Chapter Text
Deep in the thicket of the forest, two people strode over sticks and stones, while branches and dry leaves snapped and crackled under their feet. Warm sunlight poked through the treetops in long rays, blinding them when it struck their faces.
One of them was less enthusiastic than the other.
“Oh, c'mon,” Miko groaned, her shoulders slumping as she held her phone up to the sky yet again. “Why is there no signal here? Why are we camping in some hillbilly place? Why not... I dunno. Tokyo? That'd be awesome! I swear, you and I would raid every single convenience store.”
Bulkhead followed her every step of the way, silent so far and cursing nature as he got whipped in the face by another branch, only to trip over a root shortly after. Just as he regained his balance, he looked over at Miko, who was standing on a fallen tree, still holding her phone up to the sky, her fingers hammering away at the keys.
“Why do you even need your phone?” he asked, tilting his head. “Isn't the whole point of this to get away from Tech?”
“Said the robot to the japanese girl.” Miko planted her hands on her hips and looked down at him. “Seriously, Bulk. If Agent Fowler didn't want us to use technology, then he would have... oh, I don't know! Done something!“
She turned back to her phone and tapped the keys repeatedly with an increasingly frustrated expression.
“I'm trying to get on the internet to look up what the hell deadwood actually is,” she finally explained. Bulkhead raised an eyebrow.
“Didn't you come with me so you could tell me what it is?” - “Bulkhead, please!” Miko threw her head back and rolled her eyes. “You should know me better than that! I only came with you because I didn't want Jack's mom to give me other stuff to do. My nails are brand new and I want them to stay that way."
Bulkhead remained silent, but had to admit that he liked the little green alien heads on the black polish on her fingers. He always found it funny how humans imagined aliens, which was one of the reasons why he and Miko always watched those stupid sci-fi movies. It had become a competition between them to find as many everyday objects as possible in the background of such films that were used to make a set look futuristic. The most ridiculous one had been a pasta strainer that had been painted silver.
Miko groaned, folded her phone and stuffed it into her pocket before jumping off the tree trunk and coming over to him. “Screw it! We'll just use the wood lying around. It'll be dead enough.”
Bulkhead didn't need to be told twice and began picking up the first branches from the ground and stacking them on his arm. The small pile quickly grew into a whole stack, which was largely thanks to the wrecker and not Miko, who after a while grew bored of collecting and instead started hitting trees and bushes with a long stick.
Just as Bulkhead placed another heavy stick on his arm, his gaze fell on the back of the girl strolling in front of him, her head in the clouds. He was about to turn to the next stick when he spotted something on her back that made his breath catch.
There, unnoticed by the girl, a small black spider was crawling toward her neck, and Bulkhead felt the color drain from his face. He himself was not afraid of spiders, but he knew that Miko was terrified of the little crawlers. Now he could warn her and have her jump around in a circle, destroying his audio processors with her screams, or he could carefully remove the insect before she noticed anything.
Without thinking too much about it, he chose the second option and reached out his fingers toward the little creature, but he hadn't expected that his cautious nature would be the problem.
Just as his fingers grabbed one of the creature's legs, a loud boom shook the forest, causing Miko to flinch in fright before she spun around, still clutching the stick tightly in both hands, and slammed it against Bulkhead's head.
He held the little spider between his fingers, which Miko now also spotted, causing her to scream before she narrowed her eyes and swung the stick again, trying to knock the animal away. Unfortunately, she had underestimated the length of the stick and, instead of hitting the innocent little spider, she hit the Wrecker's skull, who then simply clasped his hands over his head.
And even as he commented on the ensuing pain with a quiet groan, he wondered what the frag had caused that boom.
***
Ratchet was dissatisfied.
There were many reasons for this. For one thing, he was reluctant to be outside the base and thus away from the command console, where he could always keep an eye on everything, which had provided him with a sense of control. Second, he was forced to use this human form, even though everything in him resisted it. Then he was out here, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, forced to engage in these human activities! Hadn't Optimus claimed that these forms were intended to bring humans and Transformers closer together and mix cultures? So far, it seemed rather one-sided to him. And last but not least, there was Wheeljack.
As if this whole trip didn't already have the potential to completely fail, now there was this one bot who would make sure it happened with a loud bang. And who would have to patch everyone up again? Ratchet! And who would be told not to be so broody all the time? Ratchet! And who would tell everyone he'd told them so? Ratchet! Oh, how he was looking forward to that moment.
And although he couldn't wait to have his moment in the sunlight once the smoke had cleared... he would at least know how to prevent everything here from collapsing like a house of cards.
That's why the Medic kept an eye on the Wrecker, who was walking around the shore of the lake, almost bored, bending down again and again to pick up stones, only to glance at them briefly and then carelessly throw them over his shoulder, where they landed with a splash in the water.
