Summary: The AllSpark has decided to change Sam into a femme. With a new era of peace looming, Sam tentatively welcomes courting would-be suitors. Barricade decides to try and court the new femme along with all the others, but old emnities remain between them. Could an old Decepticon custom be the answer, or will it only make things worse?
Continuity: Movieverse AU.
Rating: T/M for intimacy.
Disclaimer: Transformers and all canon characters is and remains the property of Hasbro/Paramount and I gain no monetary gain. No copyright infringement is intended. However, the idea of Barricade as a composer and a musician is my idea, and I request it not be used by others without permission from myself.
A/N: A request fic for Rian Moreu, who has been very helpful to me. I hope you enjoy this, Rian!
All's Fair In Love And War.
Chapter One.
As Sam backed away from him warily, Barricade wished, not for the first time, that his and Sam's first meeting had not been so aggressive and negative. He knew he had only himself to blame, he had just treated it like any other battle, using violence and intimidation on the enemy in a quest to secure the prize. But the battle lines had now been re-drawn, and the battle itself had been redefined. It was a battle that confused Barricade, and had turned some emnities and alliances on their head. Although Autobots could still be considered enemies, humans were no longer really participating in this particular battle, although befriending some might be beneficial in his case.
The enemy was now any other mech, the weapons were words and gestures, and the prize – well, now, the prize in this particular battle would be Sam herself. If the human-male-turned-Cybertronian-Femme could overcome her distrust of the Decepticon frontliner, and considering their history, it was a very big and doubtful if. And it was, unfortunately, Barricade's problem to solve.
"I'm not going to hurt you, Sam, there is no need to back away," Barricade said, flinching himself at the rough voice he now had, due to a lack of singing training and battle damage to his vocal processor, which had been replaced, at least piecemeal, three times since the war began.
The human-turned-femme stopped backing away, watching Barricade warily from big, too-frightened bright blue optics. Barricade extended one large hand towards her, again regretting that Sam's perception was of his having claws, causing her to shy back. It was true that Barricade had had his claws lengthened and sharpened for battle, but his first claws had been installed for plucking the strings of his instrument. It was something that Barricade wished he knew he had the time to explain to Sam, but the first dates were only as long as the femme decided, and Sam had chosen the shortest period available of a human hour to speak to Barricade.
With the AllSpark gone, and Sam the only femme known to exist, all others being known to have been destroyed or MIA, she was very popular. She was pretty much the only way new Cybertronians could be enSparked. All of the surviving defective sparklings that the AllSpark had created in its time on Earth
had now been located and brought to one of the Cybertronian Bases on Earth. None were in a position to make any decisions for themselves, all were undergoing intensive therapy and training, to learn to live peacefully with humans or other Cybertronians, and all were mechs.
All expected members of both factions had arrived, and in fact splinter groups of both factions (who were against or suspicious of the peace agreement) had formed, causing headaches for the two main factions and the humans they were at treaty with. Barricade had almost joined the 'New Decepticons', as the splinter called itself, but even he saw no point in continuing the battle. He supposed that even hardened veterans like himself could become battle fatigued.
His attention, momentarily sidetracked, was brought squarely back to bear on Sam as he felt her briefly touch the finger tips of his hand with her own before quickly snatching it back. He mentally bit back the impulse to grab at her, part from battle training, part from impatience, and left his hand where it was.
"The claws were originally for playing a musical instrument, but adapted for battle when war broke out," Barricade said patiently. "Perhaps I can tell you about my life before the war, when the name I had then was synonymous with musical excellence. On Cybertron, my name then was as well known as Mozart or Beethoven is to humans."
This was no idle boast, for hundreds of years was nothing to a Cybertronian, who could live for many hundreds of thousands of years. Even the youngest known Autobot, Bumblebee, was older than the entire human species.
For Sam, however, having been born a human and having been comfortable with the idea of a lifespan lasting mere decades, it was enough to break her nervous silence.
"You – you're a composer?" she asked. "Nobody said anything about it to me."
"They probably didn't know," Barricade said. "My entry into the war was sudden and not exactly planned by me. I did give a different name upon joining the Decepticons, for I considered my life as a warrior completely separate from my life as a musician."
"You haven't played since the start of the war?" Sam asked.
"Not the way I used to," Barricade said. "I still practice, so my skills are not dulled, but not intensively, and I have not composed since I became involved in the war."
"I – I think I'd like to hear you play some time?" Sam said, laying her hand on Barricade's arm, and again Barricade had to stop himself from grabbing Sam and pulling her towards him.
He inclined his head, half shuttering his optics, and said "Then I shall practice sometime, and then I can play some music for you, both my own, and that of some of our other well-known artists." He paused, as he checked his internal chronometer. "And with that, our time together is, regrettably, at an end. My hour is up. When can I see you again, Sam? Remember, you decided to keep a diary in your head, as your new Cybertronian processors are far more reliable than your organic, human brain ever could be."
