fic: TF DOTM; Ill Will
Rated: PG-13/T. Swearing and suggestiveness, the usual really.
Genre: lol um??
Prompt: Soundwave / Barricade / grudge
Crossposted to ff.net.
Does not contain DOTM spoilers.
I was reading the Borealis 'verse by Tainry as I scribbled this. The influence shows. |D
Soundwave has landed.
Barricade is already running.
----
Running doesn't do him any good, of course. Soundwave finds him. He has a feeling Soundwave found him a long time ago, and has just been taking his sweet time.
Still, it feels good to have the pavement flying past. Just one last time.
Because Soundwave is going to kill him.
He's flipped end over end, half-transformed, and wonders if he should just kill himself and be done with it.
----
He's not entirely sure of why he's still alive.
A pair of avians perch on his shoulders. Like waiting vultures, he thinks. (Then he wonders how in Primus' name he's gotten so acclimated to the squishies' culture.)
Soundwave regards him impassively from halfway across the field. His sonic cannon is still raised; from here he can see its mechanisms shifting as it prepares to fire.
It never does. Soundwave lowers it without a word. Barricade wonders if he's going to be left to bleed out. A slow, painful death. Quite possible. Or perhaps Soundwave wants to cannibalize his parts and energy. Very efficient.
"Get up."
One of his legs is nothing but dead weight. His torso is slagged nearly beyond recognition. And yet the musical monotone is impossible to disobey....
----
Barricade comes online to digits ghosting over his hip.
He remains still for a moment, his systems still on low. The diagnostics say his frame has been extensively tampered with. This doesn't surprise him. What does surprise him is that he would have died without the tampering.
He onlines his optics - just two of them work, he discovers, the others are wrecked - and he's greeted with a view of the stars.
The view is immediately ruined as an avian leans over his face.
He wills himself to calmness. The avian is calm. Curious, even. It shows in its posture and energy field. As all the fields around him are. They overlap and intertwine curiously, in a way he hasn't seen in years. Not since Frenzy -
Barricade jerks. The avian perched on his helm half-takes off with a screech. The hand on his hip tightens its grip.
Cease.
It's not exactly comms, and it's not speech. It's something new. And, Barricade suspects, something unique to Soundwave. The first impulse is to ignore the command and start running again, structural damage be damned.
Still. He's not dead, inexplicably. Soundwave currently wants him to live, and therefore it would be in his best interests to obey.
Barricade offlines his optics and settles in for the long wait.
----
When he comes to again, the avian is still there. He decides to ignore it.
His chronometer says it's been two days. The diagnostics say he's almost fully repaired; all he needs now is time for his self-repair systems to finish the rest.
His sensors say that besides the avian, he's the only Cybertronian for quite some distance. How easy it would be to destroy the avian and run... though he discards that idea the moment it forms. Soundwave beat him to within an inch of his life because of Frenzy's accidental demise; he has no wish to find out what would happen if he were to purposefully kill the avian.
Barricade sits up - slowly this time, so he doesn't get screeched at again. The avian barely seems to care, merely shifting itself to his shoulder as he rises. He wonders where Soundwave is.
"Not far."
He startles, again, though this time his passenger simply readjusts itself. It wasn't the avian; the voice came from farther away. And yet, with no other energy fields nearby....
Three curiously violet optics study him intently, their owner hanging upside-down in a nearby tree. The tiny frame shimmers and flickers. A cloaking field? "I am Ratbat," the - pseudo-avian? - says in response to the unasked question. "Stealth-without-disguise. That is Buzzsaw. Listening-in-silence."
Telepaths, Barricade realizes. Soundwave's drones are telepaths. He decides the mech must have a damaged CPU, giving an ability that dangerous to drones. Then he wonders if Frenzy....
"Yes."
Barricade decides to keep his mind carefully blank for a while.
----
Soundwave returns and leaves a small tank of low-grade energon - where the Pit could he have gotten that? - and leaves without a word.
