shadow_vector | Formation

G
Bayverse, Sky and Ground AU
Barricade, Skywarp, Starscream, Thundercracker
no warnings, kinda fluffy

Written for tf_rare_pairing prompt: Skywarp/Barricade, "what are you looking at?"

“What are you looking at?” Barricade muttered, drooping his head.

Skywarp’s laugh pealed through the hangar. “You! You look positively miserable!”

Barricade frowned. “Not funny.” He squirmed under the heavy frame Dirge was hooking him into. “Look fraggin’ ridiculous.”

The laugh faded, echoing in the open space. Starscream and Thundercracker looked over from where they lounged easily against the wall. They didn’t need thrusters installed for this. Starscream shook his head, grinning.

“I didn’t say ridiculous, Barricade.” Skywarp dropped to one knee. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s amazing you’re agreeing to this.”

“Team,” Barricade said, firmly. “Can’t let you down.” A wash of resolution over the bond. Determination.

“You couldn’t.”

“Yeah, I could. Hate flying.”

“Even now?” Skywarp looked hurt. He sent back over the bond reassurance and admiration, soft pastels that rippled against the force of Barricade’s dermination.

Barricade faltered. “Different when you do it.” Truth: Barricade loved Skywarp flying. If he couldn’t go, he would try to find some way to shut off from the outside world, curl up, and lose himself in the bond, merging with Skywarp, feeling the thin air of space, or the denser stuff of atmosphere, silking over his wings, feel the rumbling power of his engines, the effortless power in his turns and maneuvers, and occasionally, the sharp, staccato punches of his guns. He could imagine nothing more erotic than flying as Skywarp felt it, and the trust and honor he felt at being allowed to share it swept him away. But for himself? No. Flight still reminded him of his clunky frame with its overproportioned tires, beholden to gravity.

Skywarp grinned. “Well, of course,” he teased, but through the bond Barricade felt the glow of pride. The grounder’s pure admiration, unconditional, unjudgmental had changed him, broken down the wall he’d put up in his own mind. Skywarp had hated the fierce pleasure he had taken in violence, in flight; Barricade had thrown a new light on it, like a brilliant gouache of sunlight. Skywarp felt the urge to kiss Barricade build up, rising from his sparkchamber, until it quivered on his mouth plates. He let that cross the bond as well, waiting, letting it rise, build, grow, until he knew Barricade felt it, too, and ached for completion, skirling with a little impatience.

He pushed a soft laugh into Barricade’s mouth as their lip-plating made contact. And for a moment, everything stopped, Dirge huffing as he stepped back from installation of the jet manifold. Their minds and bodies stilled, focused on the pure sensation of the physical contact of their mouths, and all the swirling desires and tenderness that spun off.

Skywarp eventually pulled away, just before the desire to kiss crested into another desire. He felt Thundercracker’s huff through the link with Barricade, impatient, but no longer disturbed. Thundercracker had come to tolerate the pair, griping that Barricade was useless but mostly harmless. Neither had tried very hard to win the other over, but then again, each was exactly the type to have seen any overture of friendship as weakness.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Dirge cut in. “Have to finish installation of the control interface.” Barricade shrugged helplessly, his optics spiraling small and embarrassed. Skywarp stepped back, repressing a grin.

Starscream ambled over. “You are aware of how ridiculous this is.”

“See!?” Barricade blurted. “Even he sees it!” His talons bunched, distress, yellow-green and heavy, pulling at the bond.

“I did not mean you, Barricade,” Starscream said, “I meant this challenge.”

“Oh, you knew Soundwave was going to find something. Best get it over with.” Skywarp shrugged, philosophical.

“I, for one, regret not pushing harder to get him upmodded to an airframe,” Thundercracker sighed, still leaning against the wall.

Barricade growled. “Should upmod you to a better vocalizer. One that knows how to shut up.”

Skywarp laughed, but Barricade could feel the undercurrent of concern—Skywarp did not want them fighting. Not right before they had to work together so intimately. He forced himself to back off.

“We are all a bit anxious,” Starscream said, with the careful air of someone picking his way through a minefield. “It is only natural. But formation flying is not terribly difficult at this level.”

“Easy for you to say,” Barricade griped. “Just gonna hang out in the back and hope they don’t see me.”

“Actually,” Skywarp said, “worst place for you is the back. You have to watch your intervals in three different forevectors.’

