Chapter Text
Deadlock brings Polyhex’s chill night cycle with him into Darkmount. He feels it on his face, arms, and legs as the coldest parts of his frame pull humidity out of the air. With the air scrubbers in Darkmount’s outer perimeter stifled by ongoing privation, condensation begins to break out across his plating.
Dim track lighting strikes the growing layer of condensation as Deadlock passes from checkpoint to checkpoint, gate to gate. His reflection flashes purple along jagged rivulets on wet plating and is multiplied across the high-gloss corridors.
The command levels lift contains puddles left by those before him. The lift doesn’t smell of Seekers, rather he picks up the comforting combination of labour class engine exhaust and disinfectant. His strategic command line notes that Flatline’s arrived ahead of him, but the medical scent fires up strong emotional subroutines that distract Deadlock just enough to momentarily forget why he’s here.
Propelled by emotional impulse, Deadlock checks a peripheral widget on his HUD that tracks unread messages from the Dead End clinic’s second incarnation. It takes a toll on his energon reserves to keep his engine at a lazy idle when he sees the innocuous glyph announcing two unread messages. Two means he really only has one new message; he’s marked an older message as unread to remind him it’s there.
The lift slows and Deadlock’s strategic thinking usurps his processing stack once more. Best to read the new message later; he needs every bit of processing power focused on the situation at hand.
The command level corridors are equally dim, but the black surfaces gleam Decepticon purple. The air here is dry and reverberates with the dull roar of untold servers, air scrubbers, and a disembodied presence best described as massive. The hum is dense and omnipresent. It fills the level and overflows above and below via connective rebar, girders, pipes, and conduits.
The Decepticon hierarchy is meeting in the command centre. But in the antechamber outside Deadlock is surprised to find that his fifteen kliks early has been rendered “late” by the even earlier arrival of their habitually late Air Commander.
Not that Starscream is waiting quietly outside to make an entrance; his wings and shoulders are held high and his thrusters are a rapid metronome cutting back and forth across the narrow room. The omnipresent hum subsumes any trace of comms, but Starscream’s frustration is clear in his stiff strides and the way his thumbs jut, like his claws are about to sign his glyphs at the back of some mech’s optic housing.
He can’t have gotten here long ago, not studded as he is with condensation. Like Deadlock, the moisture that drips from the planes of Starscream’s face to his chest die and curl up in wisps of steam. It looks good on Starscream. Of course it does. Little wonder mechs have been trying to distill that mech’s good looks into fragrances for millions of years.
Crimson optics alight on Deadlock then narrow to some mysterious diameter between irritation and relief. Starscream relaxes. Smiles.
“So glad you could join us,” says the hypocrite.
Starscream won’t be the highest ranked officer present, but he’ll be the one giving the orders. Unless, of course, Megatron’s consciousness coalesces from Polyhex and into Darkmount. So Deadlock gives a perfectly standard salute and delivers a flat, “Turmoil sends his regards, Air Commander.”
“I’m sure he’s delighted you could make it.” The edge of Starscream’s lips curl into an amused smile.
Turmoil is the opposite of delighted. Turmoil would love to strip his paint. Luckily Starscream seems to enjoy Deadlock’s clear lack of ambition within the command chain. It’s better for Deadlock, and the Dead End, if he stays off the vicious glitch’s targeting system. Turmoil can wear the crosshairs just fine while Vos keeps Starscream occupied.
Deadlock slows his advance to the Command Centre’s door and, by dint of his proximity, Starscream himself.
Starscream tilts his head toward the door and Deadlock has the unenviable honour of having the Seeker at his back. It suits Deadlock; most of his assets are behind him. The great sword and powerful rifle on his back are nearly as pleasant a view as his aft. Deadlock advances and the doors slide silently aside.
The Command Centre’s perimeter is crammed with screens and consoles, and though it’s insulated, the room might as well be the soundbox for an electro bass. It resounds as if every rotary flier ever sparked were crammed into a warehouse, propellers redlined, while a fibre optic bow is drawn across them. And yet, it’s as solemn as a mausoleum here. Deadlock doesn’t know how Soundwave endures it.
