An Exit

by nine_dandelion

Summary:

According to the theoconomists of Functionist Cybertron, fliers found true purpose in defence and transportation (and nothing else).

Pharma faces an uncertain future when he loses the alt-mode exemption letting him practice medicine. He visits an old friend hoping he can help.
Ratchet has been working with the Anti-Vocationist League long enough to know the Council is always watching.

Notes:

This entire fic sprouted from that background detail of Pharma and Ratchet sitting together in the Functionist Universe. It's nice to see they were close in that timeline, too.

Chapter 1: to be careful

Ratchet had been careful to take a circuitous route to his apartments. He took a different route every time, often looping back and spending time in shops with multiple entrances. There were quite a few ways into Rodion proper, and Ratchet tried to be unpredictable about which ones he used. He knew the Dead End lookouts would mention it if they'd noticed someone new skulking around, but it didn't hurt to be vigilant. 

He didn't assume he was safe in the shinier parts of the city, either. He had the Anti-Vocationist League's crowdsourced map of Functionary patrols up on his HUD, and he kept to back streets and alleys until he got to the staff residences. A careful application of high-grade along the vents at his sides—where it would vaporise from the warmth of his engines—made him smell like he'd been out doing something that wasn't completely illegal. Irresponsible, perhaps, but he was hardly the only one getting fendered these days. 

He tapped in the code to his door and stepped in. It was dark and cool inside, the furniture gleaming dully in neons from the half-shuttered window. It really was a nice set of rooms, complete with a padded recharge slab and on-demand hot solvent; a pity that he barely used them. 

A pair of optics lit up in the darkness, and Ratchet nearly stalled from surprise. 

"Ratch?" called a voice, thready and faint. "That you?"

Pharma? What was he doing here? Ratchet walked over to the wall and groped for the light switch. The ceiling lamp bloomed slowly into full brightness, revealing Pharma perched on the couch and peering owlishly at him. "Not likely to be anybody else, is it?" asked Ratchet, by way of hello.

Pharma glared, managing to look both scolding and pathetic. There was something almost haggard about his appearance, like he'd skipped his weekly soak and polish. Ratchet gave him a once-over with his remote diagnostic suite and found nothing. Not that he'd expected to find anything, exactly—Pharma wouldn't visit him if he was sick —but what were the alternatives? He'd dropped the accent, so this wasn't about work. Ratchet knew he didn't like asking for favours, either. 

He kept his tone light. "What brings you here?" The last time Pharma had visited, it was about asking him to present at a medical conference. "If this is about the Iaconian Iatric Association, you know I'm on their blacklist for trying to hit Froid with a chair." Flippant hyperbole. He knew this wasn't an invitation. (And he'd tried to fistfight Froid, no chairs involved. Still blacklisted, though.)

Pharma stared at him, then wrinkled his nose. "I can't believe you're drunk. Was that why you were late? Because you were busy soaking in engex? You'll pickle your filters." The comment lacked any bite; his voice trembled over compound glyphs, and his pitch fluctuated wildly for a split second at the end. Ratchet stepped closer, concerned. He could see the pale platelets around Pharma's optics were scorched, and the slats in his shoulder vents were twitching slightly. Something really was wrong, and Pharma was trying his best to hide how it was affecting him. 

"Just the thing to cap off a long day at work," said Ratchet, gesturing vaguely. He changed gears. "But you're not here to lecture me about my drinking habits. What is it, you lost a promotion? That gearstick Anodyne giving you the dead shifts again?" But his tone was warm—it was meant to be a gentle enquiry. They weren't as close as they'd been during their trainee days, but he still considered Pharma a friend. One from his life as a doctor, sure, but still someone he valued. Perhaps less than he deserved.

Pharma, usually so full of words, just rubbed at his eyes and handed him a datapad from his subspace.

Ratchet scanned it, his tank turning in on itself the longer he read. It was a summons from the Council, scheduling Pharma for a 're-evaluation': a blatantly coded term for revoking the individual alt-mode exemption that marked him as a member of the intellectual class—and let him work as a medic. It was ridiculous that he even needed an exemption—there was nobody in the history of the Academy with his scores!—but the Council apparently couldn't see past his wings.

