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shadow_vector2010-03-26 08:09 am
Redeem 11 Handover
Verse: Bayverse
Rating : PG-13 for mild language
Characters: Barricade, Prowl, Sideswipe, OC
11. Handover
Diego Garcia, Runway
“You know,” Sternburgh said, “Kind of surprised you’re being so cooperative.”
“Choice?” Barricade walked evenly alongside the Master Sergeant. “You get what you want, my only choice is easy or hard way.”
He was right: not really a choice at all. He could resist and get bound and possibly injured, or he could not resist and keep some semblance of control. Of dignity. Sternburgh noted: this one likes being in control. Chooses that over a display of force, an assertion of physical power. Even when the choices were small. He might not always make the choice to avoid pain, but he wanted that choice. Sternburgh shot an irritated glance back at their two Autobot escorts, only too eagerly watching for Barricade to try something.
“You could make a break for it?” Testing Barricade’s control by feeding him an option.
“One: it’s an ISLAND. Futile heroics aren’t really my thing.” Except that one time, he thought, and look where it got me. “Two: you want me offlined, human, you’re going to have to do it yourself.” That was the Decepticon’s only acknowledgement of Prowl and Sideswipe ranged behind him.
“You’re no good to me dead.” Assert control over the EPW. Sternburgh was gratified to see a flicker of irritation on the robot’s face.
“Is that supposed to be comforting? You’re about as good at this as their medic.” Behind him, one of his guards growled. “Am I supposed to care that you think less of me for not being your style of idiot-hero?”
“I don’t think less of you.”
“I don’t care.” There was no point in any of this, Barricade knew. Escape? Not just tragically futile heroics of the kind he abhorred, but even if he succeeded, then what? Nowhere to go. And a lifetime of trying to strike up conversation with local automobiles seemed like a formula for madness. Maybe that would, at some point in the far, far future, seem appealing. The madness, not the talking to Hyundais. The only way he could keep himself functional was to be as annoying as possible. It also prevented him from questioning why he would want to keep functional in the first place.
Perhaps heroics had a place. When he couldn’t take it any more and wanted to die.
They approached the helicopter—a Sikorsky. Barricade felt a stall in his systems in recognition. Kind of ironic. The kind he didn’t like. Adding to the deja-vu-style irony was the team of humans fumbling with the carry harness. The same one they’d dropped Ironhide with. Barricade twitched in disgust. Enough of that fraggin’ idiot’s used parts.
“I can ride inside,” he said. “Done it before. You know,” he smiled insincerely, “since they’re having so much trouble with the harness.”
“They can figure it out,” Sternburgh said, serenely. “I have faith in them. And I can wait.”
Try and block me, will you? “T-truth is,” he added a little tremble to his voice. “Afraid of heights.” Behind him, he heard Sideswipe bark with a bitter laugh. Sternburgh either revealed his lack of compassion here, or not.
Sternburgh craned his head back. “Bullshit,” he said. “What’s the real reason?”
Barricade narrowed his eyes. Truth, lie or half-truth? Half-truth. “More fun irritating you.”
Sternburgh grinned. “Now, that I believe. All right. Inside it is.”
Barricade smirked over his shoulder at Sideswipe as Sternburgh loped forward, directing soldiers to shift equipment around.
“Hope you rust,” Sideswipe muttered, “Where they’re taking you.” He drawled the last bit, almost begging for Barricade to ask. Barricade sighed. Such amateurs.
“Least I hope it’ll be quiet,” Barricade countered. “You know, without someone carrying on a conversation, and losing, to a CR pod.”
Sideswipe snarled, unsheathing his blades. Prowl held him back with a hand on his arm.
“Oh yeah,” Barricade said, turning halfway, making sure Sideswipe could see his stasis-cuffed hands. “Or that one time you were crying? Probably the only way you can get a friend is to knock them into regen.”
Prowl planted himself squarely in front of Sideswipe, his free hand on the split in the mech’s chassis armor, making sure his face took up Sideswipe’s entire field of vision. “Enough,” Prowl said, over his shoulder. He turned to Sideswipe. “Let it go. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
Well, that was true, but Barricade filed that comment away as the right thing to say. He was readying a retort when Sternburgh waved him over. It would seem mean-spirited to pound on the silver idiot right now. Instead, he flashed a smile, the sunlight dazzling off his chromed finials. “Sorry, Autobot. You see, though, my fandom needs me. You know: places to go, minds to warp, that sort of thing.” He trotted to the helicopter, turning to give on last wave with his bound hands.
*****
“So, it is Barricade, yes? Pronouncing it right?” This one liked control? Let’s give him some.
“Does it matter?” They couldn’t pronounce his name in Cybertronian if they had two sets of vocal cords.
“Well, kind of,” Sternburgh said, seating himself on a jumpseat between Barricade’s outstretched legs. “I’d hate to be insulting you every time I spoke to you.”
