Separation

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG-13
Bayverse, Sky and Ground AU
Barricade, Skywarp, Thundercracker, Starscream
no warnings

Barricade burst out of recharge, keening, his talons clawing desperately at whatever was in front of him.  His systems blared red and white with pain and distress and rage, a maelstrom of emotions and sensations battering at him.

“What?” Starscream’s face, earnest, worried, pushed into his field of vision.  “Barricade? What is wrong?” 

“I—gahhhhh…Skywarp!”   He blazed with pain.  And guilt. How dare he recharge: Thundercracker and Skywarp had been sent on a strike mission. He’d wanted to stay awake, hold vigil, until Skywarp returned, but Starscream had convinced him to rest, to trust Skywarp, to be rested and ready when Skywarp returned.

Talons clutched at his shoulders.  “Skywarp! Is he all right?”  The optics clouded, Starscream’s ventilation ratcheting up.  “What has happened?” 

“Don’t know!”  Barricade writhed on the berth as bond-borrowed agony tore through his frame. 

“Is he dead? Tell me he is not dead!”  The voice took on a desperate anger. 

“No. No.  Can…feel him. Not dead.”  Not dead, but in pain, terrible pain, and wracked with emotions.

“Thundercracker is upset,” Starscream reported, dismally. “I can feel him over the bond.”

Barricade fought to blink through the rush of color and light and feeling through the bond.  Yes.  Starscream  had not bonded with Skywarp yet.  He could not feel what Barricade had no choice to feel, only the echo of it that leaked through Barricade’s protocols.  Barricade cinched down on them.  But, it meant that he could think more clearly than Barricade could.  And Barricade needed someone to think clearly right now.

Starscream gave a soft acknowledgment as the signal slackened off the bond.  “Thundercracker has been forced to withdraw.”

“Withdraw!?” Barricade thrashed. “Withdraw and leave him?”

“Thundercracker has been injured as well. He can no longer fight.”

Barricade knew he should feel bad. But he couldn’t. All he could think was Skywarp in pain—and Thundercracker running away.  His mouthplates ground in fury. 

“No, Barricade,” Starscream admonished. “We need Thundercracker.  Skywarp has been…,” and he choked on the word, “captured and we need Thundercracker to rescue him.”

“Shouldn’t let him get captured in the first place,” Barricade muttered, dropping his optics.  Realizing that he was being petty, but…he couldn’t help how he felt. 

“We shall rescue him,” Starscream’s mouth took the same set as Barricade’s.  “All of us.” He nodded. “Think how much that will infuriate Soundwave.” It was a feeble attempt to pull Barricade out of his pain, and the rage that was only partly his, partly Skywarp’s.  He leaned in closer. “He will survive, Barricade.  Skywarp is nothing if not a survivor.”

Barricade’s optics pricked. He turned his face adamantly away.  “Know that.” 

“And he has, with you, with us, all the more reason to live,” Starscream murmured. 

Barricade wished, fervently, that the thought had brought him any consolation.

[***]

“You!” Barricade strode into repair bay, his shorter legs somehow outstripping Starscream’s.  “How could you lose him?” His optics raked over Thundercracker’s black-charred frame as it hung, limply, in the repair cradle. He saw the damage, but didn’t care. Skywarp was hurt and in enemy hands.  Nothing mattered beyond that.

Nothing.

Thundercracker’s optics were dull, exhausted.  “It was Skywarp,” he said, looking to Starscream to translate.

“Skywarp…takes unnecessary chances in combat at times,” Starscream said, dutifully. 

“You’re not going to blame him for this!” Barricade howled, not caring that repairbots bolted up in alar at the shrill. 

“I’m not blaming him. It’s how he is,” Thundercracker said, an edge to his voice. “I’m not going to lie about it.”

Barricade subsided, still upset, but…the blue jet had a point. And it didn’t matter how he got caught. Or…it didn’t matter right now.  After Skywarp was back, after he was safe, it would matter again. 

Starscream seemed to have guessed his thoughts, sliding a soothing hand over his pauldron tire.  “We shall get him back.  We do need mission parameters, however.”

Thundercracker dropped his head back against the cradle’s meshes.  “The usual.  Target was a munitions factory.  Deny asset.”  He paused, external cooling kicking on.  The only sign he allowed that he was in pain. 

“He was shot down?”

“Right out of the fraggin’ sky,” Thundercracker said. The profanity seemed strange and crude coming from him.  His optics spiraled. “He’s not dead.”

The question galled Barricade, but he had to ask it. “Has—has he talked to you?” Skywarp had not responded to his comms. He was frantic.

Thundercracker shook his head.  “I think they might have damaged his comm.”

News at once disturbing and relief.  Terrible injury, but…it explained to Barricade Skywarp’s sudden silence.  It wasn’t about Barricade.  Petty, foolish thought.

“We’ll get him,” Barricade said. “We’re not leaving him there.”  Starscream’s hands on his shoulders stroked him more soothingly. 

“Yes, Barricade,” he said.  “We will rescue Skywarp.”

“We,” Barricade snapped. “I’m in.”

He saw the objection bubble up Thundercracker’s cortex.  Thundercracker jerked his head away. “Fine,” the blue jet snapped.  “We’d never hear the end of it, anyway, whiner.”

Starscream stepped forward. “Enough. We have no time for this sort of sniping.  Skywarp needs us.”

“What’s worse,” Thundercracker said, quietly. “We’re vulnerable.” He flicked his optics around the room, indicating they might be spied upon. 

Yes, Barricade thought. Soundwave would not let such an opportunity slide.

[***]

Skywarp groaned, his optics slow to online. His HUD was clogged with error messages, alarms and down-systems notifications. Comm: down.  Left arm servo assembly: error.  Right leg hydraulics: low.  Fuel: borderline critical. Flight: disabled.

Disabled? 

He felt a spin of alarm.  Injured, he could handle. Alone, he could handle.  But…captured. 

He moved, finding gravity, finding the ground beneath his cheek, his side.  He pushed up with his one good arm, trying to mass-clear his HUD, looking around him.

A brig cell.

He almost laughed, bitter, ironic. He was no stranger to brigs.  And he’d have no fear now, either, if it weren’t for the bond, his worry about bringing suffering to his bonded. 

He gritted his optics, shutting down his end of the bond as tightly as he could.  He would not let them be hurt. He would get himself out.  But above all…he had to be careful not to die.

It was a heavy, leaden weight, this obligation. He felt one sharp pang across his chassis for when he hadn’t had to worry about dying, when all death meant was an end to life. Now…it would mean killing Thundercracker and Barricade as well. And…Primus knew what it would do to Starscream. Maybe he would survive but…what was left of him that would surprise?

A stark-edged image burst in his mind: Starscream, a shattered, broken shell in bronze, cowering in the darkness, mottled with fluids, wings dented and torn, until whenever Megatron had a defiling whim. 

At best, he told himself. At best.

No.  He would survive.  Whatever it took.  He’d never been afraid of death.  But he felt this determination to life, this obligation to survive, as a burden almost too to bear. 

His head jerked to one side, responding to a sudden sound from outside his cell.  A forcefield dropping, the metal grate of footsteps on deck plating.  They were coming.

He had courage.  He knew this. And he’d never needed it more than now. 

Comments

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

Ack! Skywarp! *has nothing more coherent, just bites nails and paces*