#anyways acit!ratchet and reboot!ratchet are both Important and they deserved this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rorykillmore · 7 years

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sooo it’s time to get to the rest of my (now belated) christmas fics! this one is for @sonofkaden who didn’t have a specific request and just wanted me to write something i thought she’d like. well i... gave it some thought, and while we’ve written a ton of wonderful and important stuff together over the years, there’s one important rp dynamic that i thought could benefit from a bit of cathartic and well-earned closure.

this is, in essence, a sort of sequel to this fic which she wrote awhile back. writing from the perspective of a character i don’t rp as or otherwise write regularly for is always vaguely intimidating for me, buuut the last gift fic i wrote was from kara’s perspective and i thought this piece would work better (and mean more to fate) from ratchet’s perspective anyways. so uh. hopefully i pulled it off!

fate, to get sappy for a moment, this year has been a particularly important one in our friendship. we finally got to meet irl and we also built an rp dynamic in the superfriends that has become so significant and definitive. it seemed only right to write a tribute to them in their entirety, so i hope you enjoy this. thank you for consistently being kind and supportive and funny, for never failing to make me smile with your distinctive brand of humor even on my lowest days -- you really are an invaluable presence in my life. <3

privately, he hopes he’s not in the process of creating some kind of dimension-crumbling paradox. clank would kill him.

There’s an image of another world shimmering on the other side of the portal. Ratchet wants to reach out and touch it; he flexes one gloved hand, stirred by its familiarity.

“What is it?” Clank asks, his voice careful and quiet.

He can’t construct a response that’s seamless or immediate, and he knows Clank must feel his silence like a chasm between them -- but after a moment he murmurs, “It’s been awhile.”

Five years, by his estimate -- at least on this side of the rifts. The passage of time between dimensions is a tricky thing, and the awareness that it could have been much less or much more in the other world feels like a weight bearing down on him.

He’s afraid. He can’t articulate it, but he’s afraid. He can feel it in the hammering of his heart, the subtle prickling of his fur. He stands there, staring, yearning and reluctant.

“It took longer than expected to rework the schematics of the Dimensionator into something stable,” Clank begins hesitantly. “I would understand if your feelings on this matter have... changed.”

A test run, he had called it only weeks ago. Ratchet wants to laugh at himself now for that feigned flippancy. They finally have a reliable way of traveling through dimensions, and he could have used it to find the other Lombaxes --

-- He would have been lying if he’d said that hadn’t been his first thought, despite how many strides he’s taken towards making peace with it --

But that’s an entire journey, and one that doesn’t have a clear end in sight. His proposal for today is something different -- a test in essence, sure, but also a goodbye.

A proper goodbye. One he’d almost started to assume he would never get.

He doesn’t know what to do with it now. Improbable as it once might have seemed, the prospect of it has always been there, hanging in the undefined future. If he goes through with this now, it’ll be gone -- and maybe he’ll be able to let go of what he’s been holding on to since he got back.

He’s not sure he wants to.

“Nah,” he says decisively in spite of that -- and in spite of the fact that what he’s looking for might not even be there any more, which would hurt all the worse. “Can’t turn back now that we’ve come this far. Wish me luck, huh buddy?”

A part of him aches to ask Clank to come with him - the comfort of his oldest friend’s presence is easy to fall back on, even after their separation - but this is his first time deliberately dimension-hopping with this thing, and if something goes wrong... better one of them than both of them.

Besides, this is something he should probably do alone.

He feels Clank’s hand hover over his arm briefly before settling there. “Good luck, Ratchet,” the little robot echoes, and when Ratchet turns to meet his eyes, he feels the weight of the emotion behind the words.

He greets them with a nod, because he knows his own response would fail him, and then turns and takes the plunge.

“Holy shit, he’s alive.”

It’s a grating, painstakingly familiar voice that he’s first greeted with on the other side -- though in spite of that, it takes him a moment to place it. He sits up slowly, slightly dizzy with the effect of the jump, and tries to focus on the two figures looming over him. Mostly because they’re there, and easy to focus on.

He regrets it a second later.

“How did you survive Belsnickel?” demands Chanel #3, leaning in closer than Ratchet would like to get a better look at him. “Did he restore you to life once you’d learned your lesson and acknowledged the true meaning of Christmas?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Number Three,” Chanel cuts in abrasively. “Everyone knows that’s Krampus’ deal.”

Chanel #3′s expression goes blanker than usual. “I thought he trapped people in snowglobes.”

Quickly and without much internal debate, Ratchet decides to leave them to their argument. It’s only another moment before he’s reasonably sure that his legs aren’t going to give out underneath him, so he springs abruptly to his feet -- and dashes out of the building without a backwards glance.

