Sky and Ground: Quaterne

Sorry for delay. Whoa. New interface. Way to pay attention, me!

 

Skywarp grumbled as he and Starscream strode to the hangar. “So unnecessary. All this rehearsal nonsense.”

Starscream grinned indulgently. “Thundercracker always was a bit…excessive in his preparation.”

“He’s there already? With Barricade?”  A blush of worry coloring the words.  The two had been inventorying bomb racks.  Menial duty, light duty for the day after a long flight. 

“Yes.” Starscream said, patiently. They had both received the same message. Skywarp already knew this.  But Skywarp was…flustered, the notion that Barricade was hiding something from him—something bad—was eroding his focus.  Starscream accepted it, gladly picking up this slack for him. Quaternion helping quaternion.  That was how it was supposed to be. 

“Onslaught wants to speak with me later,” Skywarp said, distantly. “Which is…a little weird.”

Starscream nodded, tapping in the code to open the hangar’s spaceside docking door.   It had to be related.  The timing was too suspicious. Red lights flared, signalling imminent vacuum.  The two jets automatically enabled the magnets in their footplates, rooting themselves to the deck.  “Onslaught would not,” he said, significantly, the words stretched thin in the cold space rushing in from the open door, “deceive you.”  A trust that Skywarp had paid for, and been repaid for, so many times over the orbital cycles that there was simply no point keeping a tally.

Skywarp said nothing, beyond a grunt, firing his turbines and leaping off into the velvety darkness. 

They found Barricade and Thundercracker, Barricade shivering and frowning, hunching in his propack, Thundercracker looking harried and impatient.  Just as well they showed when they did, Starscream thought. 

“We don’t need practice,” Skywarp began. Irritated, but soothed—marginally—by the flight.  It always cooled some of his heat, dulled some of the sharp edge of his words. 

“We do.  But there’s another reason I—we—,“  a rather hasty but unapologetic look at Barricade, “called you out here.”

“Surveillance,” Starscream murmured, lifting his head, optics scanning.

“Already scanned, “Thundercracker said.  “Nothing’s listening in.”  Confirming the need even as he reassured them of their security.

Skywarp tensed, optics pinning Barricade’s face. Barricade squirmed in his pack.  “What?” he breathed. 

“I…uhh…wh-while you were go-gone…,” Barricade stammered, talons clutching desperately at nothing. 

“While we were gone…what?” the voice getting sharper.  Starscream brushed Skywarp’s arm, a reminder, a soothing touch. 

Barricade’s optics flicked to Thundercracker, helplessly.  Skywarp’s engines gave a dangerous burring hum. 

Thundercracker cut in. “He was hacked by Soundwave.  And you can imagine the rest.  A little too clearly.”

“Megatron,” Starscream murmured, half a question. 

Thundercracker nodded.  “Like what we saw.” His wingflaps shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t particularly care to recall that horrible moment with Starscream and Megatron himself. 

“You didn’t tell us.  Why didn’t you tell us!?” Skywarp’s voice edged on a roar. 

“Skywarp,” Starscream said, warningly.

“Don’t ‘Skywarp’ me!”  The black jet rounded on Starscream. “He didn’t tell us.  When it was happening or after. He didn’t tell…me.”  The last word torn from him, oozing pain and betrayal.

Barricade recoiled, curling up against the frame of the propack, optics wide and panicked and helpless. “I…couldn’t!”

“Couldn’t?! But you could tell Thundercracker?” 

“Skywarp.” Thundercracker this time.  Not a warning. An order. “He told one of us. That’s what matters.”

“’M sorry,” Barricade said, pitifully, withering against the red heat he felt from Skywarp’s optics. Blaming him, accusing him.  He reached along the bond with frantic tendrils, pleading for admittance. 

And was shut down, a hard prickly wall slamming between them. 

He gave a choking sob. “Please….”

Skywarp whirled, snarling something that Barricade was frankly glad he couldn’t catch.  He blasted his engines on, tearing into the darkness.

“That went well.” Thundercracker sighed. “I’ll go after him.”  He opened his own engines, throttling after the receding twin stars of Skywarp’s engines.

Barricade hung in space, trembling, optical lens lubricant freezing and bursting off his optics in puffs of silvery powder.

Starscream reached over, wrapping his arms around the grounder, propack and all, pressing the smaller head against his shoulder, arms cocooning the shuddering frame.

“I lost him,” Barricade sobbed. “I was trying so hard not to hurt him and….”

“Hush, little one,” Starscream murmured.  “You have not lost him.”  Skywarp needed, Starscream knew, to vent his rage some place safe. It was the largest act of love he could offer right now, to take himself away before he hurt Barricade.  “And you should be thinking of your own hurt.”

“’M fine.”

“You are not…fine.”  Starscream tipped the smaller mech’s face up by the chin, one thumb gently tracing along a span of Barricade’s facial armor.  “But you are safe.”

Barricade shook his head urgently. “No. Not safe. We can’t be.  Through me. ‘m weak.  Megatron said so.”

“They went after me, first, Barricade.”  Starscream reminded. “And Megatron would not have said it if he hadn’t meant it to be a weapon more than a statement of truth.”

“Skywarp….”  All of the pain of the world seemed to pour out of his vocalizer.

“You have not lost him.”

“He…shut me out.” Naked pain on the face he turned toward Starscream.

Starscream probed gently at the bond himself, feeling it shift and yield in front of him. “It hurts. It hurts you both.”  His voice, and the crimson-dark wash across the bond, were soft with compassion.  “But we are a Quaterne.  Nothing shall tear us apart.”

“Don’t  want…,” Barricade said, dimly, turning to the direction Skywarp had flown off, as if he could summon him back. Too little, too late.  “I don’t want us to be bound by shame.”