It made no sense. It made no sense. Pharma had done everything he could have possibly done to secure his position. He'd been exceptional in medical school, brilliant and stubborn and inventive, backed it up with finely honed skill—and that should've been enough, but of course it wasn't. Ratchet had expected him to be bitter about it, about Ratchet getting to be Nominus' personal medic—still a Prime, even if he was deeply exasperating—but Pharma had been nothing but supportive. He'd eagerly accompanied Ratchet to every party, to every political soirée, his effusive plus-one happy to hang on Ratchet's arm and say the right things… and there he'd built the connections he knew he'd need eventually.

It was downright astute. When the Functionists took over, his association with Nominus rapidly became a black stain on Ratchet's record, and he'd learnt fast to keep his head down and go unnoticed. Pharma, meanwhile, got on better terms with Cybertron's rich and powerful. Wrote his own accent-language programming, sought to blend in and make himself useful without stepping on their toes — and they got him a position among the intellectual class of Cybertron, alt-mode exempt.

Functionism had treated flightframes ruthlessly since the era of the Primes. Ratchet had seen the trouble poor Jetfire had faced before he'd found his way to the League. He couldn't fault the tactic Pharma had chosen, despite the risk involved with being so visible. The Taxonomy saw Ratchet as military-adjacent—while he still worked in a civilian position, his heavy plating got him classed as mobile medical equipment, and he got overlooked by the Functionists because of it. Pharma'd had had no such luck. Everything he'd done had been to protect himself, and it had worked, too, for a very long time. Hadn't he once been primary surgeon to one of the Twelve? That should've made him untouchable. It should have protected him from this.

Who'd you piss off, Pharma, thought Ratchet, not without sympathy. "You're planning to contest this, right?" The answer didn't matter. He wouldn't—couldn't—leave Pharma to the tender mercies of the Functionists. And they were moving fast, too, with the re-eval scheduled a tenday after the summons had been first sent—five days ago. He checked the virtual signature on the summons, just in case; it was spark-sinkingly genuine. "We could build a good case. Get someone from Deltaran to gather signatures. Perhaps we could—"

"What's the point?"

Ratchet looked up from the datapad, surprised, but Pharma wouldn't meet his eyes. He sounded… tired. Fragile. Like he'd given up. And something about that felt indescribably wrong to Ratchet. He'd always known Pharma to be unshakeably stubborn about everything—budget allocations, experimental treatments, research opportunities for those harried-looking trainees of his—but it looked like this had already crushed some essential part of him.

"I've done everything I can," said Pharma, hollowly. "I've been all over the place trying to talk to anyone who'll listen. Subcouncillor Avitus was happy enough to have me hand-clean his slagged-up stinking filters—and he wouldn't look at me twice." His face twisted, and his winglets juddered agitatedly. "Just said something about the bloody will of Adaptus. None of the other subcouncillors would see me, and I waited for so long I—I lost track of time." His shoulder vents released a stream of heated air. "I tried grovelling, but they just had the enforcers throw me out."

"You've never grovelled in your life," said Ratchet, sitting down next to Pharma. "Would you know where to start?" 

Pharma glanced at him, sputtering out a laugh like he hadn't thought he'd be able to. It was good to see a smile on his face, weak as it was. With the way he was curled up on the couch, deportment subroutines dropped for a friend… they could've been back at the Academy together; Pharma perhaps upset at not getting radioactive stains right the first time around, Ratchet gently encouraging him to try again, really, everyone mucks up their first rad-stain, it's practically a rite of passage…

Suspicion began to bloom in his mind, an ugly crystal growth sticking sharp edges into his thoughts. Why was Pharma here? Ever-punctual, ever-perfect about timing; what did he mean, he'd lost track of time when he'd gone to see the subcouncillors? Perhaps it had just been a turn of phrase, except… he hadn't used the subglyphs that'd mark it as such. He'd meant it quite literally. 

The temperature of the room seemed to dip slightly. Ratchet could feel the Council's eyes on him, keen and malevolent. Could Pharma have brought them here? Were they using him to get to Ratchet—and the League? Or was he just overanalysing words spoken in distress?

Working with the League had taught him the importance of acting for the camera until he knew exactly what was going on. "You sure about giving up?" asked Ratchet, placing a hand on Pharma's arm, passing the datapad back to him. "There's still four days left. And they might let you stay a medic, you don't know." The words felt like gutterslime in his mouth.

"Look at me, Ratchet. I'm too small to be a medevac plane, too low-powered to be a first responder." He rubbed at his optics with his free hand. "They're probably going to make me a bloody data courier because I'm fast." 

