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Deadlock hazed slowly back online, error messages beeping in his audials and clogging up his HUD. Too fraggin' many, his head was gonna burst... He fumbled through clearing one, then another, then gave up and just - shut his optics off, trying not to purge his tanks. This wasn't - this wasn't the wastes, or the broken heap of frag-all he'd landed in. Where the frag was he...?
The world rocked around him. Slow, steady. Creaking. He was - he was warm, something heavy and fuzzy that smelled kind of oily piled on top of him, and the way he felt right now he wasn't getting up any time soon even if he wanted to. Everything hurt.
He onlined his optics again, even slower than the first time, and. He could - kind of see, lil bit, a blur that looked kind of like the edge of a desk, or a workbench. The light was low, a soft orange that reminded him of Iacon and made his tanks churn.
Solder. Faint scent of heated metal, cooled off long since. Putty. Low rumble of an engine underneath him.
His mouth tasted like. Gummies? And kind of like something died in it.
A pale shadow leaned into the blear of his optic feed, and Deadlock bared his fangs at it on general fraggin' principle. A low, calm voice burbled something that - that didn't make sense, why didn't it make...
Somebody pulled the warm heavy thing up higher over him, burbling something soothing, and Deadlock slid back down into recharge too confused to fight it.
*
Deadlock woke to the same splitting processor malfunction, a weird uncomfortable churning in his tanks, and a presence way too close. "Ge'fraggoffme," he mumbled, and immediately fraggin' seized up when he tried to push at the heavy thing on top of him. Every joint lit on fire, every strut tried melting down; he wanted to thrash to get away from it but if he moved- "Nnh-"
There was a. A weird - scolding. Kind of burble, and Deadlock froze stock-still and immediately regretted fraggin' everything.
"Ghlllgh," he managed, optics flaring white as his backstrut lit up in agony, and-
And...
Someone was touching his helm.
He kicked, or tried to, a weak little twitch that set his frame roaring into pain again. He couldn't think, he couldn't - stop, stop, make it stop, he'd dealt with pain on the battlefield but- Just for a click, before he was entirely online, he'd been almost comfortable despite everything else and that brief moment of not hurting just made the damage bite harder-
That burbling again, louder and more urgent, then everything went dark.
*
Deadlock. Woke up, kind of.
His tank felt too-full in a. In a bad kind of way, strained, bubbling noises pinging through him and making him shudder - and that was, that was bad, he didn't. Moving hurt. Moving was a bad fraggin' idea.
Only this time - everything ached, a long, low pain that made him groan before he could catch it, but it wasn't the same shooting, burning agony of before. He. He didn't think he could get up, not unless the base was under fire and maybe on fire, but...
He wanted to go back to recharge. If he was 'charging it didn't hurt. His head fraggin' hurt.
...something brushed his mouth. His tank cramped, warning, and he tried to turn his face away - if. If fraggin' Starscream, or-
Tutting. And that - that burble again.
Something soft rubbed against his lip, and he hissed through his fangs, best he could. He'd bite their fraggin' spike off if they tried t', if, if they...
Soft, and - and squashy, too cool and too wobbly to be someone's array, and it confused him long enough that whoever was poking him got fraggin' cheeky and smeared whatever it was against his fangs, and-
Sweet, too sweet, and all at once his tanks rebelled.
"Off," he managed, then something that stung and burned was forcing its way out the vents at his side; he tried to curl up but it hurt, everything hurt, his tank was a clamped-tight ball of pain and his head...
The heavy fluffy stuff rolled off him in a lash of cold, and he got a brief look at a pale, blurry shape bending over him and optics that burned like blue fire. Then his tank cramped again and he did curl up tight around it like it or not, the bad stuff burning out through his vents but not pooling around him, somehow, splattering under him somewhere with - with sharp-edged bits clattering against the floor, and he had just long enough to wonder if his tank was turning inside-out, if he was actually fraggin' dying before tipping offline again in a rattling, groaning slide.
*
Deadlock.
Was.
Everything - everything was. He was. So fraggin' hot.
No - no furry things. No weight. Onlining his optics hurt. The light hurt.
His vents were open on full, whining. He felt. Kind of sick, the world swaying and tilting under him. Unreal. Oh, frag, was he high...?
Deadlock reset his optics. It took forever, colours blearing slowly in and out of focus. Everything...everything felt real far away.
He was - propped up on something, something squashy and - and more cold than he was. He tried moving a hand, then - forgot why. It slid onto his plating, feeling like it belonged to someone else, and he made - noise, some kinda noise, his tank twitchy and tender under his plating, bad touch. Pressure. Too much.
...burbling noise.
Deadlock shut off his optics. Reset them again a million vorn later and the pale blur was there, sitting beside him. Blue lights watching him.
He didn't move, too far gone to be afraid, too weak to pretend to be a threat, just - watching, quiet, optics half-lit. The haze didn't sharpen up much, but - face. That - that was a nice face, worn and tired and...kind-looking. He hadn't seen a kind face in a long fraggin' time. Blur muttered, and it was the same burble from before, the noises he couldn't understand.
"'M I dead?" he asked, rasping like a buzzsaw, and not - maybe not minding the thought so much, for a quiet place with someone who didn't hurt him.
The blur reached out. Red hand, touching his helm, his chevron, shading his optics. Big hand, bigger than his. Cool. Gentle.
"Mnkay," he murmured, and sank back into recharge. He didn't dream.
*
'Charging and waking smeared together. Fingers brushed against his lips, bitter grit on his glossa, soft cool gels in his mouth; he was too hot, he ached, pain all through him in waves that came and went. He woke to dim light, brighter light, no light at all, and always that pale blur murmuring.
Deadlock slept.
*
He woke up slow again. Felt like he'd been run through the smelter a couple times, and maybe hit with a null ray barrage just to really rub it in. But - nothing hurt, not the sharp and immediate hurt he'd been expecting at least. His processor ached like it'd run to smoking, distant faultline cracks through his plating were pinging a warning, but not pain.
Why'd he...?
He curled his fingers, just a little, too slow for the usual reflex check. One...two... ...frag. His arm shouldn't start pinging stress-warnings just from twitching his fingers, that was - that was bad. There was a heavy squashy weight on top of him pinning him down, his HUD was popping up warnings that didn't make sense, and he didn't know if it was because of the damage or if his processor was actually burned out somewhere.
It did manage to spit out something, at least - memory file, lumpy metal scree, dotted with crystal nubs. It'd - it'd been pretty, before it exploded. Turmoil-
Deadlock's hands tried to curl into fists, failed. Fraggin' Turmoil. He'd - right. He'd mouthed off, challenged Turmoil one time too many. Turmoil's team'd backed their boss, and Turmoil'd tried to flatten him.
Deadlock hissed softly, distracted way too easy by the trickle of cool air through his vents. Turmoil'd thought he'd take the beating and knuckle under. Shows what he knew. They'd all been shooting, he'd taken out most of them when Turmoil'd fragged up and his cannon had hit the crystal field instead of Deadlock, and something had gone up under them all like a fraggin' air strike. Old bomb, maybe, or a buried mine the crystals'd covered over...
...how the frag was he not dead?
He eased his optics back online, even that bit of power draw grating on his lines, his processor starting to cramp and his helm throbbing. Deadlock squinted; everything was. Everything looked orange, a low-light glow casting shadows on - something that arched over his head, a desk tucked into the little space beside his helm and some kinda wall storage on the opposite side from his - berth? ...berth. There was a low rumbling all around and the sway of really good suspension - some kinda transport, had to be. His claws curled, slow, testing; felt like. Strung wire? Some kinda weird mesh under him, making a pattern like interlocking circles. He got kinda distracted all over again poking his claws through it, plucking at them, rasping his claws over the tension. The vibration felt good, in a weird way. Soothing.
"Fb, lbh'er njnxr gura?"
...he only didn't startle because it took so long to figure out what he was hearing.
"Huh?" Deadlock said, slow and stupid, blinking in the dim light; the pale blur he remembered moved into his line of sight, and if he could've he would've stiffened up.
He wasn't an idiot, no matter what Starscream'd say. He knew, he knew all the stories rich mechs told about the caravans that ran outside the cities were a load of slag, same as the ones they told about Rodion buymechs. He knew that fraggin' personally. Trouble was, he knew what the truth was when they told stories about the Dead End - he didn't have a fraggin' clue what the truth was out here.
Guess the first thing true is barbarians don't speak Basic.
"Lbh'er fnsr urer. V'z n urnyre."
Mech was - big. Big, and stocky, and all white with red accents and a grey chevron less pointy than Deadlock's 'stead of more. He moved like he knew the space inside-out, solid and confident, casually side-stepping up alongside Deadlock where he was stuck on his back and couldn't move-
...and sat at Deadlock's side, elbows on his knees, leaning forward and looking at Deadlock with bright blue optics. Deadlock didn't relax, he wasn't that stupid, but it - helped. That he wasn't so tall. Mech must've known; he must've done it on purpose.
"Ratchet," he said, and Deadlock blinked at him. The mech pressed a hand over a wide, deep windshield, the thick 'paristeel almost as blue as his optics, and patted it once he was sure he had Deadlock's attention. "Ratchet. Urnyre."
"...Ratchet," Deadlock repeated cautiously, slow and rough as a slag vent. Frag, he sounded even worse'n usual. The mech nodded approvingly, then pointed at Deadlock like he played guessing-games with mechs every shift he had. "Me? ...Deadlock. Gunner." Not that it'd do him any good when he wasn't sure he could pull his arms out from under- ...frag was on top of him? It was heavy. And - soft, and he was so fraggin' warm. When was the last time he'd been warm?
"Deadlock," mech said, looking satisfied. Deadlock's spark roiled; frag, did someone come after him? Was he getting handed over? He didn't know what'd happened to his main pair of guns but he still had his entire fraggin' armoury in his subspace, he'd packed everything into it before he left, but if he had to fight he couldn't get his arms free, he fraggin' move-
Ratchet shifted, held out a hand. Deadlock watched him, wary, but the mech just...reached for something at his side that Deadlock couldn't see, then the weight of the stuff on top of him shifted and a drift of cooler air was moving over Deadlock's gauntlet, the back of his hand. His fingers twitched, startled, then twitched again as a broad, smooth hand slid under his, like.
Like some stranger cared that he was hurting. Like he wanted to make it hurt less if he could.
Deadlock stared at him. Ratchet lifted Deadlock's arm like it was his job, his palm under Deadlock's and his other hand under Deadlock's elbow, hinging Deadlock's arm out and into his lap with maybe half a twinge at most before Deadlock could even brace for it. All the things wrong with him, and that barely even hurt. It - nobody was that gentle with him. There wasn't fraggin' time, and even before he'd hammered it in that he didn't frag no matter who was asking, nobody'd thought to wrap their fingers around his like they wanted to spare him as much hurt as they could manage.
Ratchet said something else, tapped a finger against Deadlock's gauntlet once his arm was braced across Ratchet's lap. His panel popped without Deadlock's say-so and he didn't even jump, wh- Had Ratchet done that before? How many times, what the frag-
What did urnyre even mean?
Ratchet said something again, only Deadlock was too busy trying to fight past a wave of learned frame-panic and fraggin' think. He didn't- he'd crawled back online to someone who'd plugged in while he was out, all right, he knew what that felt like, and for all his frame felt like he was one fading pain patch away from collapsing into a fraggin' bundle of splinters...it didn't feel like that. He didn't feel - scraped out, buzzy, the kind of uncomfortable that fraggin' lingered. If... What did he even know about barbarians, that he knew was truth?
They travelled in caravans, ones that showed up sometimes as a glint on the horizon if you looked the right way with a sniper sight. Never came into cities; nobody he knew'd met one direct. There were stories that filtered down from the 'Cons who'd been around nobles, or been forged by nobles themselves, about barbarians stealing mechs to frag'm so stupid they didn't ever wanna leave again - there were stories about worse, depending on who was doing the telling, which was fraggin' too much information about their fraggin' kinks and-or a big flashy warning light depending on who said it 'n how, if you asked Deadlock, and those mechs he kept a close fraggin' optic on depending on who they tried what side of the stories on. Kidnapped mechs stolen off for fragging, chained to berths, trained to please. Sounded about as likely as all the stories they'd told about buymechs being grateful for gettin' scooped up 'n carried off to the upper levels, like it was genuine affection instead of a desperate bargain if it happened in real life. Maybe a few would take it, but nobody'd believe it'd last for long or wouldn't have a cost except for the ones that wanted it t'be true. It wasn't real care or real affection, it wasn't anything real.
...Ratchet hadn't messed with him. He could've. Deadlock wouldn't've been able to stop him, not all banged up like that. But he'd - he should've been dead, and he wasn't. Someone'd fixed him instead.
A finger tapped his plating again, pay attention. Deadlock jolted, the touch too close to his ports for comfort, and hissed when his sensornet spat cracked lines of agony back at him; the throbbing ache through his processor flared, making up the whole world, too much.
Something clicked into his gauntlet port. Something cool and soothing washed through his system, dulling the pain, clearing his head instead of fuzzing him up. Deadlock blinked, careful, but it - it didn't. Hurt.
He looked back. Ratchet was watching him, optics steady, one solid red hand holding Deadlock's and the other bracing Deadlock's gauntlet where one of Ratchet's plugs was snicked into Deadlock's arm.
A flare of instinctive frame-panic almost knocked him spiralling again, but - he could think, he had to fraggin' think. He fought it down, didn't let it show on his face, didn't let his frame clamp up - but Ratchet twitched anyway, and his face - did. A thing.
It. It looked like guilt.
"...you did that," he said, slow and staticky and rasping. "Like a pain patch. Y' - y'fixed it. ...guess y'don't. Wanna frag, huh." Nothing, but Ratchet kind of looked - relieved, maybe that Deadlock wasn't yelling at him or something.
He was so fraggin' tired. Defrag was creeping up on him whether he liked it or not, exhaustion pulling him down after the burst of panic, but. He had to - had to check. He wasn't that stupid.
The only thing in his system was the programme damping down his pain receptors, and that was on a timer that even he could make out, one with a built in half-life that'd disappear out of his frame when it ran down. Nothing that'd linger, nothing that ran alongside his system, no tricks or traps waiting for him.
Who would give a frag about some stranger's pain? Who wouldn't mess with them when they're damaged? A medic. Frag he was dumb - urnyre meant medic. No wonder.