“You,” Starscream said, “Shall be right wing. I shall be left wing. And Skywarp will be the diamond’s back, where he can give you the most assistance.”

“I’ll be wide open,” Skywarp said. As if to give Barricade a taste, he pushed his end of the bond wider. Barricade could see, faintly, his astrogation overlays.

“And we are limited to the capabilities of the thruster pack.” Starscream preened at his foresight. He had been the one to include that condition in Soundwave’s little challenge—that everything requested had to be within thruster-pack specifications.

“All you have to do,” Skywarp said, “is keep your angle and distance to Thundercracker.” Right. All he had to do.

The blue jet grunted. “If this weren’t so important, I’d be tempted to shove that ‘all you have to do’ up your thrusters,” Thundercracker snapped. Less malice traveled through the bond than Barricade had expected. Almost as if this were some sort of ritual position with no real rancor behind it.

Skywarp shrugged, a grin flashing over his black armor. “Good thing this is important, then, huh?” Not quite calling Thundercracker on it. Starscream seemed unfazed: even without the bond, Barricade knew he’d always been the best barometer of the Trine’s emotions. This, then, was just some friendly banter. Barricade forced himself to relax. He’d…never had this before. Conflict tensed him up but Thundercracker and Skywarp seemed almost to enjoy being at odds. Seemed to enjoy needling each other. He wondered how it was different.

“What do we have to do?” Sudden fear clenched in Barricade’s tanks as Dirge ran a final functions check on the last connection and stepped away and it suddenly became real. Soundwave had dug up some arcane text—and the fact it took him nearly a decacycle to find it showed how obscure it was—insisting that bonded teams needed to fly together.

“Simple formation. Keep in the diamond, bank left, bank right, and a spiral turn. Like a giant barrel roll but in formation.” Skywarp paused, and Barricade felt the maneuvers, like ghosts sailing over him. As a Trine, they had probably done this…countless times. Only to him would it be new.

Of course, that’s what Soundwave was counting on. He’d been surprised when Barricade, provoked, had so readily accepted the challenge. He must have hoped for more fear. Barricade refused to show him any, blocking it away from his face, his frame. He tried to lock it down, even now, against the others, but Skywarp pushed, gently, insistently, against the block. No. They had agreed, all of them. No secrets. Not from each other. Barricade sighed, letting the fear trickle through the bond. Thundercracker smirked, feeling it. Well, let him, then. Skywarp soothed him.

“We’ll all be right there. And it doesn’t have to be perfect.”

“Want it to be.” A tremulous shimmer of love.

“Let’s do this already? If we wait any longer….” Thundercracker rolled his optics, elbowing himself off the wall. “It’s…going to be distracting,” he finished, grumpily, as the mutual love and desire began spinning through Barricade’s uncontrolled link. “For all of us.”

“I suspect they will simply pick up here when we are finished,” Starscream sighed. He shepherded Barricade—awkward under the heavy weight of the thruster pack—toward the hangar door, stepping between the grounder and Skywarp.

“Yes, we will,” Skywarp said, pointedly. “And then, it will be a celebration. Which you are more than welcome to invite yourself to.” He grinned.

“Oh like we have a choice!” Thundercracker groused. “Feel every goopy sentiment you two throw at each other. Seriously. Control yourselves.”

Barricade smirked, turning clumsily to face Thundercracker. “Fact that you hate it? Makes me like it more.”

Thundercracker shot him a look, and suddenly the tension among them burst like a bubble, the two of them laughing at each other’s posturing, recognizing it for what it was—old habit, feigned resistance, a strange kind of tolerant teasing.

“We shall get through this, as always, in shining style.” Starscream leaned forward, throwing his arms over Thundercracker’s shoulders, and around the bulky frame of the thruster pack. Thundercracker groused, muttering something, but Barricade could feel a flare of affection toward Starscream across the bond from the blue jet.

“Better mechs than Soundwave have tried,” Thundercracker said. He swiveled his head to look at Barricade. “Nothing separates us.” He gave a firm nod, including Barricade in that ‘us’. Against a common threat, the edge to his hostility gave way.

Barricade felt a surge of determination through his bond, from all three of them, as he took the last step off the deck and fell into space. He roared the thrusters on, testing the controls. Determination—not grim and dark and born from fear of consequences, but warm and scintillant, made of the sheer, unfamiliar joy of being together against enemies.

Formation

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