tfmegaratch | [Fic] Course of Treatment (Reply)

Continuity: IDW1

Rating: General

Relationships: Megatron/Ratchet

Characters: Ratchet, Megatron

Warnings: Alternate Universe, Not Beta Red

Summary: In which Ratchet is the only concession requested by the Decepticons in the peace treaty.

Crossposting: AO3 | Tumblr | Main Dreamwidth

Fic under cut. See AO3 for complete notes.

Ratchet couldn’t believe what he had just heard. He leaned back in his seat, jaw slack and optics wide in shock.

That couldn’t have been correct.

Absolutely not.

He shook his head as though that would make the world make sense again.

It didn’t.

The meeting had started simply enough; his presence at the peace negotiations had only been a formality—a function of his high rank—since he had little de jure authority beyond medical decisions. Sure, he had some measure of personal influence but that generally didn’t translate to political sway.

Ratchet slowly turned his head sideways to look at this fellows. His side of the table all appeared to be in various stages of shock. Prowl looked like he’d been zapped by an electrified pylon. Ironhide looked like Megatron had insulted him personally. Kup looked like he thought this was all some kind of joke. And Jazz… for once had been rendered utterly speechless.

Optimus leaned forward in his seat, cautiously like the entire situation was a bomb. It might as well have been.

“Would you… run that by us one more time, Megatron?” he asked, surely making some kind of baffled expression with his mouth behind that battle mask. “I’m… not sure we heard you correctly.”

Megatron, for his part, sat there on the opposite side of the literal bargaining table, hands folded together as he frowned. Nothing unusual about how he was holding himself, except perhaps the usual signs of exhaustion and fatigue that Ratchet had noticed over the years. Optimus bore similar signs, making them easy to recognize.

It was as though he thought he hadn’t said anything remarkable at all.

None of the lieutenants at his side seemed surprised either. However, two of them had no visible face and Starscream did tense his own frown in what might have been a measure of disgust.

Ratchet wasn’t sure what to make of this.

“Is your hearing going, Prime?” Megatron scoffed. “But, very well, I suppose I could do you the courtesy of repeating myself.”

Ratchet braced himself, certain that he wouldn’t say it again. That they had heard incorrectly or that Megatron had misspoken the first time. There had to have been some kind of mistake.

“All I’m asking for… is Ratchet.” There was a pause. “In a conjunxual union.”

Then he hadn’t misheard after all.

The shuttle, rickety with age, shuddered as it passed through the outer layers of the atmosphere to enter a high orbit. It whisked Ratchet away from the ruins of Iacon, the one city remaining on Cybertron that had enough structures intact to call it a settlement… up to where the Nemesis waited, falling perpetually around the planet.

The reflected light of the sky dropped away as the shuttle left the firmament, and thus Cybertron, behind.

Everything since the meeting had been a blur. Optimus and the others had decided that peace and control of the planet had been worth the low, low cost of handing over Ratchet to Megatron.

Even Ratchet could understand the logic of the choice. At the time, he had even verbally agreed.

In a way, he had reasoned at the time, he would be sacrificing himself for the good of them all. It was, comparatively, a small cost.

Megatron could have demanded land for settling, resources, a skewed trade agreement, access to research and technologies, hostages, political power, anything that made sense to ask for when negotiating an equitable peace treaty… but he hadn’t.

He had only asked… for Ratchet’s hand in union.

It was baffling .

Something clearly wasn’t right here.

Ratchet didn’t even know Megatron particularly well, not personally. He knew of him; he had seen him many times in meetings and battles, had heard him bloviating in both person and media releases. He didn’t know him in the way that Optimus did, through close, direct opposition.

By that token, Megatron couldn’t have really known Ratchet either. It was highly unlikely that Megatron had been secretly nursing a flame of unrequited love—or lust—for a random Autobot medic for some indefinite amount of time. Why pick him ? Why demand him and no one else ?

The blackness of the void moved slowly outside the shuttle; the sliding points of light—distant stars—and the growing edge of a warship’s hull were the only visual signs of motion now that the sky had vanished.

