Separation 2/2

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

M
TFA Inamorato AU
Barricade/Blackout, Onslaught/Moonracer, Vortex, Strika

 

“You,” Onslaught murmured, “are going to wear me out, mystery lady.” He heard her soft laugh over his loud, deep exvents.   

“That’s the general idea.”  She dropped her weight on his chassis, his spike still inside her.   Onslaught let one hand come up over her body, stroking down the rounded shapes of her armor.  So unlike his big boxy plates.  So unlike Vortex’s cluttered back kibble.  So…unlike Barricade. 

He felt her move, could feel her face close to his. He tipped his chin up for a kiss. 

“You sure you’ve offlined your optics?” she asked, suspiciously.

“Word of honor.”  He had.  “Just get used to sensing EMF in close combat.” 

“Frag that’s hot, baby,” she said, ducking her mouth onto his, her glossa eager and insistent and yet somehow, still, delicate.  One of her feet trailed down his inner thigh, sending late ripples of pleasure through his frame. 

She broke the kiss, gently, stroking the side of his face.  He gave a half-smile, tight. “Any fairness in the world,” he said, “I’d ask you to offline optics.”

“Why, because of this?” He felt her dainty fingers stroke along the bad weld of his damaged facial plates.  The ones that pulled his mouth askew.  “Part of who you are, baby.”  He felt her dip her face in again, her warm glossa trailing the line. 

He tipped his face into hers, their mouths brushing briefly.  “I wish I knew who you were,” he lied.  Truth: he wished she’d be open about it.  He was dying to see her, to tell her how beautiful she was, to watch her ecstasies.  It was an offer. 

“No way,” she said. “Have to preserve the mystery.”  Her fingers drifted across his face.  “Those are new.”

What? Oh.  Right.  Where Barricade had gotten him with his facial spines.  “Just haven’t had a chance to get them detailed off.” 

“Don’t they hurt?”

He shook his head. “Get used to it.”  He didn’t want her to ask any more about how he’d gotten them.  Didn’t really want to consider what part he might have played in Barricade’s sudden disappearance. He caught his arms around her, rolling on top of her. “Now, something you need to get used to,” he said, before kissing her throat, and then a line down her chassis between her parted thighs….

***

That had been a marginally profitable night, Barricade thought.  He’d settled with his low grade in some dark corner by the maintenance fac, and sure enough, one or two mechs had made the old lie about a little drainage and had paused to exchange a few words with ‘Stockade’.  From them he’d heard that Backslash was dead, murdered, and they had no idea how or why. 

Not, it seemed, that they thought he was such a nice mech that no one would ever do such a thing to him.  More like…they thought he was a badaft whom no one would be dumb enough to mess with.

Yeah? Till he was dumb enough to mess with Blackout.  But Barricade/Stockade nodded and pretended to be shocked/surprised.  And one of them had taken in his red and grey paint job, complete with artistic wear and scratches (Hog had enjoyed a little too much some of the ‘texturizing’ that involved applying a belt sander to Barricade’s armor), and sat down in the corner next to him. 

“You the one lookin’ for Backslash?”

“He’s dead, I hear.”

“Yeah.  That’s the word. And no one’s seen him.”

“Chance he’s run off somewhere?” Time to bait this trap a bit more. “He run into some trouble…or some cash?” Throw out the possibility that a newly-rich Backslash might have bolted with the bounty.

The mech shook his head, mouth tight.  “No cash.  He had some, but ‘pparently that deal went bad.  Real bad.”

“Like…want him dead bad or just cut off the cash faucet bad?”  One thing about playing an investigator is you didn’t have to mask the nosy, pointed questions.

“Pretty sure they did the second.  Not sure they’d do the first, though.” 

“You never know,” Barricade said.  “Creds are creds, but if a mech’s pride gets involved….”

“True, true,” said the strange mech. A Neut, Barricade noted. Just like he allegedly was.  “Dunno. He didn’t seem the type.”

