Chapter Text
Ratchet’s day was going—well, not great, because having to perform an emergency surgery to remove a basketball from Misfire’s fuel tank due to him being stupid enough to swallow it on a dare was the opposite of great. But on the Lost Light scale of non-life-threatening to a Brainstorm-level emergency, his day was going fairly well.
And then Tailgate bursts into his medbay, not seeming to notice or care that Ratchet is standing over a powered-down Misfire’s open chassis with all his internals exposed, and cries, “I think Ultra Magnus has a head injury!”
Ratchet looks up, wiping at a fleck of energon spattered across his cheek. “What do you mean, you think? Does he have a head injury or not?”
“Well,” says Tailgate, wavering on his pedes, “no one actually saw him hit his head, and he’s not leaking from anywhere that we can see—”
“If you don’t know for sure that there’s something wrong with Magnus, go find another medic to bother,” snaps Ratchet, and returns to hunching over Misfire. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m busy.”
Tailgate inches forward and peers up at him, wringing his hands together. “No one saw anything happen to Magnus, but—he suddenly started hitting on Whirl!”
Ratchet’s hands freeze over Misfire’s internals.
Then he carefully sets down all his surgical tools and turns to Tailgate. “Where is he?”
***
The two of them hurry to Rewind’s habsuite. On the way there, Tailgate explains how he, Rewind, and Swerve had tried to rope Ultra Magnus, or more specifically, Minimus Ambus, into their regular “Minibot Nights,” but Minimus had kept insisting he wasn’t a minibot. So they created a new “Minibots and Friends Nights” to ease him into the idea, but then Chromedome, Cyclonus, Whirl, and a few others ended up joining too since they were also friends of minibots, and even more people came to check it out after word got around that Swerve was offering a discount on drinks since he was experimenting with new creations—
This is the part where Ratchet cuts Tailgate off and tells him to get to the point.
“Most of us were watching the movie, so we weren’t really paying attention to what was going on in the rest of the room,” says Tailgate, jogging to keep ahead of Ratchet’s longer strides. “But the last time I looked back, Minimus was just playing a card game with Rodimus and Brainstorm. They weren’t fighting or anything.” His shoulders rise in a confused shrug. “Whirl was watching the movie with us when Minimus suddenly left the card game to join our group, and he started saying…things. To Whirl.”
Ratchet is about to ask for clarification on what he means by ‘things,’ but then decides he really doesn't want to know.
“How did Whirl react?” he asks instead, because that he may actually need to know. Ratchet wouldn’t normally expect violence and rioting from a case of unexpected flirting, but in his experience, trying to predict Whirl’s reaction to any given situation is about as reliable as trying to repair a patient on an active battlefield without a functioning diagnostics program or a fully stocked medkit due to medical budget cuts.
“He…um. Well.” Tailgate stops in front of Rewind’s habsuite door. “I think it’ll be easier if you just see for yourself.”
Tailgate must’ve commed Rewind to let him know he and Ratchet arrived, because the door promptly slides open to reveal Rewind on the other side.
“Tailgate! Thank Primus you convinced Ratchet to come here,” says Rewind, his visor flashing with relief. “He’s getting worse.”
The ominous statement sends warning bells ringing through Ratchet’s processor. “I thought Minimus wasn’t showing any external signs of injury, despite his strange behaviour,” he says sharply.
“Er, I’m not talking about Minimus,” says Rewind. “It’s Whirl.”
Ratchet frowns. “When did Whirl get a head injury?”
“It’s not his head,” Rewind says glumly.
Frowning harder, Ratchet peers over the top of Rewind’s helm. The habsuite is, to put it kindly, a mess. Dozens of rust stick crumbs and empty engex cubes litter the floor, visible even in the dim lighting. A growing puddle of some mysterious liquid is staining the floor in the corner. There’s a huge cluster of bots in the centre of the room, though the cluster is being dispersed by insistent pushes from Cyclonus and Chromedome to clear some space.
Ratchet watches as the murmuring group slowly splits to either side of the room, unveiling Minimus stretching his arms upwards, holding the tip of Whirl’s claw as reverently as Optimus Prime holding the AllSpark. Whirl is bent over and holding his other claw over his own face, where it’s doing absolutely nothing to muffle the hoarse, static-filled wheezes spilling out from his vocalizer.
