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The shadows have eyes. The shadows have eyes and tooth and claw, reaching and howling and latching onto Wheeljack's frame, dragging him down again and again. Every attempt at freeing himself is met with his limbs being shackled down, jolts of pain running through his circuits as they get tighter and tighter.
He can't stop fighting he won't stop fighting he can't risk it, not when it isn't just his life on the line.
“RATCHET,” Wheeljack screams, fighting off claws and teeth, struggling against the tentacles around his waist going tighter and tighter, “RATCH, WHERE ARE YOU?!”
He was by his side he was just here , there’s no way he got away from these monsters in time. Ratchet's a medic, not a fighter; he's not defenseless but he won't kill, not even when his life depends on it, Wheeljack has to find him, has to keep him safe.
Just as soon as he breaks free from these aliens, as soon as he can kick off their pincers and fangs, he can find his conjunx, he can protect him.
“JUST HOLD ON,” he hollers, wrenching one arm free and lashing out with as much strength as he can muster, “RATCHET, PLEASE-!”
“When I said ‘pin him down’ I meant pin him DOWN, Ironhide!” Ratchet snaps, catching Wheeljack's arm for the fifth time as he desperately tries to reach his intake.
They don't know what got in him- Ratchet just heard him yell and came running to find him screaming on the floor. What they do know is that it came from a plant and that something is trapped in his intakes, something that has clogged his vents and is overheating him to a dangerous level. Non-visual diagnoses aren't often accurate, but from what Perceptor guessed over the radio they have a rapidly decreasing window to purge his systems before the plant gets its roots in permanently. And Ratchet isn't about to let his conjunx die on the floor of an alien prison planet, thank you very much.
“I'm doin’ my best, Doc,” Ironhide snaps right back, “lay off, it ain't easy to pin him down when he's screamin’ like we're torturin’ him!”
Ratchet grits his denta and barely manages to keep himself from glaring the other mech down, as if anyone is struggling with this more than himself. As if to prove his unspoken point, Wheeljack spasms underneath them, kicking Cliffjumper off of his legs, and screams “RATCHET-!” so loudly that he's positive he'll be hearing it in his nightmares for the rest of his life.
Shut it down. Set it aside. One servo finally manages to reach his chassis, carefully bypassing the inlaid glass to lift his entire chest plate; Hound braces it for him, giving Ratchet the moment he needs to get to his manual override for his vent system- up until Wheeljack yells something completely unintelligible and thrashes so violently that his chest plate is ripped from Hound’s grip. Ironhide yanks Ratchet back in an instant, but not fast enough to keep his helm from being cracked as it falls.
Run an optic reset. Dull pain receptors. Ignore whatever nonsense is overloading his audials from Cliffjumper and filter sound down to only focus on Wheeljack. His screams are getting weaker, more choked, and his whimpers cut him down to his spark.
“C’mon, Jackie,” he grunts, dodging another flailing limb a moment before Ironhide catches it, “just work with me here.”
In response his precious and currently infuriating conjunx throws all his weight to his left as he hollers, “RUN, SUNSHINE, GO, JUST LEAVE ME-!”
As if Ratchet ever would. He grits his denta, shoving down the urge to cry while Hound reaches down and yanks Wheeljack’s chassis up with enough strength that it pops open hard enough to clip Ironhide across the helm.
Ironhide topples over, Cliffjumper tries to catch him, and Wheeljack, of course, chooses that moment to buck up with all his might. He sees it coming but he can't react, not in time; Wheeljack's leg lashes out, pede kicking in the glass of his chassis with enough force to dent the metal underneath. The pain sharpens his focus, dulls the way his conjunx continues to scream; Cliffjumper winces with his whole frame as soon as he helps Ironhide back up.
A holler to be careful comes from the members of his team who are focused on trying to figure a way out of this mess, immediately met with arguments from Cliffjumper and Ironhide; amidst the din he thinks he hears the cell door open and hopes that he's wrong. The last thing they need is another fight.
Hound leans over Wheeljack's chassis to catch his optic, looking sheepish. “Sorry, Ratchet.”
He doesn't have the patience or social graces left to answer. And then he doesn’t have the time to, either, as the moment his helpers lay servos on him again, Wheeljack’s defense system goes off with a bang, pyrotechnics, light, and sound sending them all flying.
Ratchet holds on through sheer force of will even as his optics begin to burn; or maybe it's that Wheeljack adapted his defenses to always let him through. He can't think about that right now, can't think of the fact that if he doesn't get his conjunx’s intake and vents open and purging he won't have him much longer.
A blue and white shape flashes by, Beachcomber appearing out of nowhere to tackle Wheeljack’s right arm, the smaller bot barely saving Ratchet from a cracked optic. His sight is already functioning sub-optimally, he can't risk it getting worse. Red and blue by his other side, Perceptor catching the left. They can't hold him long, but hopefully it'll be long enough for the others to get back on their pedes.
