AN March 2023: It's tiiiiimeeeeeee! I'm going to stagger the updates out just because I am going through and doing active minor edits to make sure I miss as little mistakes as possible, and also because I'm uploading to ao3 at the same time. This has been a very long time in coming and I really love any of you who have either stuck around this long or managed to find your way to this story. I truly hope you enjoy the changes I've made, and to any newcomers: welcome and enjoy the ride! To those who have been here for a while, know there will be new scenes peppered throughout the story and changes in dialogue, so you have some things to look forward to as well!

For now, I've deleted the other twenty or so chapters that already existed in this story. I didn't want to make a new one because TC: Remix was always meant to have this sort of thing in it, it just took me a while to get around to doing it the way I thought it deserved. I'm going to make it easy on myself and keep this and the ao3 version (Catalyst, under energonbunny) keep up with each other, so I'll be uploading the first two chapters. The first few things will probably come pretty fast, but after that I'll try to space things out a bit more.

Barricade scanned his surroundings for the umpteenth time, finally deciding that he was far enough into the heavily wooded area that he was sure he wouldn't be found. The grouping of trees was about fifteen acres thick and he'd only managed to go as far in as he had because of an extremely old path; he'd passed the tiny pond it had led to about two miles back. The undergrowth even on that old path had been a pain to drive over, adding scratches to his already torn up frame that he didn't need.

This place would at least provide him some protection. The spattering of trees would shield him from the worst of any wind and rain, and he had enough room to stand and stretch in between them if the urge to shift into his bipedal form struck him.

After that embarrassing fight in Mission City, Barricade had barely escaped without notice. With as bad as his injuries had been and with the US government out looking for him, he'd decided to go back towards Tranquility and hunker down in a junkyard five miles away from it. It was a gamble, but one he felt safe in taking. The Autobots would likely assume that he would never dare to get that close to where their precious little human savior lived.

A long month of nothing but silence followed where he collected dust among all the other abandoned wrecks. He had been broadcasting a private signal calling for aid from any nearby Decepticons, and it was Starscream who finally answered him. Instead of doing anything useful, Starscream gleefully told Barricade that Megatron was dead. As if Barricade was some barely functioning drone too stupid to figure it out for himself!

Barricade had no doubt that, had Megatron survived, he would have been called to his side. He may have failed to be of any proper use in Mission City, and he may have failed to acquire the glasses, but his overall track record was mostly spotless. More importantly, he had always remained loyal, and Megatron had always shown that loyalty like his was repaid if the failures were few and far between.

Starscream proceeded to talk at him for two entire hours. That whole time and the only useful thing he told him was that the Nemesis and a few other Decepticons, like Shockwave and Soundwave, had landed somewhere in Canada. As injured as he was, Barricade would be unable to make the journey without help, and from the nasty smirk Starscream gave him it was obvious.

Starscream then went on to say, as if it was some simple afterthought, that Frenzy was dead. Frenzy had been Barricade's partner for the entire Earth fiasco and a couple of vorns before that; Barricade had already assumed the worst, but that had been because he had no way to contact the little mech. He wouldn't have called Frenzy a friend, but they had been partners for so long that he had felt a certain kind of fondness for him.

The fact that Starscream had almost forgotten to mention Frenzy's death rubbed Barricade the wrong way. He knew there had been no warm feelings between Frenzy and Starscream, even less between Starscream and Frenzy's creator, Soundwave, but something about how Starscream delivered the information sat wrong with him. Just because Starscream hadn't liked him didn't mean that Frenzy hadn't been an important part of the Decepticons.

Then Starscream reminded Barricade of what he thought was the most important thing: that he was now the leader of the Decepticons. As much as Barricade hated it, by pure succession rights, Starscream was the leader. That didn't mean that other Decepticons would respect the line of succession, and it was that thought that told Barricade just why Starscream had shown up to help him.

Barricade had been known for having Megatron's favor, and if Starscream could get Barricade to back him then that would sway a few more Decepticons into supporting him. Starscream might have been second in command per Megatron's own ruling, but not many Decepticons respected him. He had attempted to stab Megatron in the back far too many times for Barricade to ever want him as a leader.

Barricade had never liked Starscream and Starscream had never liked Barricade. Despite this, Starscream still seemed genuinely surprised when Barricade had laughed and said he would never follow him.