“It’s Whirl’s vocalizer,” explains Rewind. “He hasn’t stopped laughing since Minimus started hitting on him, and it’s beginning to affect his voice.”
Tailgate’s visor blinks. “But that was almost a joor ago! You’re telling me he’s been laughing the entire time?!”
Somehow, Ratchet already feels exhausted, and he wonders if it’s too late to pass on this problem to First Aid, return to the medbay to finish up Misfire’s surgery, and retire to his own habsuite for the night with a ‘Do Not Disturb’ message automatically sent to anyone who tries to comm him.
He heaves an ex-vent and pushes past Rewind, holding the medkit he’d brought in front of him like it’s a battering ram. “Medic coming through,” he snaps.
Millions of years of experience in making even the most hardened bots afraid of him has all the bots who weren’t already shoved aside scattering to clear a path for him. A few people leave the room, apparently bored, but most of them just retreat to the walls so they can keep gawking at the spectacle.
And ‘spectacle’ is, unfortunately, the right word for this disaster.
“I find it difficult to believe that no one has ever told you how stunning you are,” Ratchet has the horrible misfortune of overhearing Minimus telling Whirl as he approaches the two of them in the middle of the room.
Whirl is doubled over so far he’s in danger of falling, and his frame is shaking hard enough for Ratchet to hear his rotors rattling against his back. “Look,” Whirl manages to choke out, “I know that I’m the hottest piece of aft on this ship, but no one on this ship has good taste, so they’d all disagree with you. Including you, Mags. You’re only saying all this because you’re not in your right mind. Don’t get me wrong, though—it’s hilarious. I’m going to remember this forever.”
“You do have a very nice aft,” Minimus says gravely, and only his moral conscience stops Ratchet from spinning around and leaving the room. “And to me, it seems impossibly unlikely that no one else on this ship appreciates it. If you are telling the truth, then it must be because I have never seen you clearly before now.”
Whirl lets out a staticky snort. “Normally, trusting me to tell the truth is the last thing I’d advise anyone to do, unless you’re asking me about the fastest way to beat someone offline without killing them. Right now, though, I doubt you can even think straight long enough to absorb that bit of advice.” He tugs his claw out of Minimus’ grip and taps the top of his helm. “Whatever head injury you suffered must’ve been really bad. It’s even worse than our dear captain’s head on a normal day.”
“Hey!” comes a familiar, indignant voice from somewhere behind Ratchet.
Minimus doesn’t seem to hear or even notice Rodimus’ presence. “Then I don’t want to see as I did before,” he says, staring deeply into Whirl’s optic, which cycles back at him in bewildered amusement. “I don’t want my head to be fixed. I only wish to look upon your beautiful frame forever.”
“Too bad, because I was already summoned here to fix you,” growls Ratchet, barging his heavy frame in between them. Grabbing a medical-grade scanner from his kit, he lets the medkit fall to the ground and flicks it on, running a scan over Minimus’ frame.
“According to Whirl, my processor may be impaired,” says Minimus, and Ratchet notes that his glyphs are slightly slurred. On anyone else, it would barely be noticeable, but it’s very unusual to hear in Minimus’ voice. “If that is the case, I cannot give consent for medical treatment as per section twenty-six, sub-section fifty-seven, paragraph three of the Autobot Code.”
“Y’know, it’s cute that you still remember every word of the code even when there’s something obviously wrong with your head,” says Whirl, watching as the light from the scanner washes over Minimus, “but you should be more worried about your own health than whatever nonsense that’s running through your processor when you look at me.”
Minimus looks up at Whirl like he’s hung Luna One in the sky. “You think I’m cute?” he says, sounding oddly breathless for someone who doesn’t physically need to breathe.
The scanner beeps to indicate it’s finished, saving Ratchet from the risk of his audio receptors bleeding if he keeps having to listen to this conversation. He tunes them out and glances down at the screen to read through the diagnostics results, expecting to see either internal errors related to Minimus’ processor or hidden external injuries in his helm.
He pauses. Looks back up at Minimus. Looks down at the results again.
“Um,” says Tailgate, “is something wrong?”
Ratchet grips the scanner tightly and scowls. “The blasted thing must’ve malfunctioned. I need to run the scan again.”
He smacks the device a few times to refresh it, then initiates a new scan, holding it over Minimus. “Also,” he tells him, “as the CMO, I have the authority to approve any medical procedures if I deem it necessary and if I don’t believe you’re in any state to give consent. Which, considering you’ve been hitting on Whirl....”