“Get ready to move, doc!”
Bumblebee. Thank the primes, the bug found them.
“Bee, low level charge.”
The bugbot skids to a stop, the cavernous cell immediately filling with the familiar crackle of electricity. “Ya got it doc!”
“He’s gonna scream like you’ve killed him when ya do,” Ratchet warns, because he can’t do a damn thing more to protect him.
“How’d’ya think I found ya? Just tell me when, doc, I owe Jackie a few shocks anyhow.”
"Now, Bee." Ratchet braces himself with a slow vent, then pushes back from Wheeljack’s legs. Beachcomber and Perceptor hold him down long enough for Bee to leap onto his chassis, jerking back a moment before Wheeljack’s frame lights up with electricity.
The scream is so much worse than he prepared for, echoing throughout the cell and drilling into his memory circuits; paired with the way Wheeljack’s frame snaps off the floor as if someone's reached straight into his spark and torn it free of his chassis, it’s everything Ratchet can do not to fall to pieces.
“Primus,” he gasps, burying his helm in his servos and forcing himself to vent with every spasming cry that leaves his conjunx’s entire frame shaking.
Perceptor wraps himself around his shoulders for a moment, squeezing him tight enough to help kick-start Ratchet’s processor back to functioning. Beachcomber leans against his other side, adding welcome pressure to keep him grounded.
“...he’s stopped moving, Ratchet.”
Ratchet gently shakes his fellow scientists off and drops back down to his knees, easily able to pry open Wheeljack’s chassis and slide his arm up into his intakes. It feels invasive and horrid knowing that his conjunx is aware and awake but incapable of moving; he’s been so terrified, and now-
“Ratchet, sunshine, please,” Wheeljack whimpers, his voice so quietly distressed that it makes his spark clench, “please, help me-”
“I'm tryin’,” he whispers, finally catching the lever, “deep breath, darlin'.”
Spores explode into the air as all of Wheeljack’s vents flush at once; luckily Perceptor is here and thought further ahead than Ratchet, having already set up one of his collection pods at just the right angle to secure them before they all become infected. Then the plant matter starts shooting out and Ratchet has to close his optics at the sheer amount. So close. Too close.
Perceptor’s servo is back on his shoulder, squeezing it tightly. “Give me a moment,” he mutters; the series of noises that follows is unsettling, but he can’t look anymore, he can’t. “Alright. That purged all of it. The infestation is cleared and Wheeljack seems to have fallen into recharge. He's alright, Ratchet.”
He isn’t. Not until Ratchet hears his voice. But until his conjunx comes back to himself, he raises his helm and glares down every single mech in the room.
“If any of ya tell him that this,” he growls, gesturing at his chassis and helm, “came from him? I’ll strap ya down and dismantle ya piece by piece, and trust me I will make it hurt.”
The uneasy silence that follows is broken by Bee stifling a laugh and sending him a wink. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, doc!”
Ratchet raises a tired servo to his helm crest, running two digits up one side before flicking them out at the top; he may not have an antennae, but he knows enough of hiver body language to know how to tell him to slag off.
Bee gasps almost theatrically, optics nearly glinting with laughter. “Awwww bitlet’s first swear,” he coos, laughing even harder when Ratchet scoops a rock off the floor and hucks it at his helm.
They leave him alone after that.
The argument about how they’ll be getting out has been going on for well over a groon; Bee’s voice is the loudest, pointing out that if he can do it so can everyone else, ignoring the fact that the only ones who could follow him out are Cliffjumper and Beachcomber. Perceptor himself is advocating for waiting for backup, whereas Ironhide is insisting that they can fight their way out.
Ratchet couldn’t give a scrap personally, so long as his conjunx wakes up. As if the primes themselves hear his thirty-seventh plea the frame at his side finally twitches, running through the silly, pointless tune that he’d asked Ratchet to program in to play after recharge. His indicators flash bright white, flicking between blue, purple, and green before settling in a familiar soft shade of pink as his optics finally open.
Ratchet brings Wheeljack’s servo to his derma and presses a kiss to the back of it. “How’re ya feelin’?”
“Ratch! I was looking for you everywhere,” Wheeljack says, indicators flashing through a rainbow of emotions overwhelmed with a steady pink undertone of pure love. "I'm fine, I think, just...tired."
“Yeah,” Ratchet grits out, resisting the urge to bury his helm in his servos, “I know. I’m sorry, Jackie. I’m here now.”
His sweet, annoyingly perceptive conjunx frowns up at him, immediately catching his lie as his indicators shift to a deep red, lowering ever so slightly. Whatever he means to say is lost the moment he sees Ratchet's chassis, the dents on his helm, the damage to his optics; his indicators fold back and shift to a deep, protective green.
“They got you, too? Slag, sunshine, are you okay?!”
Ratchet carefully intertwines their digits, audials still ringing with Wheeljack's screams. “Fine, darlin'. Just fine.”