No, they're not, thought Ratchet, looking sadly at him. Information storage alts of any kind had their days numbered. Pharma didn't know about all the data sticks hidden away under the protection of the AVL. They'd had to stay within range of the League's signal jammers until Ratchet and the other available medics could manually remove their obsolescence chips and backups. The poor things had all been miserable and fatalistic until then—Ratchet had thought that was an obvious side effect of having a bomb in your head, but Flatline had been of the opinion that obs-chips altered thought patterns. Made the victim less likely to fight back. 

He hadn't taken the idea seriously at the time, but given what Pharma was saying, how quickly he'd given up… could it be true? A failsafe built into the obs-chips made them self-destruct upon removal, so they'd never been able to verify its capabilities.

Or perhaps—and more likely—Pharma was asking for help, in the most oblique way he could. Ratchet took special care to separate his work for the AVL from his boring, unexceptional life as a medic, but he knew there were still rumours— about the kind of people he associated with, and used to associate with. Orion Pax had very visibly changed sides, after all, and Ratchet was well-known as Orion's friend. Perhaps Pharma knew that, and he was asking Ratchet to help him.

He'd have to move very carefully. Obsolescence chips were rarely installed by themselves. He'd cleaned his apartment of bugs—he did a sweep twice a tenday—but if they'd just invited themselves in… slow dread bubbled in Ratchet's tank like bad fuel. He'd have to take care of their watchers first.

Pharma rubbed his optics again, and Ratchet gently caught his hand. "They're itchy," groused Pharma, but he turned slightly and slipped his fingers between Ratchet's. "What do I do, Ratch?"

"Stop touching your eyes, for one," said Ratchet, firmly, meeting Pharma's gaze with his own. "You got the highest historical score in Orbital Anatomy, you know that causes microabrasions and filament stress." He turned Pharma's hands around and pressed glyphs into them. Two at a time, laboriously drawn out in their simplest forms—he knew only the barest dregs of chirolingual speech after so long in the Dead End, and he was sure Pharma knew even less. COUNCIL, he wrote on one. CHIP, he wrote on the other.

Pharma's winglets shivered once. He stared at Ratchet, frozen.

CONTINUE. TALK.

"I think… you should reread Vitrius Minor's study on optical filament regeneration," said Pharma, starting off slow but quickly finding his feet. His eyes were still large, though. He'd realised where the itching was from—post-operative irritation, when there'd been no aftercare or nanite injections to accelerate healing. He turned Ratchet's hands and wrote glyphs in his palms. REMOVE. IT.

Ratchet frowned at him, trying to hide his actual reaction under academic disagreement. "Vitrius Minor… you have a point. But he did say chronic physical stress resulted in the generation of brittle filaments with poor refractive properties." WILL. HURT.

Pharma gripped Ratchet's hands hard for a moment. His vents rattled, gusting air so warm it was visible in the coolness of the room. He didn't nod, but his winglets flicked in a way Ratchet had long learnt to read. "I think—I'd look great with a pair of glasses," he sniffed. "And I don't think I'm rubbing them that much."

Ratchet gently pulled away and got to his feet. "As long as you know the risks." He put a hand on Pharma's shoulder. "Look. It's been a long few days for you, and you've run yourself ragged. I'll get us something to eat? A snack, a tarp, maybe; and then we'll talk about it." He smiled, though he didn't know how convincing he was. "I'm sure I've got some gels in a cupboard somewhere."

"Mm." Pharma sounded doubtful, but he leaned into Ratchet's hand. "You don't even like sweets. Bet those were a gift from Nominus, and they've just been in there for millennia, sublimating slowly—" 

"Pharma, really," said Ratchet, laughing despite himself. "It's a few tendays old at most. I tried cooking."

"I really don't know if that's better," muttered Pharma, but a tired smile was pulling up the corner of his mouth. Ratchet wanted to tweak it with a finger, get Pharma to swat at him—anything to bring his friend back to his usual self. But Ratchet had a mission right now, a grim one, and he knew he had to be careful.

He could feel Pharma's gaze on him as he stepped into the kitchenette, getting the promised gels out of his cupboard and stirring powdered pyrite into warmed energon. Did Pharma like pyrite? He… couldn't recall. The gels were still good, if far too sweet for him.

He glanced back into the living room. Pharma looked strangely small there on the couch, hunched in on himself, hands worrying at his kneespurs. For all Ratchet claimed he thought of Pharma as a friend… that wasn't quite true in practice. Hadn't been true in entirely too long. Ratchet hadn't made any effort to stay in his life, or keep up with him. If Pharma hadn't shown up at his flat, would he have noticed when the Functionists dragged him away?

