Face Down Chapter 25
Burnout woke abruptly; a moment of panic was quickly brushed away as she realized that she was in the medical wing.
'How did I get in here?' Thinking back to the previous afternoon, she remembered coming to the med bay to ask Ratchet for the new sleep aids he had recommended that she try. 'But I couldn't find him.' Hearing loud noises and raised voices from one of the rooms, Burnout had gone to investigate. Remembering the words she had over heard caused the femme to shiver.
"The only hands I will allow on me are Burnout's. She wanted me alive so bad, she can make it happen."
Burnout had been shocked by the Decepticon's words, but strangely, not upset. She should have been appalled, she should have been angry, but in some strange way, she felt touched. 'He only trusts me to help him.'
"You are disgusting. What sick and twisted games are you trying to play?" Ratchets voice held an icy tone that Burnout had never heard before, she wanted to leave and let the two mechs finish their argument. But it was like his words had frozen her in place.
"I will not stand back and let you toy around with her again, playing mind games and such. Either you except my help, or you get none at all."
Before she could stop herself, her voice broke loose from its strangled hold.
"What do I need to do?"
Burnout had thought Ratchet was going to have a main frame melt down right then and there, she thought he was going to throw something at her, or dismantle her piece by piece. She had been told about this side of Ratchet, but never had she seen it, she hadn't believed the stories until now. Never had she seen his optics narrow at such a degree that they became nothing more then slits, never had she heard his voice shake, or the stiff awkward stride as he marched out of the recovery room.
'He must hate me now.' Burnout thought sadly as she slowly sat up from the recovery berth. 'But I can't just leave Barricade to die.' The thought still shocked the femme. 'Even after everything he did to me, I still cant just let him die. Not if I can do something about it.'
Checking the time, Burnout was shocked to realize that she had been in recharge much longer then she ever would have anticipated, but it was still early, very early. The majority of the base would still be in recharge.
Exiting the room, Burnout quickly scanned the med bay. Everything was dark and awkwardly quiet, just the way she expected it to be. She was relieved that Ratchet would be tucked away in his own quarters; she didn't feel ready to face him.
'He would ask questions that I don't even know the answers to yet.' She mused as she silently made her way across the main room. Stopping suddenly, the blue femme turned around, optics locking onto Barricade's room.
'I need to check on him.' She convinced herself. Quickly retrieving a cube of energon, the femme reversed her path and paused outside of the con's room. Gently taping the keypad she waited for the door to release, optics trained on the recovery bed for any signs of movement. Nothing.
Trying to be silent but without making herself seem like she was sneaking, the femme walked across the distance to the mech's side. Gently placing the cube within easy reach, and quickly backing away, at a distance she scrutinized Barricade's condition.
'He already looks healthier.' She noted, 'There is a shine to his metal that wasn't there before. Not to mention his intake is functioning at a more regular rhythm.' Continuing to examine the mech, Burnout found herself looking over his facial features, and she was surprised to realize just how handsome she found them to be.
'He seems so nice, so friendly, when he is in re charge. If only he was like this all the time.'
Continuing to admire him, she sighed in frustration. She wanted to trust him, she wanted to give him a second chance, but how could she when beneath her new chest plates was a spark case that she had purposely refused to have replaced. 'So that I wouldn't forget.'
"I could have loved you." She spoke softly. "I could have trusted you and willingly given you everything. If only you would have taken the time. If only you would have asked."
Burnout turned to leave, missing the red glow as optics ignited.
Barricade felt his spark grow heavy with sadness, 'if only I had asked, if only I had been patient, and had known what love was then.' He thought to himself. 'Maybe its not too late, maybe there is still a chance. But how do I fix years of damage? How do I ease pain that I am the cause of?'
Staring blankly at the ceiling as if willing it to give him direction, a sudden thought struck him hard, and it scared him. 'What if I really haven't changed? What if given the chance I will just revert back to who I was? I am surrounded by everything I hate; all I can do is hope that it doesn't make me snap. For her sake, all I can do is hope.'
--
Turning the last corner that led to his dorm, Bumblebee was shocked to run into Burnout. The femme seemed just as surprised by the sight of him.
"Fancy meeting you out and about at this time." She jibbed, purposely setting herself in his path.
"I can say the same for you, but I have a reason for my late night excursion."
"And what would that be?" Burnout crossed her arms and raised an optic ridge, waiting for his answer.
Bumblebee chuckled at her antics. "Okay, Prowlet. If you must know, I was Sam and Mikaela's 'designate driver'. It seems that the age 21 is very significant to our human friends, and I was asked to play 'babysitter' while they went and got themselves 'shit faced'."
Burnout smirked; Mikaela had been talking about this party for weeks now. She had wanted Burnout to come, but the femme didn't think it was a prudent idea.
"I just don't want something stupid to happen, I'm too much of a risk with the Decepticons still out there. At least they are used to Bee's presence, if they pick me up on the radar, who knows how they will react. I would hate to crash your party." The femme had told the human female. "Couldn't we have a party here though? We could have the other humans come, aren't there a few that are close to you and Sam in age?"
Mikaela's face had lit up. "That is a great idea Burnout! We should go ask Optimus right now."
They still hadn't gotten a chance to ask the Autobot leader, but now that Burnout was reminded of the conversation, she was going to make it a point to talk to the commander.
"And what is your excuse for wondering the corridors at this ridiculous time?" Bumblebee prodded.
Burnout grinned innocently. "Well, to put it simply, I don't have one." She admitted, slyly taking a step away from her yellow friend, then suddenly dashing down one of the side corridors.