“Is there a problem with me professing my attraction to Whirl?” asks Minimus. A shadow falls over his face, and he frowns up at Whirl with disappointment in his cloudy expression. “Is it because you’re already involved with someone?”
Whirl stares at him for a long moment. Then another hoarse laugh erupts from his throat and he doubles over again, cackling loud enough to drown out the muttering coming from the rest of the room.
Rewind pats Minimus on the shoulder. “It’s okay,” he says sympathetically, though Ratchet observes that he’s not sympathetic enough to turn off his red recording light. “He’s not laughing at you, he’s just being Whirl. And he’s not involved with anyone—”
“Actually,” interrupts Whirl, straightening, “I am.”
Everyone freezes. Even Ratchet’s attention is unwillingly caught, despite his attempt to focus as hard as he can on the medical scanner’s screen.
“You didn’t tell me that!” cries Tailgate. Betrayal ripples across his face. “Since when?”
Whirl clicks his claw by his side. “I didn’t tell anyone, so don’t look at me like that, Legs. And who cares since when?” He leers at Minimus. “Would that change your answer? If I tell you that I’m in a committed long-term relationship, will you fight the other bot for my affections? Threaten to kill them so you can take their place?”
Minimus rubs at his chin. “I have no plans to fight anyone,” he says, slow and thoughtful, “especially not this other bot you care deeply for. I would simply remind them of how lucky they are.”
Ratchet expects Whirl to burst into another laughing fit. Instead, Whirl cocks his helm to one side, regarding Minimus with an unreadable light in his single optic.
“Huh,” says Whirl. He hesitates, seemingly thrown off, then rallies himself with a quick flick of his rotors. “Well, of course they’re lucky!” He puffs out his chest. “Who wouldn’t desire me?”
As if drawn there by a magnet, Minimus’ gaze blatantly drops to Whirl’s chest.
If Minimus starts trying to grope Whirl’s guns right in front of Ratchet, everyone else in this room, and Primus himself, Ratchet is going to rip out his own optics and throw them at someone. Probably Rewind, if he doesn’t stop trying to duck under Ratchet’s left elbow for a better camera angle.
Thankfully, the scanner in his hand beeps again before Ratchet is forced to engage in self-mutilation, and he looks down at the results on the screen.
Identical to the first scan.
Well. That both clears everything up, since Ratchet is certain he now knows what the problem with Minimus is, and complicates everything, because he now knows what the problem with Minimus is.
“What does it say?” asks Tailgate, craning his neck to peek over Ratchet’s right arm.
Ratchet works his jaw, considers the best way to approach this, and then points at the doorway. “Everyone out!” he announces, projecting his best battlefield voice. “I need to speak with the patient. Alone. Without any of you nosy slaggers gawking at him.”
There’s a lot of annoyed grumbling, but Ratchet manages to glare everyone into leaving Rewind’s habsuite, including Rewind himself. As they all shuffle out in single file, whispering amongst each other and throwing curious glances back at Minimus, Ratchet reaches out to snag Whirl by the shoulder before he can join the rest of them.
“Not you,” says Ratchet.
Whirl’s optic curves in an upside-down crescent. “Gee, Ratchet. If you wanted to get me alone, you could’ve just said so.”
Ratchet waits until he’s sure everyone has left the room before answering. “Are you sure you want to say that right in front of your boyfriend?”
It’s very rare that anyone successfully catches Whirl off guard, and Ratchet savours the sight of Whirl stiffening instantly at the question, with his audial fins lowering and plating jumping up along his spinal strut.
“Boyfriend?” echoes Minimus. “Me?”
“You didn’t injure your head,” Ratchet tells him. “The only thing wrong with you is that you’re so drunk your charge levels are clocking past the maximum level on my scanner. I’m amazed you’re able to stand up without instantly getting knocked offline, but other than that, you’re fine. Make sure that you never consume whatever mystery concoction Swerve made for you ever again.”
Minimus’ optics take on a hopeful gleam as he looks at Whirl. “So it was me the whole time?” he asks, proving that he didn’t listen to a single word Ratchet said. Ratchet doesn’t know why he even bothered explaining. “I’m the lucky one, out of everyone who desires you?”
