Check Up Time (Ratchet and Vixen)

Vixen was sure that after that party she would never be living down the fact that she had been making out with Ironhide pretty heavily behind one of the pillars in the hangar. In the morning she had made sure to go and seek him out and tell him that she wasn't really looking for anything serious, so that his feelings wouldn't be hurt if something were to happen with another bot.

After all he was one of her idols and she wanted to make sure that he knew she meant well to him, he didn't seem to want anything to serious either which made them both relax to know that it had just been a little bit of fun fuelled by oil.

Now though she was going to the med bay.

She was going to get those pain killers from Ratchet by any means necessary and Ironhide had wished her luck and asked her to get some for him too.

It felt good to have that out of the way and she wasn't burdened by worrying about what had happened with Ironhide. Humming softly she hopped towards the medical bay, knowing that Ratchet would be there as she had been informed he was a little bit of a work a holic.

Knocking on the door, she playfully popped her head around the frame and grinned at Ratchet;

"There's my favourite Autobot!" she chirped "A little bird told me that I needed to have you run some specs over me, and I kind of need a favour." she grinned sheepishly.

Ratchet was working as always.

The rest of the Autobots had allowed themselves a little bit of freedom with the oil but he hadn't touched a drop of it. He knew that he would be needed the next day and here they were. He'd already had to remove a tree from Bumblebee... he wasn't sure what he and Jazz had done but a tree had been the result.

He found it better not to ask.

He was just cleaning his equipment as he hummed a happy little human song when the door opened and Vixen popped her head round the door. Smiling happily, he laughed slightly at her sense of humour if not her honesty,

"Well now I doubt that." He teased her a little bit before nodding, "Yes I have to get a baseline of your health to better calibrate some of the machines to you."

He smirked a little bit and gestured for her to sit on the edge of the examination table,

"Sit on the edge there please." He instructed her before smirking slightly, "Painkillers right? No. Sorry but we don't have enough as it is."

Vixen pulled her tongue out at Ratchet when he said that he doubted that he was her favourite autobot, honestly he was up there because when you had him inside of you as extra inserts for legs and stuff you kind of grew to like the guy. She thought that she should at least try and get to know him a little better because of the fact that she had parts of him inside of her to make her more advanced.

"Awwww low self confidence huh?" she asked with a grin "Amen to that, it's a problem thats affected me too for sure."

Nodding her head Vixen sat down on the edge of the examination table and began to get just a little bit anxious, she had never been to a proper doctors appointment before and she didn't know what to expect. All of her visits were not to a doctor but more a mad, crackpot scientist who liked to experiment with Frankenstein sorts of engineering.

"Ah okay. Be gentle with me okay this is my first ever Doctors appointment, you should feel honoured I came to the great Ratchet." she smirked, swinging her legs a little as she sat on the table.

The denial of painkillers made her pout up at Ratchet;

"Are you sure you can't spare even oneeeeeee?" she whined "Not even for your favourite girl ever in this universe??"

Ratchet laughed a little bit when she stuck her tongue out at him. Oh he would like to believe that someone preferred him to anyone else but he knew that it was likely just not true. Shaking his head slightly, he continued cleaning the instruments that he was going to be using during the examination of this femme.

"No... I'm just very aware that medicine is less desirable than being a badass." He teased her before human a little bit, "I can't see why, you're a lovely young lady."

When she sat down he could immediately tell that she was nervous. Smiling gently, he placed a hand on her shoulder in an effort to try and calm her down. Smirking a little bit when she began swinging her legs like a sparkling, he hummed,

"Oh I'll be gentle, don't worry." He assured her, "Especially seeing as it's your first time. You came to the best place in town after all!"

He rolled his eyes slightly, an amused smirk in place,

"I'm sure. Open your mouth and say ah please." He instructed her before checking her before nodding and making a mental tick, "Well put it this way Vixen... we have 50 lots of painkillers, lets say. They eliminate all levels of pain up to near lethal pain... and we only have 50. Still want to use them for your hangover?"

Winking at her to show he had been joking, he hummed and frowned slightly,

"Vixen... how much has your body been altered?" He asked her in a whisper, "My readings are... fuzzy to say the least."

Vixen giggled a little when Ratchet called her 'a lovely young lady' it was like being complimented by a head teacher or something like that, if she had ever had a head teacher that was she couldn't really remember. It was true what he said though, being a bad ass was particularly amazing where as medicine kind of took a back seat.

"Awwww thanks Ratchet." she grinned with a little blush "That's so nice of you to say."