"Okay," he mumbled, and felt Ratchet's fingers close around the plug in his port. He actually disengaged from Deadlock's system before pulling out, and - nobody did that. Only ones who ever had before were medics; even the burned-out 'Con nurses'd let him hide in storage closets when he'd needed to, and they barely had any caring left in them after this long in the war. Not like Deadlock could blame them.
He'd actually found a fraggin' barbarian medic caravan, or more like they'd found him. What were the odds?
Well, frag. He'd burned every other bridge he had; nobody was coming to look for him, and even if he had to run later when it all went wrong... Deadlock let his optics shut down, heard a murmur, felt Ratchet close up his panel and cover his arm up again with the heavy layers of soft stuff. Whatever price there was for Ratchet fixing him up, he'd pay it. It might even be worth it, getting to pretend for a while that someone cared.
*
Deadlock onlined with his processor clearer than it had been in...longer'n he liked to think about, and his defrag actually green for once. He kept his optics offline and lay still, quiet, let his audial range expand out; the low, muffled engine-sound was still running, suspension rocking gently as they went along, and no voices around that he could pick up. They could be the only transport for miles, or they could be doing loops around the wasteland; frag, for all he knew they could be just outside the city or halfway around the planet from Kaon by now.
That thought tore at him, his spark twisting in its casing. He turned his face into the layers covering his frame as best he could, his struts stiff and twanging a warning; he didn't wanna think about this, but stuck in place with his processor online and with enough frame rate spare to overclock itself even harder than usual, thinking about it was the only thing he could do.
He didn't-
He'd really thought they were winning. He'd thought the point of the war was winning, that they'd knock over the Senate and make things better for all the people that couldn't take another crackdown, another purge, another round of cutting fuel. People like Gasket, people like Rodion. He'd crossed the wasteland between Iacon and Kaon after Gasket'd been murdered to help shove the war over the line, to take down the Senate and end it, and if that meant getting his own revenge on the Enforcers and the Senate and the Towers trinkets that'd made the system and propped it up and give them a taste of being on the other side of the pede coming down just for fraggin' once-
He'd never said he was a good fraggin' person. That'd been Gasket, and they'd killed him.
But he'd walked in on Megatron gloating over comms to the Senate fraggin' Prime, saying how he'd take Iacon's surrender when the fraggin' Prime delivered it on his knees with his mouth on Megatron's array, and - and the Prime, the fraggin' Prime had been the one talking about - about people starving and negociating terms for a ceasefire and hostage exchanges for medical care, saying please, Megatron, see reason.
Please. That'd been what stopped Deadlock in his tracks. It didn't sound like just one more lie, a way to squirm out of fraggin' consequences for what they'd done, what their system'd done. It - it sounded like he meant it.
What Senate fraggin' Prime said please?
Megatron'd turned his head and smirked at Deadlock like he was supposed to be impressed, but all Deadlock could think with his tank turning to ice was What arrogant, gilt-coated tyrant talked about equality and mercy like he knew what they were, or pleaded with real, genuine desperation in his voice to save people? What revolutionary swore there'd be no peace until there was nobody left on the other side, that he'd sooner see them all kill each other to the last mech just to see their leader fraggin' humiliated?
Were there even any Senate mechs left?
What did it make Deadlock, that it took him so fraggin' long to realise what the frag was really going on?
He'd blurted out what the frag are you doing and Megatron's smug look curdled like old oil, and the smelt-down blow-up fight they'd had'd been what got him reassigned to Turmoil, sent out on convenient long patrols out in the middle of the wastes. He'd fought that too, throwing himself head-first into killing every Enforcer he could find in a frantic scramble for things to go back to normal, to feel like he was doing the right thing again and frag Turmoil's plans, to make things make sense, right up until Turmoil's team'd turned on him in the middle of that scrubby stretch of tumbled metal and crystal nubs and they'd blown themselves all to slag.
He'd thought he was doing the right thing.
He'd thought-
What'd he done?
What would he've done, if they'd cracked Iacon and there was nobody left but guttermechs? What would Megatron've done?
Deadlock hadn't noticed his vocaliser come online, letting out a low, shaking, grating keen until the suspension dipped hard at the back of the wagon, Ratchet pushing past some long drapey thing and storming forward like he was gonna break the frontline or die trying. He reached out and Deadlock flinched, his frame shot pain like a warning down all the faultlines in him; Ratchet said something, sharp and urgent, and Deadlock didn't fraggin' understand-
...Ratchet. Ratched rested his hand against Deadlock's chevron, smooth plating and a stronger brush of the wax-smell that'd soaked into the whole wagon; brushed his thumb just a tiny fraggin' bit back and forth against his crest. Deadlock stared up at him, mouth open, gaping like a moron; he couldn't fraggin' move if he tried.
That - you didn't do that to just anyone. That was something you did with freshpaints you'd adopted, Gasket had done that for him when he was fragged-up and scared or coming down from a bad high - or, or to someone you - cared about, a lot, like Gasket and his handful of people he was fragging. Not - clients, but - people he...
Ratchet murmured something, gentler this time, and Deadlock couldn't pick out much more than his own fraggin' name. It sounded nice, though, like - like Ratchet cared about him. Like comfort. He couldn't- it was too much, he didn't deserve it and everything hurt and his spark turned over in his chest all raw and aching and Deadlock tried to turn away and hide what his face was doing in the layers weighing his frame down but with Ratchet's hand heavy on his helm he couldn't. He couldn't move. His vocaliser spat static, his face was wet, he wanted to hide but Ratchet's hand and his star-bright optics wouldn't let him, and some small squirmy thing that wouldn't quite get pushed down under a flare of humiliated, miserable anger liked it. Being known, being - Ratchet making him hold still to be known. When he was hurting. What the frag was wrong with him.
He'd never been so aware of a tiny patch of plating in his entire fraggin' life.
Deadlock's frame was so fraggin' heavy. The layers pinning him down were so fraggin' heavy, it ought to hurt, but he - it. He felt. ...safe. Even with Ratchet looking at him. Maybe especially then. Ratchet was just - looking at him, like he was trying to figure out what was wrong, even if it was just - something dumb. His processor, his spark acting up, not real damage. He was just - he was so fraggin' stupid.
His vents hitched, his optics damp all over again, and- Frag. He gave up. Just - frag everything. He'd abandoned everyone in the 'Cons he cared about, he'd abandoned the cause he'd signed up to even if it'd only been real to him, he'd abandoned anyone left alive in Rodion - he'd failed about as hard as he could've short of actually shooting them all himself, 'n if he was that fraggin' pathetic he'd take scraps from a stranger to keep going, fine. He'd lived on worse. Even when it all went wrong, even when he fragged it up all over again like he always fraggin' did...at least he'd've had a little bit of someone caring about him for a while.
Deadlock nudged up under Ratchet's hand, just a little. Just - hinting. Maybe. Ratchet tilted his head, optics all diagnosing, and.
Started stroking Deadlock's helm. Gentle, like - like he meant it.
Deadlock choked, and. If Ratchet said anything about whatever his stupid face was doing after that, at least Deadlock didn't understand it.
They were quiet for a while, outside of any noises Deadlock might've been making, and if anyone but Ratchet'd been there-
(Well. Maybe Soundwave. Soundwave'd seen him after some pretty embarrassing stupid things, but those were mostly the overclocking in a closet kind, and he was processor-heavy enough himself to kind of get it even if fraggin' nothing made Soundwave panic. If Soundwave was panicking, it was the end of the fraggin' world.)
...Deadlock was fraggin' exhausted all over again, he was in pain and his processor was starting to split down the same old fault lines even if some of the stress-heat had fragged off after he'd broke down, and his tank was getting kind of empty. It was the first time he'd been online long enough to feel it, which - did Ratchet just have a drip around here somewhere? Probably. Wasn't like Deadlock trusted himself to hold a cube up 'n not spill it, and the thought of wasting fuelor dropping it was enough to make him shudder. Ratchet looked at him at that, saying something Deadlock - kind of recognised. Was that a question, or-?
"Deadlock?" ...or maybe it was him trying to get Deadlock's attention. Or a - rank, maybe? A title?
"Sorry," Deadlock croaked, and. Frag, so what if Ratchet didn't understand right back, it needed saying. "'M sorry, Ratch, I fragged up. 'S not on you, though."
Ratchet tutted, and tapped him on the head with a finger. Deadlock blinked, and - frag, okay, fine. He was too tired to get snarly, and he'd basically surrendered to a stranger medic anyway, just because he had kind hands.
Seemed like Ratchet had something in mind, anyway. He straightened, turned to what Deadlock'd half-pegged as storage on the other wall, and folded out half a fraggin' medbay dispensary on neat, tidy shelves. Deadlock blinked, kind of impressed despite himself; Ratchet pulled out a box of something Deadlock couldn't see and tapped something else he couldn't out of a container, and bumped the shelves into folding away again with a practised little hup of a solid shoulder.
Deadlock. Kind of - liked that, more than he wanted to think about when he was already worn so far down. He didn't need to be looking at smart, practised hands, or big shoulders, or. Competence.
Ratchet hooked a pede around the little whatever-it-was he sat on beside Deadlock's berth, settling himself down with a little shimmy of his aft. He lifted up the layers at Deadlock's side again, and Deadlock kind of. His palm tingled, weirdly, waiting for Ratchet's hand to slide under his. But it didn't come, Ratchet tapping at his port cover and holding up the little thing instead. It was a chip, with - some kinda glyph on it, and Ratchet held it where Deadlock could see like he was waiting for Deadlock's opinion.
"...huh?" Deadlock managed after a couple clicks, tired and baffled and not even sure where to fraggin' start explaining he didn't know what the glyph was. He could- He managed Basic, all right, but only just, and that was not Basic. He might not have a whole lot of pride left, or any reason to keep it, but-
Ratchet's lips pursed, and he muttered something that Deadlock was pretty sure was a curse. Well, frag, if nothing else he could remember that. Ratchet tapped the chip against his knee, muttering something else that was - probably too wordy to be a swear. He sat a bit straighter, all determined, and Deadlock's system did something weird and swoopy at the light in his optics, like - like he was ready to up and fist-fight Primus, and after putting Deadlock back together Deadlock wouldn't put his credits on Primus coming out the better one. Ratchet tapped at his shoulder - red and white, another glyph he didn't recognise - and shook his head. He pointed at the glyph, then made a - a weird gesture with one hand and making a noise like blah blah blah, then did the same with his other hand and went bar bar bar, then blah blah blah again-
...oh. "That a language download?" Deadlock demanded, and tried to pull a hand up to - something, he forgot what the fraggin' plan was when a horrible sucking ache shot through his arm, fractured through his shoulder. "Frag-"
"-ap!" Ratchet's hand landed on his shoulder, not hard but heavy and pinning him down, and Deadlock held still and tried not to let his frame tense up with optics offline and fangs bared until the throbbing ache faded. Ratchet said something scolding, and Deadlock was starting to recognise - sounds, if not what the frag they meant yet; he felt up and down Deadlock's arm, testing, careful, and.
It didn't feel bad. It was just - touch, not trying to grab where he wasn't wanted or make it hurt. Medic touch.
...Ratchet touch.
Ratchet seemed okay with the state he was in after a couple clicks of checking, and he went back to tap on Deadlock's gauntlet again. He seemed pretty set on getting an okay, so Deadlock popped his panel and waited. Ratchet looked at him, gave him that diagnosing face again, and Deadlock narrowed his optics and glared without even fraggin' thinking.
...it. Kind of worked. Ratchet snorted, and grinned at him, and Deadlock was still lying there stunned too stupid that he'd actually thought frag, he's got a pretty smile about someone for the first time in his life to startle when Ratchet clicked the chip into his port.
The programme started to run, and Deadlock braced himself; maybe it'd work, maybe their tech was different-
Bwonk
Deadlock winced, tried not to tense up as warning ripples of almost-pain flickered up and down his plating. "Ugh," escaped before he could stop it, and Ratchet gave him a sharp look. "Sorry doc, 's not your tech, my processor's just fraggin' broken." Learning downloads just didn't work for him, never had - he'd just have to learn it manually, same way he'd learned glyphs one at a time in Basic. Ratchet asked something, already reaching for Deadlock's gauntlet, then hesitated; Deadlock twitched his head a little, go ahead. Ratchet still didn't do it, and the waiting was worse than the nasty little shock of plugging in'd be. "Frag, Ratch, 's okay already," he said impatiently, and even if the words didn't translate apparently sounding like a rude fragger did. It got him another smile.
Click, and Ratchet was right there on- the other side of Deadlock's firewalls, and that was confusing until Deadlock realised he was running scans on the chip and the programme and Deadlock's firewalls themselves, trying to figure out what was broken. Good fraggin' luck.
He flopped back against the berth, or did his fraggin' best to when he couldn't fraggin' move, and grumbled to himself until he realised he could feel surprise and then humour on the other side of his firewalls. Apparently Ratchet thought him sulking was hilarious, and Deadlock shot back a yeah, yeah, laugh it up pulse before he stopped to think. Ratchet grinned at him, his optics sparkling, and Deadlock snorted and did his best to roll his optics without breaking his fraggin' processor even more.
Whatever was fraggin' wrong with him, even Ratchet poking and prodding at it didn't figure it out in a handful of clicks - shocker, but Ratchet just got all stubborn until Deadlock's tank pinged at him and Ratchet clocked it. The burst of alarm and fraggin' ferocious oh SLAG no, I'm not having that was loud and fraggin' clear, and Deadlock - kind of. blanked out when Ratchet unplugged and pulled the box from storage into his lap. It was full of - frag, they looked like treats, the kind of solid rations that'd keep you going even longer'n a cube if you found the right stuff.
Deadlock shifted, ever so fraggin' careful, testing whether he could curl his fingers and lift his arm with the weighted layers off him. It - didn't work so much, but frag it-
And then Ratchet said something sharp and scolding again, pressing Deadlock's hand down flat against the mesh of the berth and rolling the layers back over him so he- frag, he shouldn't like how much he liked being weighted down and warm- Then Deadlock rebooted his optics without even twitching at the static in his head when Ratchet pulled a goodie out of the box and held it to his mouth, the kind of glint in his optic that said I'm not taking any arguing from you.
He.
Frag, that - that couldn't.
Deadlock was gonna have to go and fix up some assumptions, because. That - that was a fraggin' declaration, whether you were Dead End or Kaon, even if the degree was kind of different, that was-
If Ratchet wouldn't let him fuel himself, if Ratchet expected him to only take fuel from him...oh no, oh frag that was something, that.