“Yeah,” Whirl says faintly, still looking like a spooked turbofox as he glances between Minimus and Ratchet. Heavy static laces his words, making it difficult to decipher what he’s saying. “But even I wouldn’t say it like that, so hearing it out loud from you is making me question my own sanity. And that’s saying a lot.”
“Stop talking!” Ratchet barks, spinning to face him. “You do have something wrong with you, and it's your obviously malfunctioning vocalizer! It’s only going to get worse if you don’t shut up!”
Whirl ignores his order. “I’m still curious, Doc,” he says, flexing his claws in what Ratchet assumes is supposed to be a threatening gesture. All he feels is tired. “How’d you jump to the ‘boyfriend’ assumption just from Mags being stupidly drunk?”
Ratchet presses his digits to his forehelm. “It’s a logical assumption,” he says. “Overcharged Cybertronians are usually stupidly honest, not the other way around, so I figured Minimus was genuinely flirting with you. He’s not the type to lie even when he’s not stupidly drunk. Then you brought up your mysterious long-term relationship, and you were surprised when Minimus didn’t react how you expected him to.” He shrugs. “I put the pieces together. And I figured that if you’re keeping your relationship a secret, you wouldn’t want me sharing the whole picture with everyone else.”
“I’m not—” Whirl’s frame seizes as he grabs for his throat, and a harsh cracking sound rings throughout the room as his vocalizer is knocked offline.
Rolling his optics, Ratchet approaches him, transforming his servo into a screwdriver and quickly popping open the access panel in Whirl’s throat. “That’s why I told you to stop talking,” he grumbles as he peers inside, magnifying his lens to search for Whirl’s vocalizer. He knows its approximate location thanks to the extensive frame scans he performed long ago on every bot aboard the Lost Light, including Whirl, but he’s never had to manually fix Whirl’s non-standard vocalizer before. A miracle, considering how often Whirl gets himself slagged into a crumpled mess.
Minimus bounces up beside him, startling Ratchet into almost dislodging several critical wires in Whirl’s neck. “Will he be alright?” he asks, poking his digits together. “I cannot bear the idea of us being separated so soon after discovering he is my boyfriend.”
“Oh, for the love of—” Ratchet reaches around Minimus’ head with his other hand and without ceremony, manually engages his FIM chip.
The cloudy haze over Minimus’ glassy optics clears. His entire frame jolts backwards once, twice before slumping forward. Minimus stumbles, but thankfully he regains his balance before he can topple face-first onto the dirty floor.
“Sorry for doing that so abruptly,” says Ratchet. He’s not really that sorry, not after everything he’s been forced to see and listen to since arriving here, but he’s pretty sure that’s the polite thing to say. Drift would be proud.
“It’s…” Minimus’s optics shutter a few times. “It’s alright. I assume that was the quickest way to restore me to normal.”
“It was,” confirms Ratchet, and he returns to treating Whirl.
As he locates the snapped wires inside Whirl’s vocalizer and starts soldering them back into place, Ratchet hears Minimus’ lights pedesteps come closer, though at least this time he has the common sense not to get in Ratchet’s way. Whirl’s helm jerks up to stare at Minimus, but Ratchet catches his optic and scowls hard to dissuade Whirl from even thinking about trying to speak while his servos are buried inside his throat.
“Whirl, I cannot remember everything I said while I was overcharged,” says Minimus. His voice is steady, completely unlike how he sounded just a few kliks ago, but Ratchet can detect the thread of uncertainty winding through his vocals. “However, I remember enough to know that my actions led to Ratchet accidentally learning about our relationship, and I cannot apologize enough for revealing your secret without your consent—”
Whirl makes a sudden, slashing motion in the air with his claw, and the movement makes Ratchet narrowly avoid burning the inside of Whirl’s intake with his soldering iron.
“Are you…trying to tell me there’s no need to apologize?” Minimus guesses. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I was the one whose loose glossa provided too many clues for him to pick up.”
Shaking his helm, Whirl gestures at the discarded engex cubes on the floor.
“It’s Swerve’s fault? He may have crafted those experimental drinks, but it was my choice to consume them when I am aware of my own low tolerance for high grade. My poor judgement is why Ratchet now knows we’re in a relationship, despite your wish for us to remain a secret—”
Whirl slices through thin air with his claw again, this time accompanied with a frustrated stomp of his pede against the floor.
There’s a pause. “I’m afraid I don’t know what that means.”