Barricade masked his triumphant smirk behind the rim of the lowest low-grade in the galaxy. The slag Roller Force was sucking down in that dive in Kaon was better than this.  But the Neut had just cut a ‘they’ down to a ‘he’.  “You never can tell,” he said, blandly.

“Nah, with this mech, you could.  All hot air.  An air frame, first of all. You know how they are.”

Barricade bristled. Ahem. Blackout was an airframe. “They’re not all bad,” he said, tightly.

“Maybe where you’re from,” the stranger said, suddenly suspicious. “But ‘round Iacon, the aerials are all jerks. Or Decepticons.” As if they meant the same thing.  Barricade could feel his brand almost burning under the masking gesso Hog had placed over it. 

Time to lay a little on the line here.  Enough slaggin’ around. “This aerial wouldn’t be a guy named Slingslot, would it?”

“Slingshot,” the mech shot back, a little supercilious.  As if Barricade were stupid.  Barricade shrugged. He didn’t care what Anonymous Neut thought of Stockade anyway.  Besides, better to be thought a fool…and be able to get within backstabbing range. Or however that saying went.

“Any idea where I can find him? You know, just to hear his side of the story.”  He flashed an openly dangerous grin. After last time, when he’d gotten kidnapped by Thundercracker, he’d decided to operate under the assumption that every word he said was getting reported straight back to his target. And he wanted Slingshot scared.  Scared mechs made mistakes. 

The mech shrugged a little too casually.  “Used to come here or over at Bald Pavement to meet up with u—him.”  Barricade pretended to be studying the scum floating on the top of his low grade, so the mech thought he covered his little pronoun slip. “Not any more, though.” 

“So…he’d just waltz in here and hand him money. No advance notice or anything? No way to contact him if it was off?”  Nonsense questions. Just enough credulity to make himself seem stupid.  Slingshot was going to underestimate his opponent, if Barricade had anything to say about it.

“No idea,” the mech shook his head, trying to look stupider than floor tile.  Yeah, right.  Well, Barricade knew who HE was following home tonight, just enough to tap his comm. 

***

“They are vorking on it, Blackout,” Madam General Strika’s voice rumbled from her chassis.  “Ve got him back bevore, ve can again.” 

Blackout nodded, miserably.  “Sorry if it’s messing up my job.” 

Strika shook her head, her jewelry clattering against her audio pickups.  “Iz not that, Blackout. Ve vorry about you.”  She pointedly pushed the plate of leftover energon sticks toward the copter.  Arcee had warned her that Blackout was terrified of being fired. 

“I’m fine,” Blackout said, listlessly.   “Barricade’s the one who’s missing.” 

“Blackout,” Strika put a bit more command in her tone. “Just like during var.  Ve have our missions, and someone else has theirs.  Onzlaught vill find him.  He has given his vord. As a soldier, you must do your part and trust him to do his mission.”  Even though, she thought, in a real war, missions didn’t involve retrieving another mech’s boyfriend.   

“Yes, ma’am,” Blackout said. His facial crests stiffened with resolve. “I’m a good soldier, General Strika.”  A bid for reassurance. Yes.

“One of the best, Blackout.”  She pushed the plate over again. “I haff to order you to eat?” she prompted. 

***

“He’s in Iacon,” Vortex said, slapping the datapad on the desk in frustration.  “Got a repaint from his old buddy, and headed to Iacon.”

“Confirmation.”

“Roller Force. Other teammate, but without a convenient mutual secret to hide. Was coming in that night to ‘Hog’s to try to borrow some creds. Says Barricade’s engine harmonics are unmistakable.”

“He’s going after the lead.” A hint of triumph.  What Onslaught had predicted. 

“Yes.  Problem is, we haven’t been able to find this guy either. We know he’s an Autobot, and that part’s legit—it’s not just a magnet or something—but wherever he’s hiding, we’re out of luck.”

“Surveillance.”

“Impossible with the current tensions.  Sentinel Magnus has cyberbees in his undershorts about the last time we had to go in and rescue Barricade.”

Onslaught grunted.  Barricade was the biggest pain in the aft.  And also, if he were going after Slingshot, and got anything, his best agent.  