...apparently Ratchet figured he was taking too long, saying something quiet but fraggin' unshakeable, and took a lil bite out of the bar himself before holding it out to Deadlock again, so close he wouldn't even have to lift his head up to get at it. He wasn't - he wasn't even gonna tease it. Deadlock's head spun; that was - providing and devotion and claiming all in one, depending on how you looked at it, and - and Ratchet wasn't backing up, wasn't looking anything but fierce, and Deadlock'd sassed him as best he could manage and Ratchet'd just thought he was funny. He hadn't even tried checking Deadlock's systems out, just - wanted to talk to him, and feed him up, and.
Oh no. Oh no, Deadlock was a stupid, stupid romantic and he didn't even know the mech but he was - he was gentle hands and stubborn and he cared, and. And frag, okay, if he fragged this all up and had to run then he'd run, but despite everything spinning up in his overclocked processor-
Deadlock trusted him enough to eat out of his hand. However this worked, whatever it meant here - frag, he couldn't even shoot, he'd relied on Ratchet for everything since he got himself blown the frag to bits and Ratchet'd repaired him. In every way it mattered, Ratchet'd claimed him, and Deadlock didn't even wanna argue all that hard. It - oh no, he kind of liked it.
Even if Ratchet wanted to frag him later, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Even if the bad bargain never worked out in the end - frag, he wanted it to, just for a while, and that's how they got you. Dead End common sense was going over the cliff.
Deadlock opened his mouth, let Ratchet settle the bar on his glossa, surrendered. Bit a chunk of it off, and then any ideas he might've had about - frag, being pretty about it or whatever went right out the airlock. The bar was solid and a bit crumbly and good and he wanted more of it right the frag now. He chewed it to bits in a hurry, swallowed, opened his mouth demandingly for more, and Ratchet...
Ratchet looked. Pleased, and popped the last bit of the bar into his mouth. Went back to the box for another one. Held that up, optics all warm and pleased like Deadlock'd done something right.
Something warm and strange curled low in Deadlock's frame, and frag if he wasn't going to fuel himself stupid for as long as Ratchet would keep going. ...okay. Bargain made, and Deadlock was gonna fraggin' keep his end of it, best as he could figure out how.
By the time Ratchet was done, Deadlock's tank was topped off at absolute max capacity and reading a solid sixty-three percent. He'd not had that much fuel in one go in - frag, not since the last party Megatron'd thrown over not all that big of a victory, and even then he hadn't managed topping out. He was warm, and full, and ready to drift off - hah - into recharge again, which might've annoyed him any other time, but...
It was. It was kind of nice.
He was dopey enough by then to just listen quietly as Ratchet talked to- maybe to him, maybe to himself, who knew. Medics heard all the gossip, but either Ratchet was the only medic in his caravan or team or - whatever they called it and he was out a gossip partner, or maybe he just liked talking to his- ...huh.
Whatever barbarians called their kinda-captives outside of fraggin' awful romance 'pads.
Frag, they probably wouldn't like being called barbarians much. Wasn't exactly a compliment. Deadlock'd gotta get the language down fast, make life easier.
He was just about hazing a recharge level down and starting to doze when the wagon bucked, a heavy weight landing on the door-end and almost tipping Ratchet off his fraggin' chair.
"Frag-!" Deadlock lurched to battle-ready fury/fear in an instant, snatched at his subspace for his guns, and his struts turned to glass and shattered inside him he was so stupid frag frag frag it hurt and he choked, doubling up as best he could and only making it worse-
Ratchet barked a curse of his own, lunging forward, a hand spread wide over Deadlock's chest and keeping him down. His optics burned, blue light smearing as Deadlock's optical feed blurred, he looked so fraggin' angry and for a click-
Someone's voice burbling all cheerful at the door, the drape bulging as they started pushing inside. Ratchet was up on his pedes in a click, storming down the narrow little gangway, and Deadlock watched in disbelief as Ratchet fraggin' shoved the person behind it. Yelp, stumbling crash, and Ratchet yanked the drape back and let dim starlight flood in - washed in blue shadow, big and broad and blocking anyone from getting past him, and. And Deadlock's spark did something real stupid.
"Vqvbg! Lbh fcbbxrq zl cngvrag!" Ratchet snarled, stabbing a finger back at Deadlock like punctuation. Zl cngvrag, what the frag was zl cngvrag? ...was that what they'd call him when it wasn't a fraggin' awful romance? Ratchet's zl cngvrag? "Ur'q whfg tbg gb erpunetr!"
Squawking and complaining from the aft outside - on the ground outside, sounded like, and slowly getting further away. With the drape away from the gap Deadlock heard faint laughter, someone shouting what sounded like a taunt, the first dumbaft yelling back, more low, rumbly, heavy-duty engines and someone transforming, probably the aft needing to catch up. Ratchet snorted, shook his head, yanked the drape back over with a snap; Deadlock stared at him, and. Frag. Ratchet'd - Ratchet'd just tossed somebody clean off his wagon, just for tryin' to barge in. Because - because Deadlock was here. Because he was Ratchet's.
Nobody'd really protected him before. Not like that.
Ratchet ran his vents in a puff of heat, plonked down hard on the chair. He said something - quieter, gentler, and with that word again that he'd said before, maybe a nickname? Or another way of saying the same thing? - and patted Deadlock's shoulder under the weight of soft stuff. He couldn't really feel it, but - warm, it was warm anyway, a wash of something shaky and grateful that he wasn't sure he had words for.
"'S okay," he said instead, the words coming out kind of in a wobble until he coughed static out of his vocaliser and pretended that was the problem. No fooling a medic, but he'd hang on to what pride he had for as long as he could. He was even starting to think he'd get to keep it. "So, uh. Zl Cngvrag? Ratchet's zl Cngvrag?"
Ratchet's optics flickered, the focussing rings catching, and he gave Deadlock a surprised, pleased little grin. "Ratchet, zl," he said, and patted his windshield again. Frag, there was a lot of it. ...focus. "Deadlock Ratchet's cyngvrag."
Deadlock mouthed that to himself, processor strugging to work it through. "Zl...my," he said, and like frag Ratchet'd know if he didn't already understand what the frag Deadlock was saying, but he patted Deadlock's shoulder again and another little rush of that warmth curled through Deadlock's systems. Frag, this was dangerous. "Zl is my. My...whatever. Deadlock zl cngvrag."
Ratchet was grinning still, optics bright. "Deadlock vf zl cngvrag," he said, all encouraging, and. Frag, he'd have this whole thing down in no time, Deadlock thought dizzily. Ratchet's optics crinkled at the corners, his mouth crinkled at the corners, and it looked...
Focus! "Uh," he managed. "Vf zl... Is my." Hah! He got this. "...Ratchet vf zl...urnyre?"
Ratchet's grin got wider, proud and pleased and oh, frag, Deadlock was losing his mind. He'd gone all through the Dead End and through a war and out the other side as far as he could bear, and here he was going soft in the fraggin' head for- ...for.
Kindness, and care, and someone who was proud of him for trying.
Oh slag.
He just hoped someone back there could forgive him for it.
*
Thing was, Deadlock liked figuring out languages. He couldn't get his head around word puzzles on flimsy, or the kind of scrawled-out notations that Shockwave and Megatron put their helms together over, but this? Having something to do when he couldn't use his hands was one thing, he'd've latched onto it just for that, but this was fun. He'd got Barricade to teach him bits of Praxi - frag knew why a Praxian'd come to Kaon, Barricade didn't offer and Deadlock didn't ask, but he could see how the shine'd worn off the war real fraggin' fast for him. They needed everyone they could get and Barricade was a fraggin' good fighter, as well as being quiet and steady and decent company, so Deadlock'd taken to assigning Barricade to his team when he needed one and asked about words when things were slow. It'd taken a bit of explaining, given that Barricade didn't speak much Kaonite or Iaconian, Rodion or Towers and he'd been pretty sure Deadlock'd been angling for a frag at first, but...well, Deadlock was pretty sure he could insult a mech pretty well in Praxi now, and ask directions if nothing else. 'Doom'd had a fine old time teaching both of them how to insult someone real thorough in Towers and Upper Iaconian, and why didn't it fraggin' surprise him that there were two different flavours of stuck up in there? Basic at least was a hodge-podge of Kaonite and Iaconian that pretty much anyone could figure out, but that lot - oof.
Ratchet didn't spend all his time in the wagon - Deadlock wasn't all that sure where he 'charged, never fraggin' mind who was steering the fraggin' thing when Ratchet was in with him, and that'd given him a nasty jolt when he'd been together enough to think about it. But when Deadlock was awake and Ratchet wasn't concentrating on fixing him up, Deadlock pestered him for words and they were starting to figure things out, 'least a little.
Helped that Ratchet muttered to himself when he was fixing Deadlock up, too.
Deadlock lay quiet, propped up a little so he could see what Ratchet was doing - he'd have stayed still and borne it if he couldn't see what was going on, but Ratchet'd picked up on him going all braced for bad-touch sometime, somewhere and muttered a thing that sounded like a fun swear before rolling up some of the layers that'd been keeping Deadlock nice and warm, ugh. He still didn't know what they were, but he liked them. He'd never 'charged so well in his fraggin' life, at least since he'd been half-buried under a pile of mechs he trusted in the Dead End-
He paused, then summoned up a couple inventive curses of his own. Idiot! Warm and squashed! Of course he'd gone out like a fraggin' busted diode!
Ratchet looked at him, and Deadlock rolled his optics back into his fraggin' head.
"Dumbaft," he said, then "Vqvbg," when Ratchet just waited. He was pretty sure that was more or less the same thing, from an effective bit of handwavey a bit back. "Me, not you. Vqvbg Deadlock."
Ratchet flicked him in the forehead.
"-hey!"
Ratchet gave him a smug look, then said something short - Deadlock glowered at him and he repeated it, clicking his fingers and pointing at Deadlock's busted-up leg. 'Look', I guess. Too short for 'pay attention, gearhead.' All right, fine, Deadlock was looking, and - ugh, he was a mess. He'd been in pain all fraggin' over thanks to getting blown to frag, but a quick lucky shot had scored over his side and another had landed on his shoulder block and - he must've landed hard, his plating was cracked from the impact of either taking off or landing. Maybe he'd tried to catch himself on his hands; his wrists were fragged up, and his hands, but his legs were.
...actually his legs looked like they were being held together with putty or something. Deadlock squinted, reset; Ratchet had been watching his face, apparently, waiting for him to get - something. Or maybe just waiting for him to look at the right part of his leg, since Ratchet bent and started rolling the putty up and off him in strips. It - kind of hurt but kind of didn't, teasing at the edges of his control, and Deadlock made himself stay still and quiet and hold on til Ratchet was done. This needed to happen, he could see it happening, he knew how much there was left to go-
And it was over, the crack bare to the light, and...not - welded. What?
Ratchet said something that sounded like he was talking to himself, kind of distracted and like he was making notes instead of wanting Deadlock to listen. He listened anyway, 'cause of course he did, and kept watching as Ratchet flicked up the magnification of one optic with a couple of lenses over top of it. A scan ran slowly up and down his greave, ankle to knee, and Ratchet dabbed on some - thick, clear, goopy stuff that sank right into the scuffed-up- No, into the scoured-back-to-bare-metal-on-purpose bits around the crack.
Wait.
Was that goopy stuff nanites?
Deadlock was just gonna wind up staring at every single thing Ratchet did, apparently. He went over every single crack in Deadlock's frame, the worst ones spot-welded as lightly as possible to hold him together, and painted on different kinds of goop from different canisters with the kind of painstaking care and attention that. That was. Kind of doing something Deadlock was trying not to think too hard about. Nanites were seriously energy- and resource-heavy self-repair, it was faster and easier to take off pieces of plating and smelt them down for the next round and just replace them with machined-fresh parts, not just...wait for your own systems to fix you. It took time, and sure it was usually stronger afterwards when it was done, he'd overheard that much from tired medics arguing theory, but in places like the Dead End where they didn't have resources like that - well, you'd get tacked back together, but it'd strip your internals for materials trying to fix something else. They'd all been brittle as frag down there, and Deadlock'd been scolded before by at least one medic for trying to load too much armour onto his frame when his substructure couldn't take it.
Sorry Ambulon. Kept me alive, though.
Deadlock kind of. Faded out a little while Ratchet went over his frame, floating despite himself, all the - the touch that didn't hurt doing something to his head. He wasn't high, he wouldn't frag himself up to the point he wasn't safe, not again - but. But even if he did, wouldn't he be safe with Ratchet? Maybe - it might be. Maybe he could just float...
He wasn't quite in recharge when Ratchet propped one of his pedes into a - some kinda pop-up brace, but it did wake him up some. But then Ratchet just used it to go after the back of his pede, the side of his greave he'd been lying on and the back of his thigh, and it - it didn't even. It was kind of weird, but he managed to relax into it by the time Ratchet was only part-way done, and he almost thought he'd surprised Ratchet by going all loose and helpful. He kind of. He kind of liked it, being propped up where Ratchet needed him to be, so he couldn't screw up even if he tried. He was fine; Ratchet had him.
Dropped back into his own head real fast when Ratchet tapped at his other panel, though.
Deadlock's optics reset, processor function roaring back online with a rush. Ratchet'd gone over one leg, his torso, both arms, then the leg nearest the wall that was still propped up in the brace, nothing hurt and the nanite goop was covered up with putty again, maybe to keep it in - he hadn't hurt anything under his fraggin' panel, what-?
Slag never ended well when someone wanted him to open his panel. Ratchet'd been...he'd been nice so far, he'd looked after Deadlock and not demanded or groped him or anything, and it'd been...
It'd been a relief. He was still braced to get fragged, but - he was still sure Ratchet at least wouldn't be rough. Not after all the care he was taking to get Deadlock back on his pedes again. ...maybe Ratchet just wanted to make sure he was in working order all over. Maybe that might not be so bad? Just - more of the same check-up.
Ratchet didn't look revved up right now, either. Sat on the low little chair he kept by Deadlock's berth like this was just one more step in the process, watching Deadlock patiently like this was just a, a normal appointment or something.
A normal appointment under his panels.
Right. He could be normal about this. It'd be fine. He was either gonna be numb or unresponsive depending on what Ratchet checked over, so - better his medic find out now. Deadlock let his panel slide back and Ratchet's optics narrowed, zeroing in on what he could see of Deadlock's slagged-up valve.