“Give me a fragging nanoklik and you two can stop playing charades,” mutters Ratchet. He sets the last wire into place, inspects his work, and closes Whirl’s access panel back up. “Okay. You can speak again, but carefully. Do not start yelling.”
Whirl taps his own access panel, a little gingerly, and clears his vocalizer with an electric cough. “Think you’re getting me mixed up with yourself, Doc. I’m not the one who’s always yelling.”
“I wouldn’t need to yell if you didn’t almost make me frag up your own emergency surgical procedure because you couldn’t wait five kliks to communicate with your—” Ratchet stops as he realizes that neither of them have actually confirmed whether he was right or not about their relationship. “Uh. Boyfriend? Is that correct?”
Whirl and Minimus exchange glances.
“Yes?” Minimus says tentatively. “We have been seeing each other in secret for some time.”
Ratchet arches an optical ridge. “Huh. Okay. You can date whoever you want, but…” He side-eyes Whirl. “As your friend, and your primary physician, I’m seriously questioning your taste.”
Whirl plants his servos on his hips. “That’s awfully rude to say when I’m standing right here. Do you judge all your friends’ berth partners like that?”
“No,” says Ratchet. “Only when it’s you.”
Minimus’ mouth presses into a thin line. “How Whirl and I began dating is a long story, Ratchet.” He pauses, and reluctantly adds, “I can schedule a meeting at a later date for us to discuss the details, if you really want to know.”
Ratchet hopes his alarm isn’t obvious on his face, or at the very least, that Minimus isn’t offended by it. “Er, no, that’s fine. Really. As long as you’re…happy, I don’t need to know the details of your secret relationship.”
Minimus mouths the word ‘happy,’ like he’s testing out his ability to speak it out loud. Evidently, he decides it’s not possible, because he simply says, “I am.”
“This is sparkwarming, really,” says Whirl, placing his servo over his own spark. “I’m touched that you two have a somewhat-functional friendship in spite of the mutual emotional constipation you’ve both got going on. But as I was trying to say to Mags, he’s the one who wanted to keep this whole thing hush-hush. I couldn’t care less who knows.”
Minimus stills. “Really?”
“Well, yeah.” Whirl busies himself with examining the points of his claws. “But I get it. I know ol’ Whirlybird isn’t the kind of mech you brag about being in a relationship with. Unless it’s a nemesis with benefits kind of thing. I’ve been told I’m great at that.”
Minimus is shaking his head before Whirl has even finished speaking. “That’s not…I have never wanted to be your nemesis, Whirl,” he says, lifting his chin and folding his servos behind his back. “Although everything I said to you while overcharged was extremely crass—and I apologize for that as well—none of it was a lie. I have come to care for you, far more than I expected when we first started seeing each other.”
Whirl’s optic widens.
So do Ratchet’s optics, but for an entirely different reason. This is far worse than when Minimus was under the influence of his nonexistent head injury, because at least there was the excuse of his processor being potentially damaged. This is Minimus—Minimus—voicing his genuine feelings to Whirl of all bots. Ratchet has never seen this side of Minimus before, and there’s a hot, prickling feeling crawling over his plating that’s telling him he’s intruding on something he shouldn’t be listening to.
Before Whirl can respond to Minimus’ confession, Ratchet drops to his knees, metal clanging loudly against the floor, and grabs his medkit. He shoves his scanner inside with more force than necessary, and shakes the whole kit once to let all his tools noisily clatter together.
Hopefully he didn’t accidentally leave anything breakable inside.
“Well,” grunts Ratchet, hauling himself back up. His knees are definitely going to regret that in the morning, but if he’s learned anything from the war, it’s that sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. “You two are obviously fine now, so I’ll just be on my way to finish Misfire’s surgery.” He tucks his medkit into his subspace. “And I won’t tell anyone about you two.”
“Thank you, Ratchet,” says Minimus. At some point, he’s started holding Whirl’s claw again. Ratchet tries not to think about that too much. “I appreciate your discretion.”
Whirl leans in, deep into Ratchet’s personal space. “Since you’re the first to know about us,” he says, voice pitched low, “you can also be the first bot on our list if we’re ever looking for a third interface partner—”
“Whirl!” Minimus interrupts with a hasty, mortified glance at Ratchet.
Ratchet takes that as his cue to finally, finally turn around and walk out.
And as he’s leaving, he makes a mental note to block both of their comm numbers for the foreseeable future.