----
Another rotation of the planet passes. Buzzsaw hasn't budged; Ratbat has shifted around the clearing several times, though Barricade never realizes it until the avian speaks up again. It's difficult to keep his mind blank for long stretches of time, he's discovered. Ratbat comments on everything, from sequences of numbers to diagnostic results to fleeting ideas of escape.
He wonders how much of Frenzy's apparent gibberish was actually running commentary.
Buzzsaw's head turns. Barricade automatically follows the movement. Soundwave rolls up to him, whisper-quiet, and transforms. Ratbat immediately glides down - it'd moved again, Barricade notes without surprise - and integrates itself into Soundwave's side. It's seamless; without having watched it, he would never guess there was a drone there.
Soundwave folds back into his vehicle mode. Come.
Barricade decides he has nothing to lose and transforms. He restrains a jerk of surprise as Buzzsaw again lands on him and folds down into a flat black panel. He suppresses a sigh as he follows Soundwave. The damn bird isn't going to leave him be, is it?
No, Soundwave agrees, It will not.
----
The drive has been a silent one.
Barricade still has no idea of where they're going or why. More importantly, he has no idea of why Soundwave didn't kill him. They'd never found the remains of the mech who had killed Rumble. He'd expected the same fate for himself.
At least Soundwave would be efficient about it. For all he knows he's been branded a deserter and Soundwave is merely bringing him to Megatron. That death would last orns, depending on the Lord's mood.
Frenzy was very fond of you.
Barricade doesn't startle from the telepathic words. Ratbat's constant discourse has made him adapt to it. He wonders if that had been Soundwave's plan all along.
I do not intend to kill you. Nor do I intend to allow Lord Megatron to do so.
Surprising. If Soundwave is truthful, of course, which Barricade can't imagine is the case. If Megatron asks for his death, then that is what will happen. Soundwave is perfectly loyal; even the lowest ranks know that.
----
Several days later, Soundwave breaks the silence again. I have lost all but three of my drones.
Barricade wonders what this has to do with anything. Besides, it's possible to build more. That's all they can build, with the Allspark gone. Soundwave has built a great number of them already - no one knows exactly how many drones he's had over the vorns - and so surely he can do it again.
No, Soundwave says, and the melodic tone of his voice is curiously flat. I cannot.
They continue in silence for a time.
Rumble wished for me to terminate the mech who killed it. Frenzy did not. I allowed my emotions to cloud my judgement. Frenzy wished for you to be protected from the Lord, and I will do so.
Protection. Barricade reins in his sneer. He would say that he doesn't need it - and since when did Decepticons protect anything? - but against Lord Megatron... perhaps it might be best to keep his opinions to himself. Inasmuch as he can while surrounded by telepaths.
We protect our own, a voice murmurs.
Barricade only realizes much later that it was Buzzsaw.
----
The more time he spends with Buzzsaw and Ratbat, the more Barricade suspects that they are far from ordinary drones.
The telepathy, for one. It's a useful, powerful, and extremely rare ability. Soundwave has it himself, of course, and it's entirely possible he adapted it to his drones somehow. He's unusually attached to them; perhaps it's because of vorns of effort.
They have distinct personalities. Drones... don't. Buzzsaw is quiet and calculating and can be extremely sadistic at times. Ratbat rarely shuts up; its curiosity is endless and it has a mischievous streak. Both are perfectly loyal to Soundwave, as expected, but not as a drone would be.
Drones are mindlessly loyal; they follow commands because they're programmed to. Ratbat and Buzzsaw do so because they want to. Sometimes Soundwave is forced to convince one of them to obey. Sometimes they never do, and in the end they convince Soundwave to listen to them.
Barricade is beginning to understand Soundwave's attachment to them.
----
Sometimes Barricade wonders what exactly Frenzy’s opinion of him was.
He’d thought there was nothing but mutual dislike between them. He hadn’t cared for Frenzy beyond keeping it functional and out of trouble. Mainly this was to save his own hide, because hell hath no fury like an enraged Soundwave.
Yet he’d managed to make a positive impression on the spastic nuisance. Enough to make a positive impression on Soundwave. Enough to keep him alive.
