Tuesday morning and Miles was nowhere to be found. Barricade found himself amazed by the amount of gall the fleshling had. There was no doubt that he could easily kill the impudent creature and he was positive that the teen was fully aware of that, so the fact that the organic acted how he did threw his processor for a loop. Miles was an idiot, of that he was sure.

Barricade was forced to waste his time waiting for Miles, bored out of his processor. Had he been able to work on himself he would have done so, but there was nothing for him to do. He wasn't even willing to access the internet as he did not want to waste his energy reserves on it until he knew whether or not the annoying organic would be willing to bring him more of that gasoline.

Half an hour before the organic had shown up the previous day, he shifted into his bipedal form and crouched low to the ground around where he had come out of the shrubbery. It wasn't until he had gone to the trouble that he realized he actually expected Miles to come back, and that for some reason he hadn't assumed that he had been ratted out.

Before he could really think too hard on why that was he heard the telltale signs of an organic trundling along towards him. Miles came through between a pair of trees with his attention fully devoted to some tiny object in his hand, wires traveling from it to his ears.

"You're late!" Barricade boomed.

He watched with satisfaction as Miles jumped and let out a small yelp, nearly dropping the thing he had been holding and causing the wires that had been in his ears to fall out. His surprise didn't last long. He quickly grinned, blue eyes darting all over Barricade's face, and all at once Barricade realized this was the first time Miles was seeing it up close like this.

"Whoa, you look super intimidating up close like this!" Miles complimented, and Barricade almost laughed at the absurd statement combined with how excited Miles sounded. "Your eyes—"

"Optics," Barricade corrected.

"Your optics," Miles barely even paused to correct himself, "Are a super rad red color and they just make you look more badass. Not that you need it, of course, given how pointy your face and teeth are. Are those teeth? What do you even need teeth for? It's very—" and now Miles paused in his rambling as he struggled to find what he wanted to say, "—ouch looking."

Barricade snorted, "We call them denta, and they're mostly cosmetic. We do not eat with them. I worked underground for a time, and I used them there."

"Used them?"

Barricade opened his mouth and let his denta begin to rotate. Miles shuddered and brought his hands up to block his ears.

"Ugh, that's like nails on a chalkboard!"

He wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but it was obvious the noise bothered Miles, so he stopped it. Barricade scanned him, but he wasn't giving off any signs of fear. The only oddity was that his temperature was a little higher than it was the day before, but Barricade was fairly certain the noise wouldn't have caused that. The temperature was hotter today than it had been yesterday, so he figured that was the cause.

As soon as the noise stopped, Miles let his hands fall back down, as unbothered as he had been just moments before. The teen rocked back and forth on his heels a bit, head tilting back to get a better look at Barricade's faceplates.

"You're late," Barricade repeated, at a loss as to what else to say.

"Oh, you were serious about the time thing?" Miles asked, laughing a bit as he swung his backpack off of his back and let it fall to the ground. "I can't come that early unless it's a Saturday or a Sunday, and even then I'm usually doing other stuff so we'll have to see about that. Monday through Friday I go to school and that doesn't let out until an hour before now."

Barricade watched as the organic stepped closer to him, obviously no longer intimidated by his bipedal form. He didn't feel as surprised as he should be by the fact that what little fear the organic showed before was now gone completely, though he was still bothered by Miles acting so differently than he assumed most organics would. The longer he was around him the less surprised he was by the fleshy acting in a surprising manner; if he had acted the way Barricade truly expected him to then he wouldn't have even shown up today.

It was slightly worrying that Barricade was spending so much time trying to understand an organic of all things. He couldn't help but wonder if Starscream had managed to hit him hard enough to make his processor glitch. It definitely wasn't like he was somewhat happy to see the crazy organic show up again—he might have been lonely, but he hadn't fallen that far yet. With little else to do, though, his processor was latching on to what he could so he didn't go crazy from boredom or running too many statistics about his survival chances.

"I can't get here any faster," Miles continued, eyeing Barricade up.