“Sure.” Right. Like Barricade believed that. Around them, the too-familiar sounds of a copter ready to take air, overlaid with the annoying chittering of the human crew. And their smell. Walking bioweapons, the lot of them. Not, Barricade thought, that he smelled like a hot sexy mech himself. Medical maintenance didn’t count as full—he’d give almost anything to get to a proper washrack. No. Shut that thought right down, he told himself. Second you find yourself wanting something, they find a way to leverage you for it. You don’t want to be clean. Dirty’s just fine. Love being dirty. Wish I were more dirty. Downright filthy. He wondered if he could break a human simply by smelling awful enough.
Sternburgh buckled a harness across his chest at a signal from a crewman. “Assume you don’t have any sort of safety harness?”
“Been through worse than this copter can take,” Barricade said, mildly. “Be fine.” He shifted, trying to find a comfortable place to rest his bound hands. Sternburgh noticed the movement.
“We can get those off you once we’ve got you there safely.” Another dangle, slightly more skillful than Sideswipe’s: ask where we’re going. Ask what’s going to happen to you.
Don’t. Care. He told himself that, again, firmly: Don’t care. He stared stonily down at Sternburgh. The human was still unflustered.
“Oh, you can call me Roe, by the way.”
“Hurray.”
Sternburgh smiled indulgently, as if Barricade were a cranky sparkling. “Short for Roland. Mom was a French lit major. I hear it was between Roland and Galahad.”
“Am I supposed to care? Just want to know, you know, so I can fake the right emotion.”
Sternburgh’s face hurt from grinning, but it wasn’t insincere. He found battling with this one exactly his kind of challenge. “Awwww,” he said. “So sweet that you care.”
“Just trying to be a good captive. In your movies, the captive gets points for pluckiness.”
“Yeah, it is always the plucky ones that survive. So, what are you, the Decepticon Steve McQueen?”
“Before you know it I’ll be motorcycling my way across Switzerland,” Barricade retorted, “on my way to—“ he faltered. Funny joke. Not so funny when you have nowhere to go. What made it worse was that he saw that little twitch on Sternburgh’s face that signaled he was filing that bit of information away for future exploitation. He’d have to be careful around this human.
Sternburgh tried to cover the crack—a gesture of pity that grated at Barricade. “I’m surprised you know so much about human culture.”
“What kind of idiot doesn’t study the culture of their adversary?” Something he said made a spasm across Sternburgh’s normally composed face. Interesting. He continued, covering the human’s crack a little more skillfully. “Know their culture and you know their values. Just find a way to set two of their values against each other, and…watch them destroy themselves.”
Sternburgh’s eyes were round and wide as a drone’s. Hard to tell if he was faking or not.
“Gonna show you something, Barricade,” he said, slowly. Barricade was going to offer some smart retort, but decided he wanted to see this one play out. The human bent down, and tugged his uniform trouser out of his left boot, shoving down his black wool sock as he rolled up the trouser leg. “Fake leg,” He knocked the pinkish material with one hand. It rang hollowly.
Barricade tapped his head. “Fake personality. I win.”
“Yeah? Let’s swap stories. Lost the real thing in ’93. Operation Just Cause. Or as we ended up calling it, ‘Just ‘Cuz’. Stepped on a landmine.”
Barricade leaned back against the rear of the cargo compartment, his wing fairings spreading against the metal. “Let’s see. Never had the real thing to lose, so…guess you win. Have to say I’m not impressed with your replacement parts. Unless, of course, you have a bomb in there. Or a jet booster.”
Sternburgh studied his artificial leg. “Nah. Just…leg. One step above pirate peg-leg. They have much better ones now. You can even run with them.” He frowned.
“Stupid human—why don’t you get an upgrade?” Unless, like him, Sternburgh was on an upgrade denial list.
Sternburgh shrugged. Another crack—if he was on, he would have been watching Barricade’s face. Instead, he studied the cargo netting on the far wall. “I guess after a while, you get used to the damage.” He looked up, quickly, perfunctorily.
“Yeah,” Barricade said. He slumped back against the wall.
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The Decepticon Steve McQueen bit was rather amusing especially picturing Barricade on a motorcycle ^__^ I am intrigued and concerned as to what these humans are going to do with him and I don't trust Roe ¬__¬
Can't wait for more!!
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Maybe they can be friends. >_>
*snicker* Okay, so maybe not that likely.
I really enjoyed that conversation.
I look forward to more.
Especially 'Cade finding out that Femmy is playing red-cross gal.
PS: Saturdays are winners. For awesomesausome. For my not having to work. Woo. >_> Blah. Rufflesquidge.
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Now we get to figure out just how good Sternburgh is - was the Sikorsky on purpose? Are his reactions genuine or deliberate? I'll be biting my nails until next Friday.