shadow_vector | Sky and Ground: Bondbreak

PG-13
Bayverse, Sky and Ground AU
Thundercracker, Barricade, Skywarp
violence

“Trust me,” Thundercracker said. But then again, he would say that, wouldn’t he? Still, Barricade didn’t have much choice, and had allowed himself to be rigged into the pro-pack, enduring Thundercracker’s optic rolling and sighing. Yeah, the pro-pack wasn’t his favorite thing, either. But they were going to rescue Skywarp so Barricade was willing to put up with anything. Even the pro-pack. Even Thundercracker.

“Wh-what’s that?” His own optics narrowed suspiciously. Thundercracker was holding something that looked like a giant wad of mesh.

“Tow net,” Thundercracker said. “Oh, real thrill for me, too, grounder. Have to drag you because even with that…thing you lack appropriate thrust.”

Barricade hated the idea already, and let a pulse of distaste seep over the bond. Which was returned with a grim amusement. Great.

Barricade had no choice—he had to…get…IN the bag, and let Thundercracker sling it over his ramjets as he launched into space. “What’s the point in the pro-pack,” Barricade muttered. Probably just to make Barricade more miserable. He so wouldn’t put it past the blue jet.

Thundercracker gave a grunt, and flew. It was…different from with Skywarp. As if the engines had a different sound or something, the thin vacuum seeming to push more heavily against him. Possibly because he was a very un-aerodynamic lump on Thundercracker’s back.

Barricade passed the time calling up the mission specs. They’d narrowed Skywarp’s location to three different Autobot bases. And, Starscream had pointed out, there might be a mobile base, or ship in the quadrant as well. Thundercracker had nodded, grimly.

“And you?” Barricade had asked. It seemed wrong to not have the bronze jet go—not that he was volunteering to stay behind. If anyone was going to rescue Skywarp, it was going to be Barricade. But….

“Ah. I have other plans to set in motion here,” Starscream had smirked—the pointed grin Barricade hadn’t seen in a long time. The prickly smile he aimed at enemies. Someone was in trouble. And Barricade knew who would get his vote for target.

Still, that left him with Thundercracker, and a load of ammunition, and a pro-pack that was digging into some really uncomfortable joints.

Thundercracker slowed. Barricade’s navigation was nowhere near as refined as a true Seeker’s—but even he could tell they weren’t anywhere near where they had to worry about Autobot detection. “Spot something?” he asked, hand reaching for the pulse pistol.

Blue plates slid under Barricade, hydraulics hissing, warm air trapped under the armor escaping in bursts of glittering powder. “No,” Thundercracker said. He pulled at Barricade, tugging him halfway out of the net, while his other hand reached for something he had stowed in his storage. It looked like some sort of battery or power cell.

Barricade wormed, fighting to get any sort of force behind it in the zero-gee vacuum. Something was really, really wrong. “Skywarp,” he said, throwing the name up like a shield between them.

“Yes,” Thundercracker said, fumbling with the power cell. “Skywarp.”

Barricade hit the pro-pack controls, getting some thrust, finally, twisting wildly, but Thundercracker hooked his barbed talons in Barricade’s armor, and his counterthrust acted as a weight, nullifying Barrricade’s action. Something strange, orange and blue, seemed to slither over the bond. Not hostile but…not friendly.

“What are…don’t have time for this!” he blurted, batting away a clamp Thundercracker affixed to his fender.

Thundercracker glared at him, as if silencing him. “Bondbreak,” he said, flatly, tapping one talon over his audio, in a gesture Barricade didn’t have the composure to interpret—swallowed up by the word Thundercracker had said. A bondbreak? Breaking his bond with Skywarp?

He lashed with a fury he didn’t know he had. “NO!” he howled. His talons raked against Thundercracker’s forearms, his body writhing, twisting, trying to burn the jet with his pitiful little pro-pack engine.

“Yes,” Thundercracker said, sneering. “Don’t fight it, Barricade. It has to happen.” The optics, and the bond, were hard, implacable walls threatening to crash down upon him.

“It does NOT have to happen!” He kicked, his footspur sinking under a plate of Thundercracker’s chassis armor, with a sense of grim satisfaction as the blue jet grunted in pain.

“Listen, you little slag,” Thundercracker snarled. “I can leave you out here to die a slow cold death. Bonded. Which would kill Skywarp for sure. OR you can let me do this.” His optics were hard.

“Hate you,” Barricade said. But he stopped fighting. Starscream was too far away to help. And he had no doubt, NO doubt that Thundercracker would do that—leave him, let him die. Even if it killed Skywarp. Even if it killed himself. He could see the loathing in the red optics.

It struck him—this whole thing had been planned. This whole thing. And he had fallen for it. Completely.

“Mutual, grounder,” Thundercracker snapped. “Now shut up and let me do this and I may remember how to do it without frying your cortex in the process.”

Barricade seethed. He didn’t care if his cortex got fried, if this was the choice he had. Die and kill Skywarp or live without him in constant memory of what he’d once had, but couldn’t hold on to. It wasn’t a decision. There was no choice. Skywarp, his safety and his happiness, were all that mattered.

He watched, numbly, as Thundercracker attached the third of the leads to his frame. “And now,” the blue jet said, “Spark chamber.”

Barricade hesitated. Not from any doubt. He knew what he had to do. And he knew he would do it. But he just wanted…those few precious seconds with the bond, with Skywarp, though the bond had been quiet for days. Thundercracker shifted, restless, but not pushing, almost as if honoring, understanding.

Barricade gave a sobbing cry, opening his armor. The cold of space bit into the metal of his spark chamber, a bitter, biting pain. “Starscream will know,” he said, quietly. One last, pitiful bite.

A strange tautness, almost a pain, rippled across Thundercracker’s face. “I’ll handle it,” he said, calmly, his hand affixing the fourth and final lead to Barricade’s chamber itself. “Just as I’ll explain it all to Skywarp. How it was too much for you. How you asked me to do it.” He gave a shrug. “I’ll even make you smart enough to realize you couldn’t handle it.”

The lie was so magnificent, so immense, that Barricade’s cortex couldn’t even encompass it. There was no way Skywarp would believe that…or would he? And would it make any difference? Barricade, bond broken, was useless. A betrayer.

“I hate you,” he repeated, his voice pitiful, gritty, small.

Thundercracker smirked. “You sure you want those to be your last words?”

A tide of rage such that Barricade had never known rose up within him, tearing across the bond, but before it could reach its target, Thundercracker flicked the power cell’s switch, and Barricade’s world imploded into agony, white, then black, then red, with the horrible, wrenching sense of falling.

[***]

Skywarp bolted upright in his cell, his bond burning, hot and sharp like a laser. Something was wrong. Barricade, he thought, and reached out, wildly, throwing everything he could across the bond.

Nothing. Emptiness. Only an echo of pain.

Dead?

Not dead. If he were dead, I’d know. I’d KNOW. Wouldn’t I?

Nothing. Closed off. The same way he had shut down his end of the bond. Which was suddenly, he thought, bad enough. But…Barricade couldn’t shut the bond down. Even with the control protocols, even with the modification, Barricade could not control the bond that precisely.

Something—horrible—had happened.

Skywarp looked around the cell—it had been dark and windowless and cramped since he got here—some vicious Autobot technique to starve him of light and life and the sky. And it hadn’t worked, because of the warm star of the bond burning within him. But now, he looked around the damp, dingy cell, and felt lonely and cold and empty. And the games he’d been playing, that had left cuts and dents on his armor but had kept his mind sharp, kept his secrets intact, suddenly didn’t seem worth it anymore.

Nothing did.