[Relief floods briefly into Ratchet's expression when Wash doesn't tell him he's lost his mind or just get up and leave because he thinks Ratchet is bullshitting him. He looks up again, his mouth tilting.]

Well, the humans I knew would call me a pain in the ass, but so were they, so that's all right. The only reason I'm doing as well as I am is because I was stationed on Earth for a while. Picked up some medicine there so I could help out in an emergency, made some friends. The technical term is Cybertronian, for the planet I'm from--my full name is Ratchet of Tagan Heights, which is where I was born, for lack of a better word for it--but there are others like me from different places who classify themselves differently. We're at the tail end of a four million year civil war that left our planet dead and what's left of our species in diaspora so there's no clear-cut answer for you, sorry.

[He settles back a little, watching Wash curiously.]

You seem to be taking this relatively well. Not that I'm complaining.