AN: A new chapter? And it hasn't even been a month? It's like Christmas! Haha, but really, I will try to update faster. x) I am uploading a second version of this chapter, where at the end Barricade and Miles end up getting together. If you want to read it for the BxM it will be called TC: The Miles Files. It's exactly the same as this chapter until near the end, so you'll be able to skip through most of it if you want. Or if you just want to read them getting together without spoiling the whole chapter, read it first, and then just this ending. Five reviews please!

Reviews: Thanks to all who reviewed! (Noella50881, MissShelz, Iwanita, 1Timberwolf, shadow-dog18, SkyHighFan, Snow Kyubbi, and shadonic25)
Shadonic25: I appreciate you putting you're review in English, and I have no trouble reading it! If you speak Spanish I'm in Spanish III at school, so I should be able to read at least some of what you say. There's always translators if I have no idea, but please feel free to comment in whatever language you normally speak. I'm really happy I could help you love Barricade, too! :)

AN2: Another kind of 'fluffy' chapter, with a bit of serious mixed in at the beginning, hope you enjoy! Also, for any BxM fans, I also have Blame it on the Highgrade from way back when in the beginning of the story, though they don't actually get together in it. Just kiss.

Chapter 53
Virus

Sam and Miles walked down the hallway, heading for the cafeteria. They were going to meet Bumblebee and Barricade for lunch. Though it had been deemed too dangerous to go to their actual school, that didn't mean their education stopped. Prowl had Mikaela and Trent collect data on what the teachers were teaching in their classes, and then did his own lesson plans based off the information he was given. This way the teens could continue their education and stick along the same guidelines of other's their age.

Very few had been surprised when the two had suggested a course on Cybertronian history, culture, and the like along with their other subjects. Fig was the one who taught them Spanish, though other languages had been added on occasionally, much to the two teen's chagrin. They still had homework and tests, even school projects when Prowl was creative enough. That wasn't to say that the two didn't manage to get out of their scheduled class time by finding a way to 'help' Ratchet or Optimus, as the two made sure they learned something, or being 'kidnapped' by Jazz, the soldiers, and Sideswipe.

They were walking by the Medbay when they heard Wheeljack's voice, and paused to listen because of the tone.

"He kicked me out of my own lab, Ratch!" Wheeljack complained.

They could hear Ratchet sigh, "Skyfire is a scientist too, 'Jack. Let him have whatever it is he's doing, he hasn't asked for much."

"He didn't have to be so rude about it," Wheeljack grumbled, but relented.

Sam and Miles looked at each other and agreed unanimously without having to speak one word. Skyfire acting rude? The idea was almost laughable. While the Scientist did have some privacy issues, he had never been rude about something, or at least that Miles or Sam had experienced. He was the gentle giant. Something had to be going on.

Both teens hightailed it over to Wheeljack's lab, not even bothering to think to tell their Guardians. It wasn't that hard to find them if they really looked, even if they had to look somewhere where the teens had technically been banned from. Technicalities didn't cross their minds as they looked for Skyfire's bipedal form or alt mode outside the lab, before realizing that Wheeljack's lab was just big enough to fit the large Seeker if he tried.

It wasn't hard to find Skyfire, though normally it took at least five minutes for them to safely navigate and find Wheeljack while he was in the lab. The mech was in the monitor room, plugged in and staring at the screen as coded information formed on it. Almost immediately the teens could just tell something was wrong.

"Sky, what are you looking at?" Sam asked, and while both knew Skyfire should have noticed them coming awhile back, it seemed like he was just noticing them now, optics tearing away from all the Cybertronian glyphs on the screen.

"Nothing." A short and curt response, surprising them both.

"That's the glyph for Decepticon," Miles said, pointing. He opened his side of the bond with Barricade, trying to contact the mech through it. "And those two are somemech's name. I forget whose."

Sam looked at where his friend was pointing, vaguely recognizing the Cybertronian glyph for Decepticon. Miles had always been better when it came to other languages, but it appeared the fast moving glyphs were mostly too much even for him. Decepticon and the other two familiar glyphs had been all he managed to make out.

Skyfire's optics seemed to short out for a moment, before reappearing a lighter blue as he looked back to the screen.

"Starscream," He allowed, hesitating just a bit before his normal honesty and openness caused him to continue. "I got this off of Shockwave, and have been trying to decode it since three this morning."

Miles tensed at Shockwave's name, but the memory of the mech wasn't the only reason. Shockwave was dead and had been for a while, and Ratchet had gone through a fit when Optimus and Prowl suggested going inside the mech's processor and collecting any useful data they could find. As dangerous as it was to do it, Optimus ended up overriding Ratchet's concerns on the matter and assigning the project to Wheeljack and Skyfire. The two scientists searching seemed to turn up nothing, but apparently Skyfire had managed to find something pertaining to Starscream and go at it on his own.

