A/N Hey, me again. Sigh. I should find a Blackout/Barricade twelve-step group, I think. Cutesy stuff here. First half today, second tomorrow.
First Date by antepathy
Blackout snuggled Barricade against him, grinning at how the smaller mech didn't even put up his usual weak protest for form's sake about it. Barricade seemed unusually relaxed tonight—must be, Blackout thought, a result of the copter passing all of his quizzes lately. He didn't think he'd interfaced with anyone so much in his life. Much less someone as awesome and hot as Barricade. So, Barricade was in a good mood, and maybe it was time to ask him.
"Hey, uh, Barricade?" He felt the smaller mech's face shift, from where it had nuzzled against his shoulder.
"What, rotor-butt?"
Oh good, he was in a really good mood. He almost never used terms of endearment like that. "Why don't we go out on dates?"
Barricade twitched back, as though Blackout had asked him about venereal diseases. "Dates! Dates are for losers."
"They are? But Ramjet was saying they were really important to keep a relationship going."
Barricade flopped onto his back, his arm tires whumping on the metal of the berth. "Ramjet," he said, slowly, "is a liar."
"Yeah, I know, and what he actually said was that dates were trivial and stupid and destroyed relationships." Blackout shrugged. "So what he was really saying is the opposite."
"And Ramjet's expertise?"
"He knows about stuff like this! And he's totally romantic. He once apparently had Megatron himself cuddle with him an entire night."
That was a singularly nauseating image, Barricade thought. Another slaggin' problem peacetime brought with it: all this social gobbledygook. He and the copter had met during the war, shared a few laughs, a few recharges, interfaced like crazy. Simple, straightforward. None of this 'romantic' (read: stressful and pointless) nonsense. "Look: the only thing dates are good for is if you're trying to plug in with someone. We're already interfacing, so…dating would be redundant." QED.
"But it sounds like fun! Doesn't it?"
One thing was damn certain: the copter wasn't going to let this one go. "Not really, but if you want to discover for yourself how boring this date thing is, I'll play along." Wow, Barricade, he told himself, that was pretty ill-graced, even for you. Sometimes he wondered why the copter didn't just haul off and punch him in the face.
Blackout did…just about the exact opposite: he bounced, and then rolled to grab the datapad he had stuck to the side the berth. "I knew you'd say yes! Awesome!"
"Awesome?" Barricade pushed himself up onto an elbow.
"Yeah, the first part of the date is you have to ask the other mech out. So we've already done that. AND you've accepted. We're like 15 percent done already!"
Fifteen perce—what? Wait, he didn't really want to know. "Great," he said, noncommittally.
Blackout brought the datapad's screen up. Which told Barricade he'd been planning this whole thing for a while. Sneaky copter. But one thing Barricade could respect was sneakiness. "There's a really cool exhibit about meteorology at that museum in Iacon we were at. Remember that?"
Ugh, talk about places he didn' t want to remember. Copter'd be asking to visit old battlefields next.
Blackout went on. "Look, it's got like interactive stuff. A Devastator Winds chamber and stuff like that."
Barricade swiped the datapad from him. "That's the exhibit for sparklings," he said, derisively.
"Yeah but…I'm not real smart. So I figure I could maybe understand this one, you know, and not feel too stupid."
Of course, Barricade thought. Nothing stupid about a giant helicopter going through an exhibit meant for mechlings who weren't old enough to feed themselves. But he held back from snapping that remark out.
"You're not stupid, Blackout," he said, his voice edgy. He hated how the copter said that. Anyone else, calling himself stupid would be a ploy, a reason to get away with things. He could understand, and even play along with that. But Blackout was dead serious: he thought he was the stupidest mech in Kaon. How he could think that after a few minutes' conversation with, say, Lugnut, was baffling. "Look, they have a normal exhibit about it—why can't we go to that one?" Barricade blinked in surprise. Somehow, part of his OS had tacitly accepted that a) they were going on this ridiculous date thing and b) they were going to the museum in Iacon. It's like whenever he was with the copter, his cortex fritzed.
