AN: Thanks for continuing to read the story if this is your first time! X) Edited 8/24/12

That Monday Miles had printed out all the papers he had thought would be useful. Things on how to hotwire a car, change tires, check the different systems, and some information about what should be going on under the hood. After school he filled up a container with gas, put it, a tool kit, and the papers in his back pack, and then biked back to where he had found the police cruiser, silently thanking God for google.

He put the gas in the car, and then tried to hot wire it. Tried being the key word. An hour later he was thoroughly pissed off even with the directions on the printed papers, and he was about to give up when the car suddenly sprang to life.

"Finally!" he cried happily, pumping a fist in the air and finding the button to pop the hood.

Miles didn't pause to give how the car started up a second thought, he figured that he just finally managed to hot wire it. Why would he think any differently? Looking under the hood he whistled at what he saw. He was no car buff, but even he could tell that was a pretty nice engine. Grabbing the tool kit, he bent down to take a closer look, letting his hands roam over the engine. When the engine gave a sudden roar he jerked in surprise, narrowly avoiding slamming his head off the hood as he gave the engine a wide eyed look, only relaxing when it sputtered and stopped.

Barricade was less than pleased to feel organic hands on his engine, and let it startle the stupid human before letting it stop. As unhappy as he was to feel those disgusting hands messing around with delicate parts, the young organic did seem to know at least some of what he was doing.

He had just come out of stasis lock, and knew that staying low was his best option. He wanted to live, and as pleasing as the thought of squishing the inferior insect in front of him was, the last thing he wanted was the Autobots on his case. He scanned the fleshy, and searching his memory files, found him to be extremely similar to LadiesMan217, or Sam Witwicky. They appeared to be about the same age, and since he wasn't far from Tranquility, he assumed they probably went to the same school.

He decided that letting the fleshy live was the best option, for now. The thing seemed intent on fixing him for some reason, and Barricade would allow it that privilege. It would be quicker and easier than letting his systems do all the work. He scanned the surrounding area, searching through the internet for any possible information he might find useful while letting the insect work. He didn't have any pending alerts on his comm link, meaning no mech was attempting to communicate with him.

And it went like that for the next few days, Miles not telling anyone where he was going or what he was doing. He set out earlier on Saturday morning, making several trips. He had decided to start working on the outside of the car to get all the filth off, only able to do so much to repair the rest of it. He had no idea that the vehicle he was working on was alive, much less that it could feel everything he was doing to it. Because of that he decided to just fill the buckets up at the stream, the water already cold.

Cybertronians could survive the deep cold of space easily. They could even survive some high temperatures, depending on how high, of course. This did not mean, however, that they did not know the difference between hot and cold. They did, and they preferred, just like anything normal, to be in the middle. If one was in a mild climate and was suddenly attacked by cold they wouldn't like it, just like a human.

Barricade was in recharge when it happened. When Miles splashed the hood and windshield with that cold water, Barricade sprang out of recharge in shock. He forgot all about lying low and about letting the insect live. Even a Cybertronian's mind could be sluggish when coming out of sleep.

"WHAT THE FRAG IS WRONG WITH YOU?" he roared, starting his engine quickly and rolling across the few feet separating him and the fleshy, aiming to knock him to the ground.

Needless to say Miles was shocked, and stumbled back as Barricade drew closer. He stuttered out an apology, before even realizing he was even doing so, an automatic reflex. So was falling on his ass and letting his jaw drop when he realized that the car was not only moving on its own, but talking as well.

There was silence, nothing but the birds twittering happily and the sound of the leaves as they swayed in the breeze. Miles continued to stare, getting the odd feeling that this was a very big moment in his life, and he wanted it to go well. If it didn't, well... that wasn't too hard to guess.

"You'll catch flies like that, fleshy." Barricade all but growled, and if cars could glare, he would have been doing so.

Miles closed his mouth with an audible click as his teeth smacked together. Two minutes ago and the teen would have never pictured a talking car outside of the television or a book, and now it was real? His mind was racing with what he should say, should ask, and should do. Should he tell someone, or was the car wanting it's apparent life to be a secret? What did one say to a living car, anyway? Especially one that seemed to be unhappy with you? After another moment, he crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Barricade.

"Now you look here, I'm not going to put up with any of this 'Ohhh, I'm a talking car! Let's scare poor Miles out of his wits!' nonsense! It's just cold water, you oversized baby." Miles scolded, intent on making sure the car knew he wasn't scared nor would he be bossed around, only to bite his lip because somehow the car looked shocked. He'd never thought cars could look anything before.

"You find out I can talk, and you must realize I could easily run you over, and you tell me off?" Barricade asked in disbelief. This fleshy was completely insane.

"Probably not the best thing to say, I admit." Miles allowed, bending over to retrieve the now empty bucket, along with the soap and sponges. "But either way if you were going to run me over you wouldn't wait until now to do it. Besides, you owe me."