The reassuring hand on her shoulder made her grin happily and she felt better, to be honest she would have preferred going to the doctor as opposed to dealing with all her problems on her own. It could get pretty bad, she'd known hundreds of people to die after their lashings got infected.

"I know, you really do know your stuff. Or well...ah...that's what I've been told obviously I don't know but I choose to believe it." she smiled shyly.

Opening her mouth and saying 'ah' as requestion, Vixen sighed dramatically and placed a languid hand over her forehead; "Well I suppose I shall have to be the brave hero and suffer on with my hang over for the greater good, yes you may applause now."

The question she knew was coming was still no easier to answer, it was a painful topic for Vixen but Ratchet needed to know. She still might need a little coaxing for him to get everything out however but, if he examined her he would see it was already a great deal.

"Well...quite a lot really." she blinked "As you can see I've got my arm, my little battle helmet shield thing...and some other stuff."

Ratchet got the feeling that she was thinking of him as an old man. To be fair it was the same thing that some of the younger autobots thought about him, no matter how much he got annoyed at the title and tried to defend himself against it. So right now he was just going to roll with it. Chuckling a little bit, he shook his head,

"Not a problem Vixen." He assured her with a wide smile, "I only speak the truth after all."

Giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze with his hand, Ratchet reached for a small tool and tapped the side of one of her armour pieces. Humming slightly, he checked the readings before smiling encouragingly and setting the tool down,

"Your armour is nice and strong... no impurities or weakness in it as far as I can tell." He assured her before smirking a little bit, "Oh I know my stuff don't worry. You kind of have to when you're entire world has been plunged into war I suppose."

He smirked a little bit as he looked up from some readings he had taken from her while she had been saying "ah" like a good patient,

"Yes well if you had never gotten drunk, like me..." He trailed off deliberately with a little chuckle before humming to himself, "You seem to be heated well too."

He frowned slightly as she spoke about her armour. It seemed to be a very sensitive topic for her and he could see why. Nodding his head, he ran a scanner over her before blinking slightly. He swallowed a bit and reported,

"You are over 87% cybertronian parts now." He told her with a small frown, "Most of these parts are from Bumblebee and I... others are from... well let's just leave that there."

He gave her shoulder another gentle squeeze,

"How about you tell me about how they were bonded? Who did the procedures?"

Vixen nodded her head and listened carefully to Ratchet when he explained to her what was going on with the tests he was doing and the outcome which would come from each one. Humming happily when most of the results seemed to be good, Vixen was glad, she knew she was a strong person and she could cope with sickness and injury well however she had thought there would have been some lingering infection or something.

"Yeah, you just end up doing whatever you can to cling on and get better." she hummed, thinking about what happened in the first few days that the Earth had lost the war against the Decepticons and had been taken over "It applies as much to war as any other type of situation." Vixen grinned softly.

Poking her tongue out again Vixen giggled;

"Hey the oil rations I had back home, I think I deserve to let loose just a little bit and not be reprimanded for it." she stated with a pout "Are you gunna be that mean?"

The realisation...hit her like a tonne of bricks.

Vixen frowned, her mind refusing to believe what she had just heard, she was almost completely Cybertonian? She was more alien than she was...human? It made her want to steel herself and kill every single Decepticon for doing this to her, but, at the same time it made her world start to crumble around her.

"What?" she asked shakily "Are you...are you serious?"

Sniffling a little bit Vixen coughed to clear the frog from her throat; "I uhm, I don't know. Starscream put the girls to sleep while he did the procedures so...it was never explained either."

Ratchet nodded in agreement when she commented about doing whatever you could do in order to cling onto life and hope that it got better. He had done that on Cybertron at first. He had been exclusively a medic and hadn't fought... and it hadn't helped anyone. So the next time the Decepticons tried to attack his field hospital he disabled all of them with prepared viruses, made them kneel in front of the hospital and cut each other their heads off, one at a time.

All fifty four of them.

"Yeah you do whatever you can to cling on and you push yourself further to try and improve the situation even a little." He agreed before nodding, "Indeed it does... you're a wise young lady."

He chuckled a little bit,

"Yeah I imagine they didn't want to 'waste' their oil on non-Decepticons." He agreed before humming slightly with a small smirk, "I might be, I haven't decided yet."

Ratchet had always been very good at giving bad news because he was always able to feel sorry for his patients, no matter who they were.

Seeing that she was beginning to almost have a break down, Ratchet wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in for a soft hug as she finally managed to find her voice,

"I'm serious Vixen..." He whispered quietly, "20% Bumblebee... 30% Me... 13% human... and 30% of someone else we both know."