Starscream had never needed much of a reason to get violent, and Barricade's laughter actually seemed to hurt his feelings. Still wounded from the fighting beforehand, Barricade had been unable to do much more than defend himself as Starscream ripped into him. He'd been able to protect his spark chamber and his helm, but he probably would have died if it hadn't been for Skywarp popping into existence next to Starscream. He had looked at the scene before him and casually said that Barricade would still be more useful to them alive even if he didn't agree to follow Starscream right away. This had led to Starscream leaving him in that junkyard just as abruptly as he had found him.

Barricade should have been grateful for that small mercy, but instead he just simmered in his own anger once the trine-mates left. As much as he appreciated his life, he hated that he had been allowed to live just because he might provide a future use.

Starscream hadn't even told him where in Canada the Nemesis and the other Decepticons were, which meant that Barricade had no way of reaching out to them, nor of finding them without wasting a lot of time and energy. They may not have even known what Starscream was up to, let alone that Barricade had survived. He could probably manage to broadcast a message across the internet, but the chances of them seeing it were low while the chances of the Autobots or one of the humans affiliated with them seeing it was too high.

Worried that Starscream may come back, Barricade was forced to find a new location to lay low. He preferred his new location over the junkyard, as at least now he no longer felt like he was hiding in a graveyard. It had the added benefit of being a few miles away from any human streets or buildings.

What frustrated Barricade the most was that he couldn't even repair himself properly. He had never had any official medical training, but Ground Hog had helped him learn more than was probably wise, so he knew what was wrong with him. There was just no way for him to do more than a temporary patch job.

He didn't have any tools at his disposal small enough to work on the biggest issues, nor could he just go in with a holoform to do it because they were coded to disperse as soon as they got that close to the internal workings of whoever was using them, generally so some stupid Cybertronian couldn't accidentally off themselves thinking they knew more than they really did about repairing themselves.

Whenever he ran a diagnosis scan the most pressing warning that came up was the destruction of a coolant line. It wasn't an immediate threat and there was ultimately little Barricade could do without receiving help of some sort. There were also a few general warnings about crushed plating that meant some wires were constantly being pinched and rubbed until they started to fray. If he shifted to his bipedal form he'd have almost no use of his left arm whatsoever because of how badly Starscream had wrecked it.

Some of his issues could be solved with time or extra care. The nanites in his internal repair systems could mend the fraying strands of wire to an extent and he had an alarm set in his processor to warn him if he reached a certain temperature because he would no longer be able to properly cool himself. To conserve energy and to prioritize what his internal repairs worked on, Barricade turned off some of his pain receptors.

Most Cybertronians did not possess enough knowledge nor the stupidity to turn off their own pain receptors; Barricade had enough knowledge and just enough determination to survive that he didn't hesitate to turn off the outermost layer of pain receptors that resided on his exterior. This would mean that he wouldn't feel any outside stimuli, not even a rock beneath his tire or a branch scratching along one of his doors, but it was a risk he was willing to take to ensure a better chance at survival.

With little else to do beyond give his body time to heal, Barricade got comfortable in his new spot and shut down as many subroutines as he could to conserve energy. He even shut off his signal and his comm frequency, determined not to be found by anyone until he wanted to be. With all of that done, Barricade let himself drift into stasis in an effort to stave off boredom and to save the little energon reserves he had left.

"Hey, Sam!" Miles called.

Sam was outside washing his car like he did every Saturday at this time. Miles picked up the pace on his skateboard just as he got to Sam's driveway, Sam giving a warning hiss as Miles got closer and closer to his precious Camaro. He stopped just a few inches away from it, kicking the board up and catching it with his hand. Sam glared at him, probably for the mini-heart attack, and Miles just grinned back.

"I got that new Call of Duty game," Miles patted one of the pockets on his khaki shorts, "I can help you finish up washing your baby, and then we can go see how badly I still kick your ass."

Sam looked away from him, and Miles knew right away that he was going to refuse. Miles opened his mouth, ready to argue to spend time with him, but then he shut it again. He wanted to see what Sam would say.

"I have a date with Mikaela that I have to get ready for soon," Sam said.

