===
It always seemed to Ratchet that the nights on this planet went by very quickly. Maybe it was the axial tilt.One way or another, it turned light again almost before they realised. Ratchet and Wheeljack picked themselves up and trudged for the treeline, so they wouldn't have to waste the energy on an optical cloak. Ratchet found the thing too buggy under daylight anyway.
"I wonder if the others got out all right," Ratchet sighed, later, as it reached midcycle. He glanced in the direction of the lake, glittering through the gaps between the trees.
"Jazz's been under Prowl's thumb so long, he's probably forgotten he's the better leader," Wheeljack said optimistically, settling down gently against a tree trunk. "Shock to his system probably did wonders to remind him."
Ratchet looked over at his mate. "Maybe I should go back. Things are only going to get worse from here."
"What with you exacerbating the conflict yourself, I should hope so," Wheeljack observed. He snagged Ratchet by the wrist and guided him down next to him, ostensibly to be less conspicuous, but really just an excuse to re-establish close proximity. "Where you found time in your busy schedule of treachery to plant those charges, I'll never know."
Ratchet stared at him seriously. He opened his mouth to offer an explanation, but couldn't really come up with one. "You did math everything out, didn't you," he said at last, honestly amazed. "And what conclusion did you finally draw?"
Wheeljack craned his head toward the forest canopy, where the sun occasionally filtered through the leaves. "I know what he's planning," he said. "And I'm gonna stop it."
It was the one thing Ratchet hadn't wanted to hear. He steeled himself to stay calm. This was just one more challenge to rise to, he reasoned. Could he really out-think his own partner, though?
Well, if he couldn't, with all his access permissions, who could?
Ratchet slid down closer to Wheeljack and leaned shoulder to shoulder with him, revving just a little to provide a little exciting vibration to take Wheeljack's minds off of things.
"Ah, geez," Wheeljack complained, almost leaning away. "I dunno if I've got the fuel for that again, Ratch'."
"Sorry."
But Wheeljack didn't seem regretful. Instead, his optics lit up brighter than usual, as did his sidelights when he spoke. "Though you know, I've been wonderin' what it'd be like if we... hey, did you fix my holomatter projection?"
Ratchet looked alarmed. "You want to use your holomatter on me?"
"No, no! Two holomatter! Don't'cha see, we never accounted for what happens when two--"
The medic groaned and started to move away. Wheeljack frantically scrabbled onto his shoulder, weighing him down too much to move.
"Don't be like that! It's for science!"
"To hell with your science! And get off me!"
"Aw, but sparklet, prototype...!"
Ratchet relented. "Fine. But only if you don't call me that!" He grudgingly projected his female avatar onto his shoulder, near Wheeljack's face. He had her place her hands on her hips, paramedic's uniform as aggressively unattractive as he could manage.
It seemed to Ratchet that Wheeljack was gazing at the figure almost lecherously. He wriggled a little more comfortably onto Ratchet's back and fiddled with something along the base of his neck until he got his projection system working. He loaded a Mk II avatar of his own.
Ratchet's holomatter flinched involuntarily when a nude base of Wheeljack's Stark-doll appeared in front of her. "Don't you think that's in poor taste right now?" the medic demanded, so overcome with embarrassment that the avatar was actually blushing.
"Oh. Good point." The Stark-doll adopted a thoughtful stance, as Wheeljack apparently rummaged through his cluttered project directory for a replacement. "Let's see, not the policeman avatar, that was for Prowl... heh, not that he's earned it now. Ah, here we go..."
The base body shifted into a different but similar physiology, contorting its texture maps for a moment before the right set caught on, giving the body the appropriate pigmentation and hair. The head was the last to change. Wheeljack combed the shaggy brown hair out of its eyes.
Ratchet, in remote view, stared.
"...That's the man who attacked Tony at the restaurant," he said, dumbfounded.
"Huh?"
"'Jack," Ratchet said slowly. "Where did you get these avatars?"
