Irreplaceable you || TFP Ratchet x Femme reader

8. Again & again

"Okay, I have a good one. What's your all-time favorite film?" Meet me in the middle.

The femme thought for a good second, before it popped. "Meet me in the middle. It's such a great one, I can quote the whole thing if you challenge me."

Ratchet chuckled, his stabilizers folded in a pretzel as if he was young again, sitting on the floor besides the couch. "I may have to one day, and see if you truly are as good as you claim."

"Oh it's on." She laughed, holding her mug.

"I like your laugh." Ratchet said out loud, gently smiling before predicting her next words, her infamous query starting up. If you knew Y/D, then you also knew how much she hated her laugh.

"How could you even like that shrieking-scraplet of a noise?" She laughed a little more unintentionally, before turning to him. "Thank you, though. Thank you for everything, for making me feel welcome and part of something again." She smiled.

He smiled back towards her, keeping his optics on the clock. "It's late and it's been a long day, why don't you try and get some rest."

"That sounds great right about now." She joked, stretching her pedes out on the soft sofa. Her optics watched everything in the room, as if studying her surroundings. An endless pool of curiosity and being stuck confused about life. Her mind wandered to every loophole she could conjure up, just to think about something and not nothing.

"Are you sure you don't want my berth? I'd be happy to take the couch tonight for you."

"Nono, this is good." She said, patting the plush. "Thank you Ratchet, I appreciate your hospitality, I really do."

"You're welcome." He said, turning the light to its dim setting. "I'll leave you to it."

He walked alone to his berthroom with a smile. As bad as he was hurting, he needed that. He's missed her so terribly much that even just to hear her laugh again was worth every ounce of pain. He's suffered for a long, long time so this wasn't a new feeling. Well, except the warm feeling he got around her again.

A tap came to his door, the doctor turning his helm towards the noise as he sat on his berth, allowing the tall mech to duck and enter the room.

"So far, I have found nothing." Ratchet frowned.

"Optimus, It's okay. Please, it's not worth killing yourself in research for. I've accepted it." The orange medic spoke, his frown slowly lifting. "She's alive and well, that's all that matters to me."

"Have you forgotten who I am?" Prime chuckled. "Ratchet, I am still a archivist. It is what I am best at."

"No, you're best at being a great friend." Ratchet joked, patting the side of his berth, calling for blue and red mech. "Sit."

Optimus of course obliged, leaning into the soft fabric as the silence around them engulfed their hearing canals.

"I'm going to be okay, Optimus. I know you worry about me."

"All the time." The taller mech said, shaking his helm. "I cannot help it, you are extremely important to me, to the team, to everyone."

"I know, I know." He smiled, helm drifting to look back to the creaky floor boards from years of usage. "For my sake, I know you will."

"Ratchet, what you ask is big of me. How can I not worry about you? Surely If I say I will stop, you will know better when I continue to do so. This is not something I can really control."

Ratchet nodded, seemingly already knowing that.

"I will leave you to rest." Optimus muttered, standing and taking his leave, straightening the sheet where he once sat before closing the door completely. The old medic smiled, before helping himself up into his berth for the night.

~

Optimus retreated back to his post, trying to find any new information after digging through all the piles of resourceful data. It was late at night, the little desk lamp turned on illuminating the dark base was one of the only sources of pure light. Prime stood searching through everything, switching between actual files to encrypted data stored through the internet.

"Whatcha doing?" The femme said, making Optimus jump 6ft out of his frame from the shadow standing behind him, looking over his shoulder from the railing. No one could possibly read anything from her height, so the mech didn't feel the need to just up and cover everything.

"Research, my processor runs at nightfall." He said, no true lie being told. "Perhaps what are you doing awake?"

"Couldn't sleep. My mind wanders too." She cracked a smile as he looked up to her from the railing above. The blanket was still wrapped around her frame as she sleepily looked to the projected computer, Optimus clicking out and switching files quickly.

"Can I talk to you for a second?" Her helm tilted.

"Of course Y/D." He said in a calm matter. The time was shown as 4:36 on the nearest clock as she slowly made her way down the stairs minding the blanket she dragged along.

She propped herself up on a nearby stool, the same one Optimus just pushed towards her, and leaned her weight on the nearby wall, making sure the angle of the stationary desk lamp flashed the other way, due to her light-sensitive optics, being surrounded in darkness for a few hours.

"Something's wrong with my helm." She said, Optimus becoming more and more worried as his optics squared, ready to take precaution. He knew she's been a little out of it since her arrival, which was very rational given the circumstance, but still did not know how to act upon it.

"I remembered something I can't physically remember happening. It came to me in a dream. Optimus...were Ratchet and I...?"

Optimus gasped, intake wide open. The key was never in the data or the research, but her.

~