The aggressive hum swallows the sound of their steps and the floor records their passage in puddles tracked across it. The omnipresent Decepticon purple lighting refracts across the puddles and every slick and sleek surface. It’s all very on brand. So are all the mechs. They’re all present and accounted for. Even Flatline who isn’t part of the command structure at all, but is as close to a CMO as Decepticons get.
At the centre of it all is, as ever and as always, Megatron. Deadlock, however, only has optics for the Empurata survivor standing with his back to the room. Shockwave obscures the masses of cables that terminate in and around the figurehead of the Decepticon movement.
The Slag maker. Champion of Kaon. And now… the living and dreaming processor for the awakening city of Polyhex: Megatron of Tarn.
“Is he any closer?” Starscream’s voice is less harsh with bass vibration smothering the treble from it.
Shockwave swivels at the waist and turns his featureless face toward Flatline and then the room at large. He speaks without inflection. “Disambiguate. Closer as compared to what? From where he started twenty-nine years ago? Certainly. As compared to Orion Pax? That is debatable.”
Deadlock comes to a halt in Soundwave’s periphery. Starscream moves past them both. “Don’t play games with me, Shockwave. Why are you here if not to update us on Megatron’s progress in your grand peace scheme?”
“I’m not here to update you.” Shockwave turns more fully toward Starscream, but since his upper chassis is as thick as it is wide Deadlock is no closer to getting a glimpse of Megatron’s condition. “I’m here to ascertain Megatron’s cognitive health and the progress made ordering Polyhex’s consciousness.”
Starscream’s wings hike up and fan out, but Shockwave drones on without pause. “You all came here to ask when Megatron will return to full leadership. But you, Starscream, are also here to adjust the timeline of your ambitions.”
Deadlock’s engine nearly bogs down in his efforts to avoid an amused rev. Primus, he loves it when Shockwave comes calling.
Starscream halts, one pede on the first step of the room’s dais. His wings angle backwards, possibly to give Deadlock a clear shot at Shockwave. He bows his head and lifts a blue hand to press fingertips to his forehead. “It’s been nearly thirty years, surely you have some idea how much longer Megatron’s ability to lead will be… intermittent. How long until Polyhex is awake?”
Shockwave says, “Yes.”
Starscream’s hands turn over and sweep out wide. He takes another step and leans out over his knee. “When?”
“I have no obligation to answer you.”
Starscream’s thumbs twitch.
Deadlock drops his hands to the blades at his hips. One of Soundwave’s data cables introduces itself to Deadlock’s chassis and pushes him back with casual strength.
Shockwave turns back to Flatline, who now stands the closest to Megatron. “Your efforts to maintain the subject's physical health have borne exemplary results. However, his cognitive function has been maintained through his efforts alone. You—”
The business end of Starscream’s nullray taps against the back of Shockwave’s head. His lips are curled back enough to show the points of his carnassial denta.
Flatline sidesteps to place himself squarely between Shockwave and Megatron. The position conveniently turns Shockwave into a blast shield if Starscream loses his short and violent temper.
“Shockwave,” Starscream says in terribly calm voice, “twenty-nine years ago you convinced Megatron that he could win this war by bringing Polyhex to life. Yet you failed to tell us that you made the same offer with Iacon to the Autobots.”
Shockwave remains quiet and docile despite Starscream using his nullray to emphasise his points.
“As a strategist, I applauded you because this plan essentially killed the war economy’s dependency on weapons of mass destruction. Since Megatron agreed to your plan our battles have melted down or made waste of less than a thousand square kilometres of Cybertron’s surface.
“As a soldier that’s been fighting for millions of years, I’ve been grateful that our battles have become mere skirmishes and the loss of life hasn’t exceeded triple digits in a single exchange in twenty-five years.”
It’s not hard to see where Starscream is going with this. Not the way the cracks reappear in his vocalising. Not the way his optics blaze and throw the minor buckles in his delicate oracular derma into harsh relief. Deadlock leans against Soundwave’s data cable in silent question, but Soundwave’s cable might as well be an ingot of tempered steel.
“But as a Cybertronian, I loathe you. We started a new arms race to speed up Megatron’s processing for Polyhex. We’ve been building data centres. Thousands of data centres to supercharge processing incalculable amounts of it. The war has consumed and sabotaged Cybertron’s frail resources, but what has this truce done? If this drain on energon continues indefinitely, our planet will lose the ability to sustain itself let alone those of us that live on it.”
