1984

"Hello Thundercracker."

Thundercracker's helm came away from the wall, unshuttering and resetting his optics. The first thing he noticed was the Autobot's chief medical officer standing stoic-faced inside his cell. Peering past the white and red mech, he saw Prowl, and a fidgety, short grounder with the Cybertronian red cross emblazoned on his shoulders standing just outside the bars to his cell. Between the medibot's constant shifting, and their distant, unfocused expressions, Thundercracker assumed that they were communicating silently on an encrypted comm channel. His optics flicked back to the medic. "To what do I owe this visit?"

Ratchet raised an optic ridge. "You sustained substantial damage when you came in. After that little scuffle with Sunstreaker, Optimus asked me to come down here and make sure you didn't reopen any of the leaks we patched up."

Thundercracker nodded, and Ratchet moved his servos across Thundercracker's frame. Thundercracker winced every time Ratchet's digits brushed across a crack in his armor that his nanites hadn't yet repaired.

"You should know," Ratchet said quietly, "that First Aid is standing by with a sedation program should you attack me."

"Really? Wow, you guys brought out a nurse and Prowl. You guys really don't trust me, do you?" Thundercracker said equally quietly. He leaned back and vented, letting Ratchet work.

"Nothing personal, kid," Ratchet said. "The way you started wailing on Sunstreaker - "

"He had it coming," Thundercracker growled.

Ratchet snorted. "I believe it." After a few moments of silence, Ratchet added "It's probably good that it was Sunstreaker you attacked. If it'd been anyone else, you would've had half the base down here to take a piece out of your hide. Lucky for you, Sunstreaker's got a rep for being an aft-headed fool."

"I can't imagine why," Thundercracker said, and Ratchet laughed. Startled, Prowl took a step forward, hand reaching for the blaster at his hip. Ratchet waved him off, unconcerned, and Prowl resumed parade rest, face unreadable. First Aid shifted more nervously than ever.

Thundercracker shuttered off his optics briefly and thought a silent apology at Starscream for what he was about to ask. "So...I get the bodyguards. I mean, I'm a big guy, part of the Command Trine, seeker, all that. Could be pretty dangerous if I wanted to make trouble. Not that I want to," he added more loudly as Prowl advanced again. "But like I said, I'm a big mech. Why not go for somebody who's big enough to take me down on their own? Like, I dunno, say, Ironhide. Or Skyfire, he's more than big enough."

Ratchet had opened up Thundercracker's chassis and was examining the seeker purely through his sense of touch. It was a little disconcerting for Thundercracker, seeing the white arm of an enemy rooting around in his insides, so he trained his optics on the ceiling. "We were hoping you'd cooperate without needing subduing. And we didn't want to injure you if we did have to subdue you."

Thundercracker wasn't entirely satisfied with that, and he waited silently for Ratchet to say more.

Ratchet sighed quietly. "You've broken a secondary coolant valve. It's nowhere close to a medical emergency, but I'll patch it up anyways. No reason wasting coolant." He gestured with his free hand for First Aid to bring him a patch, which the young nurse did hesitantly. He seemed almost afraid of Thundercracker, chained and laid bare though he was. As soon as the patch was in Ratchet's servo, First Aid hurriedly retreated back to Prowl's side.

Ratchet grunted a little as he tried to get the patch in place. "In answer to your other question," Ratchet said, "Ironhide's off duty at the moment, and Skyfire's on loan to the Indian government. Even if he wasn't, I doubt Optimus would have let him be down here for this. It wouldn't be fair, what with your histories."

"That explains why he never came to visit," Thundercracker said. It was a shame that he wasn't going to get to see the transport jet before this was all over.

On the other hand, Skyfire could blow everything to the pit in a nanoclick, so perhaps it was for the best that he wasn't around.

"Okay, I got the patch in place," Ratchet said. He quickly closed up Thundercracker's chassis. When he finished, he pulled out a medical datapad. "I'm going to run a quick system's check on you, if you don't mind."