"From some human television broadcast," Wheeljack said dismissively. "Why? What restaura-- Oh. So that's what Pepper was talking about." The avatar ran a thumb anxiously over his chin. "Well, waste through the exhaust chute," he decided finally, and stepped forward to go about the business of sweeping Ratchet's holomatter off her feet.
Ratchet followed along with this until they were lying side-by-side on the forest floor, and then Ratchet decided enough was enough.
"I'm sick of being female," he announced. "If we're doing this, you're taking this avatar."
If it had been Tony watching him as he'd said this, Ratchet was sure the human would have another heart attack. However, Wheeljack's eyes shined liked he'd just been offered an enormous research grant.
"Oh, could we, please?" he squeaked, voice tiny and overjoyed.
Ratchet's avatar quirked an eyebrow. Now he remembered why this mech was such a keeper.
They found their cable from last night stashed in one of Ratchet's storage compartments and linked themselves together through a conventional serial port. They set about swapping file directories and chipsets; soon, their holomatter lay in inverted positions on the ground, Ratchet staring at a face he had just owned and gently flexing unfamiliar musculature.
Now what? Ratchet wondered, but tried not to show his hesitation. Even without research, he'd had enough experience with Stark to piece something together, hadn't he? Maybe start with a-- no, wait, the kiss was always first; that part was important...
He was half a centimetre away from Wheeljack's lips when the sky tore open above their heads. Ratchet snapped his head up in remote view before it occurred to him to switch back to local mode-- by which point, everything went black.
===
Wheeljack and Ratchet landed painfully on the floor of the transporter bay. Their holomatter projections flickered and shut off, but not before a dozen or so of their compatriots each got an opticful of a nude pair of holomatter with their legs entangled.Some of the Autobots shouted in alarm; a couple other in disgust. Then came the laughter.
Wheeljack, embarrassed and seemingly aware of his vulnerability for the first time, jerked upright and tore off of Ratchet's back, but forgot they were still wired together. Ratchet yelped and twisted, more from the shock than anything else, with the added effect of accidentally tugging Wheeljack right back down on top of him. Their comrades' laughter redoubled.
"Some hostage, Wheeljack," Jazz said snidely, as the two frantically disengaged themselves. "What was that about you having this grand ol' plan to master?"
There was another surge of chuckling. Prowl, recharged and standing with his arms folded next to Jazz, managed to remain silent, but even his mouth twisted into a half-disgusted, sadistic grin.
Ratchet's cheek plating felt so hot it could melt. "We were only--"
"It was for science!" Wheeljack burst out.
Ratchet covered his face with his hand as their comrades erupted into giggles again. By some grace of Primus, a new voice interjected, instantly silencing the group.
"Autobots, focus," the voice lectured sternly. For a moment, Ratchet almost placed the voice as belonging to Optimus, but that couldn't be right. He uncovered his eyes and looked around the corner toward the corridor, just as a large mech came into view, one which the medic had wished desperately would not be sent here.
Ultra Magnus. Suddenly, subverting Wheeljack to help Stark seemed like the easy part. Now he had a much bigger problem. If Magnus was here, that meant that Stark had been officially declared an enemy of the galactic community. How was Autobot command or the Code going to get talked down from this one?
Ratchet kept his mouth shut and optics directed at the floor when Magnus picked him and Wheeljack off the floor. The CIC investigator continued, "Debriefing first; fuel and repairs later. This is now a Code Provision 19 matter; any flags on your operational status have been temporarily suspended."
At that, Ratchet stole a quick glance toward Prowl. The Major's grin, however tiny and illicit it had been, had now vanished. Thank goodness for small mercies, anyway. The mech deserved to have someone step in and undo all his paperwork.
Ratchet's optics quickly passed from Prowl to the rest of the assembled, which seemed to be roughly everyone. Except...
"Where's Hunter?" he asked, scanning the various faces. He locked onto Sunstreaker, who didn't meet his gaze. "Is he...?"
