10. Awake
Starscream stood over the repair cradle, letting the hums and clicks and soft beeps of repair bay occupy him, try to colonize his thoughts. He did not want to consider what he had done, or why. Most of all he did not want to consider what was to come. For any of them.
What has he done? He has defied Megatron. For Barricade. For the little droneling he had been so many megacycles ago. For who Starscream himself had been back then. For the wasted potential. For the life he had saved. The only time, the last time he felt outside himself. The war took him over after that. Made it dangerous to care. Made him vulnerable. Almost as if the war had a vendetta against him to strip away anything he cared about, anything outside himself until that was all he knew, all he could care about. Not even his Trine. Even they had fallen by the wayside. Even himself. Everything had whittled, withered away, dry husks shed, blasted off by ambition, by the desire to succeed, to make himself proud...when he no longer had a self left capable of feeling anything.
But this was too much of a coincidence, the echo too loud. Barricade, once again needing rescue. Needing to be saved. Wasted potential again this time, but not merely as a warrior. As an ally. As a friend. As a reminder that he was once, ONCE, altruistic. He once believed fervently, vividly, in his ideals.
"Barricade," he murmured. The frame on the table stiffened almost imperceptibly. "I regret that you are in such pain right now." A blink of the upper optic shutters. Starscream had insisted Barricade be rebuilt to his former specifications, in some thin hope that it would at least be...familiar. He wished he knew Barricade better...in what he had become. He would have authorized...anything in rebuild. Aerial? Yes. Heavy armor? Weapons? Anything. If only he knew.
The last of the armor had yet to be put on, and after that, he'd still have to go through enameling and tempering. But the armor was the worst of it—the agony of the naked sensor cilia in the open air, the white pain as they seared through metal, forging their connections. Starscream had thought, somehow, foolishly, that if he was here for that, he might be able to comfort him. Be there with him. Endure with him. Foolishness. But a sort of foolishness he had not felt in ages. "I do not regret," he added, soflty, "I do not regret bringing you back." I do not regret what this has cost me in Megatron's estimation. I do not regret what it has cost me in Skywarp's mysterious investigation. I only regret that it took me this long to find...anything worth risking for.
[***]
Barricade was glad his vocalizer hadn't been onlined yet because he knew he'd just use it to whine or humiliate himself with other pathetic noises. Oh Primus he was so sick of being pathetic. Being helpless. Useless. Failure. Again. Dead, more than halfway.
His optics flicked to where Starscream leaned over him, flicked away. Why Starscream? What had happened? The last thing he remembered, he was dying, his entire sensornet charring to black agony around him, and he was reaching for that hard blackness, embracing his final end, where it would finally be over. No more fucking up. No more failing. No more letting anyone down. No more spending off-shifts curled up by himself trying to figure out what was wrong with him, what he didn't know, what he could actually fix. He'd known all along that the problem was...him. And in those final instants, he had not resisted death, had been...so willing to let go of his history, his past, his...undefinable everything that made him wrong. Made everyone hate him. Made him into such a victim.
Frag, he wished he could fix himself. They could repair his body: nothing could repair his fouled up cortex. There'd always be something wrong with him.
His body went rigid as the repairbots lay the first of the armor casings over the sensor cilia of his new fingers. His optics flew to Starscream's, studying for any sign of gloating, enjoying his pain. Oh, yes, Starscream, he thought. This is the payback from Flareup, from the hangar, isn't it? He refused to give Starscream anything worth seeing, shutting his optics tightly.
He heard Starscream's voice, rippling through his oversensitized audio. He couldn't distinguish the words, the audio blurred and indistinct. Shut up, he thought. Don't want to hear you gloating. Don't want to hear you rub it in how you saved me, yet again. How useless I am. How without you I'd be dead. Don't want to hear it.
He heard the distinct clicking chitter of repair bots, and felt them scramble over him, somehow managing to place their small pincer-like feet away from the naked plates of sensor cilia. Fast, agile and somehow careful not to hurt. He felt the weight of one on his throat, and then heard the unmistakable crackle of his vocalizer.
He turned his head, slightly, his dull optics focussing on the jet. "What," he croaked. Probably wanted to be thanked. Probably thought that rescuing Barricade was a heroic deed. Frag. I didn't pay you back last time, Barricade thought. With what coin could I possibly pay you back for a second?
Starscream hesitated, pitching his voice lower, somehow picking up that Barricade's audio was over-amped. "I am sorry we did not arrive sooner. In time to spare you...this."
"Should've let me die," Barricade breathed, wincing as another talon was attached to its sensor cilia.
"I could not. I am sorry. That is my weakness that is being visited upon you."
Barricade struggled to get his optics to focus on the jet, his processor whirling. "You think I owe you for this?" he said, weakly, his optic shutters gritting together against another surge of pain as the repairbots laid on another plate. "You think you can use this against me.'
"No." Starscream trailed a talon down the already installed armor. Barricade shivered at the light touch. "Like you, I was trying to set something right that I did not even know how it got broken." He paused. "Does it hurt excessively? I can ask them to delay installation."
Barricade narrowed his optics, feeling his ventilation kick on to cool a processor already strained by the backlog of pain/damage/warning alerts. What would be the point in delay? Have to go through all of this again. And would he have the strength to assent, to say, yes I am ready for that agony now? (And have that proved a lie?) "No," he said, flatly. "Wasted your effort," he added. Determined not to go down. Not to give in. To fight against…everyone.
Starscream shook his head. "I have risked everything for some motivation I cannot articulate, beyond that, without it I cannot feel…whole."
"You put me through this to assuage your compunctions." Barricade stiffened as the repair bots laid the last of the forearm armor over him, shutting the armor locks with deft little claws.
"In a manner, as have you with the cyclebot." The wings, folded against his shoulders, shifted uncomfortably. "But this is not about retribution, Barricade. It is about…setting things right."
Right. Like either of us know anything about how to do that. "I went too far with Flareup," he said, begrudgingly.
"And you went too far for her again." A quirk of one side of the mouthplating. Not quite a smile. As if it would have been starkly inappropriate. "And to be honest, it was that push, your push at my boundaries that made me realize," he voice dropped, ashamed, "that I still had them."