A/N: This takes place in the "Metaverse," a fan-created universe created by a user named Meta777 on the TFW forums. But you can imagine it in whatever continuity you like. Also, -SPOILER- there's a longer story to this (explaining how the two ended up here together) and a reason that Barricade starts to act strangely toward the end. However, my idea of the plot is vague and odds are, I'll never continue this.

Inspired by an X-Men fanfiction where Cyclopes and Gambit are stuck in a room together.

No slash.

With only a singular grey beam in the ceiling to act as a light for the small expanse, the room was dimly lit. The cylindrical bulb blinked incessantly and buzzed every time it did; it was the only acoustic phenomenon to break the utter silence of the otherwise barren cell.

The silence should have been disconcerting to anyone that would have better known their company, but Barricade couldn't care less. His mind was jogging in the far reaches of his habitually perturbed psyche, actively contemplating his widely distributed anger. Anger at everything. Foremost anger at Soundwave for failing to prevent Barricade getting into this predicament in the first place since his strategic skills and lack of competence in combat was so laughable. Encircling this was the anger at Starscream for calling the farce mission that got him into this mess. Anger at Grimlock for swatting him earlier. Again. Anger at Slipstream for reprimanding him for something or another before they left. Anger at Hound for being sparked.

"Hmmm...hmm-hmm...hum-hm, hmmm..."

Barricade abruptly flinched out of his reverie. In a second's notice, he was easily able to find an outlet to redirect his anger in looking at his company. Had a metal chain not bound his wrists behind his back, the little yellow insect he was forced to sit there with would have been dead at Barricade's claws by now. However, he was forced to endure sitting there with him helpless to engage, so much being true for his fellow prisoner as well, as his servos were tied in a similar fashion. Barricade scowled at him for a moment, longing to sink his claws into just about anything, and the yellow guy fit the bill. Such a happy, giddy, stupid little thing.

Just being with him was irritating, but the cringe-worthy presence managed to significantly increase. So far the yellow guy had kept quiet, but just as of seconds ago, he started to make noise. Barricade raised an optic ridge at the phenomenon. The bug was rhythmically vocalizing, but not opening him mouth. What in the name of Primus could be the purpose of practicing such an inefficient exercise? Although he questioned himself this, Barricade couldn't bring himself to care enough to actually propose the inquiry.

"Would you shut up?" he snarled, narrowing his crimson optics.

It got the little guy to stop, at least periodically. But now that he had his attention, a tinge of regret started to germinate within Barricade when he saw the scout prepare to speak. The last thing the con wanted was to hear the scraplet not only vocalize, but actually make words too. At first, the bugger just looked at him and Barricade could only try to intimidate the latter with the eye contact. However, his efforts seemed to turn out farce.

"It's too quiet in here," the scout eventually replied after looking at Barricade for all but a minute with bug-eyed optics.

"It's not too quiet," Barricade quickly snapped, leaning forward to hear the chain around his neck that was attached to the wall snap straight. "It's never too quiet. Quiet is good. Quiet means I get to think."

"About what?"

For a moment, Barricade faltered; the scraplet actually seemed genuinely curious. The cartoonish level of naivety only encouraged Barricade's infuriation. At first he intended to not reply, leaning back into the wall and turning his vision to the ceiling, but he had peaked out of the corner of his peripheral vision to find the scout still staring intently at him. "About ways I'm going to kill you when we get out of here, for one thing," he quietly sneered, as if to satisfy his company.

The Autobot's face contorted into a reflexive look of repugnance at the tart response. "You're not going to kill me," he deadpanned despite being able to note Barricade's lack of desire to continue in conversation. "The Autobots are going to get here eventually. Then you'll be outnumbered, and you'll be sorry."

Barricade snorted. "So reliant on your Autobot friends. You're all a bunch of wallowing idiots. You think you do good for everybody. I'll be so smug when you're all dead and the Decepticons finally won this Primus-forsaken war." Leaning back, he added, "Besides, we'll see how the odds turn out. You think you're the only one who's got a team who's looking for you?"

"I think the Autobots will get here first." The remark was innocent and simplistic, as if Bumblebee were honestly speculating. "Hound has amazing tracking skills-"

Barricade grimaced. "Hound. That pit-roaming fragger. You know, I hope you're right. I hope the Autobots do get here first. Then I can rip out Hound's spark single-handedly-"

Bumblebee lurched forward, growing abruptly defensive. Barricade nearly jumped at the uncharacteristic gesture. "Not before I beat you into the ground and shove my tire back in your face where it belongs, you big stinky slag pile!"

