AN: Surprise, this isn't dead! Have a Barricade POV this time. And puppies!

Barricade activated his holomatter projection directly in Miles' room. For a moment he forgot why he even did it, distracted by the fact that Ravage was on the bed with the human. Miles himself was curled up on his side and Ravage lay curled against his stomach with her head resting on one of his thighs. He watched as Miles tossed an arm across Ravage's middle and Ravage's optics opened. When she saw Barricade her optics narrowed into a glare. She didn't bother to comm and ask why he was there so he didn't bother to comm and explain himself.

"Human."

Miles didn't so much as twitch. Barricade decided to raise his voice.

"Human!"

Miles blinked awake, eyes first going to Ravage as if he actually thought she was the one that talked and then he followed her gaze to Barricade. Then he began to scream. Miles pushed himself upright and grabbed the pillow he had just been using and tossed it at Barricade. The pillow hit him in the face and fell to the floor.

"Someone dropped off‒" Barricade paused for a moment as the scream continued unhindered, "Would you stop that infernal shrieking? Some-" The scream tapered off for only a moment as Miles inhaled to let out another one and Barricade decided he would be better off just raising his own voice to try and be heard over the racket. "Someone dropped something off on your porch!"

Ravage commed him, :He doesn't know about holoforms.:

Barricade supposed that could lead to the extreme fear response that he was currently watching. For a moment he almost felt bad for it, but then Miles took another breath and went into a third scream and that went away.

Ravage was obviously fed up with Miles' screaming as well. She stood up and knocked her head into Miles' chest hard enough that he let out a harsh exhale that cut off the last scream. One of his hands came up to wrap around her neck and he held her against his chest as he stared at Barricade with wide eyes. He didn't start screaming again, at least.

"I realize now that you may not be aware we are capable of creating a human form," Barricade didn't bother to apologize. "It is I, Barricade."

"Of course…" Miles rested his forehead on Ravage's side, taking a deep breath. "Of course, what else could it be? Not an intruder trying to rob or kill me or anything like that."

Barricade didn't think that needed a response. He hadn't thought about the human thinking such a thing and now understood why he had woken up screaming but he didn't feel bad for scaring him.

"What do you need?" Miles asked after a long moment of just resting his forehead against Ravage, "I think you said something but I was too busy having a heart attack to hear."

Barricade ignored the pointed words, "Someone left a box of mewling creatures on your porch."

That made Miles actually look up at him. He blinked once and then twice as if his brain was taking a moment to process what Barricade had said and then his eyes flicked to the right as if he could see through the walls of the house and to the porch. Miles gently pushed Ravage away and then got up from the bed and slipped some house shoes on before heading for the door. He paused momentarily to pick up the pillow and toss it back onto the bed; Ravage immediately claimed it and curled back up on the bed with her head resting on the pillow.

Barricade followed Miles out of his bedroom and to the front door. Miles unlocked and opened the door and then crouched in the open doorway, peering into the contents of the box on his porch. Pathetic whines could be heard coming from the creatures inside.

"Fuck, okay." Miles muttered. He looked over his shoulder at Barricade, "Go to the kitchen and get in the cabinet to the left of the microwave and on the top shelf there will be some formula for these guys. White puppy on the front, can't miss it. Get a pot from under the sink and fill it with water and put it on the stove to warm. Grab one of the bottles off the counter and pour some of the formula in it, then let it sit in the water while it warms."

Barricade didn't have to do what Miles said. It was unlikely Miles had even truly thought about just who he was giving orders to, but he found following orders to be a comforting default and it was one he could use after how disoriented his talk with Ravage had made him. So instead of refusing or not doing anything at all he just did as Miles bid. He went to the kitchen and got the formula down and then put some water in a pot and placed it on one of the burners. It took him a second to figure out how to actually activate the stove and by the time he did Miles was walking into the kitchen with the box.

"Wouldn't it warm faster in your microwave oven?" Barricade inquired.

"It would," Miles agreed, setting the box on the kitchen table. "But that can lead to it heating unevenly, plus it kind of screws with the formula so it's better to do it this way. I need to weigh them so we can figure out how much to give them, anyway."

Barricade wondered if Miles even noticed that he was including him. He couldn't tell if it was because of the holomatter projection that made him look human or if it was just because Miles' mind was mainly occupied by the contents of the box. It had led him to not only order Barricade around but to also assume he'd stick around to help further. Miles himself provided no satisfactory answer to his confusion, the human just busying himself getting out some sort of flat device from one of the drawers. A quick internet search revealed it as a scale.

"Why would someone leave those things here?" Barricade prompted as he poured the formula in the bottle and then placed it in the water on the stove.