This had been going on for quite a while; one would think that collecting stones for a campfire would be a quick task, but Wheeljack managed to turn it into a science. And something in Ratchet warned him that it was never a good thing when Wheeljack made something more complicated than it needed to be.
This was confirmed when the Wrecker spotted a large rock a few meters further down the shore and that terrible, ominous gleam spread across the man's eyes.
With a grim expression and clenched fists, he watched through narrowed eyes as Wheeljack ran over to his altmode, opened the back door, and leaned inside. You didn't have to be a psychic to know that whatever he was up to couldn't be good.
He stomped across the dusty ground with long strides, annoyed that his pants were getting dirty, before standing next to the wrecker with his arms crossed.
“What are you doing?”
“I'm getting rocks. For the campfire,” replied the mech, his head still stuck in the back seat, or at least in the area around the footwell. For a moment, Ratchet could only “admire” the soldier's protruding rear end, then he blinked in surprise when Wheeljack held something out to him: “Here, hold this!”
Ratchet couldn't say exactly what he was holding in his hands, but he was sure he didn't want it anymore. A small disc-shaped piece of pale metal with a raised button in the middle. In his bot form, the little thing with the soft, rubbery back that felt like a kneadable ball would be just big enough to fit on his fingertip.
“What is this?” he asked, knowing he wouldn't like the answer as he held the small object at arm's length.
“You can make an educated guess, sunshine. I'm eager to hear your ideas.”
Ratchet grimaced, then looked back at the small device. “Well, since I know you're not going to give me an answer—stop calling me sunshine.”
There was a chuckle, then Ratchet cleared his throat. “I suppose it's something that doesn't belong here.”
“Nawww, you're such a buzzkill.” Wheeljack pulled his head out of his altmode again. He reached out and snatched the disc from Ratchet's hands. “Explosives,” he explained, shaking his head and tilting it to one side. “And I thought you knew me better.”
“What?!” the Medic burst out, immediately performing a dance on tiptoes to reach for the disc, which was, of course, held out of his reach. A broad grin played on Wheeljack’s lips as he performed a balancing act to keep himself on his feet while an agitated Medic hung on him with almost his entire body weight.
“Relax, Doc!” – “You've finally lost your last gasket, you lunatic! You're not going to mess around with explosives here.”
Ratchet tried to grab the disc again, but almost fell on his face when Wheeljack stepped aside in a quick turn, only to keep the doctor off his back again. “It's not even a large amount, sweetheart!” – “Stop it!” – “Why do you think it's so small?” – “And even if it's so small you can shove it up your tailpipe, you're not going to mess around with bombs here.” – “We need rocks, none of the ones I've seen so far seem sufficient for a fire, and this way we not only turn one big rock into many small ones, no, we also get a nice hole for the fire!”
Another swipe from Ratchet, which Wheeljack dodged. “You don't expect me to believe that, you scrap-ready nutcase!” – “That wasn't very nice.” - “You just want to detonate that bomb.”
Wheeljack stepped aside again and shrugged his shoulders as Ratchet rushed past him in another rush and landed on all fours on the ground with a thud. “You got me, Doc!” - “I swear by Primus, you blasted…” - “I designed it a while ago. Officially, it’s for incapacitating enemies without making a lot of noise, but I haven’t had a chance to use it yet. So what could be better than—” Before Wheeljack could continue, however, with a loving glance at the little bomb, he was tackled to the ground when another body rammed into him with full force. With a loud “Oof,” the air was knocked out of his holographic lungs, and with another gasp, he landed on his back on the ground, Ratchet on top of him, both of them watching with wide eyes as the little bomb tumbled out of the Wrecker’s hands, rolled over three times, and then came to rest a few feet away.
The only thing that could be heard, apart from the chirping of birds, the gentle rustling of leaves, and the heavy breathing of the two men, was the soft beeping coming from the small disc, along with the soft glow of the button.
Without taking his eyes off the disc, Ratchet rasped, “Please tell me that's the beep that indicates this bomb is off and secured.”
“What kind of world do you live in?” Wheeljack pushed the Medic off his chest and rolled onto his stomach before his gaze also settled on the bomb. The sound increased in tempo, like a metronome being set to a faster speed.
“How big is the radius if this bomb goes off?” - “Since it's designed not to kill enemies directly but to render their weapons useless, for example, I'd say about four to five meters... Theoretically.”
Ratchet's gaze did not stray from the disc. “What do you mean, ‘theoretically’?” - “I haven't been able to test it yet to see if the proportions are correct. It could be bigger, but it could also be smaller.” - “And now you're telling me there's a live bomb between our altmodes?” - “Yep.”