked up again, Red Alert was staring with wide optics between him and the Prime, who looked like he was having his own mental battle, but finally sighed and shook his helm.

“Starscream.” His address was formal and demanding, and Starscream made sure to glare unhappily to counteract his instinctive straightened posture.

“Prime.”

“How have you…” The Prime seemed at a loss for words, gesturing vaguely while Red Alert eyed his machine with suspicion.

Frowning decidedly, he resigned himself to explaining his scientific engineering to lesser minds. “This machine of mine was meant to take energy from the ground and convert it into energon crystals.” He opened a compartment near the bottom, heedless of the wary stances the mechs behind him took, and sighed in relief to find a good handful of crystals left intact. Skywarp’s meddling hadn’t damaged the crystals, even if he had interrupted their process of converting energy back into him.

Pulling one out to demonstrate with, he straightened again to look the Prime in the eye. Ideally, they would be eye-to-eye, but he couldn’t meet his gaze quite yet.

“I was trying to take the energy out of organic parts, but it seems my machine has mistakenly replaced its proper targets with me.”

Red Alert’s gaze tracked the crystal in his hand so carefully that he started waving it around haphazardly in amusement. The Prime took his time before answering, “The energy this machine has converted into crystals is… yours.”

“That is correct,” Starscream sneered.

The Prime’s optics shuttered offline and his subordinate stared at him briefly before his optics unfocused, indicating that he had opened a comm link. Presumably receiving the message, Prime’s optics blinked online suddenly as he spoke, “Red Alert, can you go and grab Mirage? I think he’s still awake, in the rec room with Hound—”

“Optimus, this is a huge breach of security that poses numerous risks within the Ark and it—”

“Your concerns are noted, Red Alert. Thank you.”

For some inscrutable reason, Red Alert accepted his quiet tone of voice and left with nothing more than a backward glance. If he ever got out of this, Starscream would have to ask the Prime how he did it.

“Starscream—”

“Don’t, Prime. I know where I stand. I just ask that I be given permission to keep working on my machine.” He turned back to the device in question.

He heard a deep sigh from the mech behind him. “I suppose you can stay here while you work… in the morning, I’ll have others move you to the brig. If you aren’t off-base by tomorrow afternoon, we will consider you a hostile again.”

Only twenty breems later, he felt another presence in the room with him. Sighing, he didn’t yet address Mirage, in the hopes that the spy would just let him work.

. . .

“You left him alone?!”

“Mirage is watching him.”

“He’s by himself!”

“This is Starscream we’re—”

“He’s barely more than a sparkling!”

“You and I both know he just looks like a four-vorn-old.” Optimus’s faceplates were pinched as he glared at the back of Ratchet’s helm. More quietly, he added, “He isn’t really.”

Ratchet was trembling slightly, but Optimus didn’t come any closer. He knew better than to approach his old friend with a pat on the shoulder.

But after a minute, he couldn’t help but say, “Ratchet…”

“WHAT?” He exploded, rounding on him, optics blazing behind streaks of coolant. “WHAT THE PIT IS THERE TO SAY, PRIME? WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY SAY?” His chest was heaving, his fists curled, and his plating fluffed up in distress.

“I BELIEVED— YOU— WE ALL BELIEVED, PRIME! I ACCEPTED HIM— HE SPARKBONDED WITH ME!”

Optimus winced, his own feelings on the matter swelling up and threatening to drown him. Betrayal, confusion, hurt—the kind of pain that asked you why, the kind of confusion, completely at a loss, that closed up your throat. His processor was buzzing and spinning with questions that he did his best to surpress.

When he looked up, Ratchet’s optics were closed. He seemed… more contained, if not calmer, with his arms folded over his chest. A few breems later, Ratchet onlined his optics and allowed his shoulders to fall with a sigh.

“I still feel him.”

Optimus didn’t answer that. He tried, opening his intake behind his battle mask, but there wasn’t really much to say. His own sparkbond with Bumblebee was still strong, but quieter as the mech had gotten older and more independent. He missed it, sometimes, feeling everything Bumblebee felt right as it occurred. But the time came when he didn’t want his overprotective, adoptive sire aware of his every mood. It made it easier for them to talk, in a way; if they already knew each other’s feelings on a matter, there wasn’t really a lot to discuss.

Ratchet was still reeling from the effects of the standoff, and his emotions were likely in a feedback loop with Starscream’s. There was only so much distress a mech could take.

From the way he placed a servo over the armor covering his spark chamber, their sparkbond never wavered. Never flinched. Optimus had thought that Starscream would try to sever it by now. He was loyal, if not to Megatron, to the decepticon cause, and it simply didn’t make sense to hold onto something so close to spark.

But, then again… emotional matters never made much sense.

He thought back to Starscream’s flinch. It was clear the bond he forged with Ratchet was not that of a lost sparkling and an adult mech; but regardless, Starscream had come to respect him, maybe even care for him, which was far closer than any decepticon had openly gotten to an autobot so long into the war.