Barricade remembered Ratchet saying he was both amused and relieved that Sam had greater difficulty with his species change than his gender swap. Amused, because Sam's reaction to recalling he was no longer human could be quite funny, but relieved because some humans had such attitudes about their gender, or were so attached to it, that the change could have been much more disorientating for Sam, and it could have taken vorns to get her comfortable enough to accept her new gender. In the meantime, there was no guarantee whatsoever that the mechs would have held off asking her for interface or sparklings, which could have made things worse. As it was, Sam had freaked out for about an orn, and then seemed to come out of recharge with the attitude "if live gives you crude oil, make energon" and had joked that his parents had always wanted a daughter, so he'd better start learning how to be one.
Sam looked momentarily confused, and then said, "Oh yeah, I forgot," and Barricade joined Sam in laughing at the unintentional pun. Then Sam checked her mental diary and said "Same again in six weeks – um, that is, three orns?" He looked apologetic. "I'm all booked up till then."
Barricade knew that this wasn't all dates, Sam still had a lot of learning to do, from basic self-maintainance to recent Cybertronian history, time to herself, and more introspection and adaptation. In spite of this knowledge, he inwardly growled at the delay. Outwardly, however, he simply nodded again and said "Whenever you are next able to fit me in, I would be grateful. I shall practice so I can play you something when we next meet."
"I'd like that," Sam said, but Barricade noticed that as he moved to open the door, Sam appeared to relax, just a tiny bit. She still wasn't comfortable around him, and Barricade wondered if she ever would be, and if so, was there a way he could speed the process up. He decided he'd spend the rest of that day looking in the archived information of Cybertron for answers.
Many of the arrivals to Earth had knowledge – cultural, scientific, medical and historical – that might be otherwise lost, and it was Ironhide and Ratchet, with Wheeljack's help, who had created an archive storage system, where the relevant information could be stored on the archive for anybody to access. The idea was that anybody could contribute, and the knowledge would be shared amongst all the Cybertronians. Barricade himself had contributed to it, both with some Decepticon relevant history, plus some musical knowledge, popular themes, and history of relevant Cybertronians in music. The latter he had submitted anonymously, though he'd heard murmurings that many suspected Soundwave of being the source. If anyone knew the truth, Barricade thought it would be Soundwave, but Soundwave was so far saying nothing to anyone, a fact Barricade was glad of.
It was Wheeljack, Red Alert, First Aid, and Silverbolt who had brought the greatest amount of knowledge to Earth, having retrieved several of the quadrillion terabyte memory cores each from some of the computer systems from Iacon's central library before leaving the planet. These were still being translated and the information deposited as and when it was extracted, so the knowledge was growing all the time, so much so that all their craftmechs were engaged in creating new memory banks for the current archive, which would otherwise be full to capacity very quickly. Barricade decided to see if any relevant information on pre-AllSpark customs, such as dating, might have been recovered and added. He had to admit there was a good chance that that sort of information was amongst the volume of knowledge lost for good, but he could hope.
oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo
oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo
Barricade finished trawling through the available information in the archive as he was informed his session was over. Due to anticipated demand, each Cybertronian was only permitted to book a joor at a time. They could, once one joor was completed, book another immediately after if there was space, but Barricade felt he had enough to be going on with.
Surprisingly, not only had some of the pre-AllSpark cultural information survived, but it had also been sorted and filed onto the archive. Some of the relevant information he was looking for was in there as well, but also some interesting historical information and references.
It seemed that the Autobot/Decepticon divide had existed long before the current conflict, and that, in fact, the Cybertronian species had originally been split into thirteen different tribes, an interesting fact considering that the oldest legends and myths of Cybertron spoke of thirteen original Primes who were the leaders of their races. There was no mention of whether any of the other tribes had been wiped out, assimilated into others, or just amalgamated under one name, but it seemed Autobots and Decepticons were the two tribe names that survived, although there was a suggestion that Seekers had once enjoyed their own separate faction. What Barricade found interesting was that although little of ancient Autobot courtship had survived, an ancient Decepticon custom was actually documented fairly well, not least because the use of it had been the beginning of Cybertron's First Golden Age.
In the custom, obviously derived from pre-AllSpark times when a lack of femmes could mean a tribe dying out, a Decepticon would steal a suitable partner from another tribe. The custom dictated that the captive would not be harmed or threatened in any way, but instead be treated as an honoured guest, albeit without the freedom to leave for almost two human weeks. The kidnapper would contact the tribe to inform them that if their advances failed, the captive would be returned after an orn. This was how long the custom granted the captor to win the affections of their captive. It was, due to the shortage of femmes, usually a femme who was the captive, but the high-profile historical use of the custom had involved a Decepticon femme faction leader capturing an Autobot Prime. No one knew exactly what she had done to convince the Prime to partner up with her, but the First Golden Age was the result, and the first long-time peace the otherwise warring species were to enjoy.
Barricade wondered if this could be an option with Sam. He knew more than one place he could creep off to, do up as a very comfortable cell, and then kidnap her, issuing the customary declaration via com to the Autobot Base's communications net. He decided he'd check the places out, but not that night. That night, he decided he needed to practice. His practice till then had been minimal, just enough to keep his musical skills alive, for being a frontliner had been more important at the time than being a musician. But with Sam's sudden interest, it seemed he needed to concentrate on being a musician again.