“Hey!” he hears one of the girls exclaim, but he doesn’t falter, his mind racing. That building is still there, and it looks the same as it ever did. And if even those two creeps are still around, then there’s a chance --

He cuts himself off before the thought is fully formed, but allows himself a tiny sliver of hope. There’s a chance.

When he reaches their old apartment, he’s out of breath, and he’s almost grateful for the moment’s pause it excuses.

Except then the moment goes on a little too long, and he’s just staring at the door, reevaluating everything. Again.

Sometimes he hates that he thinks too much.

It’s sentiment, ultimately, that quells his doubt. The thought of seeing his friends’ faces again, the knowledge that they could be right there on the other side. So he lifts his hand and manages it to keep from shaking as he knocks. Twice. A third time.

And then he waits a short span of seconds that feel like a lifetime before door opens.

It’s Kara on the other side, and Ratchet feels his heart swell with relief -- and then stutter. She looks so much like he remembers her (but then he remembers that thing about Kryptonian aging, and realizes that probably shouldn’t tell him anything). The way the smile on her face freezes tells him that at least some time has passed, for her. Enough for her to notice his absence.

Probably, he guesses as he looks at her now, enough for her to mourn it. He hates the idea of everything they’d built together - everything he’s left behind- having splintered and broken.

“Hey,” he decides to break the silence, inevitably awkward. “I, uh -- I know this is probably weirding you out. I can explain.”

“Ratchet,” she murmurs faintly in response, and the sound of it wrenches at his heart. She looks as though she’s seen a ghost, and while he rationally knows he has no control over the rifts, he can’t help feeling guilty.

He hesitates, feeling his ears droop. He’s almost afraid to ask, but he can’t see anything to do except push ahead. “...How long’s it been?”

She doesn’t answer, almost staring through him in a way he can’t remember ever seeing her do before. He wishes reaching out to her felt as easy as it once did, but whether it’s the time that’s passed or the way she’s reacting,he suddenly feels helpless.

And then a shadow moves behind her -- and Ratchet instantly recognizes Sasuke. He’s visibly changed. He’s not dramatically older, but maybe a year or two, and his hair’s grown out a little to lesson some of that inexplicable spikiness.

Too bad. Ratchet always liked teasing him about that.

For a moment, Sasuke’s expression is nearly as vulnerable as Kara’s, and that’s even more disconcerting -- but he recovers more quickly, finds his voice before Ratchet has to stumble again for something to say.

“You came back.”

“...I can’t stay.” Telling them this suddenly feels agonizing -- dropping in to say goodbye felt comparatively easy, in his own world. Now it feels like the first thing he needs to tell them, and the one thing he doesn’t want to -- if they’re reacting like this, how will losing him again feel? “I just -- wanted to see you both. One more time. I thought... you deserved that.”

His voice sounds uncertain to his own ears, and he deflates a little further. Weren’t they happy to see him? He doesn’t like that thought. It feels... selfish, somehow. But it’s been hard for him too. He’s missed them too.

A fleeting look passes between his two old friends, gone almost before he notes it -- and then something seems to give way. Kara’s the first to step forward, and suddenly her arms are around him, her voice close to his ear as she murmurs “We missed you so much.”

In spite of the whirlwind of emotion still raging between the three of them, it’s instinct to hug her back. This feels familiar, this is how things click back into place -- he remembers a time when the two of them were practically attached at the hip, when hugs like this were commonplace.

Well, he thinks as he holds onto her a little more tightly, maybe not hugs like this.

It’s only a moment before his gaze drifts past her and over to Sasuke, who’s still standing in the doorway. He’s a little startled by what he sees: in some unexpected sense, Sasuke looks almost lost, his hand flitting up to brush his hair away from his eyes in a gesture that’s strangely apprehensive. The look that passes between them is silent and loaded, and after a couple of heartbeats, Ratchet finds himself wordlessly disentangling an arm and holding it out to him.

It’s a minuscule reaction, and he might have missed it if he hadn’t been trained to watch so closely -- but Sasuke almost seems to draw away from him. But this is so much the way Ratchet remembers it being: reaching out to Sasuke sometimes means being patient until he decides to reach back. And slowly, almost painstakingly, he finally does. His grip is tight as it closes around Ratchet’s, and the three of them stand together in silence for a moment, bound by memory as well as touch.

“I’m... sorry we greeted you like that.” After what seems at once like lifetimes and seconds too short, Kara pulls away, and Ratchet gets the feeling she’s not talking about the hug. The three of them simultaneously disentwine as if they’re one mind, and he straightens, glancing between them inquisitively. “It’s just -- a lot has happened, since you left.”

He can’t help but smile faintly. “Yeah. For me, too.”