“And before you think it,” Vortex added, “I’m banned from any Autobot territory. Unless you have a large expense account labeled, ‘Vortex, bail’ that I don’t know about.”

“Great.” Onslaught slapped his palms on the desk. “So, what do we do?”

Uh oh. A question. Always a bad sign. 

“What we do?  We ready an extraction team.”  Frag it. “I’ll go.”

“Bail?”

“Hit and run, I’ll be fine,” Vortex said, confidently. “I’m the fastest you’ve got right now.”

“Real reason?”  Onslaught’s visor was steady on Vortex’s face.

“Most fun we’ll have had since the end of the war,” Vortex admitted.

“You miss it.”

“Don’t you?”

***

Barricade barely had to follow the Neut before the stupid mech ducked into what he thought was a nice, safe alley. Barricade simply continued down the block, his borrowed-from-Hog comm array primed for any new signal.  Right. Origination. Signal bounce.  Wait.  He rolled to a stop around a corner as soon as he got a ping from a signal boost. Could follow that just as easily.  Radio waves didn’t move Line of Sight, stupid Neut slagger, he thought. 

With better equipment, he could have captured the conversation, known exactly what was going down.  But even so, he got a clear freq read on Slingshot, and a precise directional. As long as the Autobot was broadcasting, Barricade could find him.

Aaaaaaand jinx.  The line died, from Slingshot’s end.  Well, Barricade had rather figured Slingshot to be smarter than Nameless Neut back there.  Then again, almost hard not to be.  Well, slag it, you have a location, he told himself, go!

***

Ooooookay, Barricade thought, that could have gone a little better.  Like…it could have gone at all. 

He clutched the data input rods to his chassis, ducking down behind the desk as another explosion ripped through the room that had apparently been Slingshot’s hideout. It hadn’t been that hard to figure which of the apartment cubes belonged to him—only three had balcony launch pads—something Blackout had secretly wanted when they got their own cube.  They couldn’t afford it, of course, and Blackout never complained about walking up three flights of stairs to the public rooftop helipad, but Barricade knew Blackout wanted one. And if Barricade wasn’t such a fuck-up maybe they’d be able to afford one.

Slingshot had bailed, most likely spooked by his heads-up call, which didn’t really bother Barricade—he wasn’t much in the heavily-armed-confrontation camp. And Slingshot’s absence had left the entire cube rife for rifling.

Barricade knew his way around home data systems.  Frag, he could hack anything given enough time.  And he had been paranoid enough for long enough that he never worked with his face directly to the monitor. 

So when the first blast had gone off, it had peppered his left fairings, shredding his shoulder tire. Which was not fun, but it wasn’t life threatening.

The second and third explosions, though, meant a little more like business.  He scuttled on his knee plates for the door to the launch pad.  If Slingshot had heard the mech asking too many questions was a grounder, he probably wouldn’t bother to booby trap the launch pad, figuring there’d be no way down. 

And there was no way down.  Barricade squatted against a partition wall, tucking the input rods into his storage. At least they’d be safe.  Some disturbing info there, from what he’d seen, but the rest would have to wait for Crypto…and a distinct LACK of life-threatening explosions.  And…if he ever managed to get these back.  Frag.  Always glitch in the end game, he berated himself.  This was why he needed someone. Why he needed a commander. A team. 

This was why he needed Blackout.

Instead, this was what he got: Vortex, coming in low out of the sky, aiming directly for him, swooping down to catch him as a fourth explosion scattered plasglass from the door across the launch pad. 

***

Onslaught flicked the last input rod back onto the table. “Financing from Vos.”

“Yeah.” Barricade was seated across the desk—THAT desk—as Onslaught ran through his finds. 

“He’s alerted now.”

“Not going to change the past.”  Sure, Slingshot might run and divest himself of everything, but…the more he shed, the more intel lying around to be picked up.

“Anything else?”