"Look, I don't fraggin' like it either, but it is what it is," he said defensively, fighting off the urge to try and press his knees together like he hadn't had worse than just looking-
Then Ratchet tapped the middle of his spike's fraggin' iris, and Deadlock swallowed a noise as it spiralled open and Ratchet fraggin' instantly dripped more thick cold nanite goop into it.
"What the frag," Deadlock blurted, jerking before he could regret it; Ratchet planted a hand on his pelvic span, holding him down without looking at him, and said something absent-minded as he thumbed more putty into the sides of Deadlock's iris on top of the goop to keep it open, his seriously fraggin' confused spike poking just the tip out and getting firmly but - actually kind of gently pushed back in under it, and Deadlock fought back any other kind of noise he might've been tempted to make before things got even weirder. Ratchet piled on another blob on top of the rest, the heat of Deadlock's frame melding it all together like it had all the rest, and Ratchet planted his thumb on top of it all like a seal, like - like he was - like he was marking Deadlock up or something-
....oh.
This was another claiming thing, wasn't it.
"...y'know I don't do anything with that, right?" Deadlock asked, just on general principle even if Ratchet didn't know what he was saying. It - it didn't feel bad was the thing, for all he'd been fraggin' surprised to say the least. His boosted nanite colony was starting to kick online under Ratchet's hand and it was kind of warm-ish, but other than that... "'S not like I'm gonna go fraggin' around on you. Nobody's gonna see it but you."
Ratchet gave him a look, and patted over his tank, and Deadlock's systems did a weird little jump. He wasn't - he wasn't getting charged off this, off of Ratchet marking part of his frame off limits even if it was one that Deadlock didn't use. It was completely fraggin' normal for all he knew and - and he was just - he was Ratchet's, and it wasn't like he minded. Maybe Ratchet was making it official or something. So nobody else'd touch him.
Not that anybody'd really tried to get into the wagon after Ratchet'd chased that one dumbaft out. They knew not to piss off a medic too.
Deadlock didn't move and Ratchet patted him again, and ran a hand over his helm, and.
Oh, frag, who was he fooling, he was just as fraggin' weird any of the 'stupid fraggin' romance 'pad ideas for getting off on Ratchet's attention. He was so busy leaning into that fraggin' hand and letting his optics go dim right where Ratchet could see that he missed Ratchet saying something, and got a gentle tap of Ratchet's fingertips against his helm instead of more pets; hey, pay attention. "...right," he mumbled, pushing his optics back online, and - instantly went aft-backwards into the head of the berth and almost out the whole fraggin' wagon at speed. Ratchet was holding a - a kinda - a curved little plug, shiny, not much longer than his fingers and that was a bad fraggin' thought-
...Ratchet. Wasn't - chasing him. He was just sitting there, at the other end of the berth, watching him. Quiet. Just - looking kinda sad.
Deadlock. Didn't. Move, right away, vents kicked on so hard they were rattling, pain stabbing through his struts and plating in crushing waves - and. What did it fraggin' say that he bolted instead of kicking Ratchet in the face?
Frag, he had it bad.
*
Nothing much happened after Ratchet marked him up. Which was - weird, but kind of comforting; he'd already known he was Ratchet's weird citymech already, so maybe it was just sealing the deal.
Hah. He was sealed up all right. He'd waited until Ratchet had pulled the layers of - he was starting to think that was fur, Megatron'd had a scrap of it he'd picked up somewhere, and here Deadlock was lounging around under full-length tarps of it. He'd relaxed under the weight of it despite himself and fought off recharge to feel around his laggy valve rim, still twitching down all dry and slow around the nozzle-full of more nanites and the plug thing Ratchet'd slid into him. Even that hadn't hurt, even when Ratchet had put the thick, round end of it in first and made unhappy noises at how his valve worked. Or, well. How it didn't work. He'd tucked it around the low bend in Deadlock's valve, waited until enough of his valve had cinched down around it to make sure it'd take, then backed up all polite and let Deadlock snap his panel shut without so much as a look.
At least Ratchet just wanted him out of bounds rather than worked up and ready for anything. No way that was gonna happen, even if he was starting to think it might actually be okay if Ratchet wanted to.
If Ratchet got sick of him in the end, Deadlock was already way too attached. Getting kicked out would mess him up something glitchy.
They went through the plate-sealing routine a couple more times after that, Ratchet still letting him see what was going on each time, and Ratchet only poured more nanites down over his spike the once. Ratchet just put a hand low on his frame the second time, ran a scan, and said something approving; Deadlock tried not to be too disappointed, and didn't say a fraggin' thing about the thumbprint seal still safe under his panel. He didn't know if Ratchet was expecting him to ask about it or not, but - he wanted to keep it. He felt - safe, with it there. His valve was a whole other thing, getting a round of nanites as deep as Ratchet could get them both times, and - frag, the second time he kind of almost felt something, a cool little tickle when they hit. He didn't know what to make of that, but he'd worry about it if Ratchet ever didn't put the plug back.
He still fell over into recharge with next to no fraggin' warning, and he was absolutely fraggin' mortified the next on-shift when he woke up and found he'd dropped into defrag with his hand still curled over his open panel, his palm pressed against Ratchet's thumbprint for frag, he didn't even know. Comfort? Reassurance? There was more noise outside than there'd ever been before, even through the wagon's sturdy walls - they'd stopped somewhere, he could hear more voices speaking Ratchet's language, there'd be mechs out there who'd see him and know he was Ratchet's faster'n otherwise if his panel was open on Ratchet's seals-
He snapped it back shut fast, heat surging through him. Oh, frag, at least he'd hit defrag with the furs pulled over him, he might not have any fraggin' dignity left in front of Ratchet but there were still some fraggin' limits he hadn't hit, and having Ratchet walk in on him draped over the medbay berth with his bare array on display like some Senate trinket was one of them. Even if. Even if maybe-
Nope, nope, not thinking about that until he had to.
He recognised the dip of Ratchet's weight on the suspension before Ratchet ducked into the wagon, and there was a weird little twitch deep in his internals just for a click. Deadlock blinked, pulled his hand away from his plating, shifted just enough to signal hey, I'm up. "Hey Ratch," he said, trying for casual, and failed fraggin' miserably when Ratchet grinned back at him, bright blue optics and cheerful grin and those little crinkles at the corners of his mouth. "Fuel?"
"Fuel," Ratchet said; Deadlock'd picked up more than a handful of words by now, not just the stuff that Ratchet'd repeated enough times that he could pick out the sounds. Look, nanites, this, here. Promise. Help. He said something else, and Deadlock squinted; Ratchet repeated it again, obligingly enough, and jabbed his thumb back over his shoulder. What was that, out? Outside?
Holy frag. "Fuel, then outside?" Deadlock demanded in the same language, and Ratchet gave him a startled, delighted grin. Sure there'd be strangers he couldn't fraggin' intimidate into leaving him alone, but he'd handle it if he could see where they were and what the frag was going on! "Frag yeah."
If Ratchet'd figured how much of an aft Deadlock was being sometimes, at least he wasn't looking anything but amused by it. He came over, sat at the side of Deadlock's berth in his usual spot, and they went through the usual routine - Deadlock opened his mouth, let Ratchet feed him like a good whatever-he-was, tried not to shiver or let his field get away from him with how much he liked it. This was - this was care, the way Deadlock- the way Drift'd understood it, offering and sharing fuel when it was all you had. Maybe it'd change when Deadlock finally fragged up, maybe Ratchet wouldn't want him around anymore when he realised how much of an aft Deadlock really was when they could actually talk, maybe Ratchet just wanted a good little submissive whatever to repair and he'd get bored when Deadlock was back on his pedes, but for now...
Another little twitch cramped up low in the cradle of his hips and Deadlock tried not to squirm. If nothing else he'd spill fuel all down his face like a messy freshpaint, and like frag was he wasting it.
Ratchet said something kind of - exasperated, but he was smiling when the treats were all gone. He pulled the furs back - frag, Deadlock was kind of glad he'd woken up tucked around his hand like a flimsy pic, at least it meant he'd noticed his panel was open - and went over Deadlock's patchy panelling with even more care than usual. Deadlock watched him, his sensors still all misfiring, and it was fraggin' weird to be able to see the slow, delicate process of Ratchet's fingertips working over the fractures and healing cracks in his plating but not feel them, or feel the wrong thing in the wrong place. The scorch marks were still showing where Turmoil and his crew'd shot at him, but they were fainter, and Deadlock thought it was kind of appropriate in a weird fraggin' way that the char of someone trying to kill him was getting reused to fill the damage.
Down his legs, another round of goop getting painted into the frag-up of his ankle joint and the deepest crack starting to seal up his greave, and Ratchet smeared more of the thick putty over the cracks. They were starting to meld together, and - maybe he was imagining it, but they felt stronger.
He might've dozed a little while Ratchet was finishing up, his wonky sensornet slowly starting to realign one round of getting touch at a time. Ratchet said his name with a laugh in his voice and Deadlock pushed his optics back online with half a scowl, and whatever his face did it made Ratchet cackle and.
And.
Nudge his chin up, and rub his thumb over Deadlock's lower lip.
Oh frag. His processor went dead quiet and Deadlock went completely still, fans not even spinning, and the sensors of his mouth abruptly bursting with feedback were definitely up and running just fine. He. ...what could he do to make Ratchet do that again.
Ratchet said his name again, and this time his face was all medic is diagnosing the problem, and oh frag he. He just. He wasn't - he - no, he wasn't ready for this after all, there were people outside, they'd all hear if he started moaning Ratchet's name and he. Frag he was blushing static like a freshpaint.
"Outside?" he croaked, his lip fat and tingling and his processor gone stupid, and Ratchet gave him a dubious as all frag sort of look but didn't say he couldn't go after all. Ratchet tidied up his kit, folded everything up and away into the smart fold-out medkit in the wall, and said something cheerful and bracing as he ducked down and started wrapping one of the furs around Deadlock and hey, what-
"Ratch- woah," he yelped, and he couldn't even shove an arm free to hang on because the sneaky fraggin' glitch of a medic'd got him in the blankets and moving made the welds strain until they twanged and Ratchet just picked him up like - like there was nothing of him, and-
And. Carried him to the door, his arms close around Deadlock's back and under his legs and keeping him steady against Ratchet's broad, deep windshield, and.
He didn't even wobble. He was so fraggin' sturdy.
"Oh frag me," Deadlock whispered to the furs, and maybe to his tank so it stopped trying to turn over.
He wasn't quite so fraggin' distracted that he didn't clock where they were going - they went out through the heavy curtain at the back of the wagon and down a sturdy ramp, and - and into a fraggin' big tent, they weren't fraggin' outside at all. "Sneaky glitch," Deadlock groused, and Ratchet cackled and burbled something that sounded like teasing right back. "Yeah, yeah, fine, you win."
Ratchet carried him over to a berth like the one in the wagon, and Deadlock peered down at it before they got close enough for Ratchet to set him down; metal frame, looked like lightweight but solid pipe bent into shape, and - he was kind of pleased with himself, it was wrapped around in wire. He could get a real look at it when he wasn't lying on it and mapping it out with his hands; the bit he'd been lying on was a complicated set of fractals and shapes made out of wrapping the wire around itself down the length of the frame, in what sure fraggin' looked like one long piece. "Wow," he murmured, and Ratchet made a pleased sort of huffing noise and said something he couldn't follow yet.
The berth was tucked into a corner of the tent, out of the way but well in view of the rest of the space, and Deadlock sighed. At least he'd get something to look at, but - frag, if Ratchet didn't stick around he'd have a fraggin' time trying to cycle down somewhere open. At least - at least he was still sealed up. Nobody'd try comin' at him with Ratchet's marks real clear on his array.
Ratchet settled him on the berth, and Deadlock bit back any noises that wanted to escape through gritted teeth. He was fine, he was fine, he wanted out of the wagon and he'd got it, he wasn't gonna frag this up. Ratchet pulled the fur back over him instead of using it as a fraggin' trap - Deadlock groused at him on general principle, and got a smug look and a pat to the helm he was way too close to leaning into - and looked him over, like checking he was happy with the arrangement before heading out. Deadlock was kind of expecting that to be it, only-
Only Ratchet murmured something, his optics gone all soft, and stroked his hand over Deadlock's helm once, before leaving the goodies on the berth by Deadlock's hand and walking away. Deadlock stared after him, resetting his optics, and.
And spent the next - shift? Maybe? - watching Ratchet in what had to be his home turf. This wasn't a tent, it was a medbay that was just in a tent, and Ratchet obviously knew where everything was and how everything worked and handled all the mechs coming in to see him with some sass or other ready to go. Deadlock stayed quiet; there was a little fold-out screen kind of thing that hid part of the berth from the rest of the tent but it wasn't pulled all the way over, so he could look out and not get spotted if he was smart about it.
Ratchet wasn't the only medic they had, seemed like. There was another one all painted up in the same red and white, and Deadlock would bet fuel on that one being a freshpaint. Ratchet kept gesturing him to watch how he did things and the other one would trot right over, peering at whatever Ratchet was doing and they'd burble together after, then the freshpaint would trot back to whatever they'd been doing before. Grinding stuff up, seemed like. The kind of stuff Ratchet did when it got late, sitting at his tiny workbench in the wagon.
...wait. Was that word 'outside', or - or something like 'home'? Is this their fraggin' base?
If this was where they really lived, why the frag was the medbay in a tent and not in a building? Did they just keep moving all the time?
Deadlock puzzled over that one while Ratchet demonstrated the finer points of replacing a smeary optical lense on a mostly-patient gearhead whose voice Deadlock didn't recognise, then immediately got so fraggin' distracted seeing First Aid trot out of the tent, then come back in with a thin, shaped crystal in his hands, and realised with a jolt that apparently they had the resources to fraggin' grow purpose-made crystals ready for grinding and polishing into lenses. He'd never even thought about where lenses came from before - you either had them or you didn't and if you didn't, or didn't have a decent medic to fit it, you made do or welded a patch over it and boosted your other sensors to compensate. What the frag, what else could they do out here? What else was outside?
...point was, he'd long since tagged Ratchet as safe, general access and didn't tense up when he came over, and it was only that the freshpaint was coming too that broke him out of his processor whirring.
