robothell | you know you are as small as the things you let annoy you {backdated before robot prom}

"Standing on two legs wondering the same thing." Verity chided as she hurriedly released the seal on her helmet and tore it off.

Under that helmet was where the last five years showed the marks they left behind and the physical reminder of how finite humans were. Older with all those baby teeth gone from her brief smile that crinkled her dark eyes wreathed in darker circles. It had...well, it had been a long time without a hello let alone a goodbye between them. A shoddy track record with farewells having been something of a commonality.

"The hell happened to you?" Helmet under her arm, Verity showed herself in with her free hand held up signaling Ratchet to sit his rickety ass back down.

Edited 2015-05-17 18:26 (UTC)

"Decepticon Justice Division," Ratchet says, almost carelessly, completely ignoring her direction to sit down. "Mech's name is 'Tarn,' I'd steer clear of him if I were you. He came in looking for spare parts and a surgeon and I told him to shove it up his tailpipe. He wasn't overjoyed."

He shakes his head a little. "Anyway, I'm fine, don't worry about it. It's good to see you. In person, anyway--Magnus has been using you as a holomatter avatar. Have you two caught up yet?"

"Yeah, Garrus-9 was a tip off from the DJD deep ops informant," Verity said distantly, recounting something from years ago as she pulled herself up on to a counter; legs swinging idly over the edge, "Shit if Megatron's personal kill squad is here..."

Verity looked tired out of the blue at the mention of Magnus. One memory dragging her into another.

"No, I've been...keeping low." Insulated way of saying 'avoiding' the smile that played on her face when Ratchet mentioned the holo avatar was coy. Man, Magnus when did you get sentimental. "Been busy back on Earth."

"'Keeping low,' huh? That's new," Ratchet says, his optics glittering as he watches her face. His own falls a little when hers does, and he stumps over to where she's sitting, settling into his crutches a little. "Tarn's been... handled. Sort of. I wasn't the worst injured, at any rate. But it's just him here, nobody else." He shifts, looking curious.

"Yeah? Hope you haven't had as interesting a time as I have. ...you doing all right?"

"My face must look godawful if you're asking after me." She smiles wryly and motions with a curt nod to Ratchet's want of a second leg.

With an almost hunted look in her eye, Verity looked around the clinic - for a security camera, a CNA droid. Anything that could overhear them. She seemed content enough after a tense moment to keep talking.

"When I got back Earth I, uh, kept at the whole keeping Cybertron business under wraps thing." She squared her shoulders, looking as tense as tripwire, "Magnus must have been rubbing off on me. Stupid shit...wet work cleaning up facsimiles the 'Cons left behind, sabotage. That sort of thing."

"I'm fine," Ratchet says, his tone turning a little steely before he reaches out, settling a hand on the table next to Verity but not quite touching her. "Should've known you wouldn't just sit quietly. I ended up leaving home, joining up with a ship on some ridiculous quest. I don't know, a lot's happened."

He catches that look on her face, though, and his voice gentles a little, his thumb shifting to touch her shoulder briefly.

"You're safe here, though. All right? As much as you can be anywhere in this place."

"That's a crock of shit and we both know it." Verity did not specify on if she had called out Ratchet's assertion that he was alright, or that she was safe. The only implication that it was the latter was that she had the presence of mind to look a tab bit guilty when she brushed his attempts at comfort off.

"Ambus," She piped up after a drawn out silence, "Magnus taught me all there was to know about the Ambus test back when we still talked - when I had too many questions."

Bottom lip sucked between her teeth she blew air through her nose trying to stamp out some recent recollection of what she had been doing back on Earth. "That's how I've been finding facsimiles...anything to keep the Decepticons from getting the upper hand, right?"

Wreck n' Rule - it was a lifelong commitment. What she found on Earth made one thing abundantly clear - there was no such thing as 'safe.'

"Quest sounds so PG - what's this about?"

"Not going to screw up and let something happen to you on my watch if I can help it," Ratchet says, curling his fingers in lightly to brush against her back.

"You didn't have to," he says, before he falters and looks away, shifting uncomfortably. "War's over, anyway. We 'won'--whatever that means. Planet's back. But I left... I don't know. It's a long story." He hesitates for a long moment, actually struggling before he blows warm air from his vents on a soft huff.