Miles took the game out of his pocket and tossed it onto the hood of the Camaro. It wasn't a hard toss by any means, certainly no where close to scratching the pristine paint job, but Sam still went a little red in the face because of it.

"Hey!" Sam protested, "Just because I can't hang out today doesn't mean you get to act like an asshole. You could scratch—"

"Oh come on, Sam!" Miles interrupted with a laugh, "You could at least have the decency to say you don't want to spend time with me. I was right there when Mikaela told us she was going to be out of town with her dad because of that car convention!"

Sam's eyes widened, but he didn't say anything. He knew he was caught.

"Right," Miles sighed. "Keep the game. You've always liked that shit better than I have."

"What is this, a breakup?" Sam tried to joke, but it fell flat.

"I guess it kind of is," Miles got back on his skateboard. "It just took me a while to figure it out. If you change your mind then let me know, because I'm tired of being the only one who tries."

"Miles, I…" Sam looked pained, but that didn't stop him from trailing off.

And he didn't say anything at all to stop Miles from leaving. Miles even gave him an awkward minute too long, but Sam just stared at the ground and Miles left with what little dignity he had managed to keep.

Miles had known that today was a long shot, but he hadn't been able to stop himself from trying. Ever since the previous school year, they'd been drifting further and further apart. Miles knew something big had happened and changed his friend, but he didn't know what. Sam had started acting strange after he bought that old 1976 Camaro, and then he and his family and Mikaela had disappeared for a few days. When Sam and the others had come back, Sam was driving a new Camaro with a similar paint job to his old one and he and Mikaela were dating.

All of them had been different upon their return. Miles had made the mistake of asking what had happened just once, and he never repeated it. He let Sam get away with zero explanations despite all the rumors that flew around about him and his family and Mikaela. He let Sam get away with a bad attitude and treating him like shit because he loved him. They'd been friends since they were in diapers.

It had been six months now and Miles was done with it. Their senior year had started and despite trying to hang out with Sam like he always used to, Miles was continuously blown off.

When it came down to it, the issue between them was that Miles hadn't been there for the world changing experience Sam had gone through. The lack of that shared experience had created a gaping chasm between them that Miles didn't know how to cross and that Sam had made no efforts to bridge. Sam had changed, and Miles had been left behind.

It would have been nice to have something easy to blame for the loss of someone he cared about. A previous fight, or something stupid that Miles had done that Sam was still mad over, but it wasn't that simple.

Sam was like a brother to him, but Miles was done. He had finally realized that there was nothing he could do, and he had come to the decision that he was tired of being treated like shit. If Sam didn't want to put any more effort in, then Miles wouldn't waste anymore of his time. He hated feeling unwanted and that was exactly how he felt at that moment.

The only issue now was that he had to find something to do for the rest of the day. Miles' mother was almost as bothered by him losing Sam's friendship as he was, and he didn't want to put up with her sad looks for the rest of the day if he went home right away. With a lack of anything better to do, Miles skateboarded over to the lake and then picked one of the many walking trails and let himself get lost in his thoughts.

He really didn't need anymore time to get stuck in his own thoughts, but the walk was still nice. Miles was fairly confident in his knowledge of the area, so he wandered off the path at some point to trudge through the more difficult overgrown and unkempt areas. There was litter strewn about in odd areas, so he had to be careful about where and how he stepped. An hour in and he was feeling just a little better about the whole thing, but half an hour after that he was back to feeling like crap.

In a burst of anger, Miles kicked one of the beer cans in front of him hard enough to send it into the air. The can went flying off to the right and out of sight but the sound of it actually hitting against something made Miles jump. He wasn't sure what exactly the can had struck but the sound of metal hitting metal was unmistakable.

Mildly curious and looking for even a momentary distraction, Miles followed the direction of the can. He had to pass through a copse of trees before he found the source of the noise: a vehicle. A Saleen police cruiser was sitting nestled between some trees, grass growing tall around the frame of it. There was obvious damage to the exterior, dents and even scratches from who knows what, and a layer of grime coated parts of the outside.

Miles was at a loss as to how someone had even managed to drive the vehicle there between all the trees and the rough terrain. He walked closer, circling the vehicle so he could look at it from all angles. On one side underneath the police logo was 'to punish and enslave', so it was easy to guess that this must have been used for some sort of film. He couldn't remember hearing about any kind of movie being shot in Tranquility, but that didn't mean anything. Now that he was closer he could see faint traces of some kind of dried pink liquid underneath the vehicle and spotting the paint.