Barricade considered. Yeah, he didn’t want to tell Onslaught this part, but it would come out in cryptoanalysis and he’d look awfully suspicious when it did. And he’d already used up his ‘deliberately frag up report’ card.  “Motorhead’s involved somehow.”

Onslaught nodded, prompting for more.  Barricade shrugged.

“That’s all I got before the first rig blew.” His injured tire had been removed, waiting for a replacement.  The rim ached.  He felt Vortex standing behind him, neutral, as if awaiting orders.  Much different from the ride home, when Vortex had practically shrieked with glee, swooping through the skyline, giggling to Barricade that he had found him simply by following the sounds of explosions.  “I want to handle him myself.”  There was a lot of bad blood between he and Motorhead.  Something else Barricade had fragged up.  Something else he had to fix. 

“We’ll see,” Onslaught said, neutrally.  He tapped an input rod on the table several times, as if building up energy to get the next words out of his vocalizer. “Good work.”

Barricade blinked in surprise.  Praise?  That meant…the next step would be a backhand blow.  He tried to brace himself, aware of Vortex inching up behind him.

“Next mission,” Onslaught said.  “Even tougher than this one: Go home to your copter.”

Barricade bolted from the chair—or tried to. Vortex’s hands grabbed his shoulders and slammed him back down.  “You…no way! You can’t order me to do that!”

The visor tilted, amused. “I just did, Barricade. Would you like a threat to go along with it?”

“I’d like to hear it,” Vortex said, amused.  Onslaught shot him a chiding glance.

“You run my job, fine,” Barricade muttered, “But you have no business in my slaggin’ private life.”

“It becomes my business when I have to field calls every megacycle from General Strika.” Not a shred of humor in the voice.  And the way he worded it, oh the military rank stuff still mattered.  A mere commander couldn’t refuse a call from a general. “Apparently she’s a little protective of Blackout.”

Yeah, who wasn’t?  Would be nice if, for a change, someone was protective of Barricade. Well…OTHER than the copter. “You cannot be serious.”

“Do I look like I’m joking, Barricade?” Onslaught propped both elbows on the desk, meeting Barricade’s gaze levelly.  Nope. Not joking.  “And if you don’t agree, right now, to follow orders, I’m going to send Vortex with you.  You can apologize in private, or you can have Vortex vid it for me. Your choice.”  Another of those amazing non-choices these two were so fond of. Which would you like, Barricade? Suck or suck with suck-gravy? Would you like your suck raw or cooked? On the rocks or straight up.  Slag.  All these metaphors were making him realize how long it had been since he’d eaten.  Or slept. 

“Fine,” he said, with as much ill grace as he could. 

“I could come with you anyway,” Vortex gibed. “Make sure you don’t get lost.”

“No,” Onslaught said.  “We do trust him. But he will reinstall his locator AND turn on his comm before he leaves.”

“Hate you,” Barricade muttered.  Vortex’s hands tightened on his shoulders. 

“You always say that,” Onslaught retorted. “Yet you always keep coming back.” 

“Don’t give me much choice!” Barricade tried to swipe out of the chair.  Vortex grabbed him by the chassis, and hauled him away.  Onslaught looked…amused. 

“Need it again so soon?” Vortex purred. Barricade became suddenly aware of Vortex’s larger frame holding him, his door wings flattened against the heavier mech’s chassis, Vortex’s battlemask brushing his audio. Just a little…bit…creepy.  He sagged. 

Onslaught stiffened in frustration, and it took both of the other mechs a klik to figure out it wasn’t at them, but at comm. He spoke. “Yes, General Strika….  I have him right here.  Yes, general…. Standard post-operation debrief….. No, no serious injuries.” He looked wistful.  “Yes, general.  I’ll be sure to tell him that.”  He clicked off, his visor an unreadable line of red. “General Strika says hi.” 

Yeah. I’ll bet, Barricade thought, squirming his way, finally, out of Vortex’s grasp.

“She wants to remind you what a valuable asset Blackout is.”

Barricade writhed. Right. Anyone else want to jump in on the Implied Threat to Barricade Train? “Don’t know why you all care so much about the fraggin’ copter.”

