The mission hadn’t started yet.

Optimus had given the go-ahead for recon, but you and Ratchet had time before anything urgent cropped up—rare, precious time. And so, while the others spread out in their usual search patterns, you and Ratchet ended up walking side by side through the dense Washington forest.

Or well… you walked. Ratchet paced beside you, each heavy step deliberate on the softened earth, hydraulic joints clicking low and steady.

“Not much tactical value out here,” he muttered, scanning the trees as though expecting Decepticons to fall from the branches. “Just mud. And insects. And... pollen.”

You smiled. “So you’re saying you’re having a great time.”

A low grumble rumbled through his chassis. “I’m saying that forest environments are suboptimal for ground-based Cybertronian movement.”

“You mean walking?”

“I mean inefficient terrain navigation.” But his pace didn’t slow.

It was quiet out here—really quiet. A stream murmured somewhere nearby. Birds chirped. The late afternoon light filtered through the trees and cast shifting gold patterns across Ratchet’s red and white plating.

You didn’t talk for a bit. You didn’t need to. Ratchet didn’t always like conversation, but he never minded your presence. That was something you’d learned: the silence was his version of closeness.

After a while, you looked up at him.

“You know,” you said gently, “you don’t have to keep pretending you don’t like it out here.”

He paused mid-step.

“…What gave you that idea?”

“You’ve been scanning wildflowers for the past ten minutes.”

Ratchet huffed, optics narrowing. “I was ensuring there weren’t any energon traces masked by local flora.”

“Uh-huh.”

Silence again—then a small, near-silent hum that might’ve been a chuckle.

He didn’t deny it this time.