More than a little confused, Miles looked inside the passenger side window to see that the vehicle was unlocked. There were no keys in the ignition and the dust on the inside of the vehicle looked like it hadn't been disturbed at all. It looked as if the thing had been completely abandoned, between the dust inside and the layer of grime on the outside.

Taking a few steps back and looking the vehicle over once more an idea struck Miles. He might have lost Sam, but that didn't mean he automatically had to lose Mikaela. They had struck up a friendship of some sort, and while they never hung out on their own she had still been a better friend lately than Sam had been. He knew she was into cars, so there was a chance she'd love to work on a movie prop, and even if the thing couldn't be salvaged then maybe her father could scrap it for parts to sell.

And, if Miles were to be honest with himself, part of the draw was that if he could stay friends with Mikaela then there was a chance that he could ingratiate himself back into Sam's life somehow. It wasn't the only driving factor behind his decision, though. Mikaela was cool all on her own.

It would probably be a little rude to contact her without making sure the vehicle actually could be run. Miles would borrow his father's tools and see what all he could do himself. It would give him something to do and keep him out of the house for a few days so his mother would get off his back. He didn't know anything about cars, but that was part of the fun of it.

Satisfied with his idea, Miles made the long journey back home.

Bright and early on Sunday, Miles gathered the things he had readied the night before. He emptied out his backpack and put the papers he had printed out inside of it along with a sandwich and a few water bottles. Then he grabbed the gas canister and his father's tool chest from the garage and put both in the basket on the back of his bike. He patted his dog on the head and then left for the gas station.

He had to use what little allowance he got to fill up the gas canister, but that didn't bother him. Leaving the gas station, he biked as far as he could before hopping off of his bike and wheeling it to where he had found the vehicle. Leaning his bike against a tree, Miles took the gas canister and went to the left side of the vehicle where he had seen the gas tank cover. He opened the cover and unscrewed the cap on the gas tank before carefully pouring in the gas he had bought.

He recapped the tank and shut the cover and then went over to his backpack, pulling out some of the papers and rifling through them until he found what he wanted about hot-wiring a car. He read the directions a bit more, trying to wrap his head around everything before he got anywhere near important wires. He opened the toolbox in the basket of his bike and glanced at the contents, trying to decide what would be the most useful for him in the moment.

Then another thought struck him: he should probably look to see if there was any sort of identification papers in the glove-box. It was obvious the car was abandoned, but that didn't mean it had just gotten there all on its own. It would be smart if he tried to figure out who the owner was before he stuck his hands on anything important. Miles set the papers down on the hood of the car and then opened the passenger side door.

But doing that sent a routine alert to Barricade's processor, ripping him out of stasis. He came awake with a snarl, yanking the door out of Miles' hand. Miles jerked backwards, shocked and bewildered.

"What the frag do you think you're doing, fleshling?!" Barricade demanded.

Miles whipped his head from side to side, looking for the source of the voice despite his ears telling him that it was coming from the vehicle in front of him. He heard the locks inside of the vehicle engage and turned his head to watch as the steering wheel turned on its own, the wheels of the car turning towards him as the police cruiser inched forward ever so slightly.

"I will only ask one more time," Barricade hissed. The longer the voice talked the more robotic Miles thought it sounded, "What are you doing?"

The organic did little more than stand there and gape, so Barricade took a moment to dismiss the various alerts from his HUD. Some sort of disgusting liquid had been put in his tank, and after the nanites in the walls of his tank analyzed it he was relieved to see that it wasn't poisonous in some way. The sludge could even provide him with some energy, but the way it felt sitting inside of him left much to be desired.

Barricade checked his comm link only to find it disturbingly empty. Checking through the frequencies got him nothing of use either. No mech had bothered to contact him since he had gone into his light stasis a couple months back, which either meant that the few Decepticons who had been on Earth had left, that Barricade was just too far away from them, or that they had already been gotten to by Starscream and convinced to ignore him for the time being.

