GRAAAHHH - Tumblr Posts

June walked into the main room to find Ratchet staring at various humam anatomy diagrams displayed through the monitors.

Bones, muscles, nerves, etc.

All of them focused sorely on the arms, wrists, and hands.

"Doing some human research, Ratchet?"

The autobot hums in affirmation.

"I believe Rafael's arms to be damaged. I'm researching possible treatment."

"What!? Raf is hurt?! What happened? Where is he?"

"Relax, he's not injured, just damaged. I suspect it is either an old injury acting up or poorly maintenance."

"He shouldn't have any old injury like that, I believe. Is he in pain?"

"No to my knowledge. But I've seen him manually recalibrate his servos way too often for it to be healthy."

June blinks, confused.

"Recalibrate his servos?"

Ratchet scoffs. "You know, when he," Ratchet holds his hands in front of his body, and after a slight pause, he flaps them in a quick (and loud) motion "does this. If Rafael was a bot, the only reason to do that would be to loosen up rusted joints and recalibrate his motors. It's not a particularly bad habit, but Rafael does it multiple times a day. His joints, human or not, should NOT de-align so fast. Something is clearly wrong, so -"

"Ratchet." June interrupted, sounding relieved.

"Raf's arms aren't damaged. He's just stimming."

Ratchet resets his optics, baffled. "What's stimming?"

Later that night, Ratchet finds himself working side to side with Optimus on the main console.

"I learned something new about humans today."

"Oh?" Optimus intoned, optics still focusing on his work, but voicing his curiosity.

"You know that thing Bee does, where his doorwings will flap in place when he comes back from a mission to find Rafael in the base? Or how Smokescreen's wheels start spinning when Ultra Magnus makes him stay in place too long for a lecture?"

The way your headlights would start blinking in sync with your voice, as you excitedly explained to me a new document you found in the archives, before you trained yourself out of it, because it was unsightful of a Prime.

"Turns out humans have a word for it. They call it stimming."

Optimus eyes brighten with interest. And as he starts babling theories about possible evolutionary needs for this stimming (a release of excess energy caused by low activity? or perhaps a smaller body than usual, or maybe it had nothing to do with energy and was instead a way to signal other nearby humans about their emotional state?) Ratchet couldn't help but steal a glance towards the Prime's headlights.

He couldn't help but feel disappointed to see them completely dark all through his tirade.

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@quetzalpapalotl dunno if you recall but i made a lil post talking about this, that you liked, and i turned it into this lil thing!

(Btw, i hope its okay to keep @ u when i write this lil things that i think youd like? I dont wanna come off as spammy kydkgdkgd)