He stiffened,

"Are you telling me... that Starscream operated on you?" He asked her, his voice low and seething with anger, "That little bastard was allowed to operate?!"

Vixen smiled softly and she thought that it would be a good time to get stuff off her chest with Ratchet because he was one of the only people she would have occassion to tell without seeming like she was trying to fish for attention or anything like that. Biting her lip softly she was still reeling from the knowledge that she was no longer considered human most likely.

Those Cons had taken everything from her, her home, her planet, her femininity and now her race?

How was she supposed to take that?

"Who is the 30%?" she asked quietly, rubbing at her eyes to get rid of the tears that were there, she hated to cry in front of someone that she had looked up to for strength but she thought that she would be allowed to under these circumstances "I can't believe that...that I didn't know."

Nodding her head Vixen knitted her brow in confusion;

"Well...yes. He operates on all the girls." she stated "He told us that he was the Medical officer for the Decepticons...is that not right?"

Sighing she rubbed her eyes in frustration; "It would make sense I suppose, not many people survived the operations but I always thought that was because having fucking metal shoved in your body was not a good thing to happen regardless but...now I had metal shoved in me by someone who had NO CLUE what he was doing?" she asked, in disbelief.

Ratchet couldn't help but feel for Vixen.

If anyone knew what the Autobots were going through then it was her. She knew what it was like to lose your planet to the Decepticons, only to turn the corner... and realise they were there to fuck more of your life up. She had come back in time and even now they were ruining her life from the future.

When she asked who the 30% was he sighed a little bit. She probably didn't want to hear this but the honest truth was that she needed to,

"The 30%..." He sighed a little bit, "The 30% is all non-essential stuff but from what my readings show... 30% of you is Megatron."

The leader of the Decepticons had made sure to include some part of himself in her reconstruction. What? As some kind of signal of dominance or something? Probably as a failsafe to be fair. He wouldn't put it past the bastards to have made her with parts that they could remotely shut down at a moment's notice,

"He's not medical officer." He told her with a scowl, "He's a butcher. The bot has killed more of his own patients than autobots... and those are just the one's he executes for 'being too much trouble'."

Ratchet nodded his head in an honest, but unwelcome, answer,

"He was likely just pushing things in and hoping for the best." He sighed a little bit, "I'm going to guess the fatality rate was through the roof... tell me Vixen, who taught you how to use your new body parts?"

He gave her shoulder a squeeze as he looked right in her eyes,

"You can tell me." he assured her quietly, "You don't have to fight anymore..."

Vixen bawked visibly when she heard that 30% of her body was made up of Megatron's parts.

Trying to hold down the waves of nausea was something that she did unsuccessfully and she actually stood up and went to a bin in the corner in case she needed to throw up physically with the knowledge she had just received.

"Are you saying...I have pieces of that sick fuck inside me?" she asked, pointing to herself as if her body was some loathsome mark on the world she would rather have gone "You said they were non-essential right so, so you can take them out like right now?!"

Vixen shook her head and she sat back down on the examination table, her head in her hands. She didn't know what to do, or what to think now. She already knew that the Decepticons didn't care about here, she knew that. Why then did it hurt so much to think that she had been altered in such a slapdash manner, like Starscream hadn't even cared if she would live or not?

When Ratchet told her that she didn't have to fight any more, that she didn't have to be strong, Vixen let out a long whimpering sob and her shoulders began to shake. Crying into her hands, she wouldn't let him see her face as she cried but she did answer him;

"Nobody taught me how to use my new parts, I had to do that on my own I was so scared." she cried "I kept falling over, and I blasted a hole in a wall because nobody told me how to use my blasters and I got lashes for that."

Ratchet had to admit that being part-Megatron ranked right up there as possibly the worst news you could ever receive.

To be honest he thought for a moment there that he was going to have to fetch her a bucket because she looked like she was about to throw up nuts and bolts right there. But then again who could blame her? She just found out that the bot who had doomed her world and enslaved her people was actually a part of her.

That was bound to make you feel sick to your stomach,

"I'm afraid so Vixen." He told her quietly before wincing at the idea, "I can remove them and they are non-essential... but without them you will not be able to fight at all. If I remove them... we need to have replacements to hand."

When she finally let go, when she let her emotions out, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to him in a tight hug. He needed her to know that she wasn't alone, that he would be here to help her,

"Well you have me and the others now." He assured her in a whisper, "You ever need anything... oil, ammo or a shoulder to cry on... we are here for you."