This is rare honesty from Starscream and it’s uncomfortable to see. He presses the barrel of his nullray to Shockwave’s head, forcing the larger mech to bend his neck and shoulders forward. “Every cycle our Cybertron and our cities grow darker. In only a few years, Vos will fall out of the sky!”
As if attuned to Starscream’s emotional crescendo, the hum in the room cuts in and out, the lighting flickers. Forgotten in the drama, the full weight of the dominating presence in the Command Centre reasserts itself. A voice rarely heard these days, raspy with disuse, but no less heavy with command speaks through the din. “Starscream, leave Shockwave be. Come.”
The nullray only leaves Shockwave’s head by virtue of Starscream’s full body lean away from Megatron’s command. Megatron’s voice pulls Starscream’s spinal struts straight from a predator’s forward hunch. As far as Deadlock can remember, it’s always been like this with them.
Despite Megatron’s hold over Starscream, the Air Commander places a hand on Shockwave’s shoulder as he passes him and shoves, as if to use the mech to propel him along toward his destination. Flatline moves aside and, for a moment, Deadlock sees the colour and shape of the warlord that lifted him from despair, gifted him with a name and a violent, bloody hope.
Deadlock is torn between focusing on Shockwave and watching the drama that will surely play out between a Starscream made incandescent with rage and the processing-power drunk leader of the faction.
Soundwave’s data cable withdraws from his chest and that brings Deadlock’s purpose back into perspective. He tears his optics away and refocuses on the mech now descending dais stairs.
Shockwave’s stride is longer than Deadlock’s but he’s close enough to the door that he should be able to time it to reduce any awkward steps. The moment Shockwave draws even with him, Deadlock pivots and steps out. His pede hits the floor in time with Shockwave’s as he joins the purple mech on the way out.
In three strides they’re out of sequence, but the vibration that possesses the room swallows up any discord and in a few more they’re in the antechamber. Nobody asks a thing. Nobody comms him. With luck Starscream will assume Soundwave sent him to escort Shockwave out and Soundwave will assume Deadlock took initiative.
Soundwave would be right.
Shockwave gives no indication he’s noticed Deadlock at all. This is it. Time for Deadlock to shoot his shot. He keeps his tone as even as possible and asks, “Dead End isn’t part of Polyhex’s awakening, is it?”
“The Dead End is disruptive, chaotic, desperate. These aren’t conducive traits for a personality as large as Polyhex.” Shockwave’s featureless face turns minutely toward Deadlock. “Do you disagree?”
“Yeah, no. I see something else in Dead End, but I agree that it’s better that it doesn’t wake up with Polyhex.” Deadlock struggles to find the next words; he’s never been as good at words as he is actions. That was Wing’s specialty.
He’s still licking at the points of his denta when Shockwave startles him with an intuitive leap. “Do you want the Dead End to awaken?”
Deadlock’s pedes bark on the floor. He can feel his face giving him away. Shockwave stops next to him, his nearly featureless face turns fully toward Deadlock. “It will never be as strong as Polyhex or Iacon. It has no hope of competing.”
Before proceeding, Deadlock errs on the side of caution and takes a nano-klik to reset his vocaliser, audio receivers, and ambulatory system. “You’re not wrong. Competition doesn’t end well in the Dead End. We only get anywhere when we cooperate.”
“Interesting.” Shockwave turns back and resumes his way to the lift. “We’ll speak once I consider the possibilities.”
A new alert populates on Deadlock’s HUD: Shockwave’s contact details. And though Deadlock’s ambulatory system is fully functional, he doesn’t pursue the mech. There’s no need.
For a moment Deadlock wonders if Wing can see him from the Allspark and if so, is he proud?
Deadlock focuses on filing Shockwave’s comm frequency so his optics don’t get misty with cleanser. Then he queues up the unread message from the Dead End clinic. It’s a good thing he’s alone: his engine whines and brake callipers tighten on their rotors when he sees what it says and who it’s from.