An unkind thought in the back of his processor pushed its way forward: Ratchet likely deserved this. For something. For patients he had failed to save. For conflicts he had failed to intervene in. For something. There was always something he could have done better.

And Megatron, personally, was to be his punishment.

That and separation from his fellow Autobots until such a time as relations between the two armies could be normalized, if such a time ever came. Until then—even then—Megatron would loom large in his life, an all-encompassing shadow.

The worldburner-class ship that was to be his home loomed ahead, now filling the entirety of the shuttle’s forward viewscreen, blocking out even a hint of the field of stars beyond. The Decepticons were to live in exile and search for a new homeworld elsewhere among the stars; it would be a long journey to find a place both suitable, uninhabited, and far enough from any civilizations the Decepticons had angered. They were, quite understandably in Ratchet’s opinion, also barred from settling on any worlds that they had previously sterilized.

Ships like this , Ratchet knew, could easily destroy worlds, even if now it’s role was nominally that of a colony ship. This flagship had proved its power many times over throughout the war. It was only happenstance that Cybertron had the near-sacred status of “home” even if it was in ruins, destroyed in all other ways that mattered. Worldburners were saved, it seemed, for organic worlds.

Ratchet could only hope that once he boarded the Nemesis , that Megatron wouldn’t turn the ship’s armaments against their planet in one last vindictive blow before speeding off into deep space to… wherever it was they were going. Somewhere far, far away.

The Decepticon pilots aboard the shuttle, thankfully, ignored Ratchet and his silent musings as he sat in one of the passenger seats, his medical kit tucked underneath behind his legs.

At least, he thought, he had few belongings. His medical kit and nothing more, not counting the long-distance communicator Prowl had granted him. “Just in case” was what he had been told. Over the millions of years of war and constantly being on the move, he had learned to not keep more than the essentials.

His real dowry was the treaty. For all the good it did.

He leaned forward in his seat to watch the final approach.

A small square in the distance opened up in the worldburner’s hull, a little hatch of some kind, barely visible on the viewscreen.

At first, he thought, perhaps it was for a docking cable or some other equipment, but as the square grew in size as they neared… the sheer scale of the Nemesis became clear.

The “small square” was the mouth of their distant landing dock on this utterly titanic ship.

His spark stirred uncomfortably in his chest, chilled by a sense of his own frailty and insignificance.

It had been some time since Ratchet had felt so… minuscule .

The Nemesis’s corridors were vast, designed to allow huge warframes to pass through unencumbered. Ratchet, an average Cybertronian in size, felt like little more than a minibot as his and Megatron’s footsteps echoed off the walls. Even Megatron seemed comparatively small.

It would be easy to get lost for hours, maybe days , in a warship this size, simply by taking one wrong turn and ended up in an entirely different deck or sector.

Megatron’s voice joined the footsteps in the echoes, detailing to Ratchet general information about the ship, what deck they were currently on, what the current work shift was.

A strange first topic to discuss with a legal partner, Ratchet thought, letting the data wash over him as he tried to habituate to hearing Megatron’s voice without imagining Autobots shattered into pieces on a fuel-soaked battlefield at the same time.

Perhaps it was for the best that whatever Megatron was telling him was mundane, momentarily unimportant. The information could get lost and do no harm in disappearing.

Megatron and Soundwave had both met him in the shuttle’s docking bay.

Soundwave, of course, had remained inscrutable. As usual.

Yet, Megatron had scowled.

However, that had seemed to be his default expression over the last millions of years, so Ratchet had reasoned that it likely wasn’t a particular scowl meant for him personally. That was, unfortunately, just his face rather than a sign of displeasure or impending threat.

With no preamble other than a brief “welcome,” Soundwave had presented Ratchet with his identification documents, allowing him the rights and privileges of any Decepticon, though strictly, for now, he was one of the Decepticons’ few civilians. He hadn’t been given a job classification or salary schedule, but he would be offered those, apparently, after he had gotten settled in.