Ratchet knew the answer. Shame and unease crept cold up his spine. The stirrer in his hand did not shake; it froze in place instead, a medic's reflex. 

He added a bending straw to both mugs and carried them in with the gels, placing it on the low table in front of the couch. "I'll go get a tarp. Feel like watching anything? Got this fancy new viewscreen in a department raffle." He retrieved a tarp from the recharge room—warm, absorbent—and wrapped Pharma in it, fussing until it covered him without smothering his vents or pulling at his winglets. "There we go."

Pharma stared straight ahead at the viewscreen, hands curled tight around the tarp pooled in his lap. The screen was matte, offering no helpful reflection to their Council spies. Ratchet patted a shoulder vent once, both as warning and consolation. This would be quick—he'd had plenty of practice—but it would not be painless. 

It took two seconds. The first to snap off the plating on the back of Pharma's head—the microwelds Ratchet had expected to find were there, and they split easily under his hands. In the next second he'd wedged a tool against the obsolescence chip squatting on Pharma's bared brain module and snapped it off, both it and its wretched little backup. The chip flew a short distance onto the floor. Ratchet held Pharma's head still so he wouldn't turn to look when the tamperproofing went off and it exploded, gouging out a burnt-edged pit in the tile. He felt tiny marble shards embed themselves in his lower legs, but he couldn't attend to them right now.

And he was only half done. He transformed another tool out of his hands and placed it against a sensory circuit cluster, sending a very precise pulse of electricity down to Pharma's optical processing node. Just enough to short it out without permanent damage. He'd have to go in through the optics to fix them, and when he did he'd remove what the Council had put there. They'd be Pharma's eyes again.

"Almost done," said Ratchet, softly. He brought his medkit out of his subspace and balanced it on the back of the couch. Pharma sat still for him, but his winglets trembled from redirected sensory feedback until Ratchet applied a pain patch. Next came temporary sealant, to fix Pharma's parietal plating in place, followed by several sprays of nanite restorative. What little energon had bled from the split had soaked neatly into the tarp, and the rest he wiped up. "I'm sorry." It was an apology for many things.

"I—" Pharma coughed static. He'd clearly muted himself—a medic's sensornet overrides would not have helped him with the pain of his eyes shorting out. "I hadn't even realised," he said. "When could they have… I should've known. I'm a medic. I should've known."

"They were very careful keeping it hidden from you," said Ratchet, gently. He took one of Pharma's hands, and wrapped it around a mug from the tray. "Drink up. We won't be coming back here. The Council will've noticed their bugs aren't responding, but it'll still take their enforcers a few minutes to get mobilised."

"Someday you're going to tell me what exactly you've been up to," said Pharma, slowly. 

"I'll tell you everything," promised Ratchet. He finished off his own mug and emptied the plate of gels into his subspace. He felt a bit guilty leaving them behind; even if they hadn't been to his taste, they'd been a gift. "Once we get somewhere safe."

Chapter 2: to be kind

Before they left, Ratchet took a long last look around the flat. His little closet in the League's Rodion medbay saw him more than these rooms did, but he'd still called them home for a long time. Or put them down as his permanent address on official paperwork, which was more or less the same thing. 

They took the cargo lift down to the sub-basement levels. Pharma's echolocation was limited, as was standard for non-defense-optimised flightframes, and he clearly hadn't used it recently. His hand was tight around Ratchet's as they descended several levels below the surface. "Where are we going?" he asked nervously. 

"Sublevel seven," said Ratchet. Any watchers in here would know as much from the lift display. He didn't dare say anything else, just shook Pharma's hand slightly. "Trust me."

Pharma nodded, his winglets whipping in low circles. Fear, but fear he was willing to show Ratchet. He trusted him, even if Ratchet hadn't given him much reason to.

Sublevel seven was where they kept the solvent recyclers and refrigerant pumping systems. It was cold, a bit smelly, and had an exit right into the cargo transit system under Rodion, which led all over the city. Ratchet had been careful to not use this route too often—the longer it stayed off the Council's radar, the better. Camera coverage was spotty down here; it'd been unreliable when Orion was an enforcer who'd tried to make use of it, but it was downright non-functional now. That made it perfect for their escape. 