"They're puppies," Miles held one up for him to see it better and then put it on the scale, "I'm the local vet. People know I'll take care of them and find them homes, so they'll drop off just about anything here. Adult dogs and cats, puppies and kittens, I've even gotten fish, turtles, gerbils, and a few snakes before."

"Are all puppies this small?"

Miles laughed, "These are actually pretty big, as far as puppies go. Based on their coloring and size I'd guess these are at least half Rottweiler, and those are generally considered big dogs. Wait until you see a Chihuahua puppy, now those things are tiny!"

Another indication that he seemed to have naturally assumed Barricade's stay would be an extended one. Barricade wasn't sure if he should be offended or touched by such a thing.

"Do you think I plan to stay?" Barricade had to know. "You shouldn't assume such a thing."

"Welllll…." Miles jotted something down on his phone and then carefully placed the puppy down on a hand towel that Barricade hadn't seen him get out. "I figured that since you spent the past week sulking in my garage that it was a safe assumption."

"I-su-I wasn—Sulking?!" Barricade sputtered, processor grinding to a halt over human's gall. "I was not sulking!"

"Okay," Miles replied easily.

"Okay?" Barricade glared at him, "I wasn't sulking."

"I'm not trying to pick a fight. I just assumed, given it's been a week…" Miles glanced up and grimaced when he realized Barricade was glaring at him. "Look, I'm not trying to make you feel bad or chase you off or something. That's not my intention at all, I just… That's how it was with Ravage. She showed up and just stayed, so I figured you were doing the same."

"I have nowhere else to go," Barricade admitted.

That got him another wide eyed look. It was similar to the one that he'd been given in Miles' bedroom when he'd scared the organic, but this one was accompanied by slightly furrowed brows and downturned lips. The look made Barricade want to hurt the stupid human but also made him want to turn away and never look at him again, a sense of embarrassment creeping up on him. Miles had no right to give him such a sad look. He didn't want the human's pity. The human at least seemed to realize that just giving Barricade that sad expression wasn't doing anything, so he turned back to his work and finished weighing the puppies.

"I kept trying to get Ravage to go talk to you," Miles mentioned. "But she wasn't interested."

"Is that why you kept bothering me?"

"I was checking on you," Miles corrected with a snort. "I didn't think popping my head in and then leaving counted as bothering."

"You brought that machine at one point," Barricade reminded him. "I don't know what the purpose of it is. It keeps turning itself on."

"That's a heater," Miles sighed, moving over to the stove and taking the bottle out of the water. "I thought you might get cold but I'm guessing not from that response."

Barricade stared at the human. The thought of Miles pitying him had annoyed him at first, but now he considered the possibility that it might not have been a bad thing coming from him. Perhaps Miles was just actually compassionate. There was certainly no other reason for the organic to be so considerate towards him, after all. It definitely wasn't to please Ravage, as she would have been far happier if Barricade had left that first day. She hadn't come to check on him once or commed him at all, but Miles had poked his head in at least twice a day and had even worried that he might get cold.

Maybe that was why Ravage liked this particular human so much? Because he was nice? There must have been something here that she had stayed for, and the only thing that made sense was Miles.

He had nothing to say in response and Miles didn't continue the topic so the two fell silent. Barricade watched as Miles tested the temperature of the formula on his wrist and then he grabbed the first puppy he had weighed. The thing let out a pathetic mewl of complaint, but Miles quickly maneuvered it in his hand and coaxed the tip of the bottle into its mouth and once it realized it was being fed it seemed to forget its complaint entirely.

"Do you want to try feeding one?" Miles asked after a moment, "It's not hard."

"Could I hurt it? I am unsure of the parameters for such a small organic," Barricade moved closer to stare down at the tiny creature.

"You could, but…" Miles did some rearranging until he had the puppy mostly resting against his chest so he could hold it in place and feed it with one hand. He held out a hand, "Try grabbing me, first. I can tell you what's too hard or what's not firm enough."

Barricade took the hand with one of his own and something immediately made a cracking noise. To Barricade's horror, he had actually been able to feel some kind of weird movement in the bones and he dropped Miles' hand just as fast as he had grabbed it.

"That was fine," Miles reassured him. "You just squeezed in a weird area and my wrist popped."

Barricade scoffed, "That did not sound fine."

"I swear! Look," Miles placed his fingers flat against the kitchen counter and then raised his wrist and pressed down. All of them made that horrible cracking noise.

"Don't do that," Barricade ordered immediately. "That sounds awful."

"I'll do my best," Miles didn't outright laugh at him but Barricade could tell he was amused. "Let's try again?"