Barricade was honestly surprised, but recovered flawlessly from the initial shock and readjusted to lean in as close to his adversary as possible. If only he could kill this little thing and make it shut up forever. In spite, his chains however restrained him. The two were just out of each other's destructive reaches. "Believe me, if I find your fragging tire in my face ever again, I'll personally make sure to rip you in half and give your pieces of armor bit by bit to Starscream to burn down and use as scrap metal!"

"Ooh, I'm so scared!"

"You will be, Scraplet. Against me, you don't have a prayer."

"Against me, you don't have a Grimlock."

"You're dino-friend isn't always going to be there to help you. Besides, he's not so tough."

"He only kicked your sorry aft."

"Ugh!" Barricade gave out an exasperated cry and shoved himself back into the wall, inwardly belittling his processor for having allowed him to actually get into a petty argument with a childish Autobot runt. He'd be sure to reopen any wounds he'd already inflicted on the scraplet and then some as soon as he got these chains off of him.

A long stretch of silence had passed, Barricade returning to his sinful musings, Bumblebee's mind elsewhere.

Silence.

"...Hmm-hmm, hm, hm,..."

"Eugh! Shut up!"

"It's either this, or we talk! I can't stand the quiet! ...Not that I wanna talk to you, you mean dirt-encrusted scap-metal slag-bowl."

"What are you doing, anyway?! What is that noise you're making?!"

"It's called humming!"

"Why the Pit would you ever do that?!"

"Would you rather I sing out loud?!" Succeeding his outburst, Bumblebee nearly recoiled from the unforeseen volume his own voice to, his youthful intonations bouncing off the walls in a progressively more frequent echo. He had a tendency to get loud when he was excited, but never had he recalled genuinely yelling at anybody before. He had heard a couple of the older bots yell at each other on rare occasion when things got particularly rough, and it was a vivid memory, how unsettling it was. Whether or not Barricade had noted this fluctuation of attitude, Bumblebee couldn't rightly tell, but the Decepticon had taken on an intimidating jest, leaning back into the wall and gritting his denta in an insane-looking grin.

"You have no idea how badly I want to crush you right now," Barricade had said quietly, riding on an exasperated giggle. The snide remark was exhaled, barely audible.

Bumblebee just stared at him with an entirely undeterred expression, one of his optic ridges raised indifferently, his mouth hanging ever so slightly open. He had leaned back for a moment, but suddenly his face fell and he leaned forward once again to get a look at Barricade, whose optics were by now squeezed shut and his face somewhat scrunched, combating a processor ache.

"Hound says it's not good to hold in your anger." Bumblebee inwardly questioned himself. He wasn't sure why he had said that to Barricade. The scout noticed when his adversary flinched at the mentioning of the former's mentor. Somewhere deep inside, the scout felt bad.

At first, Bumblebee thought Barricade wasn't going to reply as the latter continued to grit his denta. After an unsure pause, however, the Decepticon defied these expectations and murmured, with hesitant volume, "I'm not angry."

The yellow Autobot withheld a good-natured chuckle. Instead, he said, "Yes you are. You're always angry. Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever seen you not angry. You're angry at everything. That's not good."

"What, are you some kind of morale officer?" Barricade sunk further into the wall as he inhaled and exhaled. His words continued to be reluctant. "I'm not angry. I just want to get the frag out of here and spill some energon." The crimson Decepticon as well as Primus that his words were deceptive; of course he was angry. The world is composed of idiots and inferiors. What was there not to be angry at? Stupid teammates, stupid plans, stupid organics, stupid planet, this whole stupid war.

The little scraplet's voice came back to the Decepticon's audio receptors, quieter, more investigative this time. "You're like Grimlock a little bit," the youthful student said with caution. "Sometimes you say things just to say them, but you don't mean them. Sometimes we don't know why we tell lies. We just tell them. Maybe to make ourselves feel better. But, Hound says the last person we'll ever fool is ourselves."

Barricade deeply cycled his vents. By now, his processor had already swam with intense frustration, and it had escalated to the point that he was honestly just tired of this. He hadn't been with the Autobot for even half an hour yet, and his desire to maim him seemed to pique nonetheless. That little innocent voice rang in his audio receptors like a loud, agonizing doorbell.

Something in the back of his processor genuinely contemplated Bumblebee's words.

"Primus," Barricade thought, denying himself the possibility that anything the scraplet said could actually mean something to him. "Not one day in this room, and I'm already losing my mind."

"Don't worry."

Barricade only turned his optics to look at Bumblebee, lacking the drive to accompany the gesture by turning his head. The scraplet suddenly took on a sympathetic intonation, and the con could read the compassion on his face. Such childish naivety.