"Deadlock," Ratchet said, hooking one of the low little folding chairs with a pede and sitting himself down by Deadlock's elbow; he gestured the freshpaint to come up beside him, though that one just picked up a chair of his own and sat down without Ratchet's flash. "First Aid. First Aid, Deadlock."
Huh. "Hey kid," he said, and for all that First Aid had one of those full mask faces, his visor was plenty expressive on its own and Deadlock was treated to a big, adorable beam and a little wave. Cute.
Ratchet said something else, turning to First Aid like he was explaining something - though that might've been marking out more territory, Ratchet repeating that zl cngvrag he'd snapped out when the other mech'd barged into the wagon before. It sounded like he was just making sure 'Aid knew rather than going too hard on it, so - okay, sure, kid probably wouldn't try to push boundaries, but if he was a medic in training then Deadlock'd probably wind up being a practise dummy some. And that - might not be so bad? He liked medics anyway, and getting to be even a weird kind of practise model for one to learn on would be - kind of. Kind of nice.
He was starting to be pretty fraggin' sure that any embarrassing reactions he had to totally normal medical stuff were mostly just - because it was Ratchet doing them. And. And feeling...cared for. So he'd be fine with Ratchet's freshpaint. He'd never gone all distracted and fluttery over the 'Con medics, and for the longest time they were the only medics he'd known.
Sure enough, they managed to figure out with Deadlock's new half-useful vocabulary and some play-pretend that Ratchet wanted First Aid to look him over and tell Ratchet what he thought the problem was. Deadlock nodded along, and it all went fine, mostly - right up until First Aid tried to hold one of the soft, cool gel-things to Deadlock's mouth and Deadlock reared back like some scandalised Towermech. "The frag," he sputtered, and Ratchet and 'Aid both looked at him like he'd lost his fraggin' mind. Well - frag, no, he knew this part - "Ratchet's cngvrag, kid, knock it off!"
First Aid murmured something - Deadlock fumbled along with the words, something like I see what you mean? Hah, he was getting better! ...Ratchet was just - watching him, though, and Deadlock couldn't figure out whether he was mad or not that Deadlock was standing his ground, even when it was Ratchet's freshpaint trying to feed him up. Didn't make sense if he was, Ratchet liked it when Deadlock sassed him, even when they couldn't understand what each other was saying; was there some weird extra layers to this that he wasn't getting?
He was starting to work himself into a spin about it, his fans clicking on, when Ratchet muttered zl cngvrag and shook his head, then rested his palm against Deadlock's chevron again. Deadlock went still, looking up at him with - frag, he had to look fraggin' pathetic, but he didn't want anyone else touching him like that and if he'd got it wrong, if it actually meant that anyone under Ratchet could and Ratchet wouldn't mind or-
Or.
Ratchet wouldn't - protect him. Because that's what it felt like. Oh, frag, he was so slagged.
"Easy," Ratchet murmured, and he - he didn't look mad. Maybe like Deadlock was being dumb, but not like he'd glitched up. "Easy. Zl cngvrag. Okay."
This time Ratchet held out the cool white gel, and Deadlock mouthed it from his fingers with a shudder of relief.
*
They were definitely at some kinda base camp.
Deadlock'd worn himself out after all, what with all the panicking. He'd barely managed to still be online at shift-end and Ratchet quietly cradled him in his arms to carry him back into the wagon. That was the only excuse he had for nuzzling into Ratchet's shoulder and going all - limp, trusting Ratchet to hold him. To - to keep him safe. His frame still hurt, a low-grade ache all through him and he was more tired than he could remember being even on the frontline, and getting settled on the berth by gentle hands and the furs drawn over him felt like absolute fraggin' bliss.
He'd slept hard after that, and only woke up when Ratchet ran a fingertip over his lip. He opened his mouth without waking up all the way, taking fuel on autopilot, blearing up a couple levels from 'totally out' to 'kinda awake-ish' with the taste of gelled fuel on his glossa. "Mnh?" he managed; Ratchet patted his shoulder over the furs and shushed him, and maybe just being around so many mechs talking through the shift before had helped - he picked out recharge and you need and later, and made an incoherent kind of protesting noise 'stead of actual words.
"Outside," he said, and Ratchet gave him a dubious look. "I'll sleep. Promise."
Apparently now he was managing mostly-actual-sentences in their language Ratchet was more likely to take his word for things, even if he clearly didn't think Deadlock'd be up for anything other than napping. And - yeah, okay, he wasn't, but he managed a little wave at First Aid without wincing and shamelessly listened in on the conversations going on in the medbay - as well as what he could hear outside of the tent. The drapes muffled sound, sure, but the tent was bigger and had more mechs coming and going through the flaps; it didn't muffle things that much. It was busy out there, the sounds of a lot more mechs coming and going along with plenty of noises Deadlock didn't recognise; the rumbly engine sounds of wagons like Ratchet's, cracks and rustles, and voices he didn't recognise from the ride to wherever here was.
He drowsed, on and off, and didn't try to stay awake. Medbays were safe, even if the walls were less solid than he'd like; his berth backed up against Ratchet's wagon, he'd figured that out already, so nobody could jump him through the tent wall. Anyway, if anything happened, Ratchet'd be fragged. He was Ratchet's, and this was Ratchet's medbay, so he was safe enough to defrag. It made Ratchet happy, anyway, and Deadlock definitely wasn't fooling anyone with how he tipped his head up into it every time Ratchet checked in on him and ran a hand over his helm. Whether kid was a pet name or a title after all, he didn't mind it.
He got introduced to a few new people, when they came in while he was awake enough for it. A couple of tiny mechs, littler than minibots, all bright colours and no brakes what-so-fraggin'-ever, and Deadlock stared at them like a moron when he realised they weren't freshpaint minis, they were sparklings. Actual real sparklings, like something you'd get in the fanciest, weirdest Iacon Towers that could afford them, just - out here, like they were nothing special. Or maybe so special they were - normal. He'd - he'd only seen a couple before, and the twins hated anyone calling them little and they were cassettes, anyway, and punchy with it, but Arcee and Hot Rod were all rounded edges and fearlessness and chatter, Hot Rod more talky than Arcee but...sweeter, with it. After First Aid introduced them he asked something that sounded like does it hurt, all serious, and Deadlock pulled a face that said kinda-maybe and Hot Rod reached out and patted Deadlock's hand where he didn't have any putty smeared on. It was - it was kinda cute. Ratchet shooed them off, gruff but gentle, and gave Deadlock a strange sort of look when Deadlock watched them go instead of looking back up at him like usual.
"You?" he asked, gesturing, and Deadlock almost fell off the berth when he figured out Ratchet meant do you have kids.
"No little in Kaon," Deadlock said, throat full of static, and Ratchet's mouth pursed up and his optics went flat. It - Deadlock didn't like that look, but he understood it. There was a war on; who had the time or the resources to have something so little and breakable? "...could I?" He'd never even thought about it before. He didn't know if his frame could do that, he wasn't even sure how it worked, but...frag, if the revolution was supposed to've let them do anything, be anything, why shouldn't he ask?
Ratchet's face went real weird at that, optics gone kind of unfocussed, and burbled out something that sounded like a longer twist on sure, kid before wandering off.
Weird.
*
"Uh," Deadlock said, staring at the tangle of. Kinda...fluffy stuff, and the - definitely - shaped - thing Ratchet had plopped into his lap. Apparently he was in a hurry, 'cause he just burbled something about - moving, maybe? Or hands?, patted Deadlock's shoulder, and headed out of the tent for one of his occasional constitutionals.
...right. Busy on-shift out of the medbay, then.
"Oh...kay," Deadlock said slowly, and picked at the tufty stuff with the tips of his claws, now that he could. It clumped, kind of, glinting a little where the individual strands kinked, and he squashed it experimentally between his palms. It was a fraggin' novelty, getting to use his hands again. The long, thin thing slid out of his lap and onto the berth beside him, polished metal in a long, shallow curve that ended in a kinda dowser-drop shape. "What the frag?"
He glanced around; First Aid was puttering around doing something fiddly with some wires - stripping the coating off and twisting them together with some other wires, looked like - and Deadlock waggled a hand carefully at him until he got the kid's attention. "What is?" he asked as First Aid perked up and came closer, looking delighted at getting asked a question. Frag, were all medics outside of Kaon this adorable? First Aid burbled at him a bit as well, but Deadlock couldn't pick much out of it - it sounded like he was cooing or something. Frag it, he wasn't being cute, he didn't know what this stuff was. "What for?"
First Aid looked at him, tilted his head, burbled something again. Deadlock gave him an exaggerated, very fraggin' careful shrug, lifting the fluffy stuff in both hands and giving it a pantomimed confused scrunchyface. First Aid squeaked, patted Deadlock's gauntlet, and went bustling out of the tent as well.
Frag, this really wasn't working, was it.
...only First Aid was coming back with the kids, both of them looking baffled, and both of them holding similar-looking chunks of fluffy stuff and drop-shaped metal things. First Aid burbled at them, something like help and maybe - was that show? It sounded a bit like look, or at least the sound curved the same way - and he definitely heard his name in there. They burbled back, faster and squeakier than he could keep up with, before looking at him and started demanding how come he didn't know how to - do whatever this stuff was for.
"Hey, don't look at me, I never learned this," Deadlock protested, mostly in self-defence even if he'd accidentally said it in Kaonite. Arcee harrumpfed at him, but Roddy just climbed right up onto the end of Deadlock's cot by his pedes and made his engine backfire for Deadlock's attention, the little showboat. At least Deadlock was sitting mostly-up by now so there was space. No shame in a tiny wanting attention, anyway.
And then Roddy started twisting the fluffy stuff into wire with the drop-thing and his fingers, and Deadlock's jaw dropped open. "What the fr-" He swapped languages in a hurry with an impatient shake of his head, ugh. "What is? Show!"
Roddy beamed at him, bubbling smugly in a sing-song that didn't need stupid things like words to be understood, and Deadlock mock-scowled as a grin tugged at his mouth all on its own. "Cheeky lil freshpaint," he said approvingly. "C'mon, show me how this stuff works, sooner or later I'm gonna be awake all the time 'n bored as frag. This looks useful."
Hot Rod wasn't the best teacher - that went to Arcee, mostly 'cause Roddy kept getting distracted and wanting to show Deadlock other shiny stuff he had in his subspace or cool tricks you could do with bits of spun wire, but they both kept it up for a good while. The end result was Deadlock with a - kind of thick, sure, but a done bit of wire about as long as his hand, and Arcee inspected it closely before she gave him a solemn little good enough nod. "Thanks," he said, amused despite himself, and she patted his gauntlet which was more than he'd ever got from any other teacher he'd had since Gasket. "Good?"
She pursed her mouth like she was imitating somebody, tilted her head, hummed - and made a little gesture like a wobbly flier with one hand, so-so. "Cheeky," Deadlock grinned, and Roddy burst into giggles. "Okay, drill sargeant, frag. I'll start over."
Arcee frowned at him, not understanding - fair enough, he didn't know how to say any of that in any language she spoke - but when he moved to let the whole thing untwist she let out a scandalised squawk and grabbed his hand, and even Roddy yelped and hopped up onto his knees on Deadlock's berth. "What?" he asked, mystified, and let Arcee tug the lump of thick wire out of his grip.
Arcee pinched the end of the wire between her fingers, twisting it with a practised little gesture so it wouldn't all come apart. Then she presented it to him like it was a medal or something, and Deadlock took it back feeling kind of honoured and also real confused. "Thanks?"
She patted him again, and Hot Rod beamed and clambered up the length of the berth and.
And hugged him, all thoughtless kindness in a little warm body, arms around Deadlock's neck and his helm tucked against Deadlock's shoulder. Deadlock - kind of blanked out, for a click; between the kids and First Aid and Ratchet- Frag, he'd not been touched so much in vorn. Even the cassettes tended to just collide with his knees instead of wanting actual careful touch from anyone but Soundwave, and Ravage'd long since been too busy to 'charge together in a heap. Frag, so'd he. But here - there wasn't the rush. There wasn't the hurry, the hurt, the war.
Roddy peeked up at him, burbled something worried that had hurt in there somewhere. It didn't - that wasn't.
"Is okay," Deadlock croaked, and. And figured out how to move his arms again, carefully folding them around Roddy like they didn't quite belong to him. Roddy pretty obviously didn't believe him, but that just meant he cuddled like it was the most important mission of his life and like frag was he gonna let it go sideways. Stubborn script. It was too familiar for comfort, even if Roddy was a nicer kid than Deadlock'd ever been. "Is okay. Is - hurt. Not Hot Rod hurt. ...good medicine."
That got him a smile at least, and got Arcee determined to get in on this cuddles medicine thing too, and the noise First Aid made when he came back and saw them hurt all their audials.
*
Deadlock's first bit of spun wire got hung up pride of place in Ratchet's wagon. Given Deadlock'd clocked Ratchet coming in and started waving it as close to over his head as he could manage, like a fraggin' maniac who'd just figured out something sparklings knew how t'do easy - well, Ratchet'd lit up and grinned at him like he had just figured out something smart, and said something that sounded...proud of him. Like knew you could do it, kid, that settled warm and glowing in his tank for the rest of the shift.
After that, once Ratchet'd done a few more tests for Deadlock's grip strength and his co-ordination and the state of his plates, Deadlock got to rank up out of the medbay and outside. Really outside, this time, and Deadlock swore up and fraggin' down when he figured out he'd heard outside and Ratchet'd actually said medbay. Maybe that wasn't a root word or anything, so he'd not confused himself too bad, but it still sucked slag. He was getting closer, though.
(Deadlock handled a few checks of his own, when Ratchet was out of the wagon. It wasn't that he didn't want Ratchet to know he was armed - frag, his paired hand cannons'd been tucked back into his subspace by some thoughtful someone, Ratchet or otherwise - he just. He didn't want the war and Ratchet in the same place, and he didn't want to think about having to run anymore. But, if he did...if he did. His guns were cleaned up and good to go, even if he had a hard time holding his arm out straight and level right now.)
Even better, Ratchet had carried him out of the wagon and then set Deadlock down on his pedes, the fur wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak and Ratchet's arm around his back. Deadlock wobbled, mostly out of fraggin' shock as his gyros adjusted, and tentatively spread his pedes to get his balance better. "Holy frag," he said, low but emphatic, and Ratchet chuckled at him. "Ratchet big good medic."
Ratchet grinned, a confidence that was all backed up by real fraggin' skill in the look, and Deadlock was pretty sure he said damn right I am and - frag, wasn't he just.