Miles cracked his fingers, standing near one of Barricade's peds. For all the time he had spent actively working on Barricade's left arm the day before he hadn't bothered to take a close look at the rest of his body. He took a moment to look him over with curious eyes, circling around him to examine his back and the way the doors stuck up around his shoulders.

He guessed that Barricade had to be about seventeen feet tall. From the looks of things he didn't think a Cybertronian could be fat, but he certainly wasn't going to ask or bring the matter of weight up. He didn't want to risk becoming a human pancake just to find out Cybertronians weren't okay talking about their weight.

"So, what do you want me to do to you today, Barry?" Miles asked as he came to a stop in front of the mech, craning his neck to look up at him. "I don't have that long, I have to get home to do some homework. I made sure to bring gloves this time, though."

Barricade glared down at the fleshy, "My name is Barricade, fleshling."

"And my name is Miles," Miles replied easily, not fazed by the glare in the least. "Not fleshling, fleshy, human, insect, squishy, soon-to-be-pancake, or whatever else you might call me."

"Fine, human designated as Miles, you may attend to some pinched wiring under my chest armor." Barricade said. From his tone and the way he phrased his words it was obvious he believed it was something Miles should be honored to do. "Tomorrow you may help with some dents."

Miles barely held himself back from sighing, happy that his name was at least somewhere in there even if the mech was turning out to be a pompous asshole. When a large, clawed servo suddenly wrapped around him he let out a squeak that he would later be embarrassed about. Before he even had a chance to protest his arms were being squished tight to his sides and he was being lifted into the air, feet left dangling out of the mech's grasp. Like this he couldn't help but realize how tiny he was in comparison to Barricade, his head and feet being the only things sticking out from the servo holding him.

Barricade let him squirm for a moment, allowing the organic to adjust in his grip enough to free one arm, and then drew him up close to his face, letting his vents blow air out onto him. The teen took this as a sign that the mech wouldn't mind being touched and he took the presented opportunity to examine the faceplates curiously, tentatively reaching out a hand to touch one of the cheek ridges. He was surprised to find that the face plating was slightly warm, especially when he knew the plating on Barricade's left arm had been cool to the touch. When Barricade didn't pull him away he allowed his hand to explore a bit, enjoying the feel of the smooth alien metal even when he did run across one of the sharp edges.

"Hmm," Barricade drawled thoughtfully, "I'm not as disgusted as I thought I would be. I actually find your touch tolerable."

The mech actually sounded surprised and Miles couldn't hold back a snort. As interesting as exploring the difference between Barricade's arm plating and face plating was, it just didn't exactly warm his heart to be given such a backhanded compliment.

"Way to kill the mood, man." Miles complained, "Besides, I was touching you for ages the day before."

"I had my outer input sensors turned off so I would feel no pain," Barricade explained. "They are on for the moment, and besides that we have more sensors on our faces."

"Right," Miles sighed, "Well, I'd 'preciate it if you could stop manhandling me and put me down."

Making a small grunt of confirmation, Barricade laid down on his back and set Miles on his chest plates. The teen steadied himself and pulled some gloves out of his back pocket, pulling them on quickly and getting straight to work when he was given instructions. Barricade first had Miles free the wires that were getting pinched near his left headlight and then set him to work on unkinking them.

He let the humanwork as he ran a diagnostic scan on himself, searching for anything else that might need to be attended to quickly. Next he ran a scan of the area, ensuring no stupid Autobots were out and about anywhere near to him. After that, there was little to entertain him outside of Miles' occasional muttering as he attempted to reshape a wire.

Bored, Barricade decided to be a little mean. His first attempt to scare Miles hadn't gone as well as he had hoped, and he hardly counted startling him when he had grabbed him. He had yet to tell the fleshy of their holoforms, and after a moment of debate he decided it would do nicely, but first he decided to change it.

Like all the Decepticons who had landed on Earth to assist in freeing Megatron and besting the Autobots, he had a preset holoform image. The specs for it had been stolen from an actual organic, someone that had been murdered and left to rot in the deserts of Qatar thanks to Skorponok and Blackout. Now that he had the time for it, Barricade decided he could make one that he liked for himself.