Sunstreaker rolled his optics and shrugged. "Magnus stepped on him," he grumbled. "We threw him in the CR Chamber."
"You what?!" Ratchet shrieked.
"He survived an orbital jump, so why not? He's all plastic and metal now; there's nothing that can hurt him. Jeez. If you wanna come down on anyone, thank KGB-man over there for crushing him," Sunstreaker said, jerking his head at Ultra Magnus.
Magnus's expression didn't so much as falter. "I'm still not entirely up to speed on what this Hunter is," he said. "But it's going to have to wait. We're up against local time here and it's currently running out."
By the look of things, Ratchet judged that everyone was up to speed with the situation, or what they thought was up to speed. Not to mention, they were all looking at Wheeljack.
"I'm going to ask once," Magnus said, after apprising Wheeljack of the main details. "What's Stark building?"
Wheeljack met his gaze, surprised. "Beats me," he answered.
"Then guess," Prowl said, clearly agitated.
"I don't got a clue!" Wheeljack shot back, looking hounded. "That's the whole point of a human brain: you can't read it! I've done a slag job predictin' him so far, wouldn't you say?"
Ratchet felt compelled to speak. "But you did piece him together," he insisted. "You've got him calculated down to the millicycle."
Wheeljack spun around, looking at Ratchet as though he'd been betrayed. "Yeah," he admitted to the group, "I know what he's up to. But what he's making, that all depends on what he took."
"Could it have to do with holomatter tech?" Ultra Magnus asked seriously.
"Not likely. Too showy, not enough punch. Anyway, he'd never figure it out in time."
"He already has."
Wheeljack swore so violently that Fireflight looked ready to faint.
Magnus looked alarmed. "I take it this changes the situation," he said.
"No," Wheeljack said quickly. "It's a stunt. Somethin' to shake me up. Damned if I'm gonna let 'im, though, that devnull primate--"
"I'm not asking again, Lieutenant," Magnus warned. "Stick to the subject. I want your assessment."
"Forget it, Investigator," said Prowl, stepping forward. "Wheeljack, if you can't give us something to go on, I'm sticking you right back in the--"
Magnus physically held Prowl back. The Major looked momentarily startled, then oddly subdued. Prowl was nothing if not obedient in the presence of higher authority.
Jazz offered a more incisive suggestion: "If it was you, Wheeljack, what would you be making?"
This one took Wheeljack aback. "If I was...? No, that's stupid; he'd never--"
"I think it's fair to say this human is especially talented for his species," Ultra Magnus reminded. "I wouldn't discount anything as impossible at this point."
"Actually, it sounds like 'impossible' is his speciality," Bumblebee volunteered.
Ratchet trained his gaze on the minibot. At this point, helping things along would only corner Wheeljack exactly where he wanted him.
"More than that," Ratchet announced to the room at large, "he sees Wheeljack as a rival. He wants to do something that will force us to acknowledge him as superior. Not 'interesting'. Not 'precocious'. Better than us."
"...Antigrav."
A room full of optics darted straight back to Wheeljack.
The inventor nodded, slowly coming to terms with what he had just uttered. "That's it. That's what I'd do. I'd steal their antigrav tech. That son of an access hub--"
"Stark's already developed flight tech," Prowl pointed out. "It doesn't make any sense that he'd just--"
"You don't get it. Stark doesn't steal things. He borrows them so he can make them better." Suddenly, Wheeljack braced his head with both hands. "Antigrav," he muttered quietly. "Antigrav. An organic..."
Bumblebee spoke up again. "So how do we stop him?" he asked, ostensibly directing his question to Prowl.
"How do you stop a Decepticon with that kind of power?" Wheeljack shot back angrily, before Prowl had opened his mouth. "You sort of don't, Bumblebee."
"We've had moderate success against them in numbers," Prowl insisted evenly. "Air superiority is an issue on fronts like this, but that's always been the case. We have better artillery