They headed for the tent flap, Deadlock managing one slow step at a time with Ratchet pacing him, and Ratchet reached out to sweep the flap out of Deadlock's way...
Deadlock forgot everything. He forgot to keep walking, he forgot look at the camp at all, he just - stared, helm tipping back, optics full of more stars than he'd ever seen in his entire life.
"Oh wow," he said faintly; the sky was full of colours, a deep rich blue-black with sweeps of pink and purple and green, and everywhere - everywhere there were stars, in clusters and speckles and a whole glowing galaxy spread out overhead. He didn't - he couldn't even tell which ones he'd seen back in Rodion were where, he couldn't even pick them out of the horde, there were so many.
Frag, he wished Gasket could've seen this.
"...Deadlock?"
Ratchet was saying his name. Didn't sound like the first time, either. Deadlock's vents shivered through a reset, and - frag, his face was wet again that kept fraggin' happening. "Sorry," he said, then again when he realised he'd said it in Basic the first time. "I - good. Good hurt. Big." He needed a word for lots, he needed a word for beautiful, he - frag, he was missing so many fraggin' words for all this. This was - this was so much.
Ratchet didn't look completely convinced that he hadn't gone glitchy, steering him out of the doorway while Deadlock alternated between staring at the sky and sneaking glances at Ratchet's face. He was gorgeous in the starlight, out from Iaconi orange and into the real world; it was kind of a relief to sit down and not have to worry about his pedes going places by accident and send them both flying. There weren't many fliers in Kaon, the Vosian Highest Family too fraggin' stuck-up and self-interested to get involved in a war that wouldn't end except for fraggin' Starscream, and - frag, he couldn't really blame them, not now. Either way, he wasn't exactly made for the air, and neither was Ratchet.
He managed not to trip them both into atmo, and Ratchet guided him over to- right, paying attention below the skyline. The camp was a camp, open-sided tents with stuff set out like - like a market, hawkers calling out and chatting to mechs that came up to them, tools and sparkles and stuff Deadlock only recognised in bits and snapshots. There was a whole table of crystals and pretty rocks, and he kind of wanted a look at that but it was on the other side of - what was that, the end of a big pipe? Mechs were sitting around it, standing around it and chatting, there were stands of crystals growing out in places where pedefall hadn't worn them away...someone'd hooked up a little crane arm with a bucket and a chain onto the edge of it, so there had to be something down there.
"Fuel," Ratchet said, pointing at the pipe. He used the word for cubed fuel, not the solid stuff, but - frag, liquid fuel was running dry, that was part of the reason the crackdowns'd been so bad in Iacon, there couldn't- There couldn't. There wouldn't be some just - out here, would there? Just - lying around?
Unless. If. If the most cynical fraggin' rumours'd been right, that there'd still been fuel all along and the crackdowns had just been to keep them in line...
For the first time, Deadlock wondered what the frag the other cities were fuelling on. He'd - he'd never asked. Barricade was the only mech outside of Starscream who'd come from anywhere further out than Iacon, and he wouldn't trust anything Starscream told him anyway.
Ratchet was watching his face, optics sharp and worried. "Come on," he said, and they made their slow, careful way back to the tent. This time Deadlock could see Ratchet's little wagon from the outside, snugged up against the medbay tent wall - the fabric faded white and stencilled with the same red glyph that Ratchet wore, 'cause of course it was. Ratchet's wagon didn't look like anything much - the same glyph on the front, a little cabin, an antenna, and oh, duh, Ratchet must be able to set a course or drive it himself however he liked, his processing power must be something else if he could hold that in his head and fix Deadlock up at the same time...
It looked so small. He'd figured so many fraggin' things out in there, when it'd been his whole world. He kind of wanted to run back inside and hide under the furs.
"Come on, kid," Ratchet said gently, and helped him stumble over to the berth tucked into the corner of the tent. Deadlock sank down in a heap of exhaustion, stunned too stupid for rage and still reeling from the stars; he'd be furious later, but all he could feel was - was a numb kind of knowing that people could be so fraggin' stupid, that there could be so much fraggin' waste in the world. He curled up on his side, the first time he'd been able to since Turmoil's ugly little transport, and it only hurt a little; Ratchet pulled the furs over him, paused, tugged one of the little chairs over to sit beside him.
"Show?" he said quietly, and Deadlock didn't understand at first until Ratchet opened up and drew out a plug from his side, offered it in an open hand. It was - it was too much, too big for the few words they had. Ratchet wanted to know what was wrong.
Frag. He just - he'd figured ports and plugs were only good for 'facing, but 'facing was - energy, it was data swapping. Ratchet just - he just wanted to help.
Deadlock curled up into a ball tight enough to really fraggin' hurt, burying his face in the furs until the fans in his vents kicked on. Ratchet said something louder, alarmed, Kid don't - then stopped when Deadlock shoved his arm out, fumbled for Ratchet's plug, popped one of his own in return. Frag, good thing Ratchet was smart, one of'm had to be.
Gentle hands swapped their plugs. Ratchet bumped right up against his firewalls immediately, but for all Deadlock could feel the impatient-worried-fierce radiating off him, he didn't shove right though. Didn't matter. Deadlock dropped them anyway, and - where did he even start?
Gasket. It always started with Gasket.
Words didn't matter. Ratchet felt what he felt, seeing Gasket-mentor-friend-primary hit the floor in a cascade of brittle parts and weak energon, the Enforcers standing over him, the both of them shrugging and turning away from what they'd done. Ratchet's outrage shaded into realisation and an unhappy sympathy when Deadlock's whole world went up in an inferno of grief and rage and incoherent screaming frenzy, when Deadlock couldn't keep everything straight and alternated between pickings getting thinner along with the fuel, Enforcers stomping through the tumbledown ruins and graffiti of the Dead End, turning what little people had upside down without fraggin' caring and - and.
Ratchet tapped at another nearby memory, him and Gasket lying on what was left of a rooftop, looking up at the stars. Just a handful, the ones they could see past the too-bright glare of upper Iacon and the Towers, blocking everything else out. Deadlock felt him react down the connection, this outraged alarm that was - it was kinda funny, and Ratchet poked him all cross. Not funny! Stars?!
Stars, Deadlock told him in Kaonite-Rodion-Iaconi, and saved the word in Ratchet's language with no small relish. Vapouri, Ratchet wisped back at him, almost absent-mindedly, and hah. Now he knew!
Deadlock sent back another memory, of climbing out of the ash and dross of Rodion, his entire frame thumping with adrenaline and fury-terror as he fought his way out, further than he'd ever been and all alone. Looking back, down at the hole he'd spent his whole life in, up at the rise of Iacon overhead, at the lights that still blazed and blocked out almost every star for megamiles around despite the war beginning to kick off all over again. The sky between Iacon and Kaon'd been streaked with missile tracers the last time Deadlock'd looked, laserfire, lights; even when the Senate got smart enough to turn off the floodlights showing off their wealth, the stars were still blocked out past the haze.
Ratchet murmured, leaned in, pressed his chevron against Deadlock's. Deadlock almost fell right off the berth, gone slack in the heap of furs; Ratchet stilled, almost drew away, but - but Deadlock couldn't bear it, reached up and cling to his shoulder, claws just shy of scratching his paint but trying so hard not to slip and hurt him. Don't, don't, don't go. Please. I want it, it's good.
Okay, kid, you're okay, Ratchet whispered back, and let Deadlock cling like a sparkling himself until exertion caught up to him and he fell into exhaustion, warm comfort and care following him down into recharge instead of old grief. If he was due any bad defrags, Ratchet solid and safe on the other end of the connection must've warded them off.
*
They went out on careful little walks every time Deadlock was awake after that. Sometimes it was twice an on-shift, if he needed to fall over and nap in between, and Ratchet was making satisfied noises every time he looked at Deadlock's legs. Nanites just - worked, and apparently so did the entire transport's worth of solid fuel Ratchet was feeding him. Deadlock was starting to feel more solid than - well - fraggin' ever, his struts filling in and his armour layering up.
Hot Rod and Arcee kept coming by to check on him - sometimes when they were supposed to be doing other things, seemed like, though for all Roddy giggled and hid behind Deadlock when his old mentor came up and asked all long-suffering if Deadlock'd seen his Hot Rod, like it wasn't absolutely fraggin' obvious where the kid was from the lump in the furs that couldn't hold still, apparently they weren't gonna be in too much trouble if they took detours along the way.
Kup was kinda terrifying, mostly 'cause he was the oldest mech Deadlock'd ever seen who was still up and moving around that easy. Deadlock'd known plenty of old mechs in Rodion - none at all in Kaon, and didn't that just set off another fraggin' klaxon of how fraggin' wrong he'd been-
...
Kup was. Nice, in a casually real fraggin' scary way. Deadlock was pretty sure Kup could take him out in a sparkpulse, and there was no fraggin' way he was gonna square up to a nonna and make Kup prove it. Roddy adored him, that was all Deadlock needed to know. That and Kup'd started showing him how to make stuff outta the wire Deadlock was starting to make a lil heap of, and - frag, nobody seemed to need it when he was done, he had no fraggin' clue where Ratchet was getting the fluff from, or what he wanted Deadlock to do with it, so he was just gonna defer to Kup and take the sticks Kup kept pressing into his hands and learn. It kept him out of trouble, and got him into a little circle of other mechs who met up to do stuff with wire and gossip, and if Deadlock was still figuring out the language it didn't seem to matter much. He'd hit tipping point sooner or later and when he figured out sentence structure aaaahaha it was over, he'd have this whole language thing fraggin' locked down. It was nice, too, inching down and settling real careful with whoever was out there working on stuff, and waving to Ratchet after him and Kup'd sassed each other some and Ratchet headed back to the medbay for his shift in there. It felt like he belonged, even if he was still kinda creaky.
Meantime, he'd made a couple lopsided squares and was working on a third one that was - coming out pretty good, actually. Kup looked it over and made approving noises and everything.
Even when he'd stopped tipping into recharge so much in the actual on-shift, Deadlock made a point of getting up after sitting for a while and walking a circuit around their bit of the camp. First couple times Kup gave him a look and went along with him, which - yeah, couldn't blame him. But after that Kup just waved him off, and Deadlock kind of appreciated having some time to himself for a lil bit, even if he wasn't actually alone exactly. The size of the camp changed every fraggin' shift, seemed like, with mechs coming and going in groups that changed all over; Deadlock was just glad Ratchet'd decided to stay for a while. He liked the kids, he liked Kup, he - was pretty fraggin' wary of the big twins that came in every other shift to get something hammered out in the medbay tent but Ratch seemed to like'm, and First Aid was a sweetspark. He was pretty sure they'd wind up moving on eventually, but - if this was a regular stop, they'd see each other again. It'd - maybe he could. Rely on it. On people coming back.
This time he pushed himself up onto his pedes, stretched, careful, and tipped a lazy wave to Kup and Ironhide and Nightlight. He didn't have anywhere in particular in mind so much - the stall with the shiny rocks had been destination number one the second time Ratchet had helped him out of the tent, but he could always go look again...
Only - he headed past the medbay tent, looping away from the busy parts of the camp, and caught a little flash of red.
Deadlock paused, some uneasy instinct whispering in the back of his processor. Something's not right.
He threaded past the little mini-camps set up around the well, each different caravan pulling their wagons up in a different spread, and - there. Roddy out on his own for once with Arcee nowhere to be seen, crouched down in the middle of a stretch of open metal, off on a diagonal from where Deadlock'd come out through the wagons. Little ripples of mineral build-up patterned the surface, and crystals poked up in amongst a higher tumble of metal and outcrops further out - it was dramatic as frag if you were used to a city, and Roddy sure seemed to've found something to look at out there-
...Roddy wasn't looking away.
Roddy couldn't focus on one thing unless it was the best thing he'd seen all day, and even then only for a few clicks at a time.
Roddy wasn't moving. No - he was, one pede inching backwards so fraggin' slow, feeling behind him and easing backwards until he froze again in a real uncomfortable-looking sprawl.
Deadlock headed out of the wagon line, stalking out in a sniper's ground-eating lope, hips twinging but only a lil bit. Ratchet was a fraggin' good medic. He'd be fine. Focus.
Something moved out in the crystals. Something slow, something Deadlock wouldn't've even noticed if it weren't for Roddy's fixed, frozen little frame, out there all alone. He squinted, then something cold and oily churned up his tank.
There was. There was something real fraggin' big out there.
Deadlock wasn't an idiot. He'd only ever made the run between Iacon and Kaon before this, and nothing fraggin' lived in the wastes if it could help it; the first time he'd heard some bizarre swooping sound out past the noises of the camp in the off-shift he'd baffled Ratchet asking what it was. Turbofoxes - he'd never heard them howl before, he'd never seen one before. Apparently rich mechs had tame ones, kept whole packs, went hunting with the things - hunting what, he didn't wanna know. Point was, he knew he was a dumb city mech and didn't even know what he didn't know, which was why he'd only gone to the edge of the camp and not run off like a moron. (He wouldn't've run off anyway. Still.) But Roddy wasn't a citymech, and if he was that scared...
A long, wide back moved between the softly singing bank of crystals. Something furred, something silvery, something that looked like it was studded with crystals itself. Something with burning orange optics that briefly caught in the facets of a little crystal nub, locked on Roddy like-
Like it was gonna eat him.
Frag that.
Deadlock reached for his subspace. Pulled out his rifle. He'd have to adjust on the move, but he did not miss. Missing was not a fraggin' option. His hands moved without needing to look, smooth and familiar, Ratchet's repairs bedded in and holding. Field-ready. He didn't fraggin' dare take his optics off the thing; if he did he'd waste time finding it again, and if he took too long...
Roddy heard him coming, the shivers running through his lil bitty frame getting worse but he held so, so fraggin' still. Brave bit, brave bit, he had to know if he ran it'd be on him like a fraggin' shot. "Easy," Deadlock murmured, and Roddy shuddered all over with a tiny lil sniffle. "Easy, Roddy. Good kid. It's okay."
Deadlock kept his optics on the slow slink of crystal-matted fur, on the there-and-gone burn of a predator's stare. Optics. That fur'll be like armour. Optics or mouth, it'll only give me one shot.
One shot's all I need.
"Deadlock," Roddy squeaked out in a tiny, rusty voice. How long'd he been out here? How long'd he been trying to get back to safety, one lil bit at a time?