"Hey, that's not fair!" Bee whined before sprinting off after her.
The two ran down a few quiet hallways, completely oblivious to (or just not caring about) the fact that they were probably waking up every mech in the general area, not to mention that if Prowl were watching the monitors that morning they would probably have a whole stack of citations against them.
As if was, someone did notice. Stepping out of his quarters at an hour that should have been spent in recharge, this mech was not happy.
"Who the slag is making all that commotion." Ironhide grumbled, looking down each way of his hallway expecting to see a certain red and yellow set of scrap. He could hear foot-steps fast approaching. Turning in that direction, the powerful mech crossed his arms and prepared himself to 'terminate' whatever pest was causing such a stir.
Burnout looked over her shoulder as she sped around a corner to see where Bee was at, kicking up the pace a notch at realizing his proximity, looking up almost too late to see the black looming form of the weapons master.
"Slag." She squeaked as she narrowly avoided slamming into his waiting arms. Her light build and quick reflexes were the only things saving her.
What she hadn't counted on was a yellow freight train named Bumblebee to tear around the corner in hot pursuit. He may have been small and quick, but not to the same degree as the femme.
CRASHIronhide, Burnout, and Bumblebee were a black, yellow, and blue bundle of metal and other random vehicular parts.
It seemed that Ironhide hadn't expected Bumblebee to charge around the corner blindly either.
"I swear to Primus, both of you better know how to run real fast if you know what's good for you." Ironhide's graveled voice rumbled from somewhere between Bumblebees door panels and Burnouts foot.
"If you would get your leg out of my face I would be doing just that!" Bumblebee retorted. Bodily shoving one of Ironhide's massive appendages off of him.
"I think I broke something."
Ironhide snorted. "Even better, I get to chase you to Ratchet's! I'll let him deal with you after a few laps around the base."
"I'm not waking him or anyone up for this." Burnout replied, pushing herself off of Ironhide. She had successfully become a Burnout sandwich.
"I think it's a little too late for that." An aggravated voice spoke from behind the group. All three sets of optics turned as one to see the second in command, arms crossed and that 'you're in a load of slag' look written all over his facial plates.
Burnout and Bumblebee were quickly reduced to the status of troublesome sparklings as Prowl raged on about everything from why there is a speed limit in the corridors to acting their age, how inconsiderate they were being to the rest of the base and for playing pointless games.
"You can't even use the lame excuse that you were going through some training exercise." He finally growled. By this time just about every mech in that sector was wide-awake and staring out of their rooms. "Even if you were, the two of you definitely failed that level."
"Did Prowl just try to make a joke." Bee commented quietly, as the tactician continued to rant on.
Burnout tried to hold back a giggle, but ended up snorting from the effort. Her rude noise caused the officer to halt in his flow and narrow his optics on the femme.
"Sorry, got a little dust on the intake. These floors are kind of dirty." Burnout was never this rude to any of her superiors, but she had to admit, Prowl was funny when he was pissed.
"Well then maybe you and Bumblebee can spend the day cleaning them, if you start now, you should have the base spotless by this time tomorrow. Then you will think twice about wasting your energy on such pointless displays of stupidity."
Both Burnout's and Bumblebee's shoulders drooped at the same time.
Well, he was funny until he said stuff like that.
Prowl spun on his heel and marched away, the entertainment over with, the rest of the onlookers quickly dispersed. Leaving the blue femme and yellow mech behind.
"Pointless displays of stupidity. That's a new one for the books."
Burnout turned to see Sunstreaker and Sideswipe smirking at their fellow delinquents.
"Now you two are going to poke fun at us as we follow through with Prowl's punishment right?" The blue femme asked.
"Pit no, were going to put our brilliant processors together and come up with something to make our second in commands day just so much more bright."
Burnout's optics widened. "You wouldn't."
"Of coarse they would, getting under Prowl's armor is what they live for, it's their purpose of existence." Bumblebee explained.
Sideswipe stepped up and put an arm around the confused femme. "Its quite simple, my little ray of sunshine, Prowl will be so busy being angry at the two of you, he will forget that there are others that he should be more concerned about."
Burnout smiled up at the twins, shaking her head in disbelief. "I have a feeling that we wont be the only one's with janitor duty today Bee."
The yellow and black mech laughed as the twins dispersed, already whispering intently.
Turning back to Burnout, Bumblebee looked the femme over, causing her to raise an optic ridge.
"What's up?" The femme questioned her friend, a look like that from any other mech would have probably earned a night in the brig or an extra long training session from Ironhide, but this was Bee, whom she trusted dearly.
"Nothing, its just nice to see you smile again."
A/N: I thought things were getting a little too serious, so I decided to throw something a bit more fun into the story. Plus I think it shows that even though Burnout is technically 'adult', she was forced to grow up very quickly. Every now and then she has to let the childish side of herself out, the side that never came to be while she was stuck in the horrible life that she was forced into. If Burnout had never gone through all the abuse, I think she would have been quite the hotheaded femme. But after everything she has been through, her true personality became hidden, showing itself in rare moment like this one.
Oh! I'm attempting to draw my rendition of Burnout. It's been like 3 years since I've drawn anything and I don't think I was even that good when I was practicing, so this has been a huge challenge which I have had fun meeting. Hopefully I will have it up by the end of this weekend, it will be on deviantart and my name is the same as it is with fanfiction. I'll put a link on my homepage as soon as i figure out how to do so. Peace out my friends!