He was still careful to keep Pharma close to him. Not all flightframes and astrobots grew disoriented underground—Jetstream was quite content in his workshop, and didn't particularly care for the surface—but the loss of direct visual input had to be making it worse. It didn't help that this place was a veritable rustworm burrow, with no markings on the walls or any other means of orienting oneself. Ratchet had a League map with him, and that was it. The place was dark and poorly ventilated, and the overhead lights glowed fitfully where they were lit at all.

He sent a message on the AVL's emergency channel, appending the signal markers for Patrols Alerted and Evacuee Inbound. They would need to know the Functionaries were on the lookout, and that he was bringing someone who'd been dechipped (though Pharma would likely still have to go through quarantine protocols). Ratchet didn't attach his name, but his callsign was known well enough. 

He got a ping back almost immediately, followed by a short message. Close to your location. Ratchet recognised the signature string, and he was glad to see it.

"You didn't drink after work, did you," said Pharma, out of nowhere. It was a statement, a conclusion. "Your response time is still perfect. I've seen you drunk, it drops to the three millisecond range." 

Ratchet scoffed, cheerfully insulted. "It does not!"

"Oh, it does," countered Pharma, a small smile growing. "Remember that time when we held the 'ture-offs with the cubes—"

Ratchet groaned, but he couldn't help his own grin. "Don't make me relive it, please." It'd been a silly little interdepartmental competition to find which of the non-surgeon specialists was the fastest at suturing back together a partially split energon cube. Half the audience had been in creases from the very idea. Imagine, doing surgery on a cube! "The only reason Fixit won is because I showed up drunk and overconfident."

"Exactly," said Pharma. "You were slow. You're not slow now. Ergo." A smug little wiggle of his winglets, even if they were still low. 

Ratchet looked up at him, at his dark scorch-edged optics, and felt a complicated emotion settle in his spark. "But you're right. I don't drink much these days. Just wiped a bit of engex over my side vents—patrols don't stop you if they can tell where you've been." And when they did check, they usually gave up on seeing military-class on his identification. 

"Where you've been," echoed Pharma. His mouth twisted, uncertain. "I'm guessing that's where we're going."

"Got it in one." Ratchet squeezed his hand. "We'll be safe there, I promise."

He hadn't finished speaking when gunshots rang out from the tunnels ahead. They staggered to a stop, and Ratchet pulled Pharma against the wall. There was quiet for a long, tense moment, and then more shots echoed down through the murky darkness, accompanied by distant shouts and clangs. Pharma flinched at the noise, and Ratchet wrapped an arm around his waist and held him tight. Had he ever been this close to a fight?

Sorry about the mess. Patrol was waiting at the fork to Nyon. Same signature string as before, but now coming through Ratchet's personal channel. I think I got all of them. A sudden storm of gunfire, followed by a muffled thump. Nope. One was hiding. But I got them all now.

Are you sure it's safe, Ratchet sent back.

There was quiet on the channel for a few tense minutes. Yeah. It seemed he'd taken the time to actually make sure. 

"It's over," said Ratchet. He vented out, and stepped away from the wall. "We can keep moving."

Pharma didn't budge, and his hand was still tight around Ratchet's own. Ratchet tugged slightly, but that just broke the dam. "No! I know you heard that. I am not walking into—into a firefight! I don't want to be shot full of holes!" He may have sounded angry, but Ratchet knew he was scared. His armour was clamped down so tight the seams were grinding against each other.

"That was a friend," said Ratchet, tapping an audial flare. "The fight's over. He was… taking care of a patrol for us."

"Taking care of— that's not reassuring, Ratchet!" 

"What if—hm. I could go ahead and make sure it's just him. That it's safe. Would that work?"

Pharma liked that even less. Heated air plumed out of his vents so thick it was opaque. "You can't —please don't leave me here." It was nearly a sob. 

Ratchet immediately felt like slag for suggesting it. "No, no. I won't." He went closer to Pharma and held him tight. Arms all the way around his narrow waist, cockpit to windshield. From this close he could feel the dizzy whirl of Pharma's spark, the frantic jitter of his internals as they worked to cool him down. "Hey. Hey. I'm not going anywhere."

Pharma leaned into the hug, his vents slowly going from short and scalding to longer, cooler flushes of air. When Ratchet started stroking the barrel of his flight engine, his chest shook in another shuddering sob that both of them felt more than heard. 

Evacuee having trouble, he sent. Might take some time. 

I'll keep watch, came the reply. 

"What am I going to do, Ratch?" said Pharma, his voice small. "Will I ever be a medic again?"