With a glimmer in his optic, he looked up, and Ratchet caught his glance with apparently the same idea.

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I—”

“No, Optimus, and I don’t want to know. We are not using my sp—Starscream for anything. He is only going to feel safe here as long as he is safe, and I’m not changing that.”

With a rough sigh, he conceeded. “Alright, fine…”

He left Ratchet’s berthroom more worn-out than he entered it. His processor was still trying to reconcile Starscream, the cruel, manipulative Con, and Comet, the tiny—furious—sparkling. In some ways, the sparkling’s hatred of seemingly everyone and everything made sense, but then… how much did he remember? Was Starscream really himself while a bitlet? What were they going to do with him now?

He knew he wasn’t going to force Starscream back to the decepticons or, Primus forbid, out on his own as a four-vorn-old sparkling. He wanted to have Jazz interrogate him, but Ratchet would have his helm if he so much as touched the mechling.

For now, he had to just try and be civil while the Con… presumably fixed himself. Until then, emotions be pitted, he was going back to bed.

. . .

Ratchet was exhausted.

He had long let his em field go and sat on the edge of his berth while confusion, pain, betrayal, anger saturated the room. Comet was Starscream. Comet was Starscream. Comet was Starscream. Comet was a sparkling was a traitor was a famous Con was an innocent bitlet was mine…

The fact that Star— that the sparkling on the other end of the bond was closed-off and calculating was barely helping. He didn’t know what to think. On one servo, it explained his attitude, and why he was always trying to hurt them, and his general frustration with everything they put him through.... but on the other servo… he had sparkbonded with Ratchet. There had to be a reason for that, it couldn’t just be faked. Either Starscream hadn’t expected capture or he hadn’t expected the effects to last this long.

Because, though it hurt him to admit it deep within his spark, as though Comet were being ripped away from him again prematurely, Ratchet knew the mech out there wasn’t his abandoned, found, adopted bitlet. From the voice to the words to his attitude, it all came down to one mech, and not one that was forced to grow up too fast thanks to an unruly machine, but one who had already done his growing-up and was now stuck in a much younger frame.

It was Starscream.

No one could deny that. Starscream himself had admitted it, and Skywarp had said as much, too. Optimus was already treating him like a prisoner, and Red Alert was ready to send him to the brig as a fully-fleged decepticon spy. Ratchet thought both of them were going too far. He wasn’t innocent, he knew that, but he was still four vorns old. He was a sparkling for cycles, and if given the chance, Ratchet wouldn’t change a thing about how they treated him.

There was still the possibility that he had done this to become a spy, and just wasn’t able to get the information he wanted. And yet, he had sparkbonded with Ratchet.

He was getting a helmache from all this confusion, but thanks to said sparkbond, he knew he couldn’t recharge now. It was said that a caretaker could never rest until their own were deep in recharge, and Ratchet knew that sparkling wouldn’t get any tonight. The fragger was stubborn when he wanted to be, and he was still upset at his machine.

. . .

Starscream was still trying to figure out what gyros Skywarp had knocked out of place with his almighty-slap when he felt Ratchet’s emotions suddenly dip. There was a brief swell in anger while he and Optimus yelled, and then they simply dropped off the map, as though Ratchet were finally getting a hold on his em field.

He blinked, irritated; his end of the sparkbond had instinctively reached out in comfort— that was not a weakness he wanted to keep.

Distracted, he addressed the spy. “Why haven’t you cuffed me?”

No answer. Typical, conflict-avoidant autobot. He knew the Prime’s yelling must have woken quite a few mechs up, but so far, he hadn’t heard anyone come near the medbay.

“Are your audials broken? Why haven’t you tried to put me in stasis cuffs yet?”

“…how can you see me?”

Starscream huffed. “I can’t see you, but I know you’re there.”

Mirage became visible beside him, and he almost jumped out of his frame at the closeness.

“Your voice is even higher than I thought possible, like this.”

If Mirage hadn’t gone invisible again, Starscream would’ve punched him. Or at least kicked in his knee.

. . .

If Ratchet wasn’t mistaken, the jolt of fear he felt through the sparkbond was in perfect timing with Mirage’s appearance on-screen. He and Red Alert were stoically watching the monitors, not quite acknowledging each other.

But at that, he almost smiled at the screen.

. . .

Mirage left at some point. Starscream had just triumphantly fixed the wiring when he turned around to look for him, and… stupid four-vorn-old processor. Always expecting praise. He ruffled and unruffled his wings to prepare for the helmache of rapidly aging his frame. Primus, he was going to drink so much engex once this was over.

The machine whirred in preparation, a little louder than he anticipated, and he even heard pedesteps running down the hall right before—

BOOM.