Blackout's lower lip jutted out. "Don't, you know, want to bore you with you having to 'xplain stuff to me."
"When have I ever--?" Okay, scratch that. "Since you've been studying, have I ever done that?"
"Well," Blackout's glossa protruded from the corner of his mouth as he considered. "No, but…I just don't want it to happen, is all." His thumb flipped the datapad back to the sparklings' exhibit. "This looks like more fun, though," he said, wistfully.
Yup: Barricade's processor was on terminal glitch whenever the copter looked like that. "Deal: we go to the regular exhibit for a megacycle. Just one. And then we can go to this one."
The copter's face lit up. "You're so smart, Barricade," he glowed. "I can do that. We can do that." He pulled Blackout against him roughly, plopping a kiss on Barricade's head.
"Hey," Barricade said, tilting his face up. "Kinda missed the targeting with that kiss there."
Blackout grinned down at him, and pulled him closer, into a proper kiss. Barricade purred, one hand roaming across the copter's broad chassis. He winced, jerking his hand back.
"What's wrong?" Blackout said.
"Nothing," Barricade responded, sucking his talon. He took it out of his mouth, looking at it again. "Cut it on a sharp edge, there."
"Sorry!" Blackout took the injured digit into his own mouth. "Guess I get roughed up every now and then."
"No big deal," Barricade said, running his other hand over the rough sharp edge. "Just, next time you get detailed, have 'em buff it down for you."
"I, uh, I've never been detailed before." The copter ducked his head, shyly. His beetled brow furrowed as he studied Barricade's talon.
"Never?"
"No. During the war and such, you know, just went through the regular washrack and protective spray."
"Frag that. On this date thing, we are so getting you detailed." The thought of Blackout glossy with a new wax job made his sensor net tingle. Again. Already.
"But the museum…?"
"We can do both. They've got to have detailers in Iacon, as shiny as those damn bots were at the museum last time."
Blackout's optics widened and he pulled Barricade into a crushing hug. "So awesome! How 'bout tomorrow?"
Frag. Reality crashed down, harder than Megatron's aft. "This whole date thing sucks," he muttered, pushing away at Blackout's chassis. "You know Onslaught's gonna call just when things get fun."
"Not tomorrow. Already asked him." Blackout preened at his own smarts.
"You what?"
"Told him I wanted you for a day, you know, and he said he'd pester Vortex for the day instead."
Onslaught…being nice. No, this wasn't suspicious at all. Either the old buzzard had unrusted his capacitor or he had something sinister in mind. No question: sinister.
"Did you talk about anything else?" Barricade tried to keep the edge from his voice.
"Yeah. He wanted to hear about the whole Thundercracker thing."
Barricade went rigid. He'd lied his hot little aft off at the end of his report, managing (somehow, amazingly, stretching the truth so tightly it squeaked) to gloss over the copter's involvement. The last thing he wanted was for Blackout to get on Onslaught's very long slag-list for having screwed up an operation. "And you told him…?"
"I told him what you told him. You know, the truth."
Sometimes Barricade really wondered how Blackout could be so deluded. It's like he was impossible of thinking of anyone being less honest and straightforward than himself. Not that it mattered, though, Barricade thought: I'm dead. Onslaught is going to murder me for falsifying a report. "Oh, yeah," Barricade said, weakly. "Uhhh, anything else?"
Blackout shrugged. "He said he wanted to talk to you later, but that it could wait." Blackout ran one thumb over Barricade's upper arm tire. "He told us to have an awesome time."
Right: Onslaught would say 'awesome'. On second thought, he might, with extreme irony. As in, enjoy your date because I'm going to let Vortex take you for a little ride…before I set you on fire.
Blackout frowned. "You okay?"
