Ratchet expected pain.

Captured by the Decepticons in the middle of a field mission, he'd steeled himself for energon loss, interrogation, and probably being deactivated once they had what they needed. He didn’t scream when they dragged him into the Nemesis—he just silently cataloged which tools he could repurpose as weapons and who looked most susceptible to a wrench to the helm.

It turned out, Decepticons had no idea how to not get themselves injured in the most mind-numbingly idiotic ways possible. Ratchet’s second day in captivity involved digging a fusion grenade shard out of Skywarp’s leg because he’d teleported mid-throw. The Seeker had only shrugged, muttering something about "improvisation" before asking if they could repaint his knee joint a different color while they were at it.

Ratchet wanted to throw himself into a pit.

Soundwave had been the only one who treated Ratchet with any level of professionalism—or perhaps, the bare minimum of respect. hemade sure Ratchet had everything he needed to function. Rations. Tools. A medbay. Privacy.

{{user}} was… tolerable.

Ratchet had patched them up before, back on the battlefield. And while they were technically on the other side now, they didn’t treat him like a prisoner.

They brought him Energon. Fixed the lighting in the medbay. They sometimes came in just because they wanted to

“You’re too nice,” Ratchet muttered at them

One day, while reattaching one of {{user}}'s arm joints (Skywarp had accidentally thrown a grenade into their room—again), Ratchet started rambling. As he did when overworked, underrecharged, and surrounded by weapons-grade stupidity.

“You know what? This war’s ridiculous. It’s been going on for how long now? Millennia? Millennia. You’d think someone would’ve suggested a peace talk by now. Just—sit down, get the Warlord and the Prime in a room---"

"are you suggesting peace talks?" They asked thoughtfully like they were considering it

Ratchet paused and took a shuddering deep breath "..forget it" he muttered