AN: Hopefully this pops up as a new update for everyone like I'm hoping it will. If you're confused because you have followed this for a while, go read the AN in chapter one (and then chapter one!).

Miles spent that whole night wide awake, thinking of what had happened. Then he got ready for school because it was a Monday and he went to classes like normal, absorbing absolutely nothing as he sat in a daze and thought some more over it all.

He had left with the intention of never returning, but then his mind kept wandering back to his surprise over the robot just letting him leave. Then he would inevitably remember that line of pink liquid and how much it reminded him of blood. The robot was obviously injured and seemingly alone, could Miles leave him like that?

If he were really being honest with himself, the biggest reason his thoughts kept returning to the robot was because of how supremely cool it was. An actual giant robot that could look like a car! Few things were cooler than that.

In the end, Miles couldn't help himself. By the time school ended he had already made up his mind to go back. He knew he was taking a risk; he had no doubt that the robot could kill him with next to no effort, but he didn't think it would. Just in case, he made sure to tell his mom what time he'd be back and he left his bike just a few feet from the path in case people had to look for him.

When he finally made his way back, he was somewhat comforted to see that the robot was back in its car form. The car form was far less intimidating than the big robot one. From the way the wheels moved to point at him and the engine growled, Miles knew the robot was already awake.

"You came back," Barricade noted.

Barricade was surprised that the organic actually had the courage to do so. He had given Miles such an obvious out that he had assumed he would never see him again.

"Yup."

"Did you tell anyone?"

Miles frowned, "Who would I tell? No one would believe me."

Barricade stayed silent. Since he hadn't actually expected Miles to come back he hadn't bothered to move locations. He had assumed the teen would be too scared to say anything to anyone, but now he realized he had misjudged this particular organic. A quick scan did reveal heightened stress, but no fear.

"What are you, anyway?" Miles asked.

"I have no reason to tell you anything."

"You need help, don't you? I could do that."

Help him? What a laughable thought. Barricade forced himself to shift back to his bipedal form, a task made harder because he'd turned the outer layer of receptors on again and this time it physically pained him to do so. It was all made worth it when he scanned Miles again and picked up an elevated heart rate. Evidently, he found this form more intimidating than his alt mode.

"And what makes you think that I would want a disgusting, fleshy organic helping me?" Barricade demanded.

"This organic has a name," Miles pointed out. "And it's more than obvious that you don't have any other… robots to help you. You're alone here and injured."

The pair entered a staring contest. As much as Barricade hated to admit it, even if it weren't out loud, Miles was right. He had no other help, and if Barricade wanted an actual chance at surviving the next inevitable skirmish then he would need to be in better shape.

"Fine," Barricade growled. He reached into his chassis compartment, pulling out the toolkit he had snitched. "A trade, then. You help me and I'll answer some of your questions."

"You'll have to tell me what to do," Miles said, taking a few steps closer now that it was obvious that he was being allowed to do so. "I don't actually know anything about cars."

"I am far more advanced than a car, fleshling."

"My name is Miles," Miles reminded him. "And since I don't know anything about you at all, how am I supposed to know that?"

"My name is Barricade," Barricade finally shared, sitting down. "I come from the planet Cybertron, so I imagine you organics would refer to my kind as Cybertronians."

"An alien," Miles muttered in awe. "How did you get here?"

"War." Barricade informed him shortly, "My side and the enemy side arrived here attempting to find an important artifact from our planet that had been lost."

Barricade used the tip of his claw to carefully open the latch on the tool kit, sliding out the first tool and offering it to the organic. Miles took this as an obvious sign that the conversation was tabled for the time being and reached out and took the wrench, looking between the tool and the mech expectantly. Barricade was silent for another moment but Miles watched as those red eyes went dim for a few seconds; Barricade took the time to turn off the first layer of receptors again before he laid down on the ground, using his right arm to gesture to his left.

For the next two hours, Miles listened to Barricade's instructions and carefully followed what the mech said. By the time it was over Miles knew much more about the inner workings of Barricade's left shoulder than he had ever actually wanted to know. He had tried asking questions in between orders for a little bit, but Barricade's voice had started to go staticky around the same time a bunch of that pink liquid had leaked out of one of the tubes and gotten on his hands, so Miles had thought it best to just leave it be until they took a break. The amount of pink on his hands made him feel like he'd dunked them in a batch of pepto bismol, and it was starting to burn.

"What is this pink stuff?" Miles asked as he sat back and let the screwdriver fall to the ground next to the wrench and hammer that had already been used. He held up his hands and examined them, "It's making my hands burn a little."

"That's energon," Barricade responded. "I suppose the best way to relate it to your organic anatomy is by calling it blood. It is somewhat acidic so most likely it has begun to irritate your delicate organic skin."

"Blood?" Miles squeaked.