Soundwave, however, had then promptly left, leaving Ratchet alone with Megatron… for the first time… of what would likely be many such occasions in the coming endless years.

Ratchet had opened his mouth, like he had wanted to say something, to tell Megatron that this had only been for the good of their peoples, to not expect much despite the legal paperwork that was already in place.

But Megatron had suddenly smirked, a look oddly more threatening the scowl had been. Maybe it had been intended to be a smile, but at the time Ratchet couldn’t have been certain. Whatever it was supposed to have been, it had interrupted whatever sounds had been waiting in Ratchet’s vocalizer.

“Allow me to echo what Soundwave said before: welcome, Ratchet,” he had said, his smirk struggling slightly as though the word sans sarcasm had been foreign to him. There was a twitch to his mouth, not unlike when certain patients were hesitant in telling Ratchet how exactly they had come by their injuries. “Your stay here has been a long time coming.”

What had that meant?

Now, walking side by side easily twenty minutes later, Ratchet could only wonder just how far they had to go to reach their destination… and what Megatron intended upon their arrival.

Megatron had, of course, managed to talk the entire time. A great windbag.

He abruptly turned down another, smaller corridor, one with a lower ceiling and closer walls, clearly not meant for the largest of mechs. The likes of Overlord and his ilk would have had to stoop. Perhaps this was intentional in the design.

Though the floors could have used a shine, scuff marks on the surface and clumps of dust congregating in the corners.

Ratchet nearly walked right past the turn before scrambling to change direction.

“Hey!”

Megatron stopped, looking back over his shoulder.

“My apologies, Ratchet.” What apologies? Had Megatron ever once possessed apologies to offer anyone? “Old habits, you see; it’s easy to forget you don’t know your way around yet.”

An oddly reasonable excuse for just ducking around corners without warning.

Terrible.

It was a shame that Megatron was still smirking at him. Though, that might have been meant as a smile. Did he even know how to smile normally? Was he trying and failing ?

“It’s fine,” Ratchet said, letting it slide.

His patience would probably be truly put to the test before long, but so far this was nothing. He had gotten more lip from Prowl and Ironhide while getting loaded up into the transport shuttle that morning when they warned him to keep his wits about him.

All the same, he narrowed his eyes as he caught up to Megatron’s position.

He didn’t really know Megatron as a person beyond his warmongering and murderous roles. It was hard to know what to expect, despite the fact that they had already been joined in the legal sense.

There hadn’t even been a ceremony; it had all been done through Ultra Magnus and Prowl mediating paperwork. For most people, no ceremony would have been unsurprising. The decision to become conjunx endurae was a private, personal matter. For a high-ranked individuals joining as part of a peace deal, though, a nominal ceremony would have been more expected.

It didn’t quite add up.

Ratchet let Megatron continue to lead the way to wherever it was they were going. Most likely some private residence. He hadn’t been sure if he would be expected to reside with Megatron or if he would be allotted his own private space.

Soon, however, after ducking through another few hallways, they stopped at a nondescript door.

“Here we are.”

“And where is ‘here’ exactly?” Ratchet asked, putting his free hand on his hip as he frowned up at Megatron. Some of his initial discomfort having worn off in the mundanity and boredom of wandering around the hallways.

“Our quarters.”

So they would be sharing after all—but in this out of the way place? Was it to deter intruders and traitors? It would be harder to locate the leader if the leader didn’t reside in obvious places, Ratchet supposed.

Being alone in private quarters with someone perfectly capable of extreme violence, while not unknown to Ratchet from caring for various high-risk patients, was not something he relished. Who knew what Megatron would do?

“Our?” he questioned, despite the obvious implication of Megatron’s original answer.

“Of course, it goes without saying.”

Megatron shrugged nonchalantly as the door slid open. He gestured inside for Ratchet to go in ahead of him.

“Does it though? Does it really?” Ratchet pressed, stubbornly keeping his place in the hall. He raised his hand, pointing up at Megatron’s nose. If Ratchet stretched up just a little, he could probably jab Megatron right in the face. “This is just a political—“

“Yes,” Megatron cut him off, still keeping his arm out towards the door. His posture was stiff, like he didn’t know what to do with himself.

