Thank you to everyone who still remembers this story after... almost a year of not updating. Umf, I am so sorry. Enjoy!

Lights strobed in blinding flashes overhead, an accurate ambiance for the panicked alarms and beeps of the ship. The world seemed to tilt around them with every movement of the metal behemoth under them, sending the scorched and injured passengers sliding with each motion. Ratchet ignored the shouts, the noise, high beams focused on the frame under him.

"Ratchet, what's his status?" a voice shouted over the din, but the medic barely heard him as his hands moved automatically over the mech below him. The fast acting acid melting through the reinforced armor was more than enough to eat through the plating on his fingers, so going was slow as he applied carefully placed drops from a sloshing container of a base neutralizer to the afflicted areas.

Everything narrowed down the frame under his hands, but a part of his mind remembered Impactor's warning at the start of it all: "I'm not going to jinx it by saying it'll be cut and dry. This is the Wreckers—we don't do normal. Expect anything." This certainly fit the bill.

All talk of infiltrations, guard rotations, placements of bombs had all gone over his head. He'd listened, of course, but the finer points of military strategies were beyond him. Instead, he'd done as he was told and stayed behind, and watched the Wreckers leave to complete their grand, stupid plan, and waited, and waited, and waited until he thought was going to go mad with it.

"Be ready to pick up the pieces," Impactor had told him, like the lives of his team were just a puzzle to be put back together.

It didn't feel like a puzzle, now. No, it felt like he was trying to stop a bag from leaking. Armor had bubbled and melted away, only to solidify and stick to delicate wires and sensors—areas that should not, could not be exposed to such treatment. In the back of his mind, he heard Impactor ask for status again, but he gave no response. The effort to respond wasn't worth even the smallest diversion of his attention.

The frame under his hands jerked violently, system failure warnings suddenly popping up on his HUD. It was as if Ratchet could feel him standing on the precipice, ready to topple over into death if he didn't hold onto the thread keeping him here. "Stay with me," he said, a mantra repeated so it would be true. "Stay with me, stay with me." But on the table below him, Ironhide didn't respond.

Life was such a tenuous thing, so fragile. It was strange how death used to seem so unusual—something he only had to see when he failed. But now, he had dealt with death on a near daily basis since Praxus had fallen, and though a part of him knew better, part of him knew that there was no coming back from some wounds, it still felt like failure. Now, he wasn't sure what to feel.

Ironhide stirred on the table as Ratchet rebooted him. The lights of the medbay in the Autobot Headquarters in Polyhex were normally blinding, but Ratchet had turned them down in preparation. His blue optics flickered on, and for a long moment, he said nothing. Finally, he stirred, his hand coming up to smooth over his helm.

"Where are we?" he asked at last.

Impactor stepped forward, putting a hand on his shoulder as the red mech tried to sit up. "We're in Polyhex," he said.

Ironhide frowned at that, head tilting slightly to the side as he looked up at his CO. "Polyhex?" he repeated. "How long have I been out?"

"We've been here about four days," Ratchet said. "Half a day flight from Praxus."

Ironhide let out a small sigh, hand coming up to rub his optics. "What… happened?" he asked at last.

Impactor crossed his arms over his chassis. "We blew the energy plants—mission accomplished, but… not before you got hit by a pretty potent acid pellet," he said.

"Impactor," Ratchet said.

The Wrecker sighed. "Okay, fine. A pellet full of a corrosive we've never seen before," he said. "It… did some damage."

Ironhide frowned and pushed himself up onto an elbow, despite his superior's protests. "What sort of damage are we talkin'?" he asked, even as he looked down to the newly patched area on his chassis. Impactor opened his mouth to speak, and it was as if he wasn't used to giving bad news, even though Ratchet knew the contrary to be true.

Impactor had promised he'd give him the news straight, but he faltered, optics glancing at the medic. Ratchet had experience with such things. The white and red mech stepped forward, fingers drumming an anxious pattern on his folded arms. "The duty ending kind of damage," Ratchet said.

Ironhide's optics narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Ratchet ran a hand over helm, feeling tired in a way that had nothing to do with the lack of sleep he'd had. "When that acid pellet hit, it liquefied parts of your armor. That slag coated the wirings around your spark and even on your spark casing before it re-solidified. It's fused in ways that I can't get rid of without killing you," Ratchet said.

"So what?" Ironhide snapped, but Ratchet could see understanding slowly take root.

"It means that you're a time bomb, 'Hide. I just don't know when the timer's set for," Ratchet said. "The metal is creating electrical connections where there shouldn't be any. One wayward flux of energy and your spark could just… shut off."

"I'm sorry, 'Hide," Impactor said quietly, his hand still resting on the mech's shoulder. "My hands are tied—I'm giving you a medical discharge."

Ironhide was silent, his face devoid of emotion, flat as a stone. "And what," he asked at last, "am I supposed to do now? I'm a military class mech, and you're saying I can't serve?"