Sam frowned, "Did you tell Ratch, or even Wheeljack? Ratchet's gonna blow a gasket when he finds out how careless you've be-"

"Silence!" Skyfire slammed his servos down on the controls, voice cracking as it caused both teens to jump in surprise and shuffle a little closer to each other.

This wasn't like Skyfire at all, even with his devotion to finding out what managed to turn Starscream on to Megatron's side. It had never changed how the mech treated them and neither could remember Skyfire ever raising his voice, or even getting angry at all. His vocalizer was glitching, and he was acting oddly, maybe even violently. One thing Ratchet had thrown a fit about was the possibility of the encrypted data in Shockwave's processor containing a virus that would attack whoever tried to decode it. Sam turned to Miles and mouthed the word virus, and Miles nodded. It looked like Ratchet's fears had been correct.

"Sky, just calm down." Miles said slowly, moving closer and closer to the Scientist, blinking as he was hit by an intense wave of heat that just rolled off the giant Seeker. "You're burning up!"

"I am fine," Skyfire all but growled, turning optics down to the teen. Now instead of just appearing lighter in color, they were glitching too, going dark or static lacing through them.

"Fine is not boiling hot, Sky! You're like-" Miles made the mistake of putting a hand on the metal plating of Skyfire's leg, a current of powerful electricity running through the mech and into him.

"Miles!" Sam heard the telltale crackle of electricity, but it sounded louder than it should be, and the hair on his arms was standing up. He ran forward to catch his friend when Miles fell backwards, supporting the added weight as best he could. It wasn't a huge leap to figuring out that Miles had just gotten shocked, and badly enough that he was unresponsive when Sam shook him.

"Sky, we need to take him to Ratch, now!" But that wasn't going to happen, Skyfire collapsing to his knees and falling forward into the controls. There was a mechanical thrum as Skyfire's systems worked overtime, before stalling completely.

Automatically, Sam reached out a hand, repeating Miles' actions from earlier as he touched some of Skyfire's plating. The mech really was burning up, so hot that he was burning Sam's hands, but Sam knew he couldn't pull back. He had to concentrate.

Barricade and Bumblebee stood together outside of the cafeteria, both in their bipedal mode. It had been almost ten minutes since the teens were supposed to meet them, but so far they had been nowhere to be seen.

Barricade had taken to leaving his side of the bond open when it came to feeling Miles, but blocking any of his own emotions that might leak out. This way he could help Miles a little by telling him when his own block didn't work and Barricade felt him, and he would occasionally send the teen something he was feeling to test the strength of his blocks. It was something Sparklings and Younglings went through so they could learn how to block each other successfully but still keep a close bond, and Jazz had been the one to suggest it. He had also taken an active role in attempting to not dislike Mason that much, though that was taking a bit longer to work on.

"Think Prowl is holding them?" Bumblebee asked.

"If he is, we better go step in. Last time he ended up glitching when they retaliated." Barricade replied, rolling his optics when Bumblebee snickered.

"They are a force when together," Bumblebee grinned, heading down the path the teens would come.

Barricade followed, remaining silent even as Bumblebee started to talk. If the teens had stopped to talk to anyone along the way, or gotten distracted by something, they would end up running across them. If that didn't work, they'd most likely run across someone who had seen them, and could tell them what direction to go to retrieve their wayward Charges.

Several feelings rolled over the ex-con, making him take a slight pause. As short as it was, Bumblebee noticed, and stopped beside him. Barricade identified the burst as what could almost be deemed a 'feeler wave', meaning Miles was looking for a reaction.

"Miles?" Bumblebee asked, smirking. The Scout found the bond between the two funny, especially when Miles managed to nearly knock Barricade flat on his aft with happiness or the like. He was a bit jealous of the pair, and Sam had admitted to thinking that something like what they had would be cool between himself and Bumblebee. But the Autobot would be content with what he had, and just laugh when Barricade got annoyed at what he had.

Barricade glared at the Scout, before blocking his side of the bond completely. But the next feeler wave just tore right through his blocks with a small sense of urgency, followed by an intense wave of worry.

"We need to find them," Barricade said, resuming walking, but this time changing his course and going faster. Without even noticing he was heading to Wheeljack's lab.

"What's wrong?" Bumblebee asked worriedly, following the ex-con.

