Disclaimer: Transformers © Hasbro
Warnings: minor TF cursing and angst

The first indication that the seeker was back online was the faint sensation of confusion/caution/hope/love filtering across their bond. Ratchet, having only really left his mate's side long enough to have a shouted 'conversation' with Prowl and Red Alert and to get a cube of energon from his in-room dispenser, set aside the data pad he'd been looking over and sent a pulse of reassurance/love/relief in return. It was only about a breem later that Starscream's optics flickered online.

"How are you feeling?" the medic asked quietly, sending another affectionate pulse across their bond.

The seeker tilted his head to look at the older mech. "Like I was standing about a meter away from an incendiary device when it exploded spectacularly and lived to tell the tale," came the reply, Starscream's voice faint as he wasn't fully out of recharge just yet.

"Then you'll live," Ratchet returned, relief/love clear through the bond at actual verbal reassurance his mate had pulled through. "Megatron wasn't quite so fortunate."

"Good." The single word was filled with hatred and accompanied by a strong pulse of love/satisfaction/triumph. "What about Thundercracker? I didn't want anyone... uninvolved getting caught in the blast."

"Functional, repaired, and sitting in a cell exchanging stories with the twins," the older mech said, fighting back a brief flux of jealousy and grinning faintly at the reassurance/devotion/love that came instantly in reply. "The other 'cons took off in the aftermath."

"Damn it. I had hoped to at least temporarily cripple Soundwave at the same time," Starscream muttered, trying to push himself into a seated position. Ratchet slipped from his chair and moved to help him, keeping one arm wrapped securely around the younger mech's waist once he was upright. The seeker didn't protest, instead shuttering his optics and resting his head against his mate's and venting a soft sigh.

After a moment of comfortable silence, he asked quietly, "How bad off was I?"

"Touch and go for a while," Ratchet replied just as softly, the fingers of his hand wrapped around the seeker stroking the plating lightly. "Over half your external plating was charred and cracked, eighty percent of your flight sensors were damaged but repairable, the left wing had to be completely replaced..." He hesitated for a moment, continuing only when his mate let out the faint almost-growl that meant tell me accompanied by a pulse of curiosity/query: "And your spark casing was damaged. It had to be replaced."

The initial reply wasn't verbal, simply a flux of realization/sorrow/loss/apology over the bond and Starscream managing somehow to shift closer to his bonded. It took half a breem before he responded aloud: "You saw."

"I did." A part of Ratchet wanted to lash out, demand some explanation for why in the pit his intelligent, affectionate mate would risk the safety of their sparkling by joining the very faction he'd rallied against so long ago, but kept his silence. There was a reason, and the more rational part of him knew that an explanation would be forthcoming if he was patient.

"I never got a chance to tell you," Starscream said after a moment, tone still low and quiet. "When I suspected that I was carrying, I went to Hoist to get confirmation. Never did tell him who my bonded was, mainly because it wasn't anyone else's business." He let out a faint self-derisive laugh as he added, "I guess I always thought that I'd tell you about our sparkling and then we could tell all of our associates together. More the fool I, I suppose.

"I waited for almost two orns, just to be sure that our sparkling was developing properly, before I decided it was time to tell you. The only problem was I got a little... sidetracked," the seeker continued, turning his head slightly and speaking against his mate's neck. Ratchet frowned to himself, moving his hand to run along the younger mech's back strut and sending a pulse of love/confusion/comfort over their bond.

"Starling," the medic said gently, feeling his bonded relax only slightly at the use of the pet name, "please, tell me. I want to understand." The full question – I want to understand how you could hold so much hatred towards some mech that you would risk your own life to destroy him – went unspoken, but the return pulse of apology/sadness/love confirmed that it was understood.

"I hadn't been home for long – not even a quarter-breem back from that last visit to the Academy's med center – when they showed up at the door." The amount of hatred infused into that one word made it abundantly clear just who he was talking about even before Starscream confirmed their identities in his very next sentence: "Megatron and Soundwave both, wishing to offer me a position amongst their forces. Lucky me. I told them to go 'face themselves and demanded that they get out before I called the Peacekeepers. They..." he faltered for a moment, vents hitching and not relaxing even as Ratchet resumed petting his back soothingly. "They asked if I would prefer to hold off on the negotiations until you returned at seventeen-hundred."