Even though he had thought it looked like blood, knowing it actually was Barricade's equivalent of it disturbed him. He got up from his position and went over to where he had dropped his backpack, pulling out one of the water bottles and uncapping it so he could use the water inside to wash the stuff off his hands. It took nearly the whole bottle and he had to use his shirt to wipe some of the remnants of it off but he felt better not having Barricade's blood all over his hands. He looked at his hands and grimaced at how raw and irritated his skin looked. There was a cut on the palm of his left hand that hadn't been there before, probably caused by scratching it against one of the sharp metal pieces that Barricade was made of, and the thought of their different bloods mixing together just weirded Miles out even more.

"Okay," Miles sighed, "Now you definitely owe me."

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

"Yes, you owe me! I just spent two hours getting bossed around by your cranky ass and getting your blood all over me just to find out it's actively damaging me!"

"You offered to help," Barricade pointed out. "It is no fault of mine that you are insane enough to do so. A smart member of your species would have never come back."

"I'm not afraid of a dirty police car that looks like it's seen better days," Miles snorted. "Especially not one that gets cranky when I don't understand the big words they use."

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

Miles just grinned at the obviously annoyed look Barricade was giving him. He hadn't tried to purposefully taunt the robot, but pretty much anything seemed to piss Barricade off so he figured it didn't really matter in the end. Despite the minor threats and the growls, Barricade hadn't laid a finger on him. It was probably dumb of him to feel safe because of it, but he did. Any true fear he felt was minimized by the amount of awe and excitement he felt.

Because he wasn't a complete idiot, he opted to stay quiet for a little bit so Barricade could cool off before he bothered him with more questions. He grabbed the sandwich and extra water bottle he'd packed and sat down in the grass a few feet away from the mech. He watched as Barricade started testing out his left arm, rotating it forwards and then stopping abruptly when there was a loud wrenching noise.

"So," Miles started once he'd taken a bite, making it come out with an 'sh' instead. "Wha' kin' of artifact was so important that you had to take a war off planet to retrieve it?"

"First off, fleshling, you are absolutely disgusting." Barricade informed him, tone actually sounding disgusted at the teen's actions. "And it was one that gave us our power and our life; no Cybertronian would exist without it. It was called the Allspark. My Lord Megatron followed it to this planet but was injured in his landing here and he was unable to awaken until a few months ago, but by that point the enemy faction had already arrived."

Miles ignored Barricade's complaint. Excitement was winning over etiquette at the moment, and it was Barricade's fault he'd forgotten to eat lunch.

"What was this war about?"

"What is any war about?" Barricade tried rotating his arm again and this time there was no noise, "Some of it was in response to our class systems. Some of it was politics. Some of it was because one side wanted us to be prepared for war while the other side didn't see the need for it and thought our resources would be better spent elsewhere. It doesn't matter anymore."

"Why not?"

"The Allspark was destroyed and Lord Megatron was killed a few months back," Barricade explained. "With that artifact gone the Cybertronian race will die out."

"A few months back?" Miles repeated, frowning to himself. That had been back when Mission City happened, and while he hadn't necessarily believed the rumors going around he had thought it sounded a little fishy. "Did this happen in Mission City?"

"Yes, that was where the main battle between the Decepticons, which I belong to, and the Autobots took place."

Miles felt his heart sink as he realized that meant that Sam had probably been involved in the war. It would certainly explain just why Sam had become so much more jumpy and paranoid, and why he hadn't wanted to answer any of Miles' questions.

"Your heart rate has elevated. Is something wrong with you?"

Miles grimaced, "You can see that? Er, hear that?"

Barricade didn't respond, instead opting to stay silent. He could let the teen know that Cybertronians were capable of several different scans on both themselves and others but he preferred to keep silent until the organic figured out he should answer his question.

"A friend of mine was involved in Mission City," Miles continued hesitantly, "And I was wondering if… if, well…"

Miles trailed off, finding himself unwilling to finish the thought. Barricade was able to guess what it may have been, though, and vented sharply to keep himself from laughing. Given Miles' assumed age, Barricade had already guessed that he may go to school with LadiesMan217, but he hadn't wanted to assume that the pair were friends just because of their shared gender and age.

"The only organics involved in Mission City were all on the Autobot side," Barricade confirmed for Miles.

Barricade couldn't help but be curious to know what he would do now that his fear had been confirmed. He knew that Miles had his phone on him and that he could theoretically contact LadiesMan217, but Barricade wasn't too worried. With his left arm slightly repaired he would have a much easier time driving and had no doubt that he would be able to leave before any bumbling Autobot made it to his current location.

Miles was silent and his face looked more pale than it had before, so Barricade took some pity on him. Admittedly, he also just wanted to see how Miles would react. Finding a giant alien robot hadn't scared him off, but maybe this would.

"I'm assuming you are friends with Samuel James Witwicky?" Barricade waited for the teen to nod before continuing, "He was right in the thick of it. Evidently his ancestor, Archibold Witwicky, became aware of both Megatron's location and the Allspark's location. This was etched onto the glasses that your little friend tried to sell on Ebay under the username LadiesMan217, which is how we found him. The Autobots got to him first by sending one of their own to pose as a vehicle for him, but I did my best to get those glasses from him."