Ratchet looked up at him. He knew Pharma could pick up the smile on his face. "I certainly hope so. I've got more work than I can handle on my own." He decided to be honest. "It's not Deltaran, mind you. We're a bit strapped for supplies and equipment here, though it's not as bad in Kalis and Iacon."

Pharma was quiet for a long moment. Ratchet could feel his internals clicking as his temperatures dropped. "I could try jury-rigging a few things," he said, finally, and the wary hopefulness in his tone lightened Ratchet's spark. 

"Plenty of engineers on base to help you with that. You might even get some trainees, y'know." Ratchet had been dismissive at first, unwilling to admit data slugs and fighter jets had the necessary dexterity, and he'd been humbled several times over for that assumption. (Jetstream had been particularly enthusiastic about knocking him down a few pegs for someone who hadn't wanted to be a medic in the first place.) 

"Really," said Pharma, the kind of wistful where he really wanted to believe what Ratchet was telling him. He stepped away from the wall, and Ratchet moved his grip to Pharma's hand. 

"I'm sure of it. Famous surgeon like you? You'll get requests from all over." They were moving again, if slower than before. Ratchet kept a watch on their surroundings, though the lights down here were really too dim to make out much. "The Nyon cell's been asking for a dedicated medic for some time. Ever visited Nyon? It's beautiful." Outside of the Narrows, anyway.  

Pharma had been about to respond when they heard some quiet noises ahead of them. His vents picked up again and he edged closer, but they didn't stop moving. The dark tunnel ahead remained stubbornly impenetrable, and Ratchet had no night-vision filters to help. 

"There's someone ahead," said Pharma, frowning, sound picking up what sight could not.

The murk promptly resolved into a grey-painted mech crouched over a pile of weapons, carefully emptying them of ammunition. He turned to look up at them when they came close, all large yellow optics and keen finials. 

"Hey, Drift," said Ratchet, smiling in relief. Drift hadn't been his point of entry into the League—that had been Orion and Prowl, conspiring together to drag him in—but he'd slowly become one of Ratchet's closest friends in the Rodion cell. Not that they had much in common, but Drift had grown on him over time—and vice versa, probably.

"Hello." Drift stood, snapping his box of ammo shut and stowing it in his subspace. He didn't look surprised to see them, but he'd known they were coming. "This the evacuee?" He inspected Pharma, who looked a little nervous. Ratchet tried to see Drift from his perspective, and he supposed he could understand—all that heavy plating, the multiple guns attached to his frame, the streaks of still-wet energon on his legs; Pharma would be able to sense all of that, and none of it looked reassuring. (The leaky pile of Functionary enforcers nearby probably didn't help, either.) 

"Yeah. This is Pharma." Ratchet brushed him gently. "A colleague of mine from Deltaran."

Drift frowned, the expression severe under his heavy chevron. "Can't believe they're going after medics now," he said. "I'm sorry. Did they chip you?"

"Ratchet—took care of that," said Pharma, his voice jittery with tension, a hand ghosting over his face.

"We'll fix your eyes back at base," said Drift, nodding reassuringly. "Lots of other fliers there. You'll be alright." The words were earnest and kindly meant. Ratchet could almost hear Pharma's plating creak as he untensed. Drift must've noticed it too because he smiled, and that was rare. Huh.

He didn't talk much as he led them through the tunnels, save for warning Ratchet about unlit sections and asking Pharma if he had soundsight. Drift wasn't a very talkative mech in general, unless he was bothering Ratchet or one of the others he was close to, and even his steps were muffled. But he let himself grow noisier as they got closer to the base, and Ratchet began to recognise the skiv-glyphs for "fuel" and "medic" pointing in the direction they were headed. He'd seen them often enough scrawled by the shutter of his clinic. 

The AVL cell in Rodion was situated inside a long-defunct set of underground metal refinement facilities. Smelters, warehouses, offices, barracks… even a decent little medbay for onsite accidents. Pharma's head darted around when they entered the base, taking one of the back exits in. They'd need to cross the crowded main chamber to get to evacuee processing, and Ratchet was quite looking forward to Pharma seeing how the League had overhauled it. It had probably been a depressing place to start with, but now there were banners, posters, maps and signs, tables and chairs for folks to sit at, laser turrets, solid concrete barricades—it looked welcoming. And, perhaps more importantly, it looked defensible. Safe.