He had never been a mech built for communication. If he wanted to boost his signal to reach some of the Decepticons in space then he would most likely have to find a way off the Primus forsaken planet first. Given how long it was taking him to repair himself the likelihood of that happening anytime soon was incredibly slim.

"This is a very funny prank, but you can stop the recording now," Miles finally worked up the courage to say.

Barricade was momentarily floored. The fleshling was under the impression that he was being pranked somehow? The assumption seemed like such a leap of logic that Barricade had trouble trying to piece it together, but after a long moment he recalled that Cybertronians were not widely known on Earth. From what little he had bothered to look at after Mission City, it had seemed like the US government had decided to lie about what really occurred, so perhaps this organic in particular wasn't ridiculously stupid.

It would be laughably easy to make the organic suffer for waking him, but it was little more than an entertaining thought. Barricade couldn't touch it if he wanted to remain in relative peace without the Autobots breathing down his back. He doubted that Bumblebee had assumed he was offlined after their battle, but most likely since he was keeping a low profile and not stirring up any trouble he was deemed low priority.

And in truth Barricade had no interest in touching the organic even if there wouldn't be any repercussions. He had never been one for senseless murder even when he thought a planet's creatures were below him. These ones were even relatively intelligent and capable of communication, though they were nowhere near as advanced as Cybertronians were.

"This is no prank," Barricade growled.

Miles frowned and was about to open his mouth to speak when an odd sound interrupted him. He watched in disbelief as the metal plating on the vehicle started to expand. Everything happened so fast that he couldn't quite keep track of it all; metal grinding against metal and rearranging around other bits before his mind could comprehend what went where.

The thing—the robot—was tall enough that Miles was forced to tilt his head up to look at its face. If it wasn't for the four glowing red eyes and the sharp pointy bits around the head he would almost say that it looked human. It even had two arms, and two legs, and even the proportions were somewhat similar.

The end of its hands ended in claws. Looking at the placements of some of the stuff he could recognize, like the tires, only served to make him more confused. His eyes flicked from arm to arm and leg to leg. Miles couldn't help but think that perhaps the most disturbing bit had to be the tires jutting out of where the robot had wrists. His mind kept picturing it on a human's arm and he just kept getting stuck on that mental image.

A part of Miles knew his mouth was hanging open and he had to look like an idiot but he was too distracted by the actual giant robot glaring at him to care. Was it glaring at him, or were the four eyes just narrow naturally? And really, it had claws! Red eyes! Nothing in his life had ever prepared him for anything like this.

"You'll catch flies like that, fleshy." Barricade commented with some amusement.

There was an audible click as Miles closed his mouth and his teeth smacked together. Two minutes ago and the teen would have never pictured a talking car outside of television or a book. His mind was racing with what he should say, should ask, or should do. Should he tell someone, or was the robot wanting its apparent life to be a secret? What did one say to a living car, anyway? And was it even really a car or was the big robot form the real form and the car one was just to hide?

After another moment of indecision he decided to be mostly annoyed, because it was better than being scared. He crossed his arms over his chest, leveling his own glare at the robot in front of him.

"Now you look here! I'm not going to put up with any of this 'ooh, let's mess with the human!' nonsense," Miles scolded. "I didn't know you were anything more than a normal car, so I'm sorry if I offended you, but you really shouldn't refer to humans as 'fleshy'. My name is Miles."

"You find out I can talk and you must realize I could easily step on you and end your pathetic life and you tell me off?" Barricade scoffed.

"Probably not the best option," Miles realized. Well, it was too late now, and it's not like he wouldn't already be dead if this thing wanted him that way. "But if you were actually going to step on me or run me over or whatever then you would have done it already."

Barricade just looked at Miles, and that was enough to make the organic realize he should stop talking. He reached an arm out towards Miles and was satisfied to see the organic flinch, but his goal was the tool kit that was on some earth contraption just behind him.

"That's mine," Miles said stupidly.

"Not anymore," Barricade responded simply. "I'm feeling generous today, so I will allow you to leave now."

Miles had several things he wanted to say to that but he bit his tongue before his first remark escaped him. As he watched the robot sit down, a line of pink liquid began to drip from its chest area, and looking at it like that Miles got the disturbing idea that it looked like blood.

Option to leave and never return? He would definitely take that and pretend that this had never, ever happened.