"The Autobots are coming. They'll rescue us. I know they will."

Barricade stared back at the ceiling and tried shutting his optics to get peace. "Us?" he thought. "Does he know what he's talking about? Why would he ever want for me to be rescued? Why doesn't he realize that there's war between us?" A few things about the yellow runt occurred to Barricade as he continued to run through the analysis. The distraction was a welcoming change of the buzzards that had, shortly ago, clogged his processor; suddenly, subconsciously, Barricade didn't feel like killing the yellow youngun.

"There's so much you don't know," Barricade breathed yet again at a volume that was just barely decipherable. He wasn't prepared to say it; he was surprised when he heard the utterance from his vocoder.

Bumblebee wasn't sure at first what to make of his adversary's remark. Notwithstanding, he hadn't spent too much time contemplating it, quickly inferring the intent behind the words. "I know what you're thinking. But I've learned a little bit since I first battled you Decepticons in the forest a little while ago. And what I say has nothing to do with that." Bumblebee shook his helm and looked down at his pedes, which were sprawled before him. His left one still bore the faint scars that Evac's welding job had produced from Barricade's clawing-induced damage. "I'm willing to help you get out of this. Even if we're against each other, even if you're a jerk, you don't deserve to remain stuck in this place any more than I do. You're sentient. That's a word that Optimus Prime used a lot. It means that you can be angry and sad. We all get angry. Even if some us are angry more often than others."

A moment of silence passed as Barricade tried to sort through the jumbled rambling. He made a little progress before the youthful voice spoke up again;

"It's not your anger that makes you a Decepticon."

"You're saying that-"

"I'm saying that there's more to you. Nobody's just angry. Or happy. Or sad."

"Is that something Hound told you?" Barricade all but spat.

"...No. That's just something that I know."

"That's pretty insightful for a little pouch of slag like you."

"Insightful. I don't know about that," Bumblebee said, pretending to know the exact meaning of the word. "But it's easy to see just by looking into your optics. Optics say the darndest things. It's always easy for me to read Grimlock's optics. I told him that they say things he'd never actually say."

"You look into people's optics and know everything about them?"

"Only the stuff that they want for others to know, but don't know they want others to know. Does that make sense?"

"No."

"Oh."

"You know something?"

Bumblebee stared with wide, questioning optics to verify Barricade's potential continuation. The latter glanced back and hesitated for a moment long enough for Bumblebee to break his eye contact with him. As if with failed expectations, the scout lowered his sight to his lap and tried to readjust to a more comfortable position against the stone wall, stained with mildew and water damage. It only then occurred to him, in the silence, how dark and cold the unwelcoming expanse really was, a reflexive foreboding forming in his spark. He wondered how long it would until he could see Grimlock. Until he could hear Jazz's smoothly delivered commands, how long until he could be in Hound's comforting presence. He had virtually never been separated from his team before; the grim sense grew into a sad longing at the thought.

In the short distance between them, Bumblebee could hear Barricade rustle.

"You're not like the other Autobots," Barricade murmured.

"...Huh?"

"Don't get me wrong. I hate you with every circuit of my being and will kill you the first opportunity I get."

Bumblebee cocked a lip.

"But...there is something different about you-"

"Barricade...?"

Bumblebee inwardly mused, cynicism fluid in his spark at hearing the uncharacteristic drawls of the crimson-clad Decepticon. There was a slight slur to his words, a kind of slowness and quietness that reminded Bumblebee of what he was under the impression a slightly intoxicated Cybertronian would sound like. He guessed Barricade might have grown exhausted and didn't know exactly what he was saying which was, for some reason, more perturbing than it probably should have been. He was about to point out the oddity before he heard Barricade continue;

"If every Autobot was like you..."

The con trailed off. Bumblebee eagerly awaited conclusion. It hadn't taken an abundance of silence for the yellow scout to appropriately determine that none would come, Barricade now slumping lifelessly against the wall, his chasis rising and lowering softly from somber ventilation. His face plates were twisted and looked pained; the foreboding in Bumblebee's psyche escalated in spite of his usually unflappable nature. The curiosity jotted on the incompletion of his adversary's remark quickly subsided, an unsure predominance silently taking over as it questioned the odd behavior of his company.

"Don't worry," Bumblebee repeated, with an uncharacteristic lack of volume, his voice echoing in the silence nonetheless. "...The...Autobots will get here. Soon."

In the darkness next to him, he heard the buzzing of the flicking light and the progressively more asinine Barricade humming something lightly.

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