By the time Barricade got done telling him the shortened version of everything, the sun was starting to set. Barricade hadn't hidden anything about his time on Earth and he didn't lie about what he did to try and get Archibald Witwicky's glasses off of Sam, though maybe that was because he just didn't see the point. Barricade didn't seem to care about any emotional trauma this may have caused Sam, and it made Miles feel bad for his friend.

In an effort to distract himself from this horrifying revelation, Miles asked Barricade more about Cybertronians as a whole. It was shocking to find out that Barricade was almost a million years old, and yet somehow that still got him labeled as 'young' compared to some of his other Decepticons. Finding out that Cybertronians had no true gender but took on the pronouns of whatever language was being used to make things easier confused Miles to no end, but if Barricade wanted to be called a he instead of an it then he would be called that.

Knowing that Barricade had threatened Sam at one point made Miles think that he should get up and leave as quickly as he could, or that he should try and call his friend before Barricade stopped him. He had let Barricade continue to talk as a distraction to avoid thinking about it, but now with the growing silence he couldn't ignore it anymore. Sam had potentially been emotionally traumatized for life and at the very least had definitely been bruised up some because of Barricade.

Miles took a deep breath and reminded himself of the important things: Barricade hadn't tried to hide his previous history with Sam, he hadn't seriously hurt Sam, and despite a few verbal comments he had never actually made a move to harm Miles. Miles found that last point particularly compelling, because Barricade now knew that Miles had a reason to dislike him and see him as a threat and that it would be easy for him to rat Barricade out.

Despite the fact that everything seemed to be telling him to run away or call for help, he wanted to try and help Barricade. He was now certain that Barricade really did need it, because it sounded like everyone else had abandoned him. Maybe Miles was trying to justify it to himself too much, but he didn't think Barricade would do anything to him even if he did call Sam right then and there.

Miles looked up into those red eyes and saw how carefully he was being watched. He felt as if this was some kind of test, and he didn't know if passing or failing would be better.

"Sam and I have been friends forever. Well, we were—" Miles cut himself off, deciding that Barricade didn't need to know that they had hit a rough spot. "More like brothers, really, and this does explain a lot. Especially about his car. But I'm not going to say anything to him or Bumblebee about you, I promise. I've spent time fixing you up and the last thing I want to have is someone damaging you again."

Barricade's stare remained on him for what felt like a long time. Finally he heaved what Miles was beginning to think of as the Cybertronian equivalent of a sigh and shifted back into his car form.

"I am beginning to think that you are stupider than most other fleshlings," Barricade informed him. "To LadiesMan217 I am the enemy. I threatened him. I've fought his little Autodolt multiple times, and both would prefer to see me dead."

"Do you plan to find him and kill him?" Miles frowned.

"Do I… of course not! That would be a death sentence!"

"There you go, then." Miles grinned, "If I thought you were actually planning on doing anything more to Sam, then sure, I'd be upset and say something. You said it yourself: you came back to Tranquility to avoid being found, and that means you've been collecting dust for months near Sam without doing anything to him. Yeah, I hate that you did what you did to him, but it's not like I can do anything about it."

"You could tell him and his Autodolt," Barricade reminded him, obviously thinking he had somehow managed to forget that fast.

"And get you killed?" Miles shook his head, "You weren't trying to kill Sam. You were just trying to get the glasses. I don't think you deserve to die for that. And you obviously aren't going to go attack him for revenge or something stupid like that."

"I take that 'think' back, you are definitely more idiotic than the average fleshling."

"Yeah, yeah, stupid organic." Miles rolled his eyes, "Whatever, I have to get going before my mom freaks out."

Barricade scanned the organic in front of him one more time, searching for some sort of deceit. The scan revealed nothing unusual, not even an elevated heart rate. He couldn't tell if it was bravery or stupidity that Miles operated by, and he wasn't sure there was much of a difference in this case. Any sane organic would have left and never returned, doubly so when they found out what Barricade had done to one of their little friends.

But Miles no longer seemed afraid of him. The organic had been more bothered when he had realized he had Barricade's blood on him than he was right now. He was utterly baffling, and Barricade was disturbed to realize that it made him fascinating. No organic should be fascinating. He had obviously had way too much time without anything fun to focus on and it was seriously affecting his mental health.

He watched as the teen stood up and scanned him once more for good measure. Once he was satisfied that his previous scan hadn't been wrong, he continued in a tone that not many would have argued with.

"Since you seem uncaring that your little friend and I are enemies, you can come back tomorrow." Barricade decided, "I expect you here by seven in the morning, that way we have more time for the repairs before it gets dark and your pathetic organic eyes can no longer see."

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

Miles was out of Barricade's line of sight before he registered just what he was called, but he could still hear the angry rev of his engine and the loud growl and grinned to himself.