Thundercracker froze. 'No.' Through the bond, he could feel his trinemates growing worried.

Ratchet frowned. "What's wrong?"

"I…heh, well, don't take it personally, but the idea of an Autobot plugging into my system for any reason-"

Ratchet scowled. "You don't trust me."

"Sure I trust you," Thundercracker said amiably. "I trust you to do your job, which means patching up patients and doing everything you can to make sure your side wins." He gestured at his now-closed chest. "You've patched me up. You've done your job. What's to stop you from putting a tracer program in my head? Or a virus? Or a program that won't let me lie? How 'bout one that compulsively makes me answer any question put to me?" He let out a single humorless chuckle. "No offense, Ratchet, but I'd rather you only run a systems check on me when I'm in recharge, when it's harder for you to install malware into my processor."

Ratchet frowned and straightened up. "Fine," he grumped, sounding offended. Thundercracker vented. That hadn't been his intention. He'd heard good things about Ratchet, though he'd never had an opportunity to really interact with the mech personally. Still, Ratchet was one of the best medical minds Cybertron had ever seen. If he got his servos into Thundercracker's processor when it was fully online…

Ratchet signaled to First Aid again, who brought the medical data-drive with the sedation program to the doctor. To Ratchet's credit, Thundercracker didn't even register the drive accessing his medical ports. With the level of frustration he could read on Ratchet's face, Thundercracker would have expected Ratchet to jam the drive in roughly, just to spite Thundercracker.

'It's a shame,' he thought as the program started working on him. 'I'd kinda like to actually get to know these Autobots.'

'Please don't tell me you're getting soft on us, TC.'

No, of course not. He wasn't getting soft. He was just…tired. That was all.

Thundercracker's optics dimmed as he started slipping into involuntary recharge.

'Sleep well, TC. We're coming to get you soon.'

Thundercracker's last conscious thought was how he should have activated his firewalls. Then his voice was gone from the trine collective.

A/N: Hey, Jideni3 here. It's a bit late, but. Um. (There are no excuses. We plain out fell asleep before posting the chapter. Oops.)

It's done! Part 1 is done! This was our first joint fic, and Nine's first multi-chapter TF fic, and basically we're emotional and yelling a lot. Of course, we wouldn't be nearly this excited if it weren't for you guys. Stories were made to be shared, and we've had the good fortune of having a readership kind enough to review, subscribe, bookmark, and ask us questions. We read every single review - we even fb message each other when a review pop ups in our inbox, because /excitement/ - and your enthusiasm, critiques, and kindness has made all of this that much better, that much sweeter. You have no idea how much we love you guys. You guys are /awesome/.

As for Part 2: I'm currently enrolled in seven classes. Nine is studying /and/ working. Between addressing our responsibilities and making sure we don't spontaneously combust, we barely have enough time to talk, let alone write/edit. Thus, this series is going on a pause. A gigapause. Oh boy.

We're still going to be writing, editing, brainstorming, networking - but at a slower pace. Part 2 covers a lot more ground than Part 1 did - it's going to be longer, deal with heavier themes, and get a good deal messier than Part 1. RPo3 was essentially set-up for the eventual /monster/ of Part 2. Basically, it's going to be a while before Part 2 shows up. *cue sad violin*

Throughout all of this, we're going to keep the tumblr blog open. Feel free to send asks, RP, anything - anonymous asks are enable, so ask away! Those questions are both super appreciated, and really helpful, since they provide us with opportunities to flesh out and expand the world of this fic.

Again, thank you so much for your readership. We loved writing this, and we hope this fic imparts at least a bit of that excitement to you. You're all the best.

Note: Since this is part of a series - and since there are things that probably won't ever come up within the scope of the fic - we might slap up some vignettes or oneshots, if time allows. It's both an opportunity for us to explore things that wouldn't otherwise fit in the main fic itself, and also something for readers to enjoy during this gigapause.