"Yeah." Barricade faked a smile. "Tomorrow, right?" Think, he told himself, of the copter detailed. Oh. That helped. That helped a LOT.
"Yeah! It'll be so much fun. I can't wait. I wish it was already tomorrow."
Barricade pushed anxiety away: Blackout looked so excited and so pleased with himself for his foresight that it was hard not to be infected by it. He pushed all of those unpleasant thoughts in his 'less important than coptersex' file.
"You," he said instead, throwing one thigh over Blackout's hip, "had this whole thing planned, didn't you?"
Blackout ducked his head. "Except for the you-going-along-with-it part. Thought you'd be tougher."
Yeah, Barricade thought. Me too.
*****
Blackout had done better with the regular exhibit than he'd thought—they'd stayed there a megacycle and a half before he thought to check his chrono. He'd kept close to Barricade, asking him how to pronounce some words, and had taken Barricade's explanation of convection into a treatise on flying over reflective surfaces and wind shear. And Barricade had had more fun than he really wanted to admit at the sparkling's exhibit, dropping water into a vaporizer and controlling the heat and airflow to try and create fluffier clouds than Blackout. He'd only had to glare, once, at an Autobot school group staring at them, but that could be just as much for the faction symbols they still wore as for Blackout's innocent enjoyment of the exhibits.
And Blackout was pretty…stare-at-able at the moment, his black armor polished to a high gloss, touch up paint gleaming on his olive green facial spires. And Barricade tried really hard to control himself from staring at the rotors, whose inner blades had been colored cheery red and buffed to a shine.
Barricade knew Autobots were uptight and would probably take offense at two mechs interfacing in their museum. Another reason he knew he'd picked the right side in this war: Prissy Autobots.
Even so, he had to admit (and he hated it so he'd never actually admit this out loud) that this date thing was pretty cool. Though…he couldn't wait (as in, seriously, he wasn't sure he'd make it) to get the copter alone.
Blackout must have felt a little similar—as they boarded a slidewalk outside the museum in the sunset, the copter paused, pulling Barricade back against him. "Had so much fun," he said, resting his head on top of Barricade's, his arms around the smaller mech's shoulders. Which did not help Barricade keep his libido in check.
"Yeah, well, now we've got a long trip home," he grumbled.
"I can fly you," Blackout offered. Barricade frowned. He hated being flown. Felt so…helpless. Dangling from the copter's arms like that over the city, everyone probably looking up at him and pointing. Felt stupid. But…he didn't want to tell the copter that, because then Blackout would feel retroactively guilty about every time he'd ever flown Barricade anywhere. Probably even that time Barricade had been in stasis lock.
"Nah," he said, instead. "Nice night, so, let's walk or roll at least partway."
The copter squeezed his shoulders, flattening his door wings against his massive chest. "Awesome!" They jumped off the slidewalk, toward the road that led back to Kaon. They walked along in silence for a while. Barricade began to feel like a jerk for making them walk. And even more like a jerk because…frag, the copter was hot. The last rays of Cybertron's setting sun cast rosy-orange highlights over Blackout's newly glossed chassis. Barricade started to feel stupid and awkward. And horny. He started scanning for an alley he could tug the copter into, at least for a little makeout session. Barricade's hands felt magnetically drawn to the copter's shiny armor. Rowrf.
"Hey," Blackout said, suddenly. "You think on the way home we could sto---!" His whole body went rigid, arching up as if a giant fist punched him in the back. He collapsed on the ground.
"Blackout!" Barricade's capacitor stuttered over itself in a sudden rush. Frag, Barricade wasn't a warrior. And this was Iacon, which Sentinel Magnus had just spent a small fortune on advertising as 'the Safest City on Cybertron.' Should have seen that as the half-afted propaganda it was. Should have noticed you haven't seen a single security mech at the very least. Sentinel Magnus probably spent all the money on advertising and waxing himself up for the spots.