Ratchet’s sent two simple requests: the first asks if Decepticon medics have developed alternatives for glycol or borate ether. The second is less a request and more a demand that Deadlock schedule himself in for routine maintenance. He has to clamp down all the tighter on his rotors to prevent his wheels from spinning free in sparkling-like excitement. Ratchet is the greatest threat to maintaining his brutal image.
While nobody seemed to notice his departure, Flatline is waiting for him outside the Command Centre antechamber. He’s a big mech. Attractive. Smells of solvent and disinfectant. Like many combat medics, his voice has a subtle treble from straining his vocaliser on battlefields. “Where’d you go?”
Deadlock gestures down the corridor. “Valet duty. Why? You want something from him or something from me?” He revs his engine in what could be a threat or a come on. How Flatline interprets it will tell him what the mech has on his processor.
Flatline’s optics squeeze into crescents of humour. “Might be that I’ve come into a wealth of dross sticks but have a poverty of locations to smoke and mechs to share them with.”
The throaty rev turns low gear purr. Deadlock’s always been known to cast his favour on the Decepticon medical corps and it’s been paying off for millennia. It finally seems safe enough to take the relationship to a new level. “Might be I’ve got enough of both to go around. My schedule frees up a bit next cycle.”
“I’ll comm you.” Flatline’s optics lose the humour. He inclines his head toward the antechamber doors. “You’ll learn more soon enough, but it sounds like Megatron has a solution for Vos. It’s big and Starscream hates it.”
“Big, huh?” Deadlock nods. “I’m sure I’ll learn soon enough.”
Big turns out to be an understatement.
[+]
A ribbon of pungent smoke streams and curls up from a dilapidated ruin in Polyhex’s notorious slum. The smoke is struck silver-green by dim and flickering beacons welded to gnarled rebar and blistered girders. Anything less permanent and the beacons would already be gone.
The smoke pools and spreads along the underside of heavy-bottomed smog seventy metres above Dead End’s crater-shaped valley. If he wanted to dip his fingers in the gaseous eddies, Deadlock could lift up on his pede tips and stretch an arm to his root mode’s service limits. He won’t. Neither will the mech sharing a dross stick with him.
Thick and warm, the smelting pools’ caustic smog is impenetrable by anything Iacon or Polyhex have going on (that lunatic Wheeljack not withstanding). Satellites won’t help and drones are too valuable a resource to damage in the smog. Which is why the best method of keeping an optic on Dead End is the same used by Iacon police forces back in the old and terrible peace that precipitated Megatron’s rise: foot patrols. And with Orion Pax, née Optimus Prime, née Orion Pax , stuck in Iacon and Megatron similarly indisposed in Polyhex, a stroll in Dead End is the height of clandestine.
“I can imagine Prowl running some sort of weird operation out here, but I don’t think he could slip it past you and the ol’ Hatchet.” Flatline turns his wrist over to offer his dross stick to Deadlock. “At least not in this climate and not with the black market so well-stocked with contraband: Prowl’s got enough problems.”
“Climate weather or climate political ?” Deadlock takes the stick and smacks his rifle into Flatline’s hand. “Take a squiz.”
Well over a million years as the highest ranking medic among Decepticons and Flatline’s electromagnetic field still sours with distaste when the rifle makes contact with his palm. Dross smoke disperses from Flatline’s vents, and swirls into the vacuum of his movements. He raises the rifle and sets his dominant optic to the scope.
Distasteful or not, Flatline handles the rifle with the skill and grace of an adept. The dross stick’s ember tip lights the bottom planes of Deadlock’s face cyan. He keeps it pressed between his lips and alive with a slow, contemplative suck.
Flatline’s field pulses with a nuanced blend of satisfaction and wry admiration that Deadlock interprets as approval with what his rifle’s scope is showing him. He expected as much. It wasn’t much of a chore to get Flatline down here, Turmoil think he’s up to something, but few think he’s motivated to undermine Megatron or fuck with Starscream. The only risk is the infighting with Turmoil breaking out into the open.
A jagged blat of unpleasant surprise takes Deadlock’s immediate attention.
Flatline lowers the rifle and turns an incredulous optic on Deadlock, then lifts the rifle back up and peers through the scope again. “You cheeky fragger.”