Pharma stopped short when they were about halfway through the chamber, head up and angled straight ahead. "Anode?" And that was Anode standing there, a datapad in hand, but Ratchet was looking up at Pharma. His pitch and posture had changed completely—he'd reactivated his deportment coding.

Anode had been chatting with someone else, all smiles and gestures, but the friendliness in her expression cooled fast when she saw who it was. "Pharma?" She stalked up to them, her body language shifting too. "What are you doing here?" The sounds of her speech had changed dramatically. Sometimes Ratchet forgot she'd been a blacksmith; she'd probably run in the same circles Pharma had. That accent was her original one, even if she ordinarily sounded quite different after her years with the League.

"I got scheduled for re-evaluation," started Pharma, his winglets whipping in the same sharp, unreadable lines as Anode's wings. 

"Why don't I believe you," hissed Anode, not letting him speak, and Pharma's plating clamped down in defence.

Ratchet had abruptly had enough. This wasn't like Anode, and he didn't have to stand by and watch Pharma get treated this way. Whatever noble-class politics was behind this misunderstanding, well, it could go jump in a smelter. "He's not lying, Anode. You think I wouldn't have checked?" He stuck his hand in Pharma's subspace—he'd apologise later—and brought out the summons. "I removed the chip and deactivated his optics myself."

"Functionary patrols would've been scrambled immediately," said Anode, subsiding, abruptly shifting back into everyday speech. But she took the datapad and inspected it.

"They were," said Drift, who'd been watching the exchange with mixed alarm and confusion up to this point. "I got some good ammo off them. Lots of point-sixes."

Anode vented out. "I see. But why would they do this?" She glanced up at Pharma, who somehow tensed up even further, but the hostility she'd shown before was gone. "You're hardly the only intellectual class mech running around…" She looked back down at the datapad. "That's Six-of-Twelve's seal. Who was your sponsor?" 

All intellectual-class mechs needed a sponsor to qualify for exemption. Pharma had treated Ratchet to lunch out when he'd secured his. "Nine-of-Twelve," answered Pharma, frowning.

Anode threw her head back and groaned. "Of course. Of course that's who it is." She passed the datapad back to Ratchet. "Primus, I'm sorry. Those two are not on good terms right now. Six-of-Twelve's trying to goad Nine into a fight, and you got caught in the crossfire." She massaged the bridge of her nose. "There's no way you would've known."

Ratchet felt his lines bubble. He was ready to throw something. "He got chipped because—"

"—because a Councillor wanted to break his colleague's toys, yes," said Anode, sounding incredibly tired. "Drift—take them to Processing, you know the drill. I'm sorry, Pharma, you're going to have to sit in quarantine for a bit. Just standard procedure." She looked up at him. "We can catch up afterwards, and I'll apologise properly. Buy you a drink."

Pharma made an emotionless noise of assent, and Anode gestured for Drift to lead them away. 

Ratchet didn't say anything, far too angry to trust himself with words, but Drift looked back at Pharma with sympathy once they'd left the main chamber. "Screw the Council," he said, decisively, and patted him on the arm. Pharma gave him a staticky smile, and Drift patted his arm again. 

"We used to get along, you know, Anode and I," he said, weakly. He'd dropped the coding, and Ratchet could tell he was upset. "The same schools of thought, the same… politics, generally speaking. Blacksmiths, medics—overlapping fields in many ways. And she was good to have on your side in a debate."

"What happened?" 

"Factions. Infighting. She grew more outspoken against Functionism, and it earned her a lot of enemies. I… perhaps it was—selfish. But I didn't think I could take that risk." Pharma frowned. "And then she disappeared, and nobody else mentioned her again. I thought it was a warning to the rest of us. If they could get rid of a blacksmith, none of us were safe."

Ratchet grumbled, "Sounds like a pit of razor snakes," and Drift nodded solemnly.

"Close enough," said Pharma, wearily. "But I suppose I won't ever have to deal with them again."

Drift led them down a corridor towards the quarantine cells. They were some distance from the rest of the base. Ratchet knew lone evacuees were led towards the entrance on this side, and that his own presence afforded Pharma some trust from Drift and the League as a whole. The cells themselves were small concrete affairs with just a berth and a tap for solvent, but the berth had some padding on it, and there was a shelf for datapads. 

"How long do I have to stay here?" asked Pharma, still tired.