Starscream was flung into a medical berth, crumpling to the ground in pain. He wheezed out and tried to get his bearings, optics fuzzy and unfocused. His audials were ringing, although he knew it shouldn’t have been that loud… someone was yelling. It sounded like Prowl. Why he could recognize Prowl’s voice even dizzy and in pain was another matter. For now, he straightened a bit and gripped the side of the berth he’d crashed into. He didn’t feel any bigger.

Prowl was arguing with Ratchet when he regained his senses. Their yells had turned into hissing whispers, which his aching audials appreciated.

Realizing he was struggling to right himself, Ratchet left the argument hanging and pulled him up. Despite his grumpy look, his sparkbond spread warmth through Starscream’s frame as he quickly scanned him for injuries. He clung to it wholesparkedly before realizing what he was doing, and pulled back sharply. Ratchet stiffened, annoyance radiating out from the bond. And his em field.

Unhurt aside from muscle soreness and a bruised pride, he stood apart from the medic and wrapped his em field around himself tightly, pulling away from the room at large. Disoriented and  achy, Starscream’s optics snapped brighter in fear for a moment when he caught Prowl’s gaze. He was a scary mech, if only when angry and much taller than him.

The medic kept one servo on his shoulder, to steady him. He then realized he actually was taller, his helm reaching the armor covering Ratchet’s spark.

“What are you up to, Starscream? What’s your ploy?” Prowl asked.

Starscream squinted. “My ploy? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, autobot, but I’m kind of stuck in this less-than-ideal frame. My only ‘ploy’ is to regain my old frame back.”

Prowl said accusingly, “And why must that be done here, and not on the Nemesis?”

He sputtered angrily and Ratchet answered for him. “And lug that huge machine back all by himself? Slag, Prime wasn’t even willing to take it to the brig!”

Prowl muttered, “I know a few mechs that would be willing.”

“Then go ahead and send ‘em, but for now, Starscream stays here.”

He was startled by the conviction in Ratchet’s voice and spark. Prowl’s wings hiked up as he glared, but he said nothing more as he left the room.

Ratchet then turned to him, folding his arms. “You’re sore because your frame isn’t meant to grow that much at once. I know you want to work on that machine, but it won’t do you any good to ‘grow up’ more now. It’s late, and your frame still behaves like a sparkling’s. You’re going to bed.”

“What?” Starscream demanded, incensed. “I am perfectly capable—”

“Not in that frame, you’re not.”

“Prime only gave me until tomorrow afternoon to be out of here!”

Ratchet’s optics brightened. “What?”

He looked like he had half a mind to go back out and argue with Prime himself, but gave up last minute and simply leaned back against a counter. “Fine. You are getting sleep tonight, and soon, whether you like it or not.”

Starscream huffed dismissively and turned back to his work. His frame was taller, if not older, and though his plating felt sore and stretched, he still had far to go. The machine’s many moving parts were all in place now, but something else was wrong… Maybe if he placed all the crystals together at once…

. . .

It was late. Later than he expected to stay awake, but the machine was being particularly stubborn. He was starting to think that Thundercracker had dropped pieces of it during transport, but that would only account for some of the issues.

He had wanted to complete his frame all at once, but the ratios between ingredients was killing him. His processor hurt from being overtaxxed and without rest, and his arms were now more tired than sore. Leaning back on the edge of a medical berth, he scowled at his machine.

“Is it giving you trouble?” Ratchet asked quietly from his place across the room, smirking as he sorted medical tools.

Starscream didn’t answer. He was feeling particularly irritable and Ratchet could feel as much through his field. His helmache was getting worse.

Blinking suddenly, he saw a piece of the machine tilted completely the wrong way. With determination threading through his spark, he surged forward to correct it. Everything else was in place, and the ratios were as good as he could make them…

He started it up again. Ratchet was eyeing him dubiously, but said nothing as it clicked and whirred.

He stood ready, his wings taut and sure.

He shut off his optics.

…it was taking longer than it should have.

 He onlined his optics to find a corner of the machine smoking, burning the energon crystals rather than vaporizing them into a usable blast. With a shout, he grabbed for it, yelping as he burned his servo instead. Holding his servo close to his chest, he lunged for the control panel instead and forcibly shut everything down.

Breathing hard, he glared at the machine. He kicked it. Punched it. Attacked the base of it where the damage wouldn’t be hard to fix.

Ratchet came closer, and he turned to him instead, thudded his helm into the other mech’s chest. Part of him wanted to attack Ratchet, too. Shuddering, he felt his arms go limp as he started to cry.

. . .

Ratchet… didn’t know what to make of this. One minute, Starscream was waiting in impatient excitement to see what came of his epiphany. The next, he was… crying on Ratchet’s chest.

"And when people look at me, they scream."

"That isn't their—"

"Fault?"

"—final reaction."

Bashir gives him a look, not unlike the one he gives his sister. Raphael reacts just like her, too, shrugging off the seriousness and half-heartedly glaring at the ground.