“You know, for a mech someone traveled back in time to break out of jail for, you’re an awfully ungrateful little glitch.” Ratchet told him as he stood, ignoring the cans that rained off him.
Starscream’s uninjured wing flicked dismissively. “That I am,” he replied, saccharine venom coating every word. “You’d do well to remember it.”
Then, in a voice that 100% belonged to the future Second in Command of Decepticons repeated;
“Traveled back in time?”
“So.” Wheeljack said with a wince, as everyone in the room abruptly turned to look at him; “I may have skipped over that part.”
“Take me back to jail.” Starscream said, after the long, long silence that followed. “Right now.”
It would appear the normal link insert button is broken so;
COUNTERPLAY: LINK
Well hello TF Fandom, it's been a minute! Welcome to Counteryplay, my TF big bang fic for this year!
a MASSIVE shoutout to my artists, @thecocodrille and @chaoswolf12swolf12 who made AMAZING pieces for this!!
I went for a very specific Douglas Adams/Tom Holt/Terry Pratchett vibe for this fic, which in retrospect is just British humor lmao, and I am admittedly, still poking around the final half of it. I do have several pieces of this fic that didn't make the cut, and I'll post a few here and, if they get long enough, a few to A03 too.
This was a lot of fun and forced me to finish something (for once LOL) and as always, I am grateful to everyone in the event and my team!
Mai Taniyama never expected to care about tennis—until she met Oliver Davis, the school's aloof, untouchable tennis captain and ace. She’s struggling to find her passion, while he’s too busy carrying his team to care about anything outside the court. A literal collision between the two sets off a rivalry, sparks an unexpected friendship, and eventually forges a bond of mutual respect. What starts as an attempt to prove herself turns into something more as Mai gets pulled into the relentless world of competitive tennis. And to Oliver, the girl who once seemed like nothing more than a passing annoyance begins to challenge him in ways he never expected—both on and off the court.
Noll fell into the plush client chair as if weighed down by leaden anchor, mug swinging by the handle in his loose grip.
"Tell me" — Martin spared a glance at his son — "you brought coffee." The Research Administrative Supervisor was at least a binder deep into his notes on the Thoreau case and would very much have liked a fresh cup of coffee — if his work would ever allow him such a reprieve.
Noll frowned. "I require a new office."
Martin sighed; he knew it was a long shot. He would also be a liar if he said he wasn't expecting this visit. Frankly, he was surprised Noll made it through the week without complaining about it.
"I require a vacation," Martin said, leaning back in his chair and feeling the bones in his neck pop. "We don't always get what we want, Noll."
Noll adjusted himself in the chair, changing tact. "Why is Madoka's office in Pratt Laboratory?"
Martin eyed the empty mug still hanging loosely in his son's grip. "Because she is a field specialist."
"So am I—"
"Let me rephrase," Martin interrupted. "Madoka is active in the field."
The skin around Noll's eyes tightened and Martin knew he hit a nerve. He braced for the storm.
"How do you expect me to be active in the field if you never give me any cases!" Noll was on his feet now, pacing. "I've been back for weeks and I'm still answering emails and filing paperwork. I'm not an intern!"
"You might as well be," Martin said. "You've been... away... for two years, Noll. Things have changed. Policies have changed. You can't expect to just jump back into—"
"I never stopped."
Their voices echoed for a moment before the office fell silent once again. Martin scanned his son's face, unsure if it was anger or grief he found in the pinch between his eyebrows. It was true. Japan had been less of a bereavement period (as it had more or less been expected to be) and more of a business trip. Martin himself just finished filing incident reports for the last case where his son had thought it apt to one-v-one a god.
He shook his head. "Things changed in the time you were gone, Noll. Until you're back up to speed you will not be on any cases. And you are not moving into Pratt Laboratory. There isn't any room left if I wanted to."
"I—" Noll readjusted his grip on the mug, forlorn. After a moment, he sighed. "Fine."
"Fine?"
"I'll stay in the north wing—"
"That's the spirit."
—until such time that I become an active field member."
Martin rolled his eyes. They would cross that bridge when they came to it. At the moment there was a more pressing matter. "You know you could always just get an electric kettle. Bring the one from the house."
His son paused in the doorway. "...okay."
"Go on then."
Noll nodded, shutting the door with a soft click. Martin had only just returned to his notes when the door swung open again. "You did this on purpose."
He grinned up at Noll. "Did what?"
Noll only glared.
"I figured this might be about the trips to the break room."
"Then move me closer."
"No. It's good for you to get up every once and a while. You sit in that chair any longer, you'll become one."