Deadlock would love to know what Flatline sees that’s surprised and annoyed him. Hundreds of thousands years’ of practice keeps Deadlock’s field close, his slouch casual, and his glossa still.
“Who else knows Ambulon’s involved with Ratchet’s clandestine clinic?” Flatline asks as he stares through the scope.
Ambulon? Deadlock recalls Ambulon as a competent Decepticon medic that’s unnecessarily embarrassed about intimate paint discolouration and peeling. Oh, Decepticon medic. Right.
Deadlock takes a long, excruciatingly casual suck on the dross stick to regain his buzz. He drawls, “Present company only.”
Flatline doesn’t sound impressed. “Two million years on and now he shows some initiative?”
Deadlock agrees wholeheartedly with Flatline’s sentiment. Why the frag hadn’t Ratchet or one of the Dead End mechs flagged him over Ambulon? Primus, it’s sloppy.
Flatline straightens and trades Deadlock’s rifle for the dross stick. The rifle’s neural link connects seamlessly with Deadlock’s HUD so when he takes a squiz through the scope he has a far more detailed view through the building’s thin walls than Flatline did. Ratchet’s a recognisable outline deeper in the surgery. First Aid and Ambulon are dark shapes with crisp neon green outlines. Neon green being his hexidecimal flag for medics.
Deadlock recognises his Med End courier, Mercury, and a couple locals loitering outside. Aside for a ragged door wing, they all seem to be in decent nick. Maybe they’re waiting on a mate in surgery. Deadlock slings the rifle to his back.
Flatline taps the dross stick against the side of the hollowed out building’s edge. “Jokes on you if you’re aiming to blackmail me with the cross faction shenanigans of my medics. We have a duty of care regardless of faction.”
Cross faction shenanigans. If only Flatline knew. Best that he doesn’t: Deadlock's sure his brutal image can't take that kind of hit.
“Nope. Show of good faith.” Deadlock replaces “good faith” with “stupidity” in his own head. “Got nothing against anyone that helps mechs that can’t help themselves.”
The big mech settles his hands on his undercarriage’s hip joint housing. “Fine. What’s your angle Deadlock?”
Deadlock’s lips flatten into a humourless smile. “What can I say? I’m just a simple mech with a fondness for a place he once called home. And you? You’re a medic that takes their duty of care seriously.”
The tilt of Flatline’s head indicates interest. It can’t have escaped his notice that Deadlock is equally blackmailable if Flatline goes for it. “You brought me to the Dead End for a little cross faction medical mission of mercy.”
“Mmmyeah.” Deadlock smiles, dimples his lower lip with a fang for good measure. “Sure, it’s dangerous, but what medic wouldn’t take a little risk to serve an underserved community? Especially if that means working alongside The Hatchet himself? And you never know, you might even hear a thing or two about the progress they’re making with Orion Pax and Iacon.”
Flatline is a mech with red optics set beneath a heavy brow and above a thick silver face guard. The red glow that illuminates perimeter of Flatline’s deep set optics changes as he refocuses between Deadlock and the green medic beacons. Green light predominates optic reflections as he angles his face minutely toward the dilapidated structure serving the Dead End skivs and leakers.
Deadlock knows a hooked mech when he sees one. His spark wheels within his chest, a feeling not unlike the exhilaration of sliding sideways across Cybertron’s streets in alt mode. He plays it cool, though, and merely taps his temple in the casual sign for permission to send a digital message.
“Here’s First Aid’s comm if you don’t already have it; he’s got the roster when Ratchet’s in surgery. Try not to give Ambulon’s fuel pump a catastrophic error. He doesn’t know you’re here.”
Flatline accepts the ping and lifts the dross stick. He presses it to the auxiliary air intake hidden between mask and throat, his fingertips plugging the gap to modulate how much he draws off it. “Be seeing you around then?”
Deadlock nods and holds a hand out for a turn with the mild intoxicant. “Yeah, just one thing.”
The dross makes it back to Deadlock’s fingers and Deadlock damns himself straight to the Pit when he looks at the burned down stick instead of Flatline’s face. “Make sure The Hatchet gets out more. He’s worse than any of the leakers and skivs around here when it comes to taking care of himself.”