The elder mech felt the energon in his lines run cold. That sounded far too much like a very, very thinly veiled threat. "What?"

Starscream nodded against his neck, letting out a distressed burst of white noise. "That was what I said. Soundwave then went on to detail every micron of your work cycle, down to the astrosecond, making it abundantly clear that unless I cooperated they could – and would – get you involved." The seeker shuddered hard, prompting his mate to wrap both arms securely around him. "Megatron gave me two choices: join the Decepticons without protest... or wait until you returned home, watch them offline you in the manner of their choosing, and then be reprogrammed into a loyal little drone."

Ratchet couldn't reply aloud, only sending comfort/understanding/reassurance/love over their bond and tightening his hold on his mate. Internally, however, he was fuming. How dare any mech approach his seeker and make such threats and demands of him?! If Megatron had still been online, he would be sorely tempted to deactivate the mech in as slow and painful a manner as possible to even begin to avenge his Star.

"All these vorns must have been sheer torture for you," he finally murmured, turning his head to rest one cheek plate against his bonded's. Starscream shivered and curled against him all the more. "Did they know about...?"

"No," the seeker murmured, his own arms slipping around the older mech's waist as he sent a pulse of gratitude/relief/love to the other. "I hoped to keep it quiet until it was too late for anything other than to transfer the newspark into a sparkling protoform. But they just never let up. Constantly watching, making sure that I wasn't doing anything that looked remotely like an attempt to escape, scheduling training sessions every spare micron of the cycle... it was only a matter of time before it all caught up to me."

Ratchet made a faint sound of understanding, remembering intelligence reports on how grueling and demanding the Decepticon training regime could be. "How long?"

"Half an orn," Starscream whispered. "That half-clocked excuse of a medic Blackout didn't even notice a thing, just chalked it up to exhaustion and sent me on my way. But I knew. And I wasn't going to let it go."

The older mech resumed petting his bondmate's back between his wings, letting his engine rumble out a comforting note. Everything – Starscream's complete derision so many times against Megatron, the constant scheming, the back-stabbing and poison-glossaed 'compliments' – were suddenly cast in a new light and made so much sense that Ratchet was surprised that he had never seen the indicators of his bonded's sharp intellect at work long before now.

Planning and carrying out his revenge had probably been the only things keeping his beloved from going mad with grief over the loss of their creation.

As if to answer his thoughts, Starscream spoke again: "You know, I haven't even had a chance to mourn yet. All these vorns I've been so focused on destroying everything they worked to build just to myself keep from falling apart."

Ratchet shuttered his own optics and pulled his seeker closer to him. "You don't have to worry about doing it alone anymore, starling. Let go."

There were no more words for a long time after that, the reunited couple finally taking the time to mourn for everything that the Decepticons had stolen from them.

End Note: For those sitting here going wait just a damned minute, Hoist hasn't been mentioned as part of the medical team in this fic! - you're absolutely right. Part of this is because I always, always forget that Hoist is canonically the 'family doctor' of the Autobots. The rest of it is because, in this fic, he's not an emergency medic.

The emergency medical team as put forth in this story consists of Ratchet (duh), First Aid, and Swoop (mostly because I love that particular bit of fanon). The full medical team, however, includes the three aforementioned mechs plus Hoist as the one in charge of seeing to the most basic of the Autobots' needs - software updates, annual maintenance, that sort of thing - as well as assisting in training the apprentice medbots. My fictional reason for him attending to limited medical situations is that he accompanied the Ark's crew at the request of his own bondmate Grapple, never fully intending to be there in a working-capacity.

Unfortunately, that idea was scrapped and he's a part-time 'family practitioner' in order to keep Ratchet from killing the whole crew in their sleep should he be overworked.

And, in light of recent revelations, he's probably going to be acting CMO while Ratchet takes a little personal time off.