"Good kid. Good job." Frag, he wished he knew the word for brave. "Roddy. Listen. When I-" Frag, frag, what was shoot?! "When - I make bang, go. Okay?"
Roddy's vents heaved, his shaky little frame pouring heat, and gave a short, sharp little nod and that was all Deadlock needed. "Good. Good kid. Most good."
...that got him a wavery little giggle at least, Roddy still keeping his optics on the threat, and then Deadlock was smoothly side-stepping in front of him, bringing his rifle up, sighting down the barrel.
All right. He'd blocked off the thing's line to an easy meal. Now all they had to do - was - wait.
There was a moment of absolute quiet, when the noise of the camp behind them sounded a thousand megamiles away. When there was nothing else in the world but the stars overhead, the sighing of the wind through the crystals, and the monster.
Then whatever building tension was holding it back snapped, and a landslide of claws and teeth and mad optics straight out of a nightmare came barreling full-tilt towards them, its sides flapping with loose fur and clumps of crystals and clots of jagged metal, its claws slashing at the ground, its mouth open and dripping-
A cool, calm focus Deadlock only reached through a sniper sight washed through him. He stopped his vents, stilled his frame, lined up the shot. One wild pinprick optic filled his vision.
Bang.
Roddy bolted, rocketing out from between Deadlock's pedes back to the camp at top speed yelling his lil head off, and Deadlock shoved thinking about him out of his head before the echo hit. Had to because the thing wasn't stopping; it reared up and let out a tearing, shrieking, yowling roar that kicked off absolute fraggin' pandemonium behind him and he couldn't listen to it, the thing was pawing and clawing at the air with its front two legs but still fraggin' coming with the other four, stomping at the metal and kicking and - Deadlock 'spaced his rifle, reached for his hand cannons fraggin' bless whoever'd saved them from the crystal field, brought both of them up and stepped into the thing's charge with his fangs bared and engine snarling. It came crashing towards him, mouth open, fangs as long as his fraggin' hands, one ruined optic sparking and dripping and empty.
He fired. Both barrels, one-two, and the back of the thing's head blew out.
Its middle legs didn't get the chirp at first, still clawing and scrabbling at the ground trying to get him, its body thumping down and thrashing as it kicked and jerked and smoke poured from its mouth in twists of plasma. Deadlock didn't move, both barrels trained on it, audials on high for another one lurking in the crystals as backup. But it slowed, lurched, twitched to a stop, and - nothing. Nothing, nothing else came thundering out of the wilderness, and Deadlock let his guns fall with a shudder of relief, his vents kicking back on.
"Kid!"
He turned on the spot, pedes braced, hands out ready to fire again- but. Ratchet, charging full-tilt from the edge of the wagons at the head of what looked like the rest of the whole camp, and the noise that went up when they saw - whatever it was sprawled out at Deadlock's pedes. "What is it?" Deadlock yelled back at Ratchet, and wanted to start figuring out how to ask do they go around in teams and what the FRAG and a few other things-
Only Ratchet stumbled to a halt in front of him, hit with him a scan hard enough Deadlock almost fell over, and snatched him into a hug that. ...that. ...frag, Ratchet was shaking.
Deadlock reached back, settled his arms around Ratchet's shoulders, leaned his helm against Ratchet's warm, solid frame. All the shivers he'd shoved away while it was happening hit him then and there, one after the other, and Ratchet held him tight enough that his plating started to creak.
Frag, Deadlock didn't mind at all.
"Okay, it's okay, I'm okay," he murmured, and copied what Ratchet'd done for him so many times before without thinking - hand on his helm, far up as he could reach, stroking. Gentle. He'd - he'd almost forgotten gentle, back in Kaon. Something else he'd learned or relearned out here, with the stars and the quiet and people who cared. "I'm okay, Ratchet. Safe."
Ratchet pulled in a great shuddery vent, straightened up a little. Looked at him like he'd never seen Deadlock's face before and was trying to memorise it all over again, like Deadlock'd done something unexpected. "Frag me," he said, and Deadlock stuttered into a laugh.
*
Turned out one tiger could be smelted down for all sorts of things, and once all the yelling was over Deadlock got a front-row seat to the thing getting really thoroughly dismantled for almost getting at Roddy. Ratchet stuck close beside him, like Deadlock'd run off and do some other fool thing if he looked the wrong way too long; his big loud twins both came up and made impressed noises at the size of the fraggin' thing, and Ironhide went right in on cracking off the thing's front claws and presenting them to him in a handful.
"Uh, good?" Deadlock said, confused; the things were sharp, curved something nasty, and - might make good knives, actually. ...maybe make a good knife for a scared lil bit who needed one, come to that. Have to ask Kup if Roddy could have one, and maybe Arcee so she didn't get caught the same way. "Thanks. ...show?"
Ironhide grinned at him, elbowed Ratchet in the side, and snickered when Ratchet scowled at him. He still showed Deadlock how to get the claws off, and how to unpick the whole fraggin' skin all in a piece from the tiger's substructure - it looked weird, like under the stinky, crystal-jangly fur was something almost like a big version of Ravage but bristling with connection points and circuitry that needed to get scoured smooth before you could curl up in the warm stuff. The fur looked fancy, and from Ratchet's expression it was a Big Deal when the caravan pretty much shoved the whole thing into Deadlock's arms. ...it was bigger than he was, still kinda drippy and he almost fell the frag over when they did it, but...
"Ratch?" he said, and Ratchet's expression did something complicated before giving Deadlock a weird, sad little smile he didn't like at all. "...where you defrag? Not - wagon. Cold?"
Ratchet blinked, then his jaw dropped, and he sputtered something too broken-up for Deadlock to catch. He managed to register that thing and me and kid, so he could fraggin' guess that Ratchet knew where he was going with the question, but still.
"Ratch." Deadlock waited until Ratchet stopped spitting static and actually looked at him again, meeting his optics with the kind of stubborn he'd never figured out how to turn off, even when it got him in trouble. Maybe especially then. "You - help. When I'm hurt. Because medic. Then I'm help Roddy, because I'm gunner." And that word was still in Kaonite because frag if he'd even seen someone in the caravan with a gun, let alone use one- "This not...trade for help. Thanks. For - for good person. For good medic."
"Slag me," Ratchet managed, and bent down to hug Deadlock tight again, drips and all. It felt like the best hug of his life.
It took a while to get the tiger-thing parted up. Long enough for Kup to make his way out of the scattering of wagons with Hot Rod hugged up tight on his hip, and not gonna lie Deadlock went just a bit shaky around the legs seeing him in one piece. "Kid," he managed, sounding way too much like Ratchet, and went wobbling right up to Kup when Roddy reached out and made a tiny little grabbyhand at him. He'd wiped most of the gunk from the fur off at least, so Roddy didn't get too smudged up when he dragged Deadlock fraggin' into Kup and Deadlock briefly panicked he was gonna knock them all over.
"You saved my bit," Kup said, rough and hoarse and slow enough that Deadlock could keep up even with Roddy wrapped around his finials like a weird lil hood. "Thank you."
"No eating tiny," Deadlock managed to string together, and Roddy kind of started leaking 'round the face as well. "Aw, frag, no, no eating- Here, look." He tugged out the couple claws he'd picked for maybe-knives, and Roddy's optics went round as moons while Kup kind of choked. "No eating. Roddy eat. Yeah?"
"Eat a whole tiger," Roddy said with a stubborn lil sniff, and hugged Deadlock's helm as he welled up again. "Best Deadlock."
"Nah," he said, and grinned at the kid when Roddy glared something fierce at him. "Best Roddy, though."
Ratchet ambled over after that, slow enough that Deadlock could ease back from the head-grab Roddy had on him and give him a grin. Ratchet didn't smile back, though, and Deadlock's spark turned over at the grey kind of look Ratchet was giving him, like someone'd just been diagnosed with something fraggin' awful and Ratchet'd been dumped on to hand in the report. "Ratchet?" he asked, and who knew what his face was doing. "...Roddy okay?"
That got him a confused face, and Kup huffed at them and said something like face like a bad shift. Ratchet gave him an offended look, turned it on Deadlock when he snorted, and Roddy was the smart one of all of them 'cause he might be vibrating with wanna-giggle, but he stayed quiet. "Show something?" Ratchet asked, and Deadlock nodded easy enough - he'd expected Ratchet to head back to the wagon, they hadn't swapped cables to just-talk in public before and he wasn't exactly into that idea - only. Only Ratchet reached out and took his hand, and asked Kup something like you mind? and - frag, what was-
"Easy," Ratchet said, and. And - was - what was going on? "Deadlock - special. Good," he added, like he thought Deadlock's optics going wide meant he hadn't understood the word instead of getting knocked clean off his pedes by it. He was- Ratchet thought he was-? "Very good. People like you. ...I like a lot of people," Like that was gonna clear anything up, Deadlock already knew Ratchet was a social fraggin' butterfly. Now Deadlock was out of the medbay tent on the regular he'd seen Ratchet coming and going from everybody's wagons, chatting to anyone and everyone, laughing with everyone. He was - he was gorgeous, when he laughed. When he was happy. "Not... one, then one. Not good at it. But, uh. 'Defrag' plenty places."
What was with the finger quotes. Deadlock squinted at him, trying to parse out why the frag Ratchet was using bits and scraps of words instead of actual sentences, then just about fell over when he realised Ratchet was speaking Kaonite. "Wait, wh- when the frag'd that happen?" he blurted, and Ratchet grimaced and shook his head and Deadlock switched back to Vapouri in a hurry. "I learn Vapouri, you learn Kaon?"
"Mrf." Ratchet waggled his hand, still with that sour look, but - that. That was - it was really sweet. "Trying. Mostly frag."
Deadlock snickered, couldn't help it, and Ratchet gave him a lopsided sort of grin that - frag it, still wasn't actually happy. "Okay. Okay, uh..." What'd got Ratchet's wires twisted? I like lots of people, together- "So - you - lots of friends?" Ratchet shrugged, but that didn't - no, he was still doing the face. "...wait, is this a 'facing thing? Uh - ah, frag-"
Kup tutted. "He's cute, but I'm not interested," he said in Vapouri, and Deadlock just about fell over. "Flirt better."
"...think I got bad words," Deadlock said faintly, and Ratchet was scowling up a storm at Kup who didn't look bothered at all and he didn't understand, what- "Flirt?"
"When someone's interested," Kup said, that knowing grin sticking around. "Like..." He looked Deadlock up and down, slow and lingering and sticky with that same leer that Deadlock'd learned to hate before he could even remember noticing it, and he instinctively pulled away to Ratchet's side and it - hurt, like Kup'd turned on him in a fight-
"No," Deadlock snarled, tense and shaking with it, and Kup held up his free hand with a look kind of like alarm that was a lot fraggin' better than- than that. "Frag that, Ratchet's cngvrag, I don't have to!"
Both of them went still. Roddy's head popped up, and he was frowning now too. "What's that mean?" he demanded, and Kup hushed him.
"Tryna find out, lad," he said absently, and Roddy sulked. "Is that it? Ratchet's your medic, so - he protects you?"
"What else?" Deadlock demanded, and glanced at Ratchet when he didn't say anything. Come on, Ratch, back me up! "Right? Ratchet's safe. Trust him. Nobody else."
"Nobody else - what?"
Deadlock blinked. Why did Ratchet sound so shaky about it all of a sudden? "Nobody else touch," he said slowly, watching Ratchet's face. "Ratch - you helped. Not just that. You - you're gentle. Smart. Funny. ...I like you. Like being your cngvrag."
"Kid," Ratchet started, then cycled his vents and reset his optics. "Deadlock. You - you saved Roddy. Killed a tiger. You're brave, you learn, you're- ...whole camp would share their wagon if you looked twice at them. You could have a lot of people too. Why not?"
...there was. He was missing something, they were both missing something, why was Kup starting to scrunch his face up like he'd smelled something bad. "Why I want to look?" he asked, baffled. Ratchet blinked back at him, like that hadn't even occurred to him at all. "Why I want anyone looking? I don't. Nobody chase me, 'cause I'm your cngvrag. You said."
"I what."
"Before," Deadlock said, and it felt like the world was slipping out from under him, trying in a rising panic to grab onto something that'd felt so sure and solid a few clicks back. "When. Wagon, somebody push. You said, I'm your cngvrag, get out. Don't - I thought-"
"Aw slag," Kup said, and Deadlock hardly heard him over the ringing in his audials. "Ratch-"
"Hey," and. And Ratchet was there, his hands making shapes around Deadlock's arms but not touching, he'd - he'd fragged up, somewhere he'd fragged up, he knew he would but he hadn't even realised when he did it this time... "Hey, easy, shh. Show?"
And. And it was just one more thing he'd fragged up, he didn't even have a storage closet to hide in when his processor went sideways, but Ratchet and Kup eased down either side of him somewhere quiet with Roddy an anxious wiggle squirming into his arms and Ratchet swapped their plugs and Deadlock didn't even try to hide all the overclocked storm in his head. He shoved the memory at Ratchet, too hurt to move and terrified and he couldn't stop anyone wanting to barge in and hurt him, and he didn't know Ratchet then - Ratchet'd blocked the door, kept them out when Deadlock couldn't, kept him safe. Nobody'd protected him like that before. Nobody'd cared, but Ratchet - Ratchet was the kind of person that cared so much he'd protect a stranger from his own caravan. Deadlock'd decided then and there to trust him, when he couldn't defend himself. Everything else had grown from there.
Aw, sweetspark.
...that. He. He didn't know that one.
Ratchet's presence settled in around-beside him, with a faint sense like Kup on the other side with Ratchet's firewalls between them. Chaperone-bodyguard-fussbudget, Ratchet said when Deadlock pushed a query at him. Making sure I behave.
???
Medic, Ratchet said, and showed - images, memories. Mechs in Ratchet's white and red repairing people, looking down at Ratchet's own hands tweaking something in his wrist, okay. ...cngvrag. Patient. And then Ratchet was specific about pulling up the people being repaired, and- and. Oh, frag, he was an idiot, he was so fraggin' stupid. That's what he did, he got all in his own head thinking he was something-
Special, Ratchet said, and Deadlock tried to pull away from him sounding so gentle. Hey, no, quit that. Special. It's true. Not stupid. ...I like you, kid. Worried I was being too controlling, hovering too much. Thought you might be staying because you thought you couldn't leave.
Frag, Ratch, I can't even transform yet, Deadlock said, baffled all over again, and Ratchet huffed.