Barricade grabbed Miles' hand again and this time nothing disgusting happened.

"A little firmer," Miles told him. "Otherwise the puppy might squirm out." Barricade squeezed a little harder, "Perfect. And I'll be right here so I can tell you if they're making any really distressed sounds, okay?"

Barricade didn't agree but he also didn't refuse. He just watched quietly as Miles set the puppy he had been feeding down and grabbed a new one. Miles held out the second puppy towards Barricade and he stared at the mewling, squirming creature before reaching out and accepting it. He mimicked Miles' previous pose of propping the tiny creature against his chest and then he took the proffered formula bottle. He set the tip against the puppy's mouth but it didn't latch on immediately. Miles reached over and tipped the bottle upwards some more and the milk dribbled out. The puppy must have tasted or smelt it because it then latched on to the top and began suckling away hungrily.

Barricade watched in awe. The thing was so tiny and so defenseless—it couldn't even see! But it didn't seem to fear him at all, even trusting him enough to feed what he gave it. He had never had something so easily hurt in hand like this before and he couldn't remember the last time something so tiny trusted him without a second thought.

And then he realized that last bit wasn't true. For whatever reason, Miles had assumed he and Ravage were friends when Barricade had first shown up and though he had quickly been shown otherwise he had never once tried to get Barricade to leave or shown any fear towards him. He couldn't even count when he had scared Miles awake just a bit ago, because Miles had believed him to be another human. Miles had never considered that Barricade would hurt him even though it had to be beyond obvious that he very easily could.

"Did you ever feed any robot babies?" Miles wondered.

"Ravage really hasn't told you anything," Barricade realized. He didn't bother to think about why, "We don't have babies. Every Cybertronian is put into a frame fully capable of doing whatever job they've been assigned to do. We all have a spark, or what you might consider a soul, but they come from the Allspark."

"The Allspark," Miles repeated to himself. His brow furrowed as he thought about it, "I've heard that somewhere… Wait… didn't Ravage say it was destroyed?"

"It was."

"So… no more… Cybertronians?" Miles gave him that sad look again and Barricade didn't feel like punching him this time. "That's why Ravage said the fighting was pointless."

"For the most part," Barricade agreed. And then he quickly continued before the sad look could get any worse, "I've had the body you saw since I was onlined and there have been very minor alterations to it," that didn't do anything to get rid of the sad look so Barricade decided to try another tactic. "So you can see how we're far more advanced than you organics! There's never any concern about waiting for some mech to learn to walk or talk, we know from the moment we open our optics. Humans are so poorly evolved."

"Do you not have any families, then?" Miles reached over and removed the bottle from his hand but didn't bother to take the puppy.

"Some of us had something similar, I suppose." He wasn't able to keep the bitterness out of his voice, so he focused on the puppy and used a thumb to wipe the excess milk off its mouth. "Usually those among the upper echelon."

"And you wanted one."

"Yes," Barricade confided. He stared down at the puppy as it began suckling on his thumb, "I was onlined and put in a hole to troll for resources so I spent most of my first vorns utterly alone. The only time I even saw another mech was when I got routine maintenance."

"You could make one now," Miles pointed out.

"What." Barricade said, too surprised by the thought to properly inflect it into a question.

"I just mean…" Miles paused for a moment as he picked up the last puppy and began to feed it, "You're at a loose end, right? Like Rav said, there's no point in fighting anymore and it sounds like you can't return to your old planet so you have to start over again regardless. I'm sure there's other robots out there that you could befriend at the very least! If it's something you really want, why hold back? You don't have to go back to the old default. The only person you have to listen to is you and the only person you have to make happy is you. You just have to figure out what you really want and go get it."

"Go get it…" Barricade parroted.

Miles made it sound so simple, but what did he know? What was he supposed to get? Megatron was dead and continuing to fight was a guaranteed death sentence. Before he would have been happy to die for the Decepticon cause, but at some point the cause itself had died and now all he had to fight for was his life. What did he have besides himself? He was at a loose end and had no idea what to do with himself.

But now that he thought about it some more, maybe being at a loose end was exactly why Ravage had decided to stick around. It's not like she had anywhere to go, either, and with Soundwave MIA she had no one she cared about around. And as far as organics went, Miles did seem nice. He had no reason to try and help Barricade out but he was trying anyway. Perhaps he could do just as Miles said, because if Miles was good enough for Ravage then he was certainly good enough for him.

"You can be part of my family," Barricade decided.

Miles just stared at him. He must have been in awe that Barricade would be so kind to him.

"You're welcome," Barricade told him happily.

A human and three puppies was an odd choice to start out with, but every mech had to start somewhere.