Do they get everyone out safely? In the deadbeat au?
Barricade had never been a heavy recharger. He had come off the production line immediately after Prowl. Had the ATS not taken to Prowl, it would have been installed in him, as it had been installed in all the batchmates that had come off the line before Prowl. They had never met their batchmates, the ATS’s installation had been lethal to all but Prowl. Their manufacturers had not wanted to waste a construct so Barricade had been programmed, armoured and trained to be Prowl’s guard and he had taken to that training well, too well, so far as their handlers had really been concerned.
Every time they had come to take Prowl away for painful maintenance, Barricade had resisted their efforts, he had known how much Prowl detested that maintenance and had seen it as his duty to protect Prowl from pain. They had installed a hard reset switch in Barricade’s helm. When they had wanted to tweak Prowl, they had flipped the switch from the control centre and Barricade had shut down. It had become Prowl’s helms up that he was going to be tortured yet again. Barricade had hated onlining without Prowl there, or seeing him in pain in the aftermath. Before the door even finished opening, Barricade was online, sitting up in the berth ready too...
"Cade," Ricochet sighed with what sounded like relief and Barricade shuttered as tears gathered in his optics. He had actually come, for him. "Cade, 'm takin' ya home."
"You actually came," Barricade wheezed. Ricochet's visor brightened.
"I told ya I would," Ricochet replied.
"Yeah, I don't blame ya," Ricochet said. "Get everyone up, we need to get rollin' so the place is clear before the tricks turn up."
"Is well in servo," Ricochet replied. "We spent some time gettin' to know each other. He wasn't keen on given me the keys to the barracks."
"Are you going to kill him? Barricade asked.
"Yes," Ricochet said. "Me or Jazz, we're still sortin' it out. Would ya rather to it yerself?"
"You know better than me how to make it hurt," Barricade said.
He did not mean it as an accusation. Ricochet and Jazz had been, must both still have been specialists. Interrogations, assassinations, they had the expertise in death. Barricade had never even been in a proper fire fight, unless you counted the dark-cycle he and Prowl had escaped. His place had always been at Prowl's side, watching his back, keeping him safe in his cage.
Shaking, Barricade crawled from his berth, not trusting himself to stand, and made his way to Prowl. Prowl had always been a heavy recharger but it had gotten worse with the Pox. Though the medic had declared him cured after the infection had ravaged Prowl's internals for a quartex before the appropriate treatment had been applied, Prowl had yet to regain his strength. Barricade worried constantly about the damage the Pox had done and the strain the infection had put on his already strained self-repair systems. He shook Prowl's shoulder and lightly pinched his doorwing.
"Mmm," Prowl grumbled, slowly lifting his helm.
"Prowl, they're here, they're here," Barricade said as he shook Prowl wake. "They're here for us."
"Jazz," Prowl whispered Prowl designation as he sat, swaying as he did. Maybe it was the lack of his rocket fuel that had Prowl so unsteady, or maybe it was unseen damage. When Prowl looked at Ricochet his processor ground and Barricade rubbed his back.
"Is he okay?" Ricochet asked, looking worried.
"We haven't exactly had access to that kind of frame maintenance," Barricade said. "He's fine. Just scrap. We're all scrap."
"Y'all gonna get better," Ricochet promised. "Jazz is comin', he's just havin' a disagreement wit Swindle's safe."
"We need... to wake the mechlings," Prowl said as he snapped out of his tactical systems.
"We're getting out here," Barricade wheezed. Prowl nodded and squeezed his shoulder.
It looked to Barricade that his batchmate was no less in awe. Ricochet did not intervene or try to step in as they roused the mechlings. He seemed to only now be realizing there were four mechlings, not two. Without really fully waking, Bluestreak crawled into Prowl's arms and wrapped his arms around his neck. Sunstreaker and Sidesipe grabbed their ori's servos. Sideswipe looked owlishly at Ricochet, Sunstreaker gave him the stink-optic. He was as bad at waking up as Prowl could be.
"It's you!" Tripwire said, waking up bright and cheerful right out of the gate. Barricade picked him up, though Tripwire could easily have walked, or run. "Ori, who is he?"
"That's your geni," Barricade repied. "His designation is Ricochet. He's come to rescue us."
"I can't wait to get to know ya better Bravespark," Ricochet said, he brushed his servo over Tripwire's helm and Barricade had to lock his knees to keep from trembling. "It's gonna have to wait 'til yer all safe."