Not that kind of leave. Kup likes you. Roddy likes you. Nightlight thinks you're funny. The twins'd give you a hell of a ride-
NO, Deadlock lashed back, too fast and too hard, and Ratchet winced and sent apology-regret before Deadlock could.
So - no to 'facing, ever? he asked, and before he could catch it Deadlock thought of gentle hands and broad shoulders and being carried and Ratchet's fingers against his lips- ...oh. Uh huh.
...that bad? Deadlock said, small and uncertain, and.
I have a lot of friends, Ratchet said, blunt and with a faint whisper of voices, murmurs, affection and lingering charge. Could be just friends doing that, if you wanted. ...or, uh.
Could - maybe figure it out, Deadlock offered, feeling like he was reaching into the dark for a star, even with Ratchet snugged up close along the medical link. Hope, stubborn hope, and Ratchet reached back, gentle, feeling like a solid, steady hand under Deadlock's own. Together?
Could figure it out, Ratchet agreed, with a glowing, glittering joy turning the inside of Deadlock's processor to gold. Got time, if you're not leaving.
Leaving?
Thought you'd go back to the war, Ratchet said, blunt again but this time with an ache like old damage, whisked away fast. Thought you wouldn't come back. But you kept on being smart and stubborn and a funny slagger, and I started liking you despite myself.
Aw, Ratch, and Deadlock came back to himself to Roddy squeaking indignantly and wiggling, squashed between them as Deadlock tried his damndest to climb into Ratchet's lap and get rid of the hurt. "-sorry, frag, sorry kid, hang on-"
"Uuuugh," Roddy groaned, but let them help him down out of the tangle. He insisted on a hug before going back to Kup, though, and the old mech gave Deadlock and Ratchet both a pleased, smug sort of look before heading off again.
"Going to be impossible now," Ratchet muttered, and Deadlock snickered against his shoulder.
"Yeah, maybe," he said, and Ratchet huffed against the top of his head. "Earned it."
*
Turned out Sideswipe was the one to almost barge into the wagon that one time. Deadlock was pretty blunt himself about how the mech's usual bounce would've had him running if he could and shooting if he couldn't, the state he'd been in, and Ratchet considered it, shrugged, and agreed that was pretty fair.
Also turned out that when Ratchet wasn't kicked out of his own berth and-or spending time in a friend's for some fun, he'd just clamber up on top of his wagon with a couple of furs for padding and 'charge under the stars. That was the best fraggin' idea Deadlock'd ever heard.
"Figured the berth was yours first," he murmured, tucked up against Ratchet's side and wrapped up in furs. The titanium tiger fur was still a work in progress, but he'd figure it out - just needed to wait for the wire-fine fractures he'd made in his repairs from shooting to heal back up, then he'd make a real dent in it. "Then thought it was your - mf. Work wagon. Thought maybe you defrag driving."
Ratchet snickered, snugged him up a bit closer; Deadlock happily cuddled up against him, head on Ratchet's shoulder and his optics full of stars. "Nah. I need to recharge, I give the caravan a ping and get a signal tow or a magnetic pull from somebody. It works out, we take turns."
"Smart," Deadlock said, and. Maybe wondered how hard it was to learn how to drive the wagon.
"Might be easier, next time we move on," Ratchet said, a little tentative and a little hopeful, and Deadlock beamed at him.
They did talk about Kaon. And Rodion, and. Other things. In bits and starts, usually when Ratchet was working on something small but processor-light and Deadlock had something to fiddle with. He was a decent chunk into making a real blanket out of wonky little squares, and it - it felt really good, seeing what he'd made.
"Feels like I'm abandoning them," he said quietly, one slow on-shift. Ratchet was grinding up additives for more goodies, iron-heavy with a bit of a magnesium snap. "I dunno - I dunno if anyone else knows they can stop, or if they will."
"I'd say you can't save everyone, but I'd be a hypocrite," Ratchet said absently, then stopped and described hypocrite until Deadlock had the word locked down. "Medics have to be optimists. Otherwise you don't save anybody."
Deadlock hummed, didn't bring it up again, chewed it over in the back of his processor. Ratchet left him to it for a while, let him snug up at his side when he needed held without saying a word.
"It's just Kaon and Iacon fighting," he said, and - probably out of nowhere if you weren't in his processor, but Ratchet just made a confirmed sort of noise. "Frag. ...I. Ratch-"
"You wanna take the short loop back down, bang some heads together?" Ratchet asked, and Deadlock hugged him something fierce.
"That won't - I dunno how this stuff works yet, is there a rota or-"
"Slag, kid, nothing like that. We go when we go, normally I'd wander out to Praxus and Polyhex for the carnivals but it's not the end of the world if I don't make it this time around. Sides and Sunny can head up and see their beau without me this once, Bluestreak'll understand. Think Ironhide'll come along, Kup and Roddy too - we can get a caravan together no trouble."
"That how it works, y'just - sign up?" Deadlock asked, briefly distracted, and that turned into a whole off-shift's explaining and planning and canvassing who'd wanna go down to the crazy pair-city war. Deadlock didn't take some of the names that got bandied around too well, but then - yeah.
Somehow they got him talking about Rodion, about - about Gasket, about home, and frag if he didn't somehow wind up in a pile of furs and warm, heavy frames bigger than he was, feeling safe.
And yeah, okay, watching Ratchet and Ironhide kiss like old lovers was. Actually - kind of. ...he didn't think getting jealous was gonna be a problem, somehow. It wasn't for him, but Ratchet cuddled up with his head in Deadlock's lap and Ironhide sprawled over Ratchet's back like a blanket and Kup snickered at the pair of them to wind Ironhide up like a rusty spring, and - it was nice. And Deadlock got to pet Ratchet's helm and feed him goodies and make him hum all happy and rumbly, watching over him when he 'charged for a change, and his spark spun up so full he could just burst into a whole galaxy of stars.
*
"So, this is it, huh?"
They'd pulled up at the edge of the wastes, not that far from where Deadlock and Turmoil and the rest'd originally blown themselves to bits. Turned out that sending laserfire in all directions in even a lil nubby crystal field was an instant one-way ticket to getting exploded, which, glad he knew that now. Kup scanned the broken-up rubble in between with a critical look, Roddy staring wide-eyed and not even complaining at getting held by the scruff. It wasn't all that bad for once, the skies in between were clear and there hadn't been any acid rain lately, so no smog or worse to fog the air up.
"Yup. Just - gotta figure out where to start, I guess." And if he could even get back into Kaon without getting shot on sight.
"I might be able to help with that."
"Rav?" Deadlock blurted, jolting half out of his plating and jerking around; the others all pulled weapons in a click and he couldn't even blame them, Ravage melting out of nothing and watching them just as warily with missiles primed to fire. ...hah, primed. He just - even if Ravage was out here to finish him off or something, it was still good to talk to him again. "The frag're you doing out here?"
Ravage gave him a flat look, and Deadlock shook his head and reset his fraggin' vocaliser. "Sorry. Been a while. The frag, Ravage? You out here for fun?"
"Hardly. I'm out here looking for you." ...oh. That - that hit like a fist to the face, that someone had cared enough to look after all... "What happened? All we could find were parts of Turmoil's team, and nothing at all of you. Starscream tried to insist you defected, but nobody bothered listening to him."
"Yeah, turns out picking a fight in a crystal field's a real fraggin' dumb idea," Deadlock said, and Ravage snickered. "Shut up. It was gonna happen sooner or later, Megatron sent me out to get killed and he knew it. So did Turmoil."
"...about that." Ravage's tail twitched back and forth; Deadlock stilled. They knew each other well enough that Ravage letting him see nerves, in front of strangers? Was a bad fraggin' sign. "Soundwave's worried."
"In general?"
"How far do you trust your barbarians?" Ravage asked, with a sidelong look; Ironhide was already bristling, and Ratchet was giving Ravage a steady unimpressed glare that promised no getting along with the old friends if they didn't clean up their fraggin' language.
"First off, don't fraggin' call'm that," Deadlock said sharply; Ravage's ears twitched in interest, and frag, Deadlock never claimed he was subtle when he made up his mind. "Second, with my life, Rav. Literally with my fraggin' life. I'd be dead if not for Ratchet."
"...in that case, Soundwave is the only thing holding Kaon together right now outside of your little bunch of misfits," Ravage said bluntly, and Deadlock's internals ran cold. "If you have any ideas on how to keep things from falling apart with Megatron obsessing over the Prime and Starscream trying to take over, we are all audials."
Deadlock couldn't move. His processor went blank, spark spinning up. His vents locked until Ratchet's hand rested on his shoulder, heavy and grounding and squeezing just a little. Easy, kid.
...focus. All right.
"I got a couple ideas," he said aloud, and wrapped a hand over Ratchet's fingers on his shoulder block. "Y'think you can get Ironhide 'n Kup into Iacon? Me'n Ratchet'll take care'f business here."
"Good to have you back," Ravage said, and he didn't even sound sarcastic.
Maybe he'd leave again when it was all over, when his people were safe and happy and got that future they'd been promised. But for now Deadlock was headed back into the wastes with an old friend and multiple new ones and Ratchet, and they had work to do.
Later, he'd show Ratchet the stars from Rodion.
*
And while that may be a wrap, I originally started writing this as alternating between Deadlock's POV and Ratchet's, and while that didn't pan out I don't want to leave Ratchet's couple of snippets gathering dust in my drafts, so - bonus ficbit time!
*
"Easy, you're okay," Ratchet murmured, resting his hand against the mech's helm to get a better idea of his core temp. "Tough little scrapper." This one would bolt right back to the never-ending war between the two northern cities the click he could manage it, Ratchet was sure, but - slag, Ratchet was still amazed he hadn't gone offline sometime in the first cycles after picking him up, never mind after all this.
The mech didn't wake as Ratchet coaxed some gelled fuel past those fangs - good, he needed the rest - and Ratchet patted the furs layered over his shoulder approvingly before taking a step across the wagon and settling at his workbench. He'd gone through all of his stores of pre-ground minerals just keeping this one alive and starting to make a dent in his pitted struts, and the usual mild viruses going around the caravan wouldn't wait for Ratchet to catch up. Not everything could be solved by a decent antiviral, proper fuelling and enough berth rest, but enough could that Ratchet made a point of prevention over cure where he could manage it. It was just bad luck for this one that he'd apparently had none of those things, and his frame'd decided to try to crash in multiple directions at the same slaggin' time. Mech needed some serious recovery time to build up his nanite colonies, the medic's best friends, and his tank still needed to finish descaling and healing up, since Ratchet's first attempt to fix the constriction was enough to make his system cascade in a panic. Not to mention the antivirals not meshing with his city systems, so he'd have to get through this the old-fashioned way...
Eh. They had time, now; he was out of danger, and soon enough they'd be able to pass him the standard traders' basic language download, ask him some questions and drop him at the nearest northern city. He could go back to his pointless war then, and Ratchet'd never see him again.
Ratchet paused, sighed, and went at the minerals in his mortar maybe a little harder than necessary. It'd be fine.
*
"I know," Ratchet said, that steady, low tone that mechs responded to even when they were hurt, and panicking, and - slag, this was definitely both. "I know, someone hurt you, maybe a few someones. All I want to do is help, just like before."
Scarlet optics watched him, and Ratchet wished viciously that they'd been able to figure out why the usual language download hadn't worked. This would be so much easier if he could reassure Deadlock with actual medical reasons for why Ratchet wanted to get at his valve - he'd been confused but co-operative when Ratchet'd drenched his spike housing with a nanite booster, but the real damage Ratchet was picking up was very firmly located in his valve, and the systems further up inside that whole system, and those couldn't be treated externally. So...
"I'll slide this in, it'll keep the nanites up against your walls where you need them instead of coming back out, then it'll be gone," Ratchet said, and Drift's gaze didn't so much as flicker. "It'll soften up any scarring, get your nanites working on the damage, and you'll be done. If it's really bad, it'll be a couple of nanite flushes instead of one, but that's it. It just feels weird for a while."
Nothing. Damn it, and Ratchet wasn't a linguist.
"Look," he tried again, and that at least he'd repeated often enough that Deadlock automatically flicked his attention to Ratchet's hands. "This is medicine, not an interface toy. I promise."
He'd said that second thing a few times too, and that was apparently familiar enough - and that Ratchet had lived up to it enough times, thankfully - that Deadlock must've decided to trust him as far as he could stand. He eased back down onto the berth, popping and creaking and grimacing with it as lingering damage complained at the movement now he wasn't so spooked, and Ratchet was pretty slaggin' sure Deadlock would not be relaxing any further than he had to until this was over. That...yeah, that was fair. But Ratchet wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't treat everything that was wrong, and Deadlock'd be running for the hills the click they got close to a city, and clearly the medics there were less than frellin' helpful.
"All right," he said, and tried not to let his vents run with a sigh of relief. "Good job. Brave mech, thanks for trusting me. It's gonna be fine." Deadlock blinked at him, and - gah. Fine, smelt him down for reading uncertainty and fear in that stoic flat face, like a soft-sparked fool. He reached out, patted Deadlock's pede, and only got a little twitch of tension in return. "All right. Let's get this done so you don't have to look at it anymore."
It was worse than he'd thought. Deadlock's valve couldn't stretch out and close back up normally the way a healthy mesh would; Ratchet wound up sliding in the nanite tab deep enough to sit in place where it was needed, dismayed all over again at the complete lack of any kind of natural lubricant in Deadlock's valve, and just - held it there, for a long few clicks, as Deadlock's valve haltingly, unevenly cinched down on it and Deadlock's thighs trembled very faintly. Wanting to slam back together, probably.
"All right, you're done," Ratchet sighed, and moved his hand away and stood so Deadlock could - whatever he needed to do to feel safe again. Which was, apparently, staring at Ratchet like he'd just done something unexpected, his scowl turning just a little confused. "You're okay, kid. Go back to sleep, you need it. I'll be around if you want me."
...poor choice of goddamn words.
*
Deadlock stopped short in the doorway and Ratchet almost tripped over him, not that the kid noticed. His helm tipped right back, staring at - nothing, far as Ratchet could make out, just the-
...oh.
He was looking up at the stars, his narrow face open and wondering and twin galaxies reflected back in his optics, and Ratchet's spark spun up in a way that was not fraggin' professional at all.
He really, really needed to talk to Kup. And maybe Ironhide or Wheeljack, if were around yet. Or, hell, all three.