Decon

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
Bayverse
Barricade, Starscream
no warnings, except the usual angst

Slight refs (not really necessary but just in case) to Control (link goes to FFN)

written for tf_rare_pairing  prompt Barricade/Starscream "what do you think you're doing?" AND 10_orders  prompt 8 "take off your clothes"  SO efficient! 

 “Debrief! Immediately!”  Starscream’s  voice carried before him like a wind of bad fortune as he strode past the Ops Center on his way to Repair Bay Beta.  His gait was uneven, landing heavily on one leg, that didn’t seem to want to bend to accept weight. He’d been alone on a recon, supposed to be safe. No one in the sector.  And Starscream was too smart, and loved his armor too much, for wanton heroics. Something bad had gone down. 

Barricade grabbed up a datapad, shoving a few blank input rods in his compartment, and raced out of the center.  He’d seen enough of the battle on relay to know that Starscream had taken more than a few hits.  Which always put him in a fantastic mood.  The last thing Barricade wanted to do was make himself a too easy target for Starscream’s spleen.

He reached the Ambulatory bay just as Starscream dropped himself into a repair cradle.  Repair bots woke immediately from their tight silver recharge balls, bursting into legs and pincers and bright, curious white optics, scrambling in a flood from their storage shelves to the repair cradle, clambering down the support struts, surging up from the floor, a handful of them forming a wobbling pyramid to reach the lip of the cradle. One or two tried to snatch for a dangling leg, but it jerked out of reach.  Just like Starscream, Barricade thought, letting his vanity and dignity slow down repairbots.  Petty.  This did not bode well.

“Here,” Barricade said, flicking his datapad on. 

“You received my inbound databurst?”  Starscream winced as several of the repairbots massed around large ballistic craters on his chassis armor, clicking worriedly.

“Yes.”  Barricade called it up.

“What is your assessment of their motive?” 

Barricade felt the Air Commander’s optics hard on him. Starscream was always testing, always pushing.  He doubtless had his own read on the combat.  This was just a test.  But Starscream had a right to expect competence. Even among those mechs unsuited for aeronautical combat.

“Aerial isn’t my strength,” he hedged. “But something’s wrong.  There’s nothing along their inbound vector they could have raided.  Not a transport in the area they could be escorting. And even so, escorts should be happy to divert to avoid contact. Which it did not look like they did.”

“Which leaves?”

“Don’t know,” Barricade admitted, looking up. Waiting for the judgment.

A sigh. “I do not know either. And though I was the first to engage, they could easily have avoided my flight path.” 

“Deliberate.”

“It does seem that way.” 

A long moment punctuated only by the bleeping and clicking of repairbots, a strange, contented kind of formless music.  Barricade studied the captured data from the real-time relay, looking for anything unusual.  It all unfolded too fast for him, and on too many different planes.  TacDat, that he could shift, adjust, walk around, different. Two-dimensionally? He was lost. 

In frustration he flicked over to the Enemy Idents.  As if that would give him a clue. Right. Know your enem—wait. 

“Wheeljack.”  His tanks lurched.

Starscream’s gaze sharpened. “Yes. He was there.  He did not actively participate.” Even worse.

“Anything weird happen?  Okay, vague slaggin’ question, but…Wheeljack had been associated in several Intel reports with some pretty nasty chemical weapons. 

“They deployed some strange obstacles, but they were non-incendiary.” 

Barricade’s capacitor skipped current. “Any of them touch you?”  He tried hard to keep the panic from his voice. 

“Yes,” Starscream extended his twitching leg.  “One bumped against me here.”

“Don’t touch it!” Barricade blurted.  He spat the command override: the repairbots instantly stopped their happy bleatings and dove off the cradle, landing in their ball-forms, racing for the decontamination autoclave. 

“Pop your armor locks, now!” Barricade snapped. 

“What?”

“Do it!”  Barricade lunged forward, curling his talons around one of the large armor plates. His smaller digits found one of the manual releases.

“What do you think you are doing?” Starscream half sat up, his hands reaching to swat Barricade away.

 “Fraggin’ Wheeljack.  MER-79?” he growled, hurriedly.  “Corticotoxin.”

Already, another troupe of repairbots scuttled in from the autoclave room, running decontamination foam over the floor on the path the repairbots had taken.  Barricade could almost hear the click as Starscream called up the data on MER-79.  Followed by a flutter of popping sounds as the armor locks on his right leg burst open.  Yeah, Barricade thought. Trust, but verify? Not in the Decepticons.

Barricade lifted the first of the armor plates, the one Starscream had indicated, feeling the rippling resistance of the sensorcilia as he pulled.  He turned, dropping it into a catchbin.  He gave a burst of machine command language to the repairbots: no touch.  Decon or destroy.  Starscream gave a tight, high mewl in his throat. 

