The Worm on the Nemesis

Picking up from the 'tag' at the end of GabrielC's "Prime Takes Charge". (Oh, *tag* back at the end for ya!)


“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Starscream thought, hitting the lock on the repair bay door.

Barricade backed away a step, suddenly uncomfortable. “Starscream,” he said, warningly, raising his hands. Something was different about the look in his eye. Barricade was used to the jet looking a little crazy, but this was…beyond that.

“Barricade,” the jet said, smiling unpleasantly. “It is pleasant to see you. Is it not pleasant as well to see me?”

“Uh, sure.” Barricade’s eyes flew to the sides. No escape. He could dart back from Ambulatory to the cradle room, but he somehow didn’t fancy getting caught in there. “Good to see you.”

“You do not wish only to see me, though, do you, Barricade.” Starscream stepped closer, swinging his long-taloned hands loosely, halfway between a swagger and seduction.

Barricade took another step back, his left hip clanging against a repair station. “No idea what you mean, Starscream.”

The jet moued. “Oh, you know what I mean.” He leaned forward, resting one hand on the repair station. Barricade tilted his head upward—the jet was almost twice his height. That was a long way up. Starscream’s eyes glinted down at him.

“Uh…that one time?”

“Yes. That one time.” The jet’s voice turned acid. “That time you wanted me to beg?” He rested one talon heavily on Barricade’s shoulder armor. “Now, I think perhaps it is your turn to beg.”

Oh, slag. He forced a smile. “Beg for what?”

Starscream tapped his chin with one talon, contemplatively. “I am unsure. Shall I have you beg for me to interface with you? Or beg for me to stop.” Barricade’s capacitor skipped a beat. His access port still hurt whenever he so much as thought of Megatron. “Yes,” the jet said. “You see it now, do you not? That is what I shall have you beg for.”

He reached for Barricade, who barely eluded his grasp. His fingers skittered over the smaller bot’s arm fairings as Barricade bolted to the far side of the table.

“Going to make this fun for me, are you? I do not mind.” He circled the repair station casually, trailing one hand on its surface. A repair bot clattered in on its dozen legs from the cradle room. The jet gave it a quick, hostile glance, and resumed pacing the table. Barricade retreated around the station again in a circle. Probably looking ridiculous, but he didn’t care. He was getting closer to the door side. Another few kliks, another few paces, and he could bolt out the door to safety. If he could unlock the door in time.

In the meantime, he tried filling his voice with iron. Starscream normally responded to force. “Stop it,” he commanded. The jet merely grinned, looking down at him. “I have not even started yet, Barricade.”

Time: Barricade raced to the door, readying the key code. The jet caught up with him before he’d entered half of it, jerking him around by his shoulder, and forcing a rough kiss on him. He felt the jet’s dentals grate against his, bruising his glossa. The jet’s talons were hard under his side, nearly lifting him off his feet. He gritted his eyes closed, trying to shut it out so he could concentrate on a new plan.

The jet shrieked. His grip on Barricade released and he batted his arms against his head. Barricade didn’t stop to investigate: a repair bot was clinging to the jet’s head determinedly. He entered the rest of the code and bolted down the hallway.

He hated running. Smaller bots invariably got teased for their ‘cute little legs’ and their ‘scurrying’. But this time, he’d take the teasing. Something was wrong with Starscream.

The jet caught up to him sooner than he’d hoped, grabbing him by the little fairings behind his neck. Barricade was brought up short with a gasp. The jet threw him into the nearest doorway: a recharge station. He irised the door closed behind him. “See you try that in a smaller space, Barricade,” he hissed.

Barricade landed hard on his backside. He scrambled, trying to regain his feet, but the jet was, once again, too fast. He hauled Barricade up by the back of his neck, forcing another kiss on him, prying the smaller bot’s mouth open. He cradled Barricade’s lower body in his other hand. He paused. “This how you kiss your xeno?” he asked, his voice harsh. “Before you fuck her?”

Barricade’s eyes hardened. He risked a swing at the jet. It bounced harmlessly off the jet’s shoulder armor. He tried kicking, but the jet only pressed him harder against him. He felt his hip cabling compressed by the jet’s protruding cockpit. “I like it when you fight,” the jet hissed. “It arouses me. Please continue.”

Barricade stopped kicking, trying to get his hands purchase on the other bot’s chest to push him away. He tried aggression again. “Not funny. Now stop.”

The jet licked his glossa slowly down Barricade’s throat. “No.” he said, simply.

Panic surged in Barricade’s processor as he saw the larger bot reach for his module. He tried to turn his own hatch away from the jet, but he couldn’t push Starscream away and protect his hatch at the same time. The jet merely laughed, and drove his module into Barricade’s access port.

Even his datastream felt wrong. Different. The jet’s was normally high and fast. This was…uneven. Slower, staggering. It didn’t make it hurt any less. Actually the opposite, as Barricade couldn’t time the pulses so he couldn’t brace himself for them.

The pain paralyzed him. He felt himself go limp, except for a damning whimper in his throat. His memory kept feeding him images of Megatron, leering over him. The same pain. The same enjoyment of his pain. He whimpered again. “Please,” he gasped. “Stop.”

“Why should I?” The jet rose triumphantly over him, letting Barricade slide to the floor at his feet, too racked by the pain to even stand.

“I’m begging you. Please. Tell me how you want me to say it.” His body writhed in pain. “I’ll say it. Tell me what you want.” The last word was a bitten-down sob.

“I am getting what I want.”

“Primus. Please. Stop. Please.” His hands flew to the port, but they were shaking too hard to get a grip on the jet’s module. Not that he imagined Starscream would let him disconnect it. “You used to care that it hurt.”

“Did I?” For an instant, the jet looked confused—the hard silver cast to his eyes faded just a bit. Then he shrugged. “That was then.” The datastream pulsed harder, faster. Beating at Barricade. Hard throbs of hot red pain. He heard himself sobbing, again. Weak, pitiful. HE hated himself. Hated his access port.

He didn’t hear the door open behind the jet. Neither did Starscream. All he heard—and from a great distance—was a “What the--?” and then saw Starscream turned, swiftly.

The jet whirled, facing the newcomer, Blackout, who stood eye to eye. Blackout didn’t let him go, his grip hard in the jet’s joint.

“What the frag are you doing here?” the jet snarled.

“Could ask you the same question,” Blackout said, mildly, his eyes travelling down to Barricade writhing on the floor. “My recharge station.”

The interruption had set the datastream pulses off rhythm. Barricade clawed himself to his knees, his hands scratching for the module between the erratic pulses. He knew Blackout had seen him squealing on the floor. The small bot finally managed to yank the module out, not even caring that he’d had to jerk hard on the connector cable. The jet howled, and struck at him. Blackout intercepted the blow, forcing Starscream’s hand back against the wall. “You want something, Starscream?” he said, his voice mild. He gestured for the module. Barricade staggered forward to hand it over. “Maybe this?” The copter shoved the module in the jet’s own access port, catching him by surprise. He jammed the jet hard against the wall, bracing his legs hard against the floor. Over his shoulder he said, “Go to RB. Get a repair bot.”

Barricade nodded, edging behind him toward the door. The jet screamed as his self-cycle forced an overload. He came back too quickly—Blackout had given himself a moment to rebrace himself and the jet took advantage, sinking his dental plates into Blackout’s exposed neck cables. The copter grunted at Barricade’s retreating back, “Make that two bots.”

*****

He felt a hydraulic line rupture under the tear of Starscream’s teeth. He kept pushing his whole weight against the jet, shoving him hard against the wall, turning his head, trying to pin the jet’s head against his shoulder. Starscream tore his own module out of his port viciously. Not even reacting to the pain. The jet grated in his audio receptor. “Want the other one.”

“Too bad. Have me.” Blackout leaned his shoulder into the jet, feeling his arm lose power from the loss of hydraulic pressure. “Am I too much for you?”

The jet came up under his arms with his hands, pushing them up and out of the way. “Too much? Ha.” He drove Blackout back across the narrow recharge station, pinning the copter’s wrists to the wall. “We shall find out.”

For a long moment they struggled—Blackout’s superior arm strength fighting against Starscream’s larger shoulder span. Their faces were close. Blackout could smell something wrong from the jet’s exhaust. Had he somehow gotten some strange nanovirus? What nanovi could do this? His grip faltered. The jet shoved into him, dropping Blackout’s injured arm. He yanked his module to him by its connector cables. He rammed it home into Blackout’s access port.

Blackout swung his good arm down, pinning Starscream’s arm between their bodies. The jet scratched at his face with his free hand. “Not trying to stop me?” the jet mocked.

Blackout shrugged. “Just seeing what you got.” He knew this would irritate the jet. It would send Starscream in a good mood into a screaming conniption. He felt the jet’s datastream slam against him, hard enough that he felt part of his frame reverberate with it.

“This is what I have got!” the jet squealed, pounding Blackout’s head with his free hand. His pinioned hand thrashed against Blackout’s module. “This is what I have got!”

Blackout braced his hand around Starscream’s pelvic girdle, heaving him up to slam him against the floor. Had to be quick, between pulses of the datastream. He threw his weight on top of the jet. “Not impressed,” Blackout muttered. The erratic datastream was playing hell with his own desire. His whole sensor net felt raw. He felt the jet’s overload building, tearing painfully through his own awareness. Only dimly he heard his door spiral open. Something crossed the top of his vision, which was blurring out from the thrust of the datastream. This was not Starscream, he thought. This isn’t how he is. Isn’t how he feels.

The jet tried to pull Blackout into a kiss, his glossa grabbing at the copter obscenely. Blackout pulled away, pushing a rough hand into the jet’s mouth.

Starscream arched up against him, powerfully enough to lift their combined weight off the ground. Blackout felt the roaring fire of an overload tear through him—hot instead of the usual coolness. It hurt like nothing he had ever felt before. He gritted his dentals against the pain blazing through his sensor net.

Over his head the repair bots took the moment and lunged at the jet, immobilizing him with their EMP stingers. Barricade put a hand on Blackout’s torn shoulder.

“You okay?”

Blackout’s face reflected the pain for a long moment. “Been better. Will get better.” He watched Barricade take in the damage he had taken.

“I’m sorry,” Barricade said, quietly. “Should have been me.”

“No.” Blackout rolled stiffly to his feet. “Can handle it better than you.” He saw immediately that it was the wrong thing to say. Barricade looked stricken. Blackout cursed himself for a clumsy fool. He meant that…well, no, there was no way he could think of to say it that wouldn’t hurt the smaller bot’s pride. He changed the subject. “What the frag is it—that’s not Starscream.”

Barricade knelt over where the repair bots were working. They’d set up a glass catch box and had yanked a vile looking wriggling slimy creature, part metallic blue-grey and part organic disgusting white, from a cortical access panel. One bot was busy with a cleansing hose, squirting cleaner into the open panel. “Some sort of worm?”

“Got it from Optimus, huh?” Blackout winced as he disconnected the module—hot to the touch—from his access port.

Barricade thought. “Must have. Seemed weird that in the middle of battle Prime would suddenly try to make a move on him.”

“Can never tell with those Autobots though.”

“True.” Barricade’s eyes flashed to Blackout’s module.

“Well, what do we do with it?”

“Do with it?” Starscream’s voice, faint, and far away. His eyes were dim, but no longer had the strange silver cast to them. “If I have any say? We return the favor.”

Barricade and Blackout looked at each other at the same instant. Glee. “Bumblebee!” they said.