Onslaught tipped his head back, leaning against the back of the chair. “Because you do.”

“What if he’s bailed?” Barricade felt a tremor of fear.  It would be for the best for Blackout if he’d given up on Barricade. Would be for the best, he repeated.  He still…desperately…didn’t want it. 

“Then your next mission is to find him, apologize, and take whatever he dishes out.”

Barricade nodded, grimly. That was only fair.  If the copter were smart, he’d’ve…done a hundred things: changed the locks, moved out, set Barricade’s stuff on fire in the middle of the courtyard, burned Barricade in effigy…the list could go on.  Barricade never found himself praying harder that the copter wasn’t that smart. 

***

Barricade coded the door to the cube, without daring to breathe.  If Blackout had any sense at all, he’d’ve changed the door codes. Which would tell Barricade all he really needed to know. All he deserved: that he had fragged up, terminally, and the copter had moved on to better things.

The door whooshed open into the darkness.  Well, maybe Blackout had moved out, Barricade thought. But no…there was their repair-cradle couch, and the vidscreen—surely he would have taken those. No, actually, maybe Blackout was so guilty he’d’ve left them for Barricade.  Blackout was prone to guilt. 

Barricade didn’t want them. He wanted Blackout. He wanted—always wanting what he couldn’t have—the sweet, innocent copter.   Hoping against any sort of sense, he slipped into the recharge room. 

Blackout lay on his back, the datapad blinking in standby, held limply in one hand.  Sleeping the sleep of the innocent.  Frag, Barricade thought. Should just turn around and leave. But…I want him so much.  Not just that way, either. 

He approached the berth, taking the datapad from the numb fingers and sticking its magnets against the berth’s side.  He sucked in a long breath and then slowly, slowly, lay down on the berth, right in the space Blackout had always left for him, between his arm and his body.  He tentatively curled his arms around Blackout’s massive upper arm, lowering his cheek gently onto the shoulder armor.  No response, not even a ripple of disturbed ventilation.  Barricade sighed, softly, inching one leg to wrap around the copter’s wrist, carefully wiggling his back into Blackout’s side. 

Comfort. Safety. Peace. They seemed to radiate from Blackout’s body, even while asleep, and Barricade could already feel the tension bleeding from him, as if flaking off like bad wax.  He let his optics drift shut, trying to memorize the feel of the strong arm in his grasp, the smell of Blackout’s oiled and waxed joints, the familiar hum of the EM field. 

Blackout shifted, suddenly, rolling onto that side, his other arm clutching Barricade tightly against him, his leg thrown over Barricade’s hip, his mouth in a gentle long kiss on the back of Barricade’s helm.  Blackout’s arm folded over him: not a cage, not a trap.  An acceptance.  Belonging.  Barricade knew, come morning, there would be apologies and recriminations and questions he did not want to answer, and worst, emotions he did not want to face.  But for now, but for right now, in Blackout’s embrace, he had all that he wanted. 

 

Comments

[wicked3659.livejournal.com]

Barricade is ace. I love that there's a whole other side to him! Blackout is adorable without even trying. And I wibbled at the end.

Excellent story. I hope to see much more from these two.

[zomgitsalaura.livejournal.com]

god. you are far too good at making me want to snuggle decepticons :3
*sends much love and cookies your way*

[swordage]

Sometimes I think you write these things just for me. <3 I love the plottiness of this one, and Vortex being awesome, and Barricade being paranoid enough to actually not get himself dead, and oh, Blackout and Barricade - oh. Please excuse me while I get all sappy over them. Just - just that mental image, of Barricade tucking himself in against Blackout so hesitantly, wrapping his leg around Blackout's wrist - oh. Beautiful. Just quietly, simply, beautiful.

[dfastback68.livejournal.com]

Horray for more Onslaught/Moonracer! I bet she can't wait for that threesome with Vortex ;)

And go Barricade! He got what he wanted, now he just needs to make Blackout not make sad faces at him. That will be the real challenge. Love these guys, and always look forward to more.