And before he can betray himself more than he already has, Drift bites down on the dross stick and vaults from the crumbling platform. He descends by leaps and bounds. He makes just enough noise to alert the three mechs below. All three look ready to bolt, but the tallest of them, a robust mech with a carefree grin, brightens up when he sees who’s dropping in.
“Oi, Drift hoon!”
The other two mechs smack him simultaneously. “Don’t call him that!”
Dead End’s tonal dialect is welcome even if the name Mercury has used isn’t.
“It’s Deadlock, you halfwit!”
“Mercury banger.” Deadlock lands near them and closes the distance in a deceptively lazy stride. The air near the group smells of nitrous oxide exhaust. He creases the dross into an ellipse between his denta and taps a hard staccato against his temple. “Do you have intel for me?”
Mercury’s grin fades. “Ah, Deadlock hoon. No, but I have a message from that medic hot whip?”
“Primus’s sacred exhaust pipe.” The leaker on the right’s optics begin to fritz. They grab their mate by a crumpled door wing. “Nice seeing you, Deadlock hoon. Big fan, but we gotta place to be at.”
“Yeah? Take this with you.” Deadlock flicks the dross stick stub at the retreating mechs with one hand and seizes Mercury by an elbow-mounted tyre with the other. He drags the tall mech down to his level and hisses next to one of his audio receptors, “Inside voice, Mercury. Comm me.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Mercury shows denta in his grimace and continues over comms. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit munted, hoon. I’ve been working third shift.”
“That why you reek of nos?” Deadlock releases Mercury’s tyre with a roll of his fingers that gives the hard rubber a spin. “Which medic said what?”
Mercury’s field pulses with shame and embarrassment. “The sassy medic with the mask said to tell you a Decepticon medic will start 6th Chord.”
“Banger, that’s today and I needed to know before now.”
Mercury’s a big mech with a robust hauler’s frame, but he still manages to make himself look small. Deadlock feels no sympathy. Bad enough Mercury thinks he can use Deadlock’s old Dead End name, but to decide shanix is more important than keeping in a notorious Decepticon killer’s good graces? That’s not good for either of them. Especially not the plans Deadlock has for Dead End.
“So tell me…” Deadlock stretches up, lazy and slow. He grasps a wrist behind his head. The position places his hands near his great sword’s hilt and the rifle’s stock. He shifts his shoulders and hips to limber up a bit, but mainly to brush the backs of his claws against the weapons. “Who are you working for that’s got more important work than mine?”
“Not more important, hoon! Not more important,” Mercury comms quickly, hunched over and hands squeaking with how hard they wring one another, “just pays better. Mech’s got a lot of shanix to spend on good times, but he’s getting weird about work. I’ll do one last delivery and then me and him are strictly clanging.”
Deadlock lowers his arms from behind his head and sweeps them up again to cross over his chassis. “No work from me or the medics until then and no shanix for work badly done. When’re you my mech again?”
“After DJ Battle Night at Polarity.”
The shanix must be exceptional if the job will pry Mercury from the hottest event of the quarter. Deadlock asks aloud, “Who’s your medic whip ?”
Mercury replies via comm. “Hoon. Hoon. Everyone says I’m reckless, but I’m not stupid: you said no kicking medic tyres, so I’m not touching them. But the one with the mask and visor? In my opinion, very whip.”
First Aid? Deadlock can see it; First Aid’s attractive and has a way about him. There was a time when any medic was whip to him. Then Shockwave’s whole Awakening thing happened, Cybertron went rubber side up, and he got perspective in Crystal City. He might clang a medic here and there, but there’s only ever been one medic whip as far as he’s concerned.
“Yeah?” Deadlock continues to speak aloud, “Come on, then, let’s go see First Aid hot whip .”
“What? Wh—“ Mercury thinks better of whatever he was going to say and comes along like a fresh-off-the-line drone.
The clinic, dubbed Med End, looks like fresh Pit on the outside and the interior has seen better days, but it’s clean, bright, and smells just like Ratchet’s first clinic did, some 3 million years ago. The smell of it makes something in Deadlock go as liquid as Mercury’s outlier ability.
None of the medics are at the front, but there’s chatter coming from surgery. Ratchet’s kvetching. He sounds energetic in his unique “tank’s empty but burning frustration’s fumes for fuel” way.