He supposes he should be grateful.
----
By the time Barricade realizes that Soundwave's drones are not drones but ensparked people, he has no wish to tell Lord Megatron.
----
Laserbeak has returned to Soundwave (and Buzzsaw and Ratbat and Barricade) for the next orn.
She and Buzzsaw clean each other, carefully; with beaks and talons, and by blasting their turbines' hot air over each other. Ratbat hangs above them and narrates until they move onto him, and the chatter degrades into a murmur of satisfaction.
Soundwave, too, seems satisfied, though Barricade can't fathom how he knows this. The optic band is as expressionless as ever, and the expression conveyed by his frame is rarely anything but stoic.
Then Barricade realizes a low hum of pleasure is in the air, in his mind - a voiceless telepathic transmission. He glances at Soundwave. Wonders if the mech realizes he's even transmitting it. It feels almost...
Loving.
A sound of disbelief escapes him. Loving? What kind of slag....
Soundwave's hand lands on his hip. This time it isn't to hold him still. This time, Soundwave's intentions are of a more pleasurable nature. Something adjusts in the mech's expressionless face. Amusement, desire....
What the slag, Barricade thinks. I've got nothing to lose.
----
How? Barricade wonders. He rarely speaks out loud to any of Soundwave's group. It's easier not to. How did you create them with the Allspark lost? He doesn't expect an answer. Why should he? Soundwave is notoriously private.
There is a method to split the spark. They are all created from me, and me only. It consumes a great deal of energy. I do not have enough remaining to enspark more.
There is a pause.
My spark is dim. If they perish, I may well follow.
Barricade wonders why Soundwave is telling him this. They're Decepticons. They don't reveal weaknesses. They exploit them, no matter how friendly they appear. He could very well go to Megatron with this information. The knowledge of how to create new sparks would be extracted from Soundwave, one way or another. He'd be promoted for it. By several ranks. The knowledge would turn the tide of the war.
It would be so easy.
And he wouldn't do it for anything or anyone.
We protect our own, Buzzsaw says softly, and settles on his shoulder.
Yes, Barricade thinks. We do.
Genre: lol um??
Prompt: Soundwave / Barricade / grudge
Crossposted to ff.net.
Does not contain DOTM spoilers.
I was reading the Borealis 'verse by Tainry as I scribbled this. The influence shows. |D
Soundwave has landed.
Barricade is already running.
----
Running doesn't do him any good, of course. Soundwave finds him. He has a feeling Soundwave found him a long time ago, and has just been taking his sweet time.
Still, it feels good to have the pavement flying past. Just one last time.
Because Soundwave is going to kill him.
He's flipped end over end, half-transformed, and wonders if he should just kill himself and be done with it.
----
He's not entirely sure of why he's still alive.
A pair of avians perch on his shoulders. Like waiting vultures, he thinks. (Then he wonders how in Primus' name he's gotten so acclimated to the squishies' culture.)
Soundwave regards him impassively from halfway across the field. His sonic cannon is still raised; from here he can see its mechanisms shifting as it prepares to fire.
It never does. Soundwave lowers it without a word. Barricade wonders if he's going to be left to bleed out. A slow, painful death. Quite possible. Or perhaps Soundwave wants to cannibalize his parts and energy. Very efficient.
"Get up."
One of his legs is nothing but dead weight. His torso is slagged nearly beyond recognition. And yet the musical monotone is impossible to disobey....
----
Barricade comes online to digits ghosting over his hip.
He remains still for a moment, his systems still on low. The diagnostics say his frame has been extensively tampered with. This doesn't surprise him. What does surprise him is that he would have died without the tampering.
He onlines his optics - just two of them work, he discovers, the others are wrecked - and he's greeted with a view of the stars.
The view is immediately ruined as an avian leans over his face.
He wills himself to calmness. The avian is calm. Curious, even. It shows in its posture and energy field. As all the fields around him are. They overlap and intertwine curiously, in a way he hasn't seen in years. Not since Frenzy -
Barricade jerks. The avian perched on his helm half-takes off with a screech. The hand on his hip tightens its grip.
Cease.
It's not exactly comms, and it's not speech. It's something new. And, Barricade suspects, something unique to Soundwave. The first impulse is to ignore the command and start running again, structural damage be damned.
Still. He's not dead, inexplicably. Soundwave currently wants him to live, and therefore it would be in his best interests to obey.
Barricade offlines his optics and settles in for the long wait.
----
When he comes to again, the avian is still there. He decides to ignore it.
His chronometer says it's been two days. The diagnostics say he's almost fully repaired; all he needs now is time for his self-repair systems to finish the rest.
His sensors say that besides the avian, he's the only Cybertronian for quite some distance. How easy it would be to destroy the avian and run... though he discards that idea the moment it forms. Soundwave beat him to within an inch of his life because of Frenzy's accidental demise; he has no wish to find out what would happen if he were to purposefully kill the avian.
Barricade sits up - slowly this time, so he doesn't get screeched at again. The avian barely seems to care, merely shifting itself to his shoulder as he rises. He wonders where Soundwave is.
"Not far."
He startles, again, though this time his passenger simply readjusts itself. It wasn't the avian; the voice came from farther away. And yet, with no other energy fields nearby....
Three curiously violet optics study him intently, their owner hanging upside-down in a nearby tree. The tiny frame shimmers and flickers. A cloaking field? "I am Ratbat," the - pseudo-avian? - says in response to the unasked question. "Stealth-without-disguise. That is Buzzsaw. Listening-in-silence."
Telepaths, Barricade realizes. Soundwave's drones are telepaths. He decides the mech must have a damaged CPU, giving an ability that dangerous to drones. Then he wonders if Frenzy....
"Yes."
Barricade decides to keep his mind carefully blank for a while.
----
Soundwave returns and leaves a small tank of low-grade energon - where the Pit could he have gotten that? - and leaves without a word.
----
Another rotation of the planet passes. Buzzsaw hasn't budged; Ratbat has shifted around the clearing several times, though Barricade never realizes it until the avian speaks up again. It's difficult to keep his mind blank for long stretches of time, he's discovered. Ratbat comments on everything, from sequences of numbers to diagnostic results to fleeting ideas of escape.
He wonders how much of Frenzy's apparent gibberish was actually running commentary.
Buzzsaw's head turns. Barricade automatically follows the movement. Soundwave rolls up to him, whisper-quiet, and transforms. Ratbat immediately glides down - it'd moved again, Barricade notes without surprise - and integrates itself into Soundwave's side. It's seamless; without having watched it, he would never guess there was a drone there.
Soundwave folds back into his vehicle mode. Come.
Barricade decides he has nothing to lose and transforms. He restrains a jerk of surprise as Buzzsaw again lands on him and folds down into a flat black panel. He suppresses a sigh as he follows Soundwave. The damn bird isn't going to leave him be, is it?
No, Soundwave agrees, It will not.
----
The drive has been a silent one.
Barricade still has no idea of where they're going or why. More importantly, he has no idea of why Soundwave didn't kill him. They'd never found the remains of the mech who had killed Rumble. He'd expected the same fate for himself.
At least Soundwave would be efficient about it. For all he knows he's been branded a deserter and Soundwave is merely bringing him to Megatron. That death would last orns, depending on the Lord's mood.
Frenzy was very fond of you.
Barricade doesn't startle from the telepathic words. Ratbat's constant discourse has made him adapt to it. He wonders if that had been Soundwave's plan all along.
I do not intend to kill you. Nor do I intend to allow Lord Megatron to do so.
Surprising. If Soundwave is truthful, of course, which Barricade can't imagine is the case. If Megatron asks for his death, then that is what will happen. Soundwave is perfectly loyal; even the lowest ranks know that.
----
Several days later, Soundwave breaks the silence again. I have lost all but three of my drones.
Barricade wonders what this has to do with anything. Besides, it's possible to build more. That's all they can build, with the Allspark gone. Soundwave has built a great number of them already - no one knows exactly how many drones he's had over the vorns - and so surely he can do it again.
No, Soundwave says, and the melodic tone of his voice is curiously flat. I cannot.
They continue in silence for a time.
Rumble wished for me to terminate the mech who killed it. Frenzy did not. I allowed my emotions to cloud my judgement. Frenzy wished for you to be protected from the Lord, and I will do so.
Protection. Barricade reins in his sneer. He would say that he doesn't need it - and since when did Decepticons protect anything? - but against Lord Megatron... perhaps it might be best to keep his opinions to himself. Inasmuch as he can while surrounded by telepaths.
We protect our own, a voice murmurs.
Barricade only realizes much later that it was Buzzsaw.
----
The more time he spends with Buzzsaw and Ratbat, the more Barricade suspects that they are far from ordinary drones.
The telepathy, for one. It's a useful, powerful, and extremely rare ability. Soundwave has it himself, of course, and it's entirely possible he adapted it to his drones somehow. He's unusually attached to them; perhaps it's because of vorns of effort.
They have distinct personalities. Drones... don't. Buzzsaw is quiet and calculating and can be extremely sadistic at times. Ratbat rarely shuts up; its curiosity is endless and it has a mischievous streak. Both are perfectly loyal to Soundwave, as expected, but not as a drone would be.
Drones are mindlessly loyal; they follow commands because they're programmed to. Ratbat and Buzzsaw do so because they want to. Sometimes Soundwave is forced to convince one of them to obey. Sometimes they never do, and in the end they convince Soundwave to listen to them.
Barricade is beginning to understand Soundwave's attachment to them.
----
Sometimes Barricade wonders what exactly Frenzy’s opinion of him was.
He’d thought there was nothing but mutual dislike between them. He hadn’t cared for Frenzy beyond keeping it functional and out of trouble. Mainly this was to save his own hide, because hell hath no fury like an enraged Soundwave.
Yet he’d managed to make a positive impression on the spastic nuisance. Enough to make a positive impression on Soundwave. Enough to keep him alive.
He supposes he should be grateful.
----
By the time Barricade realizes that Soundwave's drones are not drones but ensparked people, he has no wish to tell Lord Megatron.
----
Laserbeak has returned to Soundwave (and Buzzsaw and Ratbat and Barricade) for the next orn.
She and Buzzsaw clean each other, carefully; with beaks and talons, and by blasting their turbines' hot air over each other. Ratbat hangs above them and narrates until they move onto him, and the chatter degrades into a murmur of satisfaction.
Soundwave, too, seems satisfied, though Barricade can't fathom how he knows this. The optic band is as expressionless as ever, and the expression conveyed by his frame is rarely anything but stoic.
Then Barricade realizes a low hum of pleasure is in the air, in his mind - a voiceless telepathic transmission. He glances at Soundwave. Wonders if the mech realizes he's even transmitting it. It feels almost...
Loving.
A sound of disbelief escapes him. Loving? What kind of slag....
Soundwave's hand lands on his hip. This time it isn't to hold him still. This time, Soundwave's intentions are of a more pleasurable nature. Something adjusts in the mech's expressionless face. Amusement, desire....
What the slag, Barricade thinks. I've got nothing to lose.
----
How? Barricade wonders. He rarely speaks out loud to any of Soundwave's group. It's easier not to. How did you create them with the Allspark lost? He doesn't expect an answer. Why should he? Soundwave is notoriously private.
There is a method to split the spark. They are all created from me, and me only. It consumes a great deal of energy. I do not have enough remaining to enspark more.
There is a pause.
My spark is dim. If they perish, I may well follow.
Barricade wonders why Soundwave is telling him this. They're Decepticons. They don't reveal weaknesses. They exploit them, no matter how friendly they appear. He could very well go to Megatron with this information. The knowledge of how to create new sparks would be extracted from Soundwave, one way or another. He'd be promoted for it. By several ranks. The knowledge would turn the tide of the war.
It would be so easy.
And he wouldn't do it for anything or anyone.
We protect our own, Buzzsaw says softly, and settles on his shoulder.
Yes, Barricade thinks. We do.