"Just three cycles," said Ratchet. That was the median time it took for the Council to give up searching for runaways. Each cell had a cage of signal-capturing fibres, and it would catch all outgoing and incoming traffic for analysis. "I'll be right back with a surgical cart and some new optical relays. I want your eyes fixed before self-repair brings them back online." 

Pharma sat down on the berth, testing the give of its padding. "Just—one moment, Ratchet. Before you go." 

"Is something wrong?" He moved closer, concerned, and found himself completely surprised when Pharma pulled him into a hug. This was a different one from before—still seeking comfort, but without the edge of terrified panic. Pharma's head was pressed against his windshield, and he could feel his optics fizzing softly against the glass. 

"Will things really be okay?" whispered Pharma, finally. "I know where we are—this is the Anti-vocationist League. But I can't fight. I've never fought."

Ratchet sighed, the last of his anger evaporating. The state-filtered news predictably painted the League as a bunch of stab-happy terrorists and criminal obsoletes. As much as Pharma knew he needed help, there was no way those reports hadn't influenced how he saw the organisation. "You don't have to fight. There's plenty of others here who will fight for you, and they're much better at it. Drift, for instance." He turned slightly to see Drift perk up from where he'd been lolling against the cell's doorframe. "He'd lose an arm before he let any of us medics get hurt."

"That was one time," said Drift, pouting, but his finials stood high and pleased.

"You will be okay," said Ratchet. He leaned down slightly and kissed Pharma's forehead, right over his chevron. His vents made a little hiccupping noise. "I'm glad you came over tonight, I really am. Thank you for trusting me. For letting me help." He rummaged in his subspace pocket. "Have a sweet? They always make you feel better."

Pharma took it, but not without a brow ridge raised in his direction. He nibbled a little off one corner before downing the entire thing in a few chews, pleasantly surprised. "There is no way you made these."

"I've been caught out," lamented Ratchet, passing on more gels. "Drift made them. He makes sweets for all his favourites."

"Lies and slander," said Drift, but he chuckled as he said it. 

Pharma delicately licked the ends of his fingers. "Well, I prefer sweets, unlike this bitter old silicawafer here." He looked conspiratorially at Drift. "When we were students—"

"Don't you dare," said Ratchet, smiling, mostly just happy to see the nervous jitter gone from Pharma's vent flaps. "I'll go and get a surgical cart down here. Want any magazines? We've got bootlegs of the Petrex Medical Journal; though, some of the stuff in it these days…" and he left the room, gesturing widely. He stopped around the back of the cellblock, though, where the bank of surveillance monitors stood, and eavesdropped a little. Just a little.

"—students?" Drift. It was good to see him warming up to Pharma, distracting him with questions and small talk.

"Right. When we were students, Ratchet would always take his energon without additives. The mess had every additive on the planet and then some, because the pharmacology department kept adding to the tray with their own inventions, but he'd drink it plain."

"Plain—as a choice?"

"Exactly. He's so boring sometimes." He sounded fond. "I've always thought gels should be sweet, or maybe savoury, but he likes the ones with the cadmium flakes."

"Cadmium," echoed Drift, in mild consternation. "I have some of that, but—isn't it really bitter?" 

"Oh, it is. It's awful." Pharma had no taste. "He has no taste."

Ratchet listened to their conversation, smiling to himself, knowing he'd be gifted cadmium-dusted gels soon enough. Drift pestered the people he cared for, and he fed the people he cared for. He'd been visibly delighted to see Ratchet when Orion had introduced him to the base. It helped having someone there who knew him and would vouch for him, especially once Orion got called to Iacon.

Pharma would likely take a little longer than he had to get used to how things worked in the League, but he had a friend here. Maybe two. (Possibly even three, with Anode.) He would be fine, in time. Ratchet would have to find a new balance, too—no returning to his nice apartment or his job at Deltaran now—but he was sure he'd figure it out. Perhaps it would be an improvement, no longer having to juggle two different lives. Perhaps. It would certainly be more dangerous.

It was a little strange. He was taking the same route he did every day he was here, entering the same rooms, greeting the same people he'd grown used to seeing around the Rodion base… his home now. Pharma's, too. He wasn't entirely sure why, but his spark felt lighter than it had in a very long time.

Notes:

I do like Anode a great deal, but the fact that a blacksmith is second-in-command of the Anti-Vocationist League is never going to give me peace x) blacksmiths are next down in status from the Council itself...
Jetstream is Whirl, of course. In the main timeline he used that name for a little while.
This fic took me a while to write, but it was fun. I hope you enjoyed it <3