Ratchet wasn’t one of his soldiers to command; there was no reason for Ratchet to defer to his authority. Retaliation could endanger the treaty: one little call to Prowl on the communicator and the Autobots would extract him.

Hopefully.

Maybe.

If they weren’t too far away to mount a rescue if—when—something went wrong.

If they didn’t deem the costs of retrieving Ratchet too high for the value of keeping the Decepticons out of sight and out of mind. Why bother demanding a refund when the deal was such a bargain?

Maybe Ratchet ought to be mindful of proverbial land mines—

“Yes, it is a political arrangement, but it needn’t be solely such.”

Ratchet’s jaw went slack, his hand still raised.

Megatron continued regardless, as though what he said didn’t have serious implications.

“Even with a political arrangement, it would look like we’re flouting the treaty to not cohabit by disregarding the spirit of the thing.”

He waved his arm up and down, nonverbally reiterating his request that Ratchet cross the threshold.

“A separate room has been set aside for you personally, which you would see if you went in.”

“Oh—” Ratchet finally dropped his hand, feeling a little foolish.

So he wasn’t expected to share a slab with the oaf, at least not for the time being. And, by extension, he probably wasn’t expected to share a slab in less literal terms.

“Alright, but no funny business. I may have taken oaths to heal, but don’t think that makes me helpless. You know better than that by now.”

During the war, field medics often had to become just as handy with guns and hand-to-hand combat as the soldiers they put back together. Ratchet just always preferred to head off violence with other means wherever possible, but he wouldn’t let Megatron forget that he wasn’t some pushover.

Megatron held up his palms in mock surrender, grinning like he thought this whole thing was funny .

“Ratchet, I wouldn’t dream of such a fallacy.”

Ratchet scoffed, ducking around Megatron to avoid contact as he went through the door.

Megatron slumped into his chair on the Nemesis’s bridge, rather than standing like he usually would during a launch.

He had left Ratchet to their quarters, so that he could explore and settle in. Maps of the ship and other informational materials about the vessel, its utilities, conveniences, and sundries had been left with him for perusal.

Their personal refinery in the quarters had been stocked with fuel and whatever sparse flavorings and additives the Decepticons had been able to source. Ratchet would not be able to accuse him of having abandoned him to starve.

Mechs scurried back and forth in Megatron’s field of vision, coming and going and shuffling about throughout the bridge. Even though they were already in orbit, rather than lifting off from the ground, it still took a lot of coordination to move a ship of this size.

Especially given the condition it was in.

At first glance, the vessel was impressive, powerful and in great shape.

But having spent untold eons dwelling on it after it had been discovered, Megatron and the other Decepticons stationed here knew its failings, saw where its condition had deteriorated.

There was metal fatigue in places where there oughtn’t be, corrosion without explanation, paint flaking akin to nutrient deficiencies. The hull and bulkheads would groan without obvious cause. Components would fail sometimes without warning. Each of the engines required “rituals” of percussive maintenance unique to each one, to kick on and stay on.

The ship was, for lack of a better word, ill … and becoming slowly sicker by the day.

A ridiculous statement, but one Megatron had had to confront on the daily for ages now. If something wasn’t done….

Megatron leaned his head against his elbow, propped up on the arm of the chair. He closed his optics against the headache building in his forehead.

“What did you tell him?” Starscream’s voice grated against his audio receptors.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, still not bothering to look at his second-in-command. He knew what Starscream looked like. He could easily imagine what skeptical expression was being made in his direction.

Keeping the identity of their flagship a secret from the Autobots had been a major logistical challenge during the war. If they knew that the Decepticons had been piloting around a comatose, chronically ill titan for ages—Their ship had been the model for the other worldburners, the remaining fleet waiting patiently near the heliopause to set off for their final destination.

“Nothing,” he said, “yet.”

He couldn’t afford to show their hand too early. With his own medics either too incompetent or too inexperienced to treat a titan, Ratchet was their only hope.