"I..." Barricade trailed off, trying to see how Miles had possibly come to that conclusion, before laughing at the seeming audacity of that statement. "I owe you?"

"Yes, you owe me. I've spent close to a week fixing you up as best as I could, and today I planned to wash all that dirt off you." Miles replied, "I'm Miles Lancaster, and I'm not afraid of a dirty police car that looks like it's seen better days. Especially not one that gets cranky over a bit of cold water."

"You will address me as Barricade, fleshling." Barricade growled, "And if I didn't find you so useful you'd be dead. Watch your insolent tone."

Miles snorted and grinned, giving Barricade a mock salute. He realized how stupid it was to say those things to a car that could think, and seemed pretty pissed off at him, but what did he have to lose? The car, apparently called Barricade, hadn't done anything to him yet, so he felt relatively safe. The thought of fleeing was tossed aside by the amazement and how excited he felt. A talking vehicle? That was pretty darn cool, if you asked him.

Wisely he kept his mouth shut, allowing Barricade to cool off before bothering to ask any questions. Despite how eager he was, he spent his time cleaning the police cruiser off. It took a while, but after a few hours he got most of the dirt and grime off. He took a moment to circle Barricade, noting any scratches and dents he should attempt to tackle later. Smiling to himself, he sat a few feet away from the Decepticon and grabbed his lunch out of his back pack.

"Sho," Miles started with food in his mouth, using his hand as a napkin. Etiquette wasn't exactly on his mind. "Wha' exactly are you?"

"First off, fleshling, you are disgusting. And why exactly should I tell you anything?" Barricade asked, annoyed at how ill-mannered the fleshy was.

Miles managed to swallow before answering him, "Well, no one's come to find you and you haven't left this area. Seems like I'm all you got for company."

"Lucky me," Barricade drawled sarcastically.

"Look, I know nothing about you. I started fixing you up because I planned to sell you, since getting a job would be too time consuming, and you were going to be my ticket to solving the mystery, except I got too involved in the challenge and wanted to do it myself..." A pause, and then he grinned. He was getting off track. "But I guess that idea just flew out the window. I doubt you'd like to be sold. I helped fix you up, and while I do appreciate you not killing me and all, you could still at least tell me what you are, how you got here, and what happened to you. You have nothing to lose by doing it, but if you tell me more about yourself maybe I could help you out more."

"Fine." Barricade said simply, seeing the point Miles made. He had nothing to lose by telling the fleshy, if anything he could gain a bit and have Miles fix him up further if he explained things.

By the time Barricade got done telling him the shortened version the sun was getting ready to set. He explained about Cybertron, and the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. How he ended up on Earth, and what he had done on the planet. Told of having Frenzy but losing the tiny Decepticon, and then later having Starscream fight him. He didn't lie about what he did to try to get Archibald Witwicky's glasses off of Ladiesman217, he didn't see the point even if it did scare Miles away. Miles waited until he was done to ask any questions, and they spent another half hour answering those.

"I know Sam; we've been friends for forever. Well, we were friends, I'm not sure anymore. But this does explain a lot, especially about his car… Oh, and don't worry. I'm not going to tell him or that Bumblebee about you. I've spent precious time on fixing you up; the last thing I want is for the Autobot to damage you." Miles said, tone light as he gathered the buckets and sponges he used to clean Barricade off.

It looked like Barricade needed protecting, even though Miles would never dare call it that to his face, and the mech didn't seem too bad. The whole thing about Cybertronians having no true gender but taking the pronouns on anyway confused Miles to no end, but if Barricade wanted called a he instead of an it than he would be called that. He hadn't seriously hurt Sam, just bruised him up a little and scared the piss out of him. Miles had done worse to his friend in all their years together.

"You seem even more stupid then the average fleshling. To LadiesMan217 I am the bad guy, and I even threatened him." Barricade replied, moving back a few feet so he was in his original spot.

"You threatened him, never hurt him. Scared him, but you scared me too, at first. Sam may be my friend, but he's been a piss poor one lately, and I don't owe him anything. You don't seem the type to attack him just for revenge over Megatron's death, especially since you know he has that Autobot watching over him. If I thought you were a threat I'd attempt to do something about it, but I don't think you are." He explained, standing up straight again to look at Barricade.

"I take that 'seem' back, you are even more stupid then the average fleshling." Barricade growled, scanning the fleshling once more. Nothing unusual about him, but he was reacting a lot differently than he had expected one of his kind to. Especially someone he could kill so easily. Barricade continued once he was satisfied with the scan, taking on a tone that not many would argue with even among the Decepticons. "You will come back tomorrow and I will show you my bipedal form. You can get to even more that way. And that is an order, fleshling. I expect you here by seven in the morning."

Miles just laughed, "Yeah, yeah. Goodnight, Barry!"

The teen was already out of Barricade's line of sight when the 'con registered what he'd been called, but Miles could still hear the angry rev of an engine, and he grinned to himself.