He threw out his (pitiful) spoke weapon, lunging toward Blackout. Barricade saw a handful of shapes blob out of the darkness of an alley. A sudden pain in the back of his head, smashing his doorwings flat against his shoulders. White stars in his A/V. Then.
****
Barricade's optics blinked back on to a faceful of pavement, colored red by sensornet alarms flaring across his HUD. OW, he thought. Then…something about Blackout. His audio kicked on to the sound of scuffling and huffing and the loud drag of metal against plascrete. Blackout, he thought, and his sluggish processor fed him the horrible image of the copter arching up, rigid, his optics going wide, hands curling as if to tear the air. Frag. Barricade shifted his head, slowly, lifting it just enough that it wouldn't scrape noisily along the ground. He saw…feet. Three, four pairs. Struggling to lift something heavy onto a flat loader, like you find in a warehouse. A shape drooped down into view—the end of a rotor, inner blade painted bright red. Frag oh frag. They were taking Blackout!
A thousand questions boiled across his processor. Who? Where were they taking him? WHY? If there was ever a mech that got along with everyone, it was fraggin' Blackout. Even Onslaught noticed it. They couldn't be after him for money—slag, they had enough to get by and then some, but not enough to risk this kind of thing for. And what they had, split four ways? Pitiful. No, this wasn't about money.
Come on, Barricade, he yelled at himself. Not slaggin' naptime. And not really the time to lie here and ruminate on who might have a grudge against Everymech's Friend. And do not, he told himself, do not even begin to think about the fact that if you'd just swallowed your slaggin' pride and let him fly you home, this whole thing would never have happened.
His optics ached as he saw a trickle of pink energon splatter to the ground. Blackout! Slag he was really hurt! Get up, he told himself: DO something!
Think, you stupid mech. No orders from on high, and if you're so smart, figure it out. Okay, all right. Mission: retrieve Blackout. That was the priority. Everything else could/would have to wait.
Surreptitiously, he gathered his weight onto his hands and knees. They weren't really looking at him. Almost like they dismissed him. Which pissed him off on one level, but on another made his life easier.
They finished loading Blackout—and Barricade tried really hard not to think about why the copter hadn't even made a sound this whole time (he was spending a lot of this time telling himself what not to think)—and were heading for the front of the flat loader. Leaving him, taking Blackout—Primus knew where. One of them stowed what Barricade recognized as a shock-rifle in the cab of the flat loader, and came back to check the tie-downs stretched over Blackout's limp frame. Which Barricade forced himself not to look at.
Barricade saw his opportunity when the mech had his back to him: he lunged , tackling his waist, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Two of the other mechs stopped, cursed, and ran around the side of the loader to help.
"What the--!" the mech cried out, one shoulder hitting the loader as they rolled. "Fraggin' hell, mech! Thought you said he'd be out for the count!" He brought both his hands down on a hammer blow across Barricade's shoulders. Barricade grunted as the metal of one of his doorwings bent. He raked his claws over the mech's back and side, clawing his way up the mech's body toward the face.
He paused, one hand behind the mech's head, the other reared back. No. This mech was not familiar at all. He took a mental snapshot for later. Because, oh yeah, there would be a later. Onslaught would probably object to Barricade rummaging through the databases, but what Onslaught didn't know wouldn't hurt…Barricade.
Before he could land his punch, the other mechs hauled him off—one landing a solid kick under his grille that blanked his sensor net for a klik, the other heaving him by his wing fairings. Barricade clawed at the mech he'd had pinned, who responded with a smirk and a hook punch to the side of the face. Another kick, right to his central line, folded him in half, purging his tanks.
Oh , awesome, Barricade. In the history of improvised weapons, leave it to you to pull out the 'vomit' card.
The mech he purged on shoved him away, furious, and rolled to his feet, swiping angrily at his spattered armor.
"What a slagtard," the mech who had him by the fairings sneered. "Told us he was low-voltage in combat, but seriously."