Impactor shook his head. "Not actively," he said. "Not for the Wreckers."

The red mech shoved Impactor's hand away and tore the connector that hooked him up to the medical scanner. It let out a long, flat tone that made Ratchet start forward on impulse, but Ironhide held up a hand. "So that's it then?" he asked through a short, bitter laugh. He shook his head. "Well, since you're not my Commanding Officer anymore, I can say this with a clear conscience," he said and turned a hard glare on Impactor. "Slag you, mech. I've worked with the Wreckers for over three vorns—a fragging record under your command, and you cast me aside without a second thought. Slag you."

Ironhide stormed past them, and Ratchet didn't have the spark to stop him. Beside him, Impactor let out a long sigh, one hand smoothing over his crest. "Thank you, Ratchet," he said quietly. "For coming with us. I'd have a dead mech instead of a disabled one."

Ratchet swallowed thickly and nodded. "I wish I could have done more," he said quietly.

The mech reached into his subspace and pulled out a small data chip. "Here," he said and placed it in his hand. "Take this. It marks you as a civilian specialist. Show it to anyone in Autobot headquarters, whether if you're here or in another city, and they'll take you wherever you need to go. This close to the fight, I'd rather we transported you than you taking the roads yourself."

Ratchet looked down at the small chip, seeing the holographic Autobot symbol flash from its surface. "Thank you, Impactor," he said quietly and slipped the chip into a port on his wrist. The identification update pinged his HUD and he accepted it without a second thought.

He found Ironhide later that day, in the mess hall, nursing a cube of high grade. Ratchet grabbed a cube of his own, looking around the now-familiar hall. Polyhex wasn't at all what he imagined—this close to the battle, he expected a base more like Kaon; constant activity to mix with the sounds of war outside. Here, it was almost quiet, other than the regular comings and goings of mechs to gather their rations. Platoons came and went, injuries were flown in, but the base was secure and stable in its position inside the city.

Ironhide didn't look up as Ratchet sat down, choosing instead to stare into the violently pink cube in front of him. Judging by the brightness of his optics, it wasn't his first. Ratchet took a long drink of his own cube, not setting it down until it was half empty.

"I didn't thank you," Ironhide said at last, "for saving my life."

A half smile tilted across his face but it was gone a moment later. "And I didn't apologize for not being able to do more," he said quietly.

Ironhide shook his head. "I've seen you work. You do your best by everyone," he said and drained his cube. "So do me this, and give me your best guess of how much time I got left?"

Ratchet sighed, his thumb tapping on the edge of his cube. "I can't say," he said honestly. "It could be days, it could be vorns. My best suggestion is not to exert yourself unless you have to and for Primus' sake, don't spark merge with anyone—higher energy output from your spark heightens the risk of those connections making a complete circuit and shorting you out."

To his surprise, Ironhide laughed. "Are you saying… that me bumping sparks with someone could kill me?" he asked and laughed even harder. "What a way to go. I'll keep that in mind."

Ratchet couldn't help but snort at the black attempt at humor and drained the rest of his cube. He grabbed Ironhide's and filled them both up at the dispenser again before returning to the table. Ironhide grabbed the cube and raised it in a cheers of sorts before taking another sip.

They fell into silence again, and Ratchet lost himself in his thoughts as he made his way through the second cube. The past four days had allotted him a lot of time to think, as he sat beside the mech in the med bay.

"You know, when I was in school in Praxus, we had an interesting case come in," Ratchet said. "It was a construction mech who was brought in, huge piece of metal piping going straight through his chest. Internals leaking everywhere, spark casing shattered—he shouldn't have even been alive, let alone conscious… but he was. He was conscious, and he was talking to us." Ratchet gave a short laugh and shook his head. "Grizzly fragging injury, but that mech… he wasn't about to let something as trivial as a pipe through his chest to stop him."

Ironhide watched him over the rim of his cube. "What happened?" he asked.

Ratchet leaned back in his chair. "We had some of the greatest minds in Praxus," he said quietly. "After we patched him up as best as we could, put him on a spark support system, some of the senior surgeons came up with this idea. Completely experimental—no one had ever even heard of anything like it, but when we told this mech we were going to build him a new spark casing, this mech said something I'll never forget."

Ratchet chuckled and said, "He told us 'I don't fear death, but I'm certainly not ready to meet Primus yet. I trust you all to make him reschedule.'"

Ironhide whistled quietly. "And did it work?"

Ratchet grinned. "It did," he said. "That mech lived up until the day Praxus fell and only had a numb hand to show the reduced energy output from his spark." He looked at the red mech and met his optics, "Don't underestimate what hope and a good doctor can do."

Ironhide set his cube down, a small grin spreading across his face. "Thanks, Ratchet," he said. "I'll keep that in mind."