"My hands failed," he says flatly after a moment. "I didn't get hurt, they just... wore out. Stopped working. By the time the ship lifted off, I could barely hold a glass, let alone operate. I went to go find a new CMO, found some new hands instead, it got complicated. But--yeah. That was why."

"Did you tell Hunter that too?" Picking at scabs and scar tissue and as fast as she bristled those hackles flattened , face flushed and line of sight broken when she dips her head so low her chin touches her chest. That was uncalled for but the fire behind her eyes hadn't gone out completely.

"Ratchet, I'm not the biggest fan of my own planet." Verity chewed her lip, gripping the edges of the counter tight enough that her knuckles went bone white. "Only your leg and the Decepticons currently crawling all over it kind of render this assumption the war is 'over' moot fucking point."

Her stomach rolled when she took in a deep breath, nostrils flared. "So don't tell me I didn't have to."

Ratchet actually flinches, his optics paling and his face closing like a door being slammed as he carefully pulls his fingers away, dropping his hand back to his crutch.

"Right," he says, a little numbly, his expression all but calcified. "Of course. My mistake." He doesn't specify what was his mistake, but the look on his face says it hardly matters.

Verity always played it close to her chest; life was one highstakes poker hand after another as she saw it. Only no one stripped her to the bare bones and coated her in ununtrium. Anything she threw out could come back on her twice over and still sting.

"I can trust you." Verity intoned, quiet and detached. "But I need that to go both ways."

"You think I don't trust you?" Ratchet asks softly, watching her face. "Ultra Magnus trusts you, Verity, I--after everything that's happened?"

He huffs a soft blast of air from his vents and leans hard into a crutch so he can bring a hand up, rubbing hard at his forehelm.

"Of course I trust you."

"I think it's been five years and apparently a lots' happened." Verity said coolly even though her expression bellied how she would rather be anything other than this dismissive; it was killing her.

She was verbally kicking him while he was down. Not how she wanted this reunion to play out even when it was the last thing she had expected.

"But that I want to be your friend now more than ever." Verity looked down, then back at Ratchet with her words losing their edge.

"I'm going to look for Prowl."

"We never stopped being friends, as far as I'm concerned," Ratchet says, sounding tired, and he doesn't reach out for her again, not quite yet.

"If you want to kick Prowl's face in, you're going to have to get to the back of the queue," he says softly, watching her expression with an odd look on his face.

"He was responsible for attaching Overlord to the ship I was on. He got free halfway through the trip and murdered a couple of crewmembers before we managed to stuff him back into his cell and jettison it. The medibay was his first stop right after he initially escaped."

"I know that, I-"

And then time itself seems to just come to a screeching halt fast enough where Verity can't process a reaction beyond the ice slithering up every vein in her body.

"He," She's shaking as she runs through the entire gambit of emotions with disbelief and anger neck and neck in the lead, "What?"

"Well, he conned Rodimus into it, at least. So if you hear Drift trying to take the blame, know it's a load of scrap--he's a bit behind the curve, temporally, and it hasn't happened for him yet. But yeah."

Ratchet just looks tired, though his optics are intent on her face.

"Prowl was trying to do some research into Phase Sixers and wanted Overlord off planet, so he stuck him with us. It took everyone we had to get him back off the ship, Fort Max included--he's awake again, now, and understandably, hm, upset. Overlord's dead now, as far as we know. Or he'd better be. His cell was shot after we jettisoned it, with another crewmember who helped seal him in still inside, locked in with him. Probably the kind thing to do."

"'The kind thing to do.'" Verity echoed in a hollow voice as if she hadn't seen first hand the way Overlord laid up Fortress Maximus as the crown jewel of the nightmare that was Garrus-9.

She hated that a part of her agreed. Not just that it was a mercy to be killed before falling into Overlord's hands, but that the Phase Sixers had the Autobots outmatched in spades.

"Yeah, well, this wouldn't be the first time Prowl's maneuvered someone into dealing with Overlord for him."

"His name was Rewind. The mech trapped in the shuttle. It was his conjunx endura that shot it out of the sky, so nobody argued," Ratchet says, before he shakes his head a little, a weight pressing to the top of his tanks.

"...I heard about Garrus-9," he says after a long moment. "I read the medical reports after we collected Max, after--" He cuts himself off, looking down at his hands.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, knowing she'll probably throw it back in his face again and not caring. "I wish I'd been there. I might have been able to do something for Ironfist, at least. Just--I'm sorry."

