Title: is this even relevant

Fandom: Transformers Prime

Summary: Shattered Glass Mirroverse AU. Ratchet knows, and does not care. (Except for one.)

A/N: For editoress. Taking some reference from this post by obfuscobble: post/23813075922. Inspiration from Bioschock's Brigid_Tenenbaum.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Transformers Prime.

Starscream had never been more horrified when he realized that Ratchet knew. That he understood. He just didn't care.

###

Memory has become tricky for Ratchet. Objectively, perhaps it is because of his age. (Though reminders of it are...annoying, to say the least.) Perhaps it is because his neural processor is critical of what is relevant and what is not.

It's only vague recollections of his beginnings, born to mid-caste, upper-mid-caste, something like that. It was just some measure of high rank he was born into, but it was not something he enjoyed or experienced long. What Ratchet truly remembered was that his clan fell very far, so they must've been high before, some form of high. The details had flown over Ratchet's young head then. Something about displeasing the Council, something about disagreement, something about rebellion, something about exile.

They'd winded up on the lower levels in any case, among the Casteless and such. Ratchet remembered not caring very much, and had always chalked it up to his youth, he hadn't been alive young enough to really appreciate the differences in castes. Things had changed, and that was that, there was no need for him to make a fuss. He had just been curious, watching everything, and following the orders of his shinti and muni when they gave them. In the end, Ratchet did not remember them well.

His clan scraped by, selling themselves bit by bit. With the death of his genitors, he was entirely sold off. It was then Ratchet felt the stirring of anger. He was no object.

That was a foolish sparkling's mindset though. In the labs he learned he was an object and a tool and a collection of parts to be dissected as the scientists wished. The pain varied; either the scientists would turn off his pain receptors, or they wouldn't, it all depended on the nature of the experiment they were conducting. At first Ratchet reacted, but that did not last long. He found it more effective to be inert, to not respond, to repress and only watch. Ratchet wanted to know as much as he could about what the scientists were doing to him. It was...at first just comforting. Then an illusion of power. (Later, real power.)

There were some that were receptive to his questions. His favorite was a striped seeker that would give the most in-depth answers, and would always respond to his every query. Ratchet also thought he was the most intelligent and skilled. When he left, Ratchet missed him more than his own genitors, more than his own clan. Ratchet never learned where that striped seeker went, or if he lived.

Ratchet had found his replacement lacking, and would correct him every chance he could get. Ratchet earned that replacement's ire, but the other scientists had paused, intrigued. Now they questioned him: what would you do in so-and-so case?

They were testing him for the first time in ways that did not violate his body, and that was interesting. Ratchet had watched, and knew that the striped seeker was not the only one to leave, and that they were short-staffed and still looking for more to revitalize their workforce. Ratchet had wanted to capitalize on this.

Eventually the scientists let him assist in the experiments rather than strap him to the medical berth. It was primarily fetching things and organizing things and prepping things, but Ratchet had loved it. It was interesting to see the world from this side. Refreshing.

Ratchet had never been alone with the scientists. There'd been his fellow test subjects, and they had all been arranged in glass rooms next to each other. Ratchet did not care for the co-subjects that broke and took to rambling or shaking or trying to terminate themselves. He'd thought good riddance when some of them succeeded. Actually, Ratchet didn't really care for that many of his fellow subjects. Oh, he'd engage with those who could be engaged, he was an observer, but he wasn't in the habit of necessarily ignoring everything irrelevant then. (That would come later.) There were only a few he engaged with that he actually liked though. Botanica had been one of them. Botanica he'd been able to recommend as another useful assistant to the scientists. She'd been there longer than he, and had given him some guidance when he'd first arrived as a new test subject. Ratchet knew she'd grown obsessed with the plants used in the experiments she was subjected too. But he was never certain if it was because of the experiments, or if she'd had that obsession before. What was 'before' for her? Was it as hazy for her as it was for him? Had she always been 'Botanica,' or was that a name she picked up after being the star subject of the alien botany experiments?

When the labs were raided, Ratchet lost track of Botanica, the only one he was interested in, and it was still a minimal loss. The raiders belonged to some crime lord's, Pinfist. When he was expected to now serve him, Ratchet felt that same flare-up of anger, but greater. Oh yes, he was an object, a collection of parts, but it still grated to be passed around from master to master.

Ratchet's own power did not go down, at least, but only grew. Pinfist had him serve as medic to his gladiators. Ratchet knew the Cybertronian body, and his knowledge and experience with it only grew as a doctor. There were other things Pinfist had him do: the chemistry of high-grade and narcotic energon cubes, upgrading the bodies of gladiators and anyone Pinfist wished, truth serums and other ways to view a neural processor and interrogation, handling the dead, biochemical weapons—generally anything Pinfist wanted. He was an interesting employer. He had some fetching guards. Sunstreaker, for one. Sunstreaker and his twin Sideswipe wanted out, and Ratchet grew to want the same. Ratchet simply wanted more. To get as much control as he can, what he wielded over his patients and subjects was growing less satisfying.

Eventually Pinfist was willing to make a deal. He could do whatever illicit measures were necessary to help Ratchet and Sunstreaker move up—

Sideswipe was a not an option, and Primus did Ratchet remember overhearing the loud grating fights Sunstreaker and Sideswipe would get into over that, until Sideswipe finally convinced his twin to just do whatever it took, and ending with Sunstreaker snapping that Sideswipe just got love sick over that two-wheeler medic Harmonix and wanted to stay with her

—as long as they went to one of the allspark centers and generated a sparkling for him, Pinfist would have it trained as a medic or gladiator or something, a replacement for Ratchet and Sidestreaker.

It was then Ratchet's anger skyrocketed. Repression was finally failing. Perhaps Ratchet had felt more deeply than he thought. The idea of literally giving up a part of himself to make a new life, to have even this choice taken from him, was utterly galling to him. Ratchet sneered at Sunstreaker. He didn't like the idea of this because he actually wanted to keep the damn sparkling. In between Sideswipe and this, Ratchet found Sunstreaker too emotional. Sunstreaker was similarly dismayed with Ratchet. Their relationship detiorated, and the only real loss Ratchet felt was that he did give into Pinfist's demand and combined bits of himself with Sunstreaker's to create an entirely unwanted sparkling. The thought of a piece of himself wandering around without his consent made Ratchet seeth. The thought of that piece of himself chained to Pinfist's service only mattered since Pinfist won, he would always have the greater power, he would always have something of Ratchet serving him and never ascending.

But it was done, and Ratchet would move on. He never looked back, not at Sunstreaker, or the sparkling they were forced to create, never bothered with learning its name. He wanted nothing to do with it, unless he could go back and terminate it, insult to his pride that it was.

And then, there was Orion Pax...

The only one worthy of Ratchet's entire being. There was someone Ratchet was satisfied being a collection of parts for.

(The only one Ratchet could lavish all the care and devotion he never allowed himself to give anyone else. Everything would go to Optimus Prime. Everything)

###

Starscream paused reading the files that had been so deeply buried. He shook. He never been more horrified when he realized that Ratchet knew. That he understood. He just didn't care.

For he wondered if the same could happen to him.

(But Starscream knew not of Ratchet's genitors and clan, of their disgrace, or of Botanica, or Pinfist, or Sunstreaker and Sideswipe and the unwanted sparkling. The buried files were only about the labs, and probably wouldn't have found the earlier and later details of Ratchet's life that relevant.)

A/N: Hope everyone enjoyed. It was nice finally delving into my headcanon where even monstrous Mirrorverse!Ratchet does not exist in a vacuum and had to be made. Botanica originally from Beast Machines canon.