Chapter Text
“Another one?”
Ratchet’s voice rang out in the echoing silence of the medbay, sharp as a blade and twice as cold. He didn’t even glance up from his diagnostic tablet—he didn’t need to. The heavy, deliberate tread of Prime’s pedes was unmistakable. Equal parts regal and reckless, like a monarch who hadn’t quite grasped the concept of personal safety.
Optimus ex-vented slowly, a puff of warm air hissing through his olfactory vents. “It’s minor.”
“That’s what you said last time. And the time before that. And the time before that, which, if you recall, involved your energon pump exploding inside your chassis.”
“I recall.” Optimus winced slightly as he stepped into the medchair. It groaned beneath his mass—he was heavier than most Cybertronians, owing to the reinforced protoform armor and, Ratchet would argue, the sheer burden of carrying the entire war effort on his backplates.
Ratchet finally looked up. His optics flared. “Primus’ rusted aft, you’ve cracked your shoulder strut again. What in the name of all sacred datapads did you throw this time?”
Optimus, infuriatingly calm, replied, “A Seeker.”
“You threw a Seeker.”
“He was attempting to escape with intel. I made a tactical decision.”
Ratchet slapped his servo to his faceplate with a groan loud enough to rattle the coolant tanks. “You’re built for command, not discus-throwing Decepticons like they’re part of the Olympic fragging Games.”
He stepped forward, muttering in increasingly creative Cybertronian under his vocalizer, and activated his instruments. Cool blue light scanned over the thick red armor of Optimus’s shoulder. Beneath it, the internal latticework was fractured—micro-tears spiderwebbing through the alloy, surrounded by bruised energon lines.
“You always come back with new scars,” Ratchet murmured, more to himself this time. His voice dropped its edge, falling into something quieter. “One day, I won’t be able to fix you.”
Optimus didn’t respond immediately. He was looking at him. No—watching him. Optics slightly narrowed, helm tilted the way he did when trying to decipher a diplomatic contradiction or a poetic riddle. Or, apparently, Ratchet’s sudden softness.
“You worry too much,” Optimus said gently.
“And you don’t worry enough.” Ratchet's optics flicked up. “That’s the problem. You think you’re invincible because the Matrix glows behind your chestplates like some divine safety net, but newsflash, Prime—it doesn’t make your struts less breakable or your energon less spillable.”
Optimus offered a small smile. “Not divine. Just determined.”
“Oh, don’t get poetic on me. I haven’t had enough high-grade to endure that tonight.”
There was silence for a few cycles while Ratchet worked, servos gliding with expert precision as he fused fractured plating and realigned the deeper structural ridges. The scent of sterilized coolant and heated alloy filled the air. Faint arcs of energy danced from his tools, crackling softly.
“You should retire,” Ratchet said suddenly. His voice was low but not accusatory. “Let Ultra Magnus or Prowl lead. Let the younger frames throw Seekers and get shot at.”
Optimus's expression didn’t change, but something flickered behind his optics.
“And what would I do with myself?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know. Start a poetry club. Plant flowers. Sit somewhere quiet and stop bleeding on my floors every other rotation.” Ratchet’s hand lingered against his arm longer than necessary, the motion suspiciously close to a caress. “Learn to rest. Learn to… stay.”
Optimus looked down at him. “Would you be there?”
Ratchet froze.
For a fraction of a nanoklik, the medbay seemed to pause—lights humming in a hush, vents hissing with subdued rhythm, even the ambient whirr of the base softening around the raw vulnerability of that question.
He forced a snort. “Primus help me, if you ever do retire, I’ll be permanently attached to your side because I’d have nothing else to do. It would be tragic.”
Optimus smiled again. Not the stoic, distant smile he wore for troops or diplomats. This one was quieter. Softer. The kind that reached the edges of his optics and lingered there, flickering with an affection he rarely named out loud.
“I wouldn’t mind that,” he said.
Ratchet coughed, suddenly very interested in his scanner.
“Oh shut up, you over-polished scrapheap. I’m trying to keep you alive, not—whatever this is.”
“Affection?”
“Contagion, more like. Stars, what kind of mech flirts after getting a shoulder shattered?”
“The kind who has an excellent medic.”
“And terrible judgment.”
Their gazes met again, a long, unspoken beat stretching between them—an old rhythm carved over countless vorns of war and proximity and quietly exchanged gazes across flickering command rooms. Ratchet had always known there was something between them, humming low beneath their plates, stitched into the seams of duty and habit. But now it pressed close to the surface, almost tangible.
Ratchet leaned in a little closer, pretending it was to inspect the fused strut. His voice dropped to a murmur.
“One day, Prime, you’re going to come back with more than I can handle. You keep testing how far I can go before you fall apart in my hands.”
“I haven’t yet.”
“Yeah, well.” He hesitated. “Try not to.”
“I don’t intend to.” Another pause. “It would hurt you.”
Ratchet looked at him sharply.
“Of course it would, you fragging idiot,” he said, voice cracking slightly. “You think I fix you every time just because it’s my job? You think I choose to patch your spark casing while pretending I don’t care if it stops pulsing under my hands?”
Optimus’s hand, large and surprisingly gentle, lifted and cupped the edge of Ratchet’s arm. Not pulling or forcing, just… there.
“I don’t think that,” he said softly. “Not anymore.”
Ratchet swallowed. His servos twitched as if to pull away—and then didn’t.
“Fine,” he muttered, still not looking at him. “But next time, if you so much as scratch your paint, I’m charging you by the cycle.”
“I’ll try not to throw any more Seekers.”
“Damn right you won’t.”