"Hey, shut up," the other mech—the first kicker, said. "Just do your job and don't spill anything." He kicked Barricade viciously in the ankle, denting his plating and driving against a control cable.
"Ha ha," said the third mech—the barfed-on one. "Spill. I get it. Frag," he flicked the gloop off his fingers. "Slaggin' lubestain won't figure anything out anyway." The second, who had his fairings grunted assent, and flung Barricade back, disdainfully, as though he were trash to be tossed as far away as possible. Barricade staggered back against the wall of the building, tripping over his own feet and the injured ankle, and falling heavily on one hip.
The mechs laughed as they mounted the flat loader. "Let's get this junk to the…," one muttered, as they got in. Barricade pulled himself upright just in time to see the taillights mock him in the distance.
*****
One thing the slaggers hadn't counted on was that Barricade wasn't quite as stupid as they were. Yeah. 'Knew he was low-voltage.' You know who I am, then, Barricade thought. Which means this wasn't about Blackout at all. This was about him. Thin evidence, but every part of him that rooted itself in paranoia vibrated with the idea that this was really all about Barricade. Which made Blackout a victim.
Fan-fraggin'-tastic, Barricade, he thought. You are singlehandedly ruining that copter's life. First you almost get him in the brig like…forever. Now, he's had the coolant shocked out of him, on high power. And dragged somewhere for…Primus knows what else. Ransom? No. Not enough money. Unless they knew what he did for a living and tried to get some info in exchange for the copter….
Barricade refused to go there and even ask the question. He was afraid of the answer.
His best bet was not to let them ask that question either. And they hadn't counted on one other thing: General Strika's obsessive planning. Team Chaar, she had insisted, had mutual location tracking beacons. That was how Blackout had found him when Thundercracker had taken him—the copter had finally confessed, in a teary apology that had made Barricade feel bad he had even asked. Copter apparently felt guilty about everything.
Barricade activated the tracking codeware. Blackout wasn't far. Good. He dropped into his vehicle mode, wincing as the damage from the beating got rubbed raw by the transformation. One of his tires had flattened—torn of the rim, its pressurefluid spraying on the gears as he limpingly rolled after the beacon.
They had him in a garage. Barricade clambered up the dumpster at the side of the building, peering in through a skylight to get the best visual on the battlefield. When he saw a chopper-bin, his capacitor cut current entirely. He'd seen those plenty of times in Ground Hog's place—bins for sorting out the various parts of salvaged mechs. No question the intention here. He had to work fast. He wasted a half a klik longing for the war when intelligence assets had time to prepare appropriate tactical solutions. What little time he had was running out as they dragged Blackout—still unconscious—onto a repair frame.
He hit his comm. //Skywarp.//
//Aaaaaahhhh! Who is this? Why are you calling me? Is this real? Am I insane? What if I'm insane? Will I even know?//
Well, right freq. //Skywarp, it's me: Barricade.//
//Barricade? I thought you weren't scary.// He sounded dubious now, as if he had misjudged Barricade's scary quotient.
//Yeah, well, sorry for comming you without, you know, being scary. I really need your help.// He hated saying that. Hated saying it to Skywarp. Only one worse to say it to would be Onslaught, whose mouth would doubtless spiral into curlicues at the edges underneath his battlemask.
//Need…MY help?// Even Skywarp thought it was ridiculous. Great.
//Look. Got a question. When you do your pop thing, right?//
//Warping.//
//What?//
//Sunstorm told me to call it warping, because it sounded cooler.//
//Oooookay. Whatever. Look, when you…warp…can you take something with you? Something big?//
//I guess so. How big?//
//Blackout big.//
//B—blackout's in trouble?//
//Yeah, and--// Barricade cast a nervous glance through the skylight. The darkness protected him from discovery. A mech was tying the rubberized apron around his middle, and heading to the tool table. //Kind of running out of time.//
//You want me to take Blackout.// Something in Barricade's voice must have gotten through to the jet.