It took mere seconds for him to choose new parameters for a holoform: still male, still wearing a police uniform, but he made the face younger and the jaw sharper, altering the nose so it was aquiline. He also got rid of the mustache entirely, opting instead for light stubble all over. He didn't bother to change the hair on his head, but he did change the eyes from blue to a muddied red color instead and got rid of the sunglasses. He also made sure to make it so he was about a foot taller than Miles, just to ensure the organic had to look up at him.

Barricade formed his holoform just behind the teen. For a moment he simply watched the organic working diligently on unkinking the previously pinched wires from this new perspective. Then he reached out and grabbed Miles' arm, laughing outright when the teen jumped and nearly lost his balance. The only thing that kept him in place was the grip Barricade had on his arm.

"A shame, I had been hoping for another one of those high pitched squeaks," Barricade taunted, allowing a smirk to form on his holoform's face when Miles turned to look at him.

Miles' brows furrowed, "…Barricade?"

"Obviously," Barricade snorted. "I am using a holoform. To put it as simply as possible for that small brain of yours, this allows me to behave and look like whatever organic I want to fit in as. It also gives sensory input, but how accurate it is I can't say."

"Oh, fuck you," Miles huffed, glaring at Barricade. He jerked his arm out of the his grasp, "I'm starting to think you have way too much time on your hands–"

"Servos," Barricade corrected.

"Whatever. This is the second time today that you've tried to scare me. Can't that amazing brain—"

"Processor."

"Processor," Miles ground out, and Barricade felt satisfied to know that he could annoy the human just as much as he annoyed him. "Can't that amazing processor of yours think of anything else to do?"

"I hardly need to if you're here to provide me entertainment, fleshling." Barricade replied haughtily.

"I do have school," Miles reminded him, "And a family. I'd say a life in general, but that's already covered by school and family. There are some days I might not be here at all to 'entertain' you, like if I get sick or my mom kidnaps me for private time. And my name, remember?"

Barricade gave that some thought, and deciding that Miles might have a point, he growled. "You're lucky you're at least a little right, flesh—Miles. I am more than capable of accessing the world wide web but have been reluctant to use what little energy I have on it. If you agreed to provide more of that gasoline then I suppose I could make do."

"I could do that," Miles agreed, trying not to show how surprised he was by the hidden request. "Is gasoline what you normally, uh… eat?"

"Energon is my main fuel source."

"...isn't that your blood?" Miles asked, making a face and desperately trying to not picture Barricade as a vampire. It would at least explain the teeth.

"There are differences. It is like water for you humans. It makes up some of your body, but you also have to drink it to survive. The energon in my wiring merely acts as lubrication and energy for the nanites inside. The energon in my wiring originally comes from the energon I consume," Barricade explained. "Once it travels through my wiring it is of no use as a fuel source."

"Riiiight," Miles dragged out the word, privately thinking that it was still weird. "Well, I can bring some more gas tomorrow, so why don't you try out some movies or TV shows or something. Heck, I'm sure you could find a book or two, as well."

"As much as I hate to see what pathetic things you come up with, I can't exactly do anything to entertain myself without drawing attention..." Barricade growled, though it seemed like the annoyance was more directed at the situation and not Miles himself, so he didn't pay it any mind.

"I have my Ipod with me and it has a bunch of music on it if you want to try," Miles offered. "I think I still have a podcast on there, too."

"The device you were listening to when you arrived?"

"Yeah," Miles dug it out of the pocket he had put it in and offered the device, minus the tangled headphones, to the holoform. "It can go on the internet, too, but there's no connection out here. Passcode is PJxAC."

He didn't even get a grunt in response this time, Barricade just took the Ipod from him and examined it. Simulated hands quickly figured out how to get the screen to light up and from there it barely took him five seconds to input the access code. Miles watched as the holoform turned the device this way and that, finally finding the charging port.

"Ah, this device will be useful after all." Barricade said, the holoform grinning. "Would you mind if I keep this?"

"Guess not."

Miles watched as the holoform went to his bipedal form and pulled a wire from the area that would be called a wrist on a human, blinking in surprise when Barricade then connected the wire into the Ipod. He noticed that Barricade's optics dimmed at the same time as the screen on his Ipod became brighter.