“Because, Ambulon, glycol and borate ethers are the performance choice when a mech needs immediate and reliable compression. The only way to convince mechs to give up that performance is to offer a viable alternative. It just so happens that the most viable option won’t put sex workers at risk nor strip the paint from a customer’s spike.”
“Or fingers.” First Aid and his sass. Deadlock notes the quiet thrum of Mercury’s coolant system kicking up a notch. Hopefully it covers his own.
First Aid raises his voice. “Be over there in a klik.”
“Take your time,” Deadlock calls back.
Deadlock barely makes out Ratchet’s grumbled, “Oh, he will.”
First Aid continues. His voice hasn’t lowered much, possibly he wants Deadlock to overhear. So Deadlock tries to lean forward without being obvious, but half a metre doesn’t actually count for much. “I have good news and bad news, Ratchet. You’re going to hate this and that means you’ll make me hate this, but I’ve done as much as I can. We need to strip your hands to get out all the glycol ether and melted paint.”
The fantasy that’s been spooling up in Deadlock’s head evaporates and the pressure in his cooling system falls. Ratchet’s sensitive hands have been burned? By glycol ether? At least, he thinks, as a speedster he runs borate ethyl which isn’t as bad when bleeding out. But still. Medic hands are sensitive.
“Fine,” Ratchet says. He sounds resigned. “But we can’t cancel any surgeries; it’s too hard to get these mechs to come in. You take over surgery and I’ll work with Ambulon until close. We can strip my hands after.”
“Agreed. As for good news, Deadlock has that. He’s found us more help.”
Ratchet must reply with a look, because Deadlock doesn’t hear him say anything. But that’s fine, because this gives him the opportunity he needs.
“Mercury banger.” Deadlock knocks his knuckles against one of Mercury’s hip tyres. “While I talk to Ratchet, you’re going to tell First Aid hot whip why I didn’t know Ambulon starts today. Then you’ll tell him you’re banned from work and for how long. Argue and I’ll pop your tyres.”
Mercury’s field feels as mortified as he looks. His optics look a little foggy. He opens his mouth and Deadlock presses a claw to Mercury’s hip tyre.
Mercury wilts. “But hoon…”
First Aid comes through with Ratchet and Deadlock flicks Mercury’s tyre once more and forgets about him. Let First Aid have him.
His medic looks tired. Exhausted, even. The blue of Ratchet's optics on his white oracular derma make the creases there look like permanent dark blue stripes. The vermillion chevron looks heavy on his brow. Deadlock wonders that he ever really knew that young and energetic, black-chevroned Ratchet of his youth. What will it take to for Ratchet to rest? What can he make happen?
Deadlock lands a very solid, “Hey, doc.”
Ratchet’s brow lifts. The corner of his mouth ticks up from a serious moue to something… less irritated. “Hey yourself, Drift.”
Deadlock will submit to that name if it comes from Ratchet’s lips. He lifts his dark hands, palms up and curls his fingers inward a few times. “Can I see your hands?”
Ratchet’s engine rumbles in a low gear. He shakes his head minutely, but his lips, those recalcitrant lips, quirk a little more. He lifts the blotchy red, white, and bare steel mess of both hands and sets them within the cradle of Deadlock’s grip. “I can still slap you if you start to pray.”
“Shush.” Deadlock doesn’t pray. Not exactly. But he does give thanks to Primus, because he’s always wanted to hold Ratchet’s hand and now he has both. “Do you slap people that help your clinic out? I asked Primus to deliver you help and two Decepticons end up on your roster.”
“Two?”
“Just sealed the deal with Flatline.”
And maybe he’s safe from being slapped, not that he would mind, because both corners of Ratchet’s mouth lift ever so much, his optics soften, and his hands turn over in Deadlock’s. Ratchet doesn’t say a thing, but his injured fingers curl over Deadlock’s and for frag’s sake, Deadlock curls his fingers under Ratchet’s.
Unthinking, Deadlock's fingers speak his heart into Ratchet’s hands. Let loose. Come on a date with me?
Ratchet looks down at their hands and then back up to Deadock’s face. “I don’t know chirolinguistics.”
“Yeah, I know,” Deadlock says. "It was a prayer for your hands and I still have my face.”