“I guess we have some catching up to do,” Sasuke remarks, though Ratchet’s almost sure he doesn’t imagine the look he shoots Kara -- or the way Kara glances behind her, in the direction of the clock on the wall.

Even so, no one has to say anything else. When they let him inside, Ratchet remembers the day Kara asked him to be her roommate and marvels at how much and how little has changed since then.

In some small, odd way, it almost feels like coming home.

The things they tell each other aren’t easy. Sure, catching up involves a lot of laughs - they share anecdotes and reminisce, and there are moments when it feels like no time has passed at all - but Ratchet also tells them how he had to sacrifice his then-only hope of finding the Lombaxes (he sees it hit Kara particularly hard). He listens as they tell him how Kara lost herself thanks to some drug concocted by Mason Verger, and how Sasuke’s newfound power entailed him hidings his meetings with Orochimaru for months -- a wound that still seems to be healing, because Kara goes tightlipped when it comes up.

It hurts him, to know they’ve been hurting, but it also makes him fiercely proud. They’ve stayed together, through everything. Their team has survived. And -- there’s something telling, he thinks, about how now none of them thing twice about telling each other everything.

Except, it turns out, there is one thing they haven’t told him.

One... kind of big thing.

“You -- met another Ratchet?” he can’t keep himself from blurting out when they finally confess. “Another me?”

His mind flits back to the memory of meeting the other Kara, and how it prompted a discussion about another Sasuke, and he has to take a moment to wrap his head around it. Wryly, he reflects that he’s somehow managed to forget how much of a headache this can be.

“...He’s part of our team, now,” Sasuke says, watching him closely, and Ratchet feels a small jolt at the realization.

This isn’t just a one or two time anomaly. The... Other Ratchet has been with them the whole time. He’s painfully aware of how frozen he must look, and struggles to work out how to feel.

“But it’s not that simple,” Kara’s quick to put in, reading his expression. “It took a... long time for us to work things out. It wasn’t like we just replaced you.”

Ratchet flexes his hands, taking momentary comfort in the familiar feel of his glove, and wonders. Replace him? He doesn’t think his friends would ever try. Still, this is a jarring shock, and he can’t help but reel -- and somewhere buried beneath the startled confusion, he feels the seeds of envy beginning to burrow.

Never in a million years would he have imagined being almost jealous of his younger self.

They seem to be taking his silence as a bad sign, because it’s Sasuke who continues, “When he got here... we were still grieving you. He noticed pretty quickly. It was a mess, for awhile.”

“That’s -- around the time I got hit with the Red Kryptonite.” Kara shifts, her jaw tightening.

His eyes widen at the implication, and he hesitates for a moment, forcing himself to sort through his thoughts before he finally speaks. “I... wow. So that’s why you guys... kind of freaked out back there.”

He can think of about a hundred questions he wants to ask, and wonders whether it would be better if he didn’t.

“Not because we didn’t want to see you.” Kara reaches out to rest a hand over his -- she’s hardly broken contact, since he stepped inside. “Just -- we thought things might get... complicated, if he realized you were here before we had a chance to talk to him.”

Ratchet doesn’t pull away from her, but for the first time, he lowers his gaze. “...Well. Like I said -- I can’t stay.”

This time, the silence that falls between them is heavy. In spite of how much all of this is, he doesn’t want this to be his last member of them - doesn’t want to leave with all of this baggage between them - so he tries to think of something else to say.

It’s Sasuke, actually, who beats him to it -- Ratchet can’t help but be reminded of the evening he surprised them all by being the one to uplift them. Funny, the details he can still remember.

“You helped build this team, you know.” His voice is level and direct, and Ratchet finally looks over at him. “Without you, none of this would have this. We’re not about to forget that.”

Kara nods, giving his hand a light squeeze. “You know, younger Ratchet -- we’re close with him now because of everything we’ve been through together. Not because of who he is. But you -- you were my first friend here. I still feel like I... owe you so much, in some ways.”

He glances between them, silent but pensive, feeling a strange kind of sadness even as something in him lightens.

“And -- that night on the rooftop, after the Christmas party? We promised each other we’d always be friends,” Kara finishes, sounding softer and a little firmer all at once. “I haven’t forgotten that, either.”

Her words hang in the air for a beat, and then --

“...You’re still a sap, you know that?” Ratchet murmurs with teasing fondness, but he remembers it, too. His comment earns him a smile, and he can’t help but smile back at her. Even Sasuke’s expression looks lighter, and these are the little things Ratchet missed: Kara’s open warmth, Sasuke’s rare softness.

He knows - whatever else he might feel, looking at them now he knows - that when he has to leave them again, they’ll be okay -- and that he will be, too. He recognizes it as the peace he came here to find.