“Good sign,” Barricade said. “Cilia still active.”  He reached for the next panel, dodging repair bots with decon hoses. They could handle the exposed material, once the contaminated plates were lifted away. 

“Your…hands?” Starscream said, unsteadily. 

Barricade stopped, as he dropped the next armor plate in the catchbin.  “Yeah?  New enough exposure. Can get them decon’d.”  MER-79 required a cycle to become dangerous.  He had plenty of time.  He turned back to Starscream. The jet’s leg looked…naked. Vulnerable.  The pink plates of sensor cilia seemed to blush, waving gently in the air, seeking contact.  Repairbots scuttled carefully around the pads, aiming the hoses underneath.

“Need to get the cilia,” Barricade muttered.

Starscream craned to look down over the bulge of his cockpit. “They are trained to default avoid any unnecessary pain.”

“This would be…not unnecessary.” 

Starscream’s optics met his again, almost as if trying to pry his off the exposed area. Blocking his vulnerability. 

“I can do it,” Barricade said.  “Decon the cilia.”

“You would enjoy that, would you not?” Starscream said, but the venom didn’t carry in the voice. The fear showed through—fear of pain, fear of reacting to it, fear of looking weak and pitiful in front of Barricade.

“No,” Barricade said, simply.  He hated how Starscream continually threw these walls up between them. Like he’d ever overstepped his place. Like he’d ever forgotten his status—lack thereof—or his obligation to the jet.  He snatched the last piece of armor, laying the jet’s thigh entirely bare, throwing it in the bin, venting his frustration on the contaminated metal.  He stared, deliberately, at the exposed servos and wires, feeling Starscream’s optics on him. He was trying to help.  Trying to do his job.  Trying to allow himself to care, but not show it. Trying to be how he thought Starscream wanted him to be—a habit so old and deep it was like a scar he couldn’t even see anymore.

He snatched one of the decon hoses from a repairbot, which, after an alarmed blat, simply ran off to fetch another one. He hesitated, steeling his resolve.  He did not want to do this. Despite all the friction between them, despite the resentment he’d felt for…ages, first at the interest Starscream had shown so in Barricade’s career, and then, later, at Starscream’s coldness, aloofness: even so, he did not want to cause Starscream pain.

Gingerly, he aimed the nozzle at the edge of one of the cilia plates.  Starscream went rigid: Barricade could hear the sucked in intake of air.  His lower optics shuttered in a wince.  Sorry, he thought, desperately. Sorry.  It needs to be done. 

Starscream writhed, but jerked his chin down sharply, nodding assent. Continue.  Barricade gritted his dentae, cursing at himself. Ridiculous. He wasn’t the one in pain. Why should he care?  He forced himself to be thorough, taking the decon hose in slow even rows up and down the cilia pad.  No good doing this badly, even though he hated it, hated the knowledge he was hurting Starscream, hating that he felt anything at all about it.  Do it once, do it thoroughly. MER-79 was a corticotoxin. Left in the system, it would devour Starscream’s cortex—motor and process.  Vicious stuff.  Worse, he told himself, than this. 

Starscream thrashed across the cradle’s mesh, his hands clutching at the webbing, forcing the exposed leg to be still, transferring his suffering across the rest of his body. 

Barricade threw down the hose, finally, turning away.  His talons were shaking from effort.  Ludicrous. Folly.  Pathetic.  Weak. He wasn’t the one who suffered. 

“Barricade?” Starscream asked, his voice thin and reedy from cutting down his vocalizer against what must have been agonizing screams.

“’M Fine,” he muttered. “Have to decon hands.”  He held up his hands, looking at them. Almost surprised to see how normal they looked.  Not like the hands of a torturer at all.   

 

 

Comments

[femme4jack.livejournal.com]

What will Wheeljack come up with next.

“You would enjoy that, would you not?” Starscream said, but the venom didn’t carry in the voice. The fear showed through—fear of pain, fear of reacting to it, fear of looking weak and pitiful in front of Barricade.

“No,” Barricade said, simply.

Really love that particular bit of interaction. Say so much in very few words.

[anontfwriter.livejournal.com]

Excellent prompt response! It totally fits.

[kyme.livejournal.com]

......unf. I love them. I think you might be making them a new OTP for me. ._.

Their interactions were lovely. <3

[bruised-skin.livejournal.com]

Whoo! Thankyouthankyouthankyou. For a little tiny bit there I thought no one was gonna fill this one! *hugs then scuttles away* Awesomely written, :3 I like seeing Wheeljack's dark side. His scientist side not just his blow-up side, and what scientist!Wheeljack means exactly to the Decepticons. *smiles like a moron* I really can't describe how much I loved this. Memming!~

[ithilgwath.livejournal.com]

...Wheeljack scares me.

Thank goodness Barricade has all that info in his head to connect the dots.

Barricade and Starscream's interactions in this were wonderfully written. Like painting a picture of their relationship at this point.