Edited 2015-05-18 20:58 (UTC)

Verity hummed low in her throat concerning Rewind. Not a name she knew but conjunx endura and other elective partnerships were not a new concept to her. What kind of blow that was and how, of course, it all led back to Prowl.

"No - you don't." Verity countered, gently compared to how heated she had been, because she knew Ratchet meant well and would have committed if he had been there. But no one wishes to go back to Garrus-9. Even as a memory.

"Ironfist was on his way out." She intoned, eyes going a bit darker. "He had the luxury of knowing. Not them. Not Rotorstorm or Twin Twist and all the others that died in stupid, pointless ways. I still don't even know what happened to Springer."

Edited 2015-05-18 21:00 (UTC)

"In a coma, still," Ratchet reports, almost automatically. "Stable, has been for a while, but not awake. I... honestly think First Aid developed spark-jumping to try and wake Springer. That's how we got Fort Max back."

"Knowing's not always a luxury," Ratchet says slowly, thinking of Tailgate and his near-catastrophic failure there. "But--I know what you mean. Known enough mechs who died in stupid, pointless ways." He cycles his vents carefully. "Doesn't make it easier, but--I know."

"Max was in a bad way when we found him." Suffice it to say, "First Aid must really be something if he can undo something like that."

Verity rapped her fingers on the countertop, sorting out her thoughts to a steady rhythmic sound.

"Ratchet," Verity looked back at him with a depth that conveyed the empathy she felt towards him that wouldn't come out in words, "I have the last copy of the Aequitas trials."

Edited 2015-05-18 21:23 (UTC)

"Yeah, well. It was stupid, and reckless, and completely brilliant, but I suppose that's why he's got my job now. My old job," Ratchet corrects himself, then freezes.

"You--what? How did you--" He stops himself, looking thunderstruck, then scrambles to collect himself as pieces start clicking into place. "Hell. Oh, hell. Does Prowl know you have them? No wonder he finally sent someone to Garrus-9." Ratchet has always hated politics, but that doesn't mean he has a poor grasp of them. He reaches up, scrubbing one hand roughly over his face. "Do you have them on you? No, don't--don't answer that. I don't know what's in them, but I'm guessing it's not good."

He cycles his vents for a long moment, then drops his hand away from his face, his expression suddenly serious.

"What do you plan to do with them?"

"No." Head dipped low, she tried to forget when she could see it clearly just behind her eyes. Ironfist hooked up to that damn thing. Verity said barely above a whisper, "Ironfist passed it on to me - no one else knew about the backup. And yes, I have it."

Verity looked back up at Ratchet and already knew the answer without needing to be told.

"And judging by your reaction the records never went public after the war 'ended'." Typical. With Prowl still kicking around of course he tried to bury Garrus-9 before it could upend whatever peace the ceasefire achieved.

"Right now, with everything you've told me, I don't know...but if Prowl finds out."

Verity's throat bobbed as she swallowed before she could finish that thought.

"Hey," Ratchet says gently, and he can't stop himself from reaching up, one large fingertip brushing her cheek, extraordinarily gently. "You're going to be all right. Not just because I want you to be, either--there aren't that many of us here, and I don't think Prowl's stupid enough to try something when we have so many other more pressing concerns, not after his involvement in so much else has come out recently. Magnus ripped him a new one back on Cybertron in front of a small crowd of people, I only heard about it afterward. Apparently it was really something to see."

He thinks for a long moment, his expression quiet. "No, you're right. They haven't come out. I don't even know if they should." His lips thin, and he regards Verity seriously. "But Ironfist didn't give them to me. He gave them to you. If you do want advice, Magnus would know better than anyone what to do with them, if there's anyone you'd trust enough to share them with. Magnus isn't the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord anymore, not after Luna-1, but still. And we--we'd never willingly let anything happen to you, all right? ...there are other people here you can trust, too, should you choose to."

"Don't worry - I learned to be careful." It just took awhile.

When Ratchet gingerly touches her face she leans into it as subtly as she could, still cagey about physical contact but when she raised her hand and it initials appears as though she meant to bat away his hand she pats the side of his massive digit. Ratchet needed to reassurance, maybe even more than she did. The thought of Magnus tearing into Prowl put a smile on her face, even if it was a fleeting one.

"The missing moon?" Verity jerked her head up, pulling a face. She missed more than the end of the war. "What the hell happened?"

you know you are as small as the things you let annoy you {backdated before robot prom}

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