“So... I still have a little while, before I’ve gotta take off,” he ventures, his smile turning just a touch more sly. “What do you guys say to one more patrol -- for old time’s sake?”

They make for - of all things - the quarantine zone. It’s half a joke, half for nostalgia’s sake, and either way Ratchet finds it strangely peaceful for the former site of a zombie apocalypse. Sitting on the wall, facing the ocean with his friends -- it’s a little easier to put things into perspective. And even if he realizes that some part of him will always be a little sad for the things he missed, the knowledge he bears now makes up for it.

That instead of drifting apart, Kara and Sasuke have become almost seamlessly close. That Sasuke seems more comfortable and less alone now than he ever did in all the time Ratchet has known him. That Kara herself seems to... fit into her place in this world in a way she once yearned to.

Ratchet remembers his promise to her, when he vowed to help her chase after normalcy. In those quiet last moments with his friends, he thinks he might owe the fulfillment of at least part of that promise to someone else -- someone who isn’t even sitting on this wall.

And with only a hint of trepidation, he decides he has one last stop to make before he goes home.

Looking down at your younger self, it turns out, is kind of a trip.

“Now I see why Clank’s so fussy about time travel,” Ratchet murmurs, reveling for a moment in the silliness of making idle comments to himself. From his calculated position on a nearby rooftop, he blinks at the other Ratchet, marveling at the reality that this is so clearly him -- but not. He can’t fully put his finger on it, but there’s something about the kid that looks a little... softer than he remembers being, at that age.

And -- is he walking home from school?

That realization prompts a pang of mingled amusement and envy, and Ratchet’s careful to tuck it away before he swingshots down and lands effortlessly on the street.

“Hey,” he greets the other him with what he hopes is a casual enough grin. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

The other Ratchet jolts as if struck by lightning, and whirls around to face him -- he cringes inwardly, feeling a little bad for startling him. ...Himself? Whatever.

The look on his younger self’s face doesn’t exactly manage to reassure him. It’s blank with shock, at first, and then raw with anger - and wow, does Ratchet remember feeling like that - before it finally settles into something a little more conflicted. A little more cautious.

“...You’re him,” his younger self says, and it’s almost a whisper.

“Uh -- yeah.” Ratchet makes every effort not to think about how weird this objectively is. “Look, I know you’re probably not... thrilled to see me. But I thought I should swing by and say something. I’m sorry about... you know, how rough things’ve been for you.”

The other Ratchet’s ears droop in a way that’s all too familiar, even as his tail lashes indecisively. “I...”

Ratchet waits for him to finish. It takes him a moment.

“...It’s not your fault,” the kid manages at last, though his expression is guarded and unsure.

“It’s not yours, either,” Ratchet responds simply.

They stare at each other for a long moment, and Ratchet himself can’t help but feel some of the disbelief he still sees written across his mirror image’s face. Privately, he hopes he’s not in the process of creating some kind of dimension-crumbling paradox. Clank would kill him.

“So -- so the rifts... ?” The other Ratchet begins, and he shakes his head.

“Nah, I came here on my own.”

“You -- on your -- ?” There’s something weirdly endearing about how the younger him fumbles for words. “You found a way to travel through dimensions -- on your own?”

Ratchet rubs behind his neck. “Well... I had a little help. Don’t worry, I’m not hanging around -- I just owed Sasuke and Kara a goodbye.”

The other Ratchet’s expression falters for a moment, and he looks as though he’s not sure how to respond to that. Ratchet suddenly finds that there’s so much he wants to say - the whole ‘if you could tell your younger self one thing’ deal really shouldn’t be treated as such a hypothetical - that he pauses, too.

In the end, what he settles for is: “You know, I took a look at some of the designs you reworked -- at the tech center?”

“-- Oh! Yeah.” The younger Lombax hesitates. “I, uh... kinda didn’t think anyone would be back. For them. I mean, I know they were yours --”

“I’m impressed.” Ratchet interrupts his uneasy rambling with a calm smile. You improved them. Seriously.”

He has to fight not to broaden his smile as the other Ratchet gapes at him, his ears starting to lift. Taking a step forward, he decides to risk it, and rests a hand briefly on his shoulder.

No paradox. No sudden crumbling of reality. Always a good sign.

“Something tells me you’ve got quite a future ahead of you,” he says quietly, despite -- despite everything. “And it doesn’t have to be mine.”

They hold each other’s gazes, strange emotion brimming between them, and he recognizes that nothing else needs to be said.

When he steps away again and swings off, he doesn’t look back -- in spite of all the warnings he could have given, the advice he could have bestowed. He’s said everything he needed to, and he realizes - has long since realized - that there are a lot of things that shouldn’t be molded or shaped.

He doesn’t need to look back anymore, anyway.

He knows now that the important things are the ones he will carry with him always.

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