He kissed her on the forehead as he lightly played with her hair,

"It's alright Vixen... you're free of them now. And it will never happen."

Vixen shook her head, trying to clear some of the emotions that she was feeling, she didn't know how to process them all if she was honest with herself. She was a person who liked to be cool and calm and this was one situation that was neither of those things. What else could she do but allow the pieces of Megatron to remain inside of her for now?

"Okay then..." she whispered, taking in a big lungful of air "Okay, well, keep them in for now and maybe start looking for replacement pieces? I've had them inside of me for god knows how long so I can last a few more weeks right?" she grinned.

When she was pulled so close to Ratchet Vixen continued to sob but she felt so much better for doing so, she wanted to get all of this pain off her chest but in a world like hers there was never time. You were simply too exhausted, or working, or with your mate.

Sniffling lightly, she tried to pull herself together, to tell someone all that she had been through and needed to tell...since he had offered, Ratchet was going to be that person.

"It was...hard." she whispered "Growing up in a world like that, I was 7 you know when the world got took over by the Decepticons. It's hard to be here now and see...people that I was close to in the future, and they don't know me."

"But you know, there are some funny things about it..." Vixen tagged on with a little half hearted smile, "you know, Megatron isn't even in charge." Vixen giggled "He is the leaders BITCH. It's so funny, when you see him now, to my memories...he fell pretty far."

Ratchet knew that she wanted the parts out of her immediately but it just wasn't possible at the moment, it really wasn't. The pain would be unimaginable, even with him doing the work instead of some hack'n'slash operator like Starscream. Honestly, whoever put starscream in charge must have been insane. That bot knew nothing about medical or scientific means!

"I'll be on the lookout for replacement pieces from here on in." He assured her with a smile, "Don't you worry Vixen... we'll get that bastard out of you within a month and that's my promise to you. And I keep my promises!"

He held onto her tightly, rubbing her back and playing with her hair as she sobbed onto him. Sighing a little bit, he wished that nothing like this could have happened to her. She didn't deserve any of that shit and they both knew it,

"Think about it this way..." He whispered to her, "Right now there is a small version of you out there. And because you came back... because we will win this war... she will never grow up in a Decepticon world. She will be happy..."

He nodded slightly,

"Sam especially right?" He acknowledged, "He's a smart kid though, he will soon be your friend again I know it!"

He blinked a few times before he burst out into laughs,

"So who was his leader?" He smirked a little bit, "Was it one of the Fallen like some of the legends said would return to lead the Decepticons?"

Vixen smiled shakily when she heard that Ratchet was going to try and get her some new parts for her, and she knew that he would keep his word. Something about the way he said it just resonated with her and she wanted very much to be able to be able to spill every secret she had to him just to have him tell her that it was going to be okay afterwards.

Because then she would really believe it.

"Well thats the aim of the game anyway. It's not a sure thing just yet, there are more challenges ahead that you must all face together." she stated with a soft smile "But we have Jazz now, and that is a step in the right direction."

Sniffling a little bit, Vixen hugged her knees to her chest and sighed, she had to tell Ratchet everything so that he would understand. Even freaky time things like this one she was about to tell him. She didn't intend to tell Sam, he had enough problems as it was.

"Sam isn't just my friend, he was my dad." she stated with a soft smile "He took me in after my parents died in the big battle in Chicago. He used to call me 'His Little Bee' and I ran around dressed like Bumblebee to cheer him up, saying weird shit I thought he'd like. It hurt that he's not the man I looked up to as a kid but, hopefully he'll get there."

Grinning wickedly she placed a finger on Ratchet's lips; "Spoilers."

Ratchet was already going through a list of potential donors for the parts that Vixen would need. The thing was that quite a few of the autobots would gladly give their parts for her. But at the same time that didn't really solve their problem. Without the parts she would be too weak to fight. And even if they spread it between multiple people, every donor would be unable to fight as well.

He would have to use the solution he had been hesitant to try.

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." He told her with a little smile, "It may take time but you will help us win this thing Vixen, I just know it."

Stroking some of her hair out of her eyes when she sighed at him like that, he wanted to make her feel better. He cupped her cheek and idly stroked his thumb against her smooth cheek. Sam being a father figure was a little bit strange but not too strange.

After time travel and human-cybertronian-cyborgs, there wasn't a lot that could be considered truly strange.

"He was your father figure..." He whispered before smiling faintly, "Sounds like Sam grew up a lot between this time and your time. Give it some time Vixen, he hasn't had too long to adjust to all the changes in his life yet... in time he will be the man you knew."

He pouted a little bit,

"That's just teasing..."