Chapter Text
Optimus watched the security cameras, watching the main three seekers nervously. Well, mostly watching Starscream. He was just standing in the corner of the room, glaring at nothing. He was likely planning something. The fact that they had yet to remove his flightsuit was probably the focus of the plan.
Multiple seekers had been caught since the end of the war, but the main concern was Starscream. Since none of the seekers could agree on who to follow instead of him, catching him was the main focus of the Autobots. Slipstream had been caught many months before that, leaving even fewer options for the seekers to rally under.
None of the seekers had spoken at all since being captured, and all were being held in separate cells. Starscream was placed alone in a cell, so he couldn't try to make a plan with anyone. Though Optimus doubted being alone will stop him anyway. (And Optimus was completely against Isolation Cells and was only agreeing to it because his officers out voted him. It still didn't sit right with him, and he was projecting his frustration about the cell onto stopping any plans that Starscream might come up with.)
Ratchet stepped up beside Optimus, tapping him on the shoulder to startle him out of his thoughts.
"We need to get them out of their flightsuits." Quick and straight to the point. Optimus smiled behind his battlemask. (And not just because this was the perfect excuse to get him out of the isolation cell.)
"I concur, but I am curious as to why you, specifically, are telling me that."
Ratchet scoffed. "Can I not also worry about our safety? Do I have to have an ulterior motive?"
"No, not at all. I just usually expect my Chief of Security to alert me of safty concerns, not my Chief Medical Officer." Optimus replied with some merit.
Ratchet sighed at being caught. "Fine. I don't believe the flightsuits are safe for long-term wearing. Plus, the scans are picking up bleeding injuries on all three of them, and I need an excuse to give them medical care."
"Not to me, you don't." Optimus reminded. Ratchet looked greatful at that.
"Alright, enough emotional honesty. I need to heal some angry jets." Ratchet digressed.
"I'll tell Ironhide."
Ratchet watched with some distaste as Starscream was shoved onto the medical bed harshly. He quickly shooed the guard out and made a mental note to have them switched to trash compacting later that day. They should know no one was allowed to hurt Ratchet's patients. That included phycology harm as Starscream was trying, and failling due to the lack of food, to stop their violent shivering.
There were few times Ratchet wished he had better bedside manners. This was one of those times, as Starscream was eyeing him like he would jump to attack them at a moments notice like a rabid turbofox.
Ratchet just sighed heavily and picked up his datapad, running over what he needed to do one more time. (Which was more for visual piece of mind to the patients, Ratchet had already completely memorised the exact procedure before Ironhide even agreed.)
"I'm going to need you to take off your flightsuit for this procedure." Ratchet stated plainly. No need for pretence here.
Starscream looked around nervously, trying to disguise it as an eyeroll, which really made Ratchet worry about how close to starvation they were if it was that easy to catch. It also made Ratchet wonder just how often Starscream acting the way they did to distract people. "And if I don't?" They were clearly trying for blasé, but it sounded for too rough and nervous to be anything but worried.
"Then I'll simply have to cut you out of it." He wasn't even lying. If he needed to cut them out of the suit to check their injuries, he would.
Starscream looked at him in terror, like the idea of him doing that was some terrible thing. An emotional connection to the suit for whatever reason? Maybe what it meant?
Starscream silently retracted the suit down to just their boots. Leaving them in a black sleeveless turtleneck top and some baggy grey trousers. Ratchet privately wondered how the trousers never got caught when they were putting on the suit.
"I'm going to need you to take it all the way off."
Starscream looked distressed at that, so Ratchet added; "I'll just be putting in the corner of the room. It won't even leave your sight." In a(mildly) softer tone.
Starscream looked at Ratchet suspiciously, but carefully took both boots off, so Ratchet counted it as a win.
Starscream. No. Stephan wasn't wearing anything as footwear under the suit, revealing the source of the blood as the heels of his feet bleeding sluggishly.
Ratchet knelt down to check the soles of his feet, which had two mysterious devices stuck in the middle of both heels, the scared skin around it having torn open for some reason.
The devices were sliver metal rings with clearly deactivated blue screens in the middle, Ratchet had never seen devices that looked like them before. What did they even do?
Ratchet felt mildly disgusted at the injuries. What he could see were old scars. Just how old was Stephan when these, whatever they are, were put in? And, did all the seekers have these? Or just Starscream?
"Is something the matter, doctor?" Starscream was trying to mask the fear with annoyance. Unfortunately, Ratchet had spent far too much time with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker to fall for it.
"What exactly are these?" He questioned right back, pointing to the mysterious devices in the seekers' heels before they could play dumb to what he meant.
"My anti-gravs??" They said in a tone that implied there was an unspoken 'obviously??' at the end.
"Do all the seekers have these?"
"Of course they do? How else would they fly??" Stephan was looking at Ratchet like he was an imbecile, which was probably a step up from threat. Maybe.
"I see." Is all Ratchet said in response.
Ratchet simply wrapped the whole heel in gauze to stop it from bleeding more before he could come back later. He needed more information on the 'Anti-gravs', but he could get it at a later date. He needed to finish the check-up.
Ratchet moved on and passed Stephan some selenium mechanimal crackers.
Stephan stared at the crackers confusedly and looked at Ratchet suspiciously.
Ratchet sighed and grabbed one randomly from the box and bit into it just to prove they were safe to eat.
Stephan devoured them quickly enough after that. Distracting them enough for Ratchet to finish the check-up without incident.
Ratchet walked into the conference room, looking both defeated and determined.
He had finally finished the checkups on all the seekers. In one hand, he had all the reports of said checkups. In the other, he had future plans for what to do with the seekerlets they had to fight.