Noll made a noise of indignation and swung the door shut behind him.
"Hey!" Martin called through the glass as Noll stomped toward the break room. "Grab me some coffee while you're in there!"
Continuing from here, in which the Command Trine has slowly noticed the rather abysmal training of the Arielbots and argue over intervening;
“You have to meet kids where they’re at. And where they’re at is Fortnight.” Skywarp explains, like he hadn’t just got caught ditching out of work to play video games with the fragging enemy.
“They’re MTO’s, not kids.” Starscream corrects him, driving his claws into his own palms to keep them from straying elsewhere.
(He’s trained himself out of making strangulation motions at people after Soundwave’s brats filmed him doing it and the video went viral, but the urge has never really left.)
Thundercracker, knee deep in reviewing internal reports due to a lost bet, turns around the datapad he’s been working on for the last few hours.
“Are we sure about that?” He deadpans, as a video begins to play on the screen. The footage is fuzzy--the low rez a dead giveaway of a human’s security camera, but unfortunately for Wildrider and Dragstrip it’s good enough to clearly show the two of them get into a tug of war match over an ATM machine.
“There’s audio.” Thundercracker continues in that same flat tone. “Wanna hear it?”
Starscream doesn’t dignify that with an answer.
“Look--you said we could get more involved. To get more involved, we have to establish trust. This,” Skywarp swept a hand at the vidscreen, where his character was currently dropping its ass repeatedly atop a second character's head. “is that.”
Judging by the swearing coming out of the speakers, the character belonged to Air Raid.
And the worst thing is, Starscream had said that.
Admittedly, it had been under severe duress--one of the Aerialbots had nearly taken out another while attempting to mimic some fragging human movie, and by sheer, infuriating luck, had almost taken Starscream down with them.
Training the enemy felt antithetical on principle, but the incident was a chilling reminder that the most dangerous presence on any battlefield was an untrained idiot with a gun. If instruction prevented mass-injuries to Decepticons, then Starscream could tolerate the hypocrisy.
“Plus this is the best way to approach ‘em. We’re not meeting in person and they’re entirely unsupervised on the internet. All you gotta do is ragebait the little shits and they practically hand over their comm links so they can keep trying to prove they don’t all fragging suck at video games as much as they do.”
Which, unfortunately, made sense.
“Fine.” Vents hissing in a sigh, Starscream glared at the game screen, and once again wondered where he’d gone so fucking wrong in life.
“How the hell did they get unfettered access to the human internet? Don’t those idiot Autobots know what’s on it?”
“Yeah, that's the weird thing. The medic combiner and the Dinobots both have like, kiddie controls on all their slag. These ones don’t.”
Which made absolutely no sense, given what Starscream knew of Wheeljack and Ratchet both.
The other Autobots likely held plenty of outdated and frankly disgusting views on combat flight frames, but neither rather extensive profile the ‘Cons had on either mech pointed towards such beliefs
Something was up, here.
“Maybe it’s time we skipped the kids entirely, and went straight to the source.” He mused aloud. If this was something they could exploit. It might even make this entire venture worthwhile.
(Well, beyond training a handful of flyers out of shooting in each other's flight paths, anyway.)
Sticks my head in Hey guys I promise I still go here, have a thing!
“May I ask,” Ratchet started, in a voice that was not anywhere near polite, “Why are we up this early?”
Wheeljack, who’d been up anyways, cast him an amused look.
Of course, considering the room currently consisted of Prowl, Red Alert (both of whom were rumored to never recharge) and Jazz, (who looked like he was about to vibrate straight out of his seat) the general sleepy air Ratchet had about him was drastically out of place.
Or was, until Optimus finally showed up.
The big mech didn’t bother to announce the meeting or ask for details, just gave a tired wave that everyone knew to interpret as “get started.”
“We have a red-level emergency.” Prowl said without looking up from a datapad. He had four spread out in front of him and one in his hands, which was as good a warning sign as any. “One of our deeper secret agents has been outed. They are enroute with critical intel.”
Without pausing he turned to face Ratchet, answering a question before it could be asked. “We don’t know if he’s been injured.”
That woke both the Prime and the CMO up.
“Frame type?” Ratchet demanded, honing in on Jazz. “How deep undercover? Protocols?”
“We don’t have much information, other than that he was outed publically and has burned all chances of going back.” Prowl continued, with a blatant glare towards Jazz--meaning their TIC hadn’t yet divulged any intel.
Jazz shrugged in response.
“This agent’s pulled out of worse.” He said by way of explanation. “There’s a chance he’ll be able to turn this around. I didn’t wanna ruin his chances.”
Which was conflicting information, to say the least.