"Uh… what are you doing, exactly?"

"This device is exceedingly easy to add programs to," Barricade explained. "Once I am done with this you will give me your cellular device and I will add an application to that which will allow you to find me with GPS regardless of data connection. I would prefer to move locations now that I am able to."

His voice was still coming from the holoform but neither the holoform's mouth nor the mouth on his bipedal form were moving. Miles was finding this more and more creepy the longer he spoke and he couldn't quite wrap his head around how it was even possible so he decided it was best to just keep quiet and let Barricade do what he wanted. At least he had technically asked permission first.

Barricade's optics brightened once more and he gave the teen a pointed look. Miles realized he was expected to still be working on the wires and with an eye roll did just that. When he looked up next the Ipod was nowhere in sight and the holoform had disappeared, which made him realize that Barricade probably meant to keep the device permanently. Miles didn't mean for that to be an option, and he figured it was too late to say anything now, but it still made him a little annoyed.

To get back at Barricade, he suggested the stupidest movie he could think of to get him started on his foray into human media. Barricade took his suggestion seriously and began to watch the Human Centipede. Miles almost felt a little bad as Barricade gave disgusted commentary on it, but as he also continued to give Miles orders on what to do he couldn't have been too bothered.

"That was disgusting," Barricade grumbled, and Miles figured the movie had to be over. "That's your favorite film?"

"Fuck no!" Miles laughed. "I just made you watch it to torture you a little. Figured you'd stop at some point, but your processor obviously isn't that advanced."

Red optics stared at him in what Miles was sure was surprise, and he just gave a shit-eating grin right back. Barricade narrowed his optics and brought a hand up, gently flicking Miles and he laughed as he took the message and slid off his chest. After spending so long alternating between kneeling, squatting, and straddling hard metal his legs ached, but he figured complaining wasn't going to win him any brownie points.

"My actual favorite movie is probably Pirates of the Caribbean, and Lords of Dogtown is pretty rad." Miles ran a hand through his hair.

He listed a few others he enjoyed, trying to give a suggestion from every genre he could think of. Barricade did a quick search about their contents this time and was satisfied by the more serious answer, resolving to give some of them a try later.

"Alright, that's enough for now. Give me your phone so I can add the map locater to it," Barricade ordered.

Miles went and got his backpack, getting his phone out of it. He handed his phone over and watched as the 'con pulled out the same wire from his wrist as before, plugging into it and making the screen light up.

"If I can't come for some reason, how am I supposed to tell you?" Miles asked, slinging his backpack onto one shoulder.

"I can add my contact into your phone and you can text or call me that way."

Miles thought about asking how he could even have something for Miles to contact him by, but it just reminded him of how little he understood about Barricade.

"How can you do all this stuff, anyway?" Miles wondered, "I mean, you're an alien, right? So why are you so compatible with our stuff?"

"Your technology was reverse engineered from one of my kind," Barricade said shortly.

Miles did not like the sound of that at all. He was aware of how cruel some humans could be, and Barricade had admitted the other day that some humans knew how to keep them captive and kill them. He decided it was better to stop that line of questioning before he found out anything too sad.

He took his phone back when Barricade held it out too him and quickly found the new application that had been put on it. It had no name and no icon, so at least it stood out. Then he went into his contacts, nearly laughing outright when he realized what Barricade had put himself under. There was no 'Barricade', but there was an Officer Barry Cade. Just to make it a little less obvious, he changed the contact name to Officer Barry Ticon.

The few times he had hung out with Mikaela she had no qualms about grabbing his phone off of him and going through his stuff just to watch him squirm, and the last thing he needed was her or Sam finding out just who he was spending time with.

"Guess you're alright with me calling you Barry after all, huh?" Miles glanced up and watched in amusement as Barricade closed all four optics, obviously not having realized his mistake. "That's good to know. See ya later, Barry!"

Miles smirked up at the 'con before beating a hasty retreat behind some bushes. He laughed when he heard Barricade growl in frustration, following the trail back to the path that would eventually lead him to his house.