//Yeah.//
//Where?//
//Wherever.// Anywhere was better than right here.
//But….//
Calculated risk, but Barricade was running out of options only slightly faster than dignity. //Skywarp,// he said, //I'm scared for Blackout.//
//Scared? You?//
//Yeah.// He wished he had to act more to get the quaver in his voice.
//I'm on shift in 10 cycles. When do you need me to do this?// Whoa, sounded like he had a rudimentary grasp of tactical planning. Unfortunately, not really necessary right now.
//Now would be good.// Now would be real good. He paused, offsetting his targeting to adjust for the copter's elevation. //These coordinates.//
//O-// POP! //kay.// Skywarp appeared, landing on top of the copter's limp chassis, stumbling along the curve of the chest plate, before he bent down, threw his arms around the large mech and then POP! Disappeared. The two mechs in the room—first kicker and the chopper, who had been in the loader when Barricade tried his stupid attack (what the Pit had he been thinking? Only about Blackout dripping energon and being…flaccid, that's what), barely had time to react. First Kicker managed to pull a weapon but by the time he'd targeted, Skywarp was gone. With Blackout, thank Primus. Leaving only a worrisomely large puddle of pink energon on the repair frame. Barricade released a held vent of air. Blackout was safe. That's what mattered. The rest…didn't matter. With any luck, the little robocreeps wouldn't figure it out until he was gone.
He turned, carefully, from where he crouched on the top of the dumpster. Just jump down and roll out, Barricade. Too easy.
Right. His injured ankle gave as he was bracing for the jump, sending him tumbling off the edge with a crashing clatter of his frame against the bin, the wall, the ground, a pile of metal pipe of various lengths someone had stashed nearby (really? Barricade, when your luck runs out, it runs out fast enough to Doppler shift). He scrambled to his feet, tripping over the rolling pipe and firing signals of pain up his damaged ankle. He fell over again, clutching at the wall desperately. Frag, he swore. Frag frag frag frag frag (he was so going to get a thesaurus when he got home).
He staggered to the mouth of the alleyway, optics aimed at the ground—if he tripped over one more slaggin' pipe he was going to offline himself in pure humiliation. Something prickled his paranoia. He raised his head, slowly, and looked right into the barrel of a gun.
"Thought you said he'd never figure it out," the mech behind the gun said.
"Shut it." Another mech came up beside him, bringing with him the scent of cleanser. The one he'd purged on. Well, at least he smelled lemony-fresh for a beatdown, Barricade thought. Nice to know he cared.
"Let me go," Barricade blustered, "And it's over. I'll forget it ever happened." As if. But these guys looked pretty dumb.
"Uhhhhhh, no." The muzzle of the gun jerked up. Okay, maybe not that dumb.
"And if we don't let you go?" Cleanser-scent sneered, folding his arms over his sparkling clean chassis.
Barricade's lip curled in a snarl that was less posturing than they'd ever know. "You live to rediscover regret."
Cleanser laughed. "Gonna purge on me again?"
The gun mech frowned. "Seriously, what are we gonna do with him? This wasn't covered in our orders."
"Shut it!" Cleanser snapped. "We'll hold him till we can figure it out." He grabbed for Barricade's arm. In better times, Barricade would exploit the crack in the team, there, but…he was getting all grabby. Barricade didn't like grabby.
Barricade ducked, coming up with a punch to the midsection. He probably would have done a bit better, too, if the gun one didn't apply the butt of his weapon to Barricade's arm. He staggered to one side. Get out! He yelled at himself. Just go! He dropped hard on one side rolling over. Cleanser grabbed for his ankle as he tucked himself into his vehicle mode. Barricade yelped, but, frag. Could get that looked at later.
The parting shot that punctured his rear windscreen, though, was more of a problem.
****
TBC (tomorrow!)