“But he’s coming here.” That wasn’t said as a question, but as a statement.
Jazz turned towards his Prime and nodded his affirmation.
“How do you figure your agent could go back if that’s the case?” Prowl demanded. “Seeking sanctuary from the Ark will end any chance he has at staying undercover.”
Jazz didn’t get the chance to respond, but then, the interruption that silenced him was answer enough.
A ‘wap!’ sounded, along with the oddest feeling of compressing air--and suddenly, Skywarp was in the room.
Half the staff were on their pedes before they’d even taken in the seeker’s condition--one wing missing and the other askew, frame littered with blast burns and energon.
“Hey boss.” Skywarp wheezed, throwing a box at Jazz. “Brought a present for ya.”
“Ah shucks mech, it ain’t even my birthday.” Jazz quipped back--right before Skywarp collapsed, optics going dark and legs folding like a chair’s.
Ratchet was already on his pedes cursing before the seeker hit the ground.
xXx
“How did he get past Soundwave.” Prowl grit out.
It was not the first time he’d asked that question, and his irritation had grown exponentially the longer it went unanswered.
“Simply put,” Ratchet interrupted, staggering into the room while rubbing a cloth over his hands, clearing it of the last dregs of their agent's energon. “Skywarp’s mind can’t be read. The way it calculates his warping ability would overwhelm anyone attempting it.”
The medic collapsed into the nearest available chair, taking a moment just to vent before gathering up the best glare he could and sending it towards Jazz.
“A heads up would have been nice. Seeker frames are difficult enough when they don’t have an unstable warp drive involved.”
He got an apologetic shrug.
“How long has Skywarp been undercover?” Red Alert asked, handling this to the best of his ability--which was, admittedly, poor.
(The rest of Command felt for Inferno, knowing he’d have his work cut out for him once they all managed to catch a break.)
“Near the start of the war, right about.” Jazz replied. “He ran into Thundercracker a short while after Vos fell. I had him become buddies to get intel. Then Thundercracker met Starscream, got Starscream to meet Skywarp.” Jazz rolled his wrist in an etc., etc. gesture.
“Once we had a shot at getting a spot on the Air Commanders trine, I told ‘Warp to ride it out as far as they’d let him.”
“I can see how everyone else missed it.” Ratchet said, because he did. “But to be in a trine with Starscream and Thundercracker means sharing crucial processor components.”
Jazz grinned at him, reminded the medic all too well of the damn cat that hung around the base and got smug when someone gave in and got it some cream. “Oh that one was easy--’Warp told ‘em he was a spy. Guess what their reactions were.”
He reached out with a pede, poking at a piece of Ratchet’s thigh. “Go on. Guess!”
Which Ratchet could, because he’d been around Jazz enough to see the gambit. “They thought he was lying.”
“Because Skywarp is stupid, and everyone knows he's stupid.” Wheeljack added, working out the play Jazz had made in his head. “If he acted like he was an Autobot spy who had been turned, the other two wouldn’t believe a word of it.”
“Particularly if he told them after a spectacular fuck up.” The human word rolled easily out of Jazz’s mouth, his love for English peppering his vocabulary. “Like say, missing a critical shot and causing them to lose a big battle?”
“They’d think he’s saving face,” Prowl concluded.
He sounded impressed, albeit begrudgingly.
Jazz learned forward conspirituality, a downright fond look on his face. “That one wasn’t even my idea but he pulled it off beautifully. If he ever washed out of the ‘con, I was planning on pulling him in as a strategist.”
“This leaves us with a few major issues though. The primary one being Thundercracker and Starscream. Surely they’ve figured out by now that he isn’t lying.”
“Not sure on that one, mech. Gonna have to ask ‘Warp when he wakes up.”
“Which won’t be for several hours, at least.” Ratchet warned him.
Warned everyone.
Skywarp had been a mess of injuries, and Ratchet had nearly lost him on the table, all dumb quips between him and Jazz aside.
The seeker was going to be out of commission for the foreseeable future, and it was only sheer dumb luck Ratchet happened to even have the materials around to replace his missing wing.
“New problem.” Red Alert said suddenly, his usual nervous manner abruptly gone.
A key indicator that bad things were happening.
He didn’t even give anyone time to ask. Instead just beamed a live feed to each of their HUDs, alongside a packet of information.
“Starscream and Thundercracker just showed up on our door. They’ve requesting asylum, citing their status as Skywarp’ trinemate.”
He turned to Ratchet, shooting over a second packet. “They’re injured, Ratchet. Badly.”
Borrowing a move from Jazz’s book, Ratchet swore in English.
