Holy shit that took so long, what the fuck???

God, I hope reformatting this fic won't be as much of a pain on Ao3.

Maybe Ratchet had a point in throwing your lot out from the government’s side.

Maybe quitting might be the best for you, and everyone by far.

As long as they’re safe, you don’t find yourself to care.

That’s right—they can make you bleed, but you’ll never let them hurt that kid. Hurt those kids, if what happened to Ambulon is true.

As you turn your gaze up and on the person who entered the room, with that singular yellow eye on you the instant he saw you, you felt something settle in your bones, making you feel alive again.

And, despite it all, you find that they would never be able to make you say it. They can make you scream, to beg, to plead, but you won’t let those people find them. You won’t let them come to harm.

There’s something fishy going on. Something the government doesn’t want anyone to know about, and you know that they know that you must know something.

You feel horrible, really, but you can’t give in. You can feel the way everything’s brewing underneath the surface. First Pharma, then First Aid and his wounds, and then with the cursed mecha just walking on its own without its pilot on the wheel?

Still, a tiny part of you is still afraid. And confused. And angered and—betrayed. They left without saying anything, left without saying goodbye.

You didn’t want to tell them anything. You saw the scientist they had outside—Shockwave has and always will be a suspicious unfeeling maniac who ignores morality in favor of results. Values logic over empathy, violations over failure. You’ve been here for long enough to know that. To have seen that.

They told you that you were losing your job. That-that they were letting you go, after you couldn’t tell them anything they wanted.

Your eyes feel dry. You haven’t blinked in over a minute. Your throat is scratchy all of a sudden, and you wish you were curled up on the floor rather than in this state of numbness.

You feel your brain being muddled, trying to comprehend whatever the hell happened in the hanger when you left. Trying to reconcile what they told you with what you knew.

They’re both gone.

Vortex is gone.

Your hands itch with the handcuffs placed on them, in this bright room with a window to the side and a door to the right in front of you.

First Aid is gone.

… But you can’t do anything about it.

Just like you can’t do anything about First Aid sleeping in a haunted mecha, or whatever’s going on with *Pharma*, of all people.

It’s so very frustrating.

But you’ll make do.

____————____

It’s getting a bit harder every time, whenever you approach the mecha and feel the hairs on your neck raise into goosebumps.

It’s bone-chilling, to say the least.

It sometimes feels malicious, sometimes it feels curious, and other times you can’t discern the emotion at all.

It’s frightening, but…

You groan quietly, and ignore the feeling of being watched. The kid told you a bit, about how the mecha might not be cursed, just haunted. You raised a brow at that and reassured him that there were no such things as ‘ghosts’, but…