"Something's-" Barricade's vocalizer cut itself off as a sharp and unusual pain filled his Spark. His systems stalled for a full nanosecond, and in the next he was venting as sharply as if all the wind had been knocked out of him, though it didn't affect him as much as it would an organic. As quick as the pain had come, it faded away even quicker. When Barricade sent out a questioning feeler there was nothing on the other side.

Both mechs put their systems on high, Bumblebee contacting Ratchet and Optimus as Barricade contacted Ironhide and Prowl, only managing to tell them that the problem was in Wheeljack's lab somewhere. With their systems on high neither missed the large burst of Allspark energy.

By the time Barricade and Bumblebee got to Wheeljack's lab, Will, Epps, Ratchet, and Wheeljack had beaten them to it. Ratchet was looking over Skyfire as Wheeljack hovered over his shoulder, attempting to safely disconnect the Scientist without reinfecting him. Ratchet was trying to wake up Skyfire, and make sure that nothing permanently damaging had been done. Sam was on his knees, holding Miles in a small sitting up position as Will and Epps woke him and tried to get a response.

"Miles, Miles?" Epps held up his hand when the dazed teen managed to focus on him enough, and then proceeded to flick Miles off. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Miles blinked slowly, "The thumb isn't a finger, so eight."

Will, Epps, and Sam looked at the hand the Sergeant was holding up. Epps had meant to be joking when he flicked the teen off, not actually checking for anything. Sam helped Miles sit up further, looking worried.

"Eight? Is he okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine!" Miles slapped Sam's hands away, sitting up by himself as he caught a new wind. "Is Skyfire okay?"

Sam nodded, "I took care of the virus, I guess."

"There's a shock," Miles grinned, only to be smacked on the arm by Sam.

"If he's good enough to be cracking jokes, he's fine. I'll check him out later, and so will the organic medic." Ratchet said, before barking orders. "Mechs, out! Wheeljack, help me carry Skyfire out of here. Barricade, Bumblebee, use your holoforms. I want you to scan the place to make sure Skyfire didn't touch anything else, but I swear to Primus if you plug in to anything or come in with your real bodies I will rip you both apart limb by limb."

Wheeljack and Ratchet maneuvered Skyfire out of the lab, Sam and Will following. Barricade and Bumblebee activated their holoforms, taking a moment to send their bipedal modes out of the room. Miles stood up, Epps helping him steady himself. The teen leaned against the wall behind him, running a hand through his hair.

"Are you really okay?" Epps asked, examining the hand that Miles had touched Skyfire with. It was the only noticable sign that something had even happened, redder than normal. A good icing would take care of it.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"No you are not; you're glitched in the processor!" Barricade growled, his outburst surprising all of them. Bumblebee even glanced up from playing around with the monitors, using the human-sized controls. Epps held up his hands and backed away as Barricade stalked forward, indicating he wanted no part of whatever was about to go down as he moved next to Bumblebee.

Miles protested immediately, "I'm fine, Barry!"

"You call getting a large enough voltage of electricity that you faint fine?"

"Is that what this is about? Look, I'm sorry I had the bond open so you felt it, but I didn't exactly plan on getting the shit shocked out of me!" Miles really was sorry, he would have closed his side if he knew he was going to get hurt, so then Barricade wouldn't have had to feel it.

"No, this is about how stupid you are! If you're smart enough to figure out that something was wrong with Skyfire, how come you're not smart enough to figure out that touching him would be bad?"

"I didn't think-"

"I know you didn't think! You never do! You worry about everybody else besides yourself! It's getting more and more dangerous, and you're being concerned about others!" Barricade snapped, stalking even closer to the teen.

"But Sam-" Miles was cut off once again, pressing up against the wall behind him a bit. Dealing with an angry Barricade was easy, dealing with an angry Barricade who was dealing with emotions was a bit harder. Miles wasn't sure what to say to calm the ex-con down, or to at least stop the tirade for now.

"I don't give a frag about Sam! It's you I-!" Barricade cut himself off, growling.

Bumblebee and Epps stared at the two, one with wide eyes and the other in pure disbelief. Epps whispered to Bumblebee, "Primus, you think they'd fight less with their bond."

Bumblebee nodded his agreement, half thinking of stepping in. Barricade could go all Guardian on the teen for the first time after he was checked over, or that's what Bumblebee would have done, but he and Barricade appeared to be very different. By this point, Barricade had Miles pressed against the wall he had previously just been relaxing on. There was a spare inch separating their bodies, and the ex-con was leaning even closer. And like always, Miles was the one who tried to diffuse the situation.

"Awe, you do care, Barry! That's so sweet!"

Barricade growled, but visibly deflated as Bumblebee and Epps looked on in amazement. Miles really was good at dealing with the irritable ex-con.