Sky and Ground

Thundercracker was in the brig, awaiting execution. Strange how a few cycles ago that news would have elicited only a shrug or a ‘couldn’t happen to a more deserving’ from Barricade. But sitting in Starscream’s recharge, after he and Skywarp had managed to drag the bronze Seeker from Megatron’s command chamber, weeping and weak, watching Skywarp war with woe and rage, his perspective had changed. Thundercracker’s death would destroy Starscream, shatter the Trine. It would hurt Skywarp.



“What the frag did you think you were doing?” Skywarp snarled. Starscream quailed back against the berth. “I thought you had it under control! I supported you!” Barricade remembered Skywarp’s voice, sultry in his audio, pushing him, arousing him, consoling him.



Starscream hunched, miserably. “It was not supposed to go that far,” he said, his voice small. Barricade pushed the jet’s hands gently aside, reaching to swab his face with a damp cleansing rag.



“Well, I’d hope not!”



“Not helping,” Barricade said, quietly. He felt…more than a little awful himself. He’d been part of it.



“It was--,” a strange hiccup, “it was only supposed to go as far as Barricade. Megatron just watches. He’s never…intruded before.” Starscream shivered, his hands bunching into helpless, but vicious looking, fists.



“He’s done this before? Made you interface with others?” Skywarp was pacing, discontent. On the edge of…something dark. Barricade could feel Skywarp’s despair—that his own treatment of his Trine mate had led him to that, left him open for that. His guilt roiled off him like a palpable field.



Starscream nodded. “That is why I thought it was safe. He would have his revenge, and…and as a reward for his obedience Barricade would be unpunished and you would only have to leave the Nemesis, hand over this investigation to someone else. It was perfect.”



“Except it wasn’t.” Skywarp had the decency to wince.



“Not helping,” Barricade repeated, more firmly. Starscream had pushed him aside, whimpering into his hands.



“Thundercracker is going to die and it is all my fault,” Starscream breathed. “All of it. Overconfidence. Hubris. Again.” His body shook as if he were freezing, arms hugging around his body pitifully. Barricade patted the jet’s shoulder, helplessly, the filthy rag dangling from his talons.



“Not your fault,” Skywarp said, gruffly. He sat down on the berth next to Starscream, placing an awkward, apologetic arm over the bronze shoulders. “It’s not your fault, Starscream.” Barricade stood, helpless, useless, in-the-way, feeling like he was an intruder as Starscream turned into Skywarp’s touch, away from Barricade’s.



“He’s dead and it’s my fault,” Starscream mumbled vaguely into Skywarp’s throat, his voice papery. “My fault.”



“He’s not dead yet. Thundercracker is not dead,” Skywarp asserted. His optics met Barricade’s with a kind of embarrassed worry.



“Skyfire!” Starscream said, his body going impossibly rigid before collapsing, wracked with sobs. Skywarp pulled his bronze Trine mate firmly against him, murmuring comforting useless empty phrases in his audio, but…Starscream was gone, somewhere else, mumbling only “Skyfire, Skyfire,” over and over again like a mantra, like a charm summoning up a storm.



Barricade, aching to help, patted the jet’s thigh awkwardly. Starscream swooped down, crushing him against his rib struts. “You are not Skyfire,” he said, distracted, almost as if surprised. “Skyfire is not here.”



“He’s not here,” Skywarp muttered. “Come back, Starscream. Please. Don’t go away now. Here. Please. We need you.” His talons were earnest on Starscream’s armor, stroking him comfortingly, trying to ground him by touch to the here and now. His anger, evaporated.



“If only Skyfire were here,” Starscream said, his voice rippling with delirium. “Quaternions.”



Skywarp’s face looked stricken. “Yes. I know.”



“If we were still a Quaterne….”



“Hush, Starscream.” Skywarp began rocking the bronze body, soothingly. “I know. We wouldn’t have to listen to anyone. It’s not your fault. We didn’t lose that because of you.”



“But Thundercracker…is my fault.”



Skywarp’s face was taut, regretting the harsh words he’d said earlier. “No. Not your fault, Starscream. No. He acted of his own free will. No one blames you.”



“I do,” Starscream breathed, miserably.



“Well then,” Skywarp said, his voice strained with the effort to make it sound light, “you are wrong. Now.” He reached for the rag in Barricade’s hand, and began daubing Starscream’s face with it. “Think, Starscream, of what Skyfire would think of you now. He knows you are stronger than this.” Skywarp’s agonized optics met Barricade’s over the bronze shoulder. He hated being seen like this. Hated Starscream being this broken. He hadn’t realized Barricade had already seen it.



“I am not strong,” Starscream whispered. “Not without the Trine.”



Barricade fetched another cleansing rag, simply to have something to do, something that got him out of Skywarp’s radius for a moment. He returned, handing the new rag up to Skywarp, who took it gratefully. Skywarp wiped at Starscream’s chin, leaning in to plant a tentative peck on the bronze mouth. Starscream drew back, startled.



Skywarp winked. “Now that I have your attention,” he teased—still a strain. Barricade wondered if Starscream could see the effort that Skywarp was putting into this jovial mood. “We need you. Thundercracker needs you.”



“Thundercracker is dead!”



“No. We have solars before that happens.” No doubt Megatron’s idea of false hope, or delaying, with grinding misery, the inevitable, dragging it out painfully slowly, so that the dread wait itself became a torture and the execution almost an afterthought. Barricade wondered if Megatron would be enjoying this scene—of his Air Commander shivering on the brink of tears. Probably.



“If only we were a Quaterne,” Starscream repeated, numbly. His optics drifted around the room, as though he’d never seen it before. His own recharge. His optics fell on Barricade. “Quaterne,” he repeated, as though the word meant something to him that he himself had not quite figured. “Barricade.” He reached and pulled Barricade against him, the smaller mech grunting as his shoulder tires whacked against the jet’s ribs. “Quaterne.” He looked at Skywarp. “Do you not see? If we are a Quaterne, they cannot touch us. No one can.”



“Yes, but….” Skywarp’s optics measured Barricade. “No. It is too much to ask.”



“Ask what?” This conversation was over his head, literally and figuratively. What?



“Quaterne,” Starscream said, with a confident nod, as though that explained everything, his frame stilling. Barricade had read the texts the jet had called up for him. He knew that it was a group of four Seekers. And that they had been one once. But…where did he fit in?



“Don’t understand,” Barricade said, optics jumping between the jets.



“He wants you to bond with us. All of us. Become the fourth.”



Yes. The word trembled in his vocalizer. Bond with Skywarp? Yes.



Skywarp shook his head. “I couldn’t ask that much of you.”



“You didn’t ask,” Barricade retorted. “Yes.” He felt Starscream’s hand clutch around his shoulders. Starscream’s face bent down, nuzzling his cheekplates against Barricade’s finials.



“Thank you,” Starscream breathed. “Our fourth. Quaterne.”



“He’s not Skyfire,” Skywarp said, bluntly. Barricade blinked. Why was Skywarp trying to push him out of this?



“Said I’d do it,” Barricade pushed back. “Save Thundercracker.” Be with you, he added.



“You don’t know what it requires. What it means. I’m not even sure it’s possible.”



“It is,” Starscream said. His optics had gotten back some of their focus. “It is possible. There is no law that says a Seeker unit must be entirely Seekers.”



“It’s sort of…understood.”



“It is not specified. That means that it can be exploited in our favor.” The hands stroked down Barricade’s back. “He can be our quaternion. There is no law against it.”



“This is one slag of a risk. You don’t even know he can handle it. Or wants to.”



“Yes!” Barricade said, louder. Was Skywarp ignoring him? “I want to.” Better than doing nothing. Even if it didn’t work, even if it failed, he would have been part of something that tried to fight back.



“You are afraid.” Starscream’s head tilted, as if probing a tactical problem. The optics had unclouded, the spinal cabling straightened. “You are afraid to bond with him. After all of that. You are afraid.”



“I am not!” Skywarp protested, hotly. “You just…you don’t know.” Skywarp pushed away, standing up, trying to get some distance.



“I know that you have sparked with him, Skywarp.” Starscream’s voice was gentle but inexorable. “I know that you feel it was unwelcome.” He paused to run a telltale finger over the dings in Barricade’s chassis armor where Skywarp had dropped his weight, forcing Barricade’s chamber to retract. “We both know how you feel. Why do you never heed how we feel?”



“Because…! Because it’s vile and hateful and I have no right. I have never had… any right to do that.” Skywarp slammed a fist into the wall, then froze, staring at the dent he’d made, the twinned gouges of his hand barbs. Damage. Again. All he could do was hurt things. Break things. Destroy.



Starscream gently pushed Barricade aside, pushing up, and crossing over to Skywarp. “We are one, Skywarp. There are no boundaries between us save what you put up. And you do not need to. Not with me. Never with me.” He folded his hands around Skywarp’s neck, laying his cheek against the black audio. “And not with Barricade. Ask him. If you love him as you say you do, do not presume to, once again, make his decisions for him. Do not decide, in your arrogance, that you know what is best for him, for you. Give up control. Yield.” He tried to soften the harshness of his words, feeling Skywarp tremble as if being beaten by them, actually injured. Oh, Skywarp, he thought, his spark aching. Please. For yourself if for nothing else. Be strong, because if the Trine falls, I am gone, and there will be only you. Only you to carry us on. Please.



Skywarp ground his optic shutters. “Barricade?” he asked, staring still at the wall, his shut optics. “I have no right to ask this of you. And you have every right to refuse. But will you--?”



“Yes!” Barricade insisted, cutting Skywarp off. “Said I’d do it.” Not for Thundercracker. For Skywarp. For Starscream. And not a little bit…for himself.



Starscream admonished him with a wry look. “The point, Barricade, was in the asking.” Yes. The point was that Skywarp had to give up that much control, lay himself before Barricade. This was even a deeper risk than an apology, this was asking for…everything. This was asking more than simply letting go of the past: this was embracing a future.



Barricade pushed between them, tugging Skywarp away from the wall, where he was staring at the damage he’d done as though it were a mirror. “Yours,” Barricade said, pulling the black jet into an embrace.



“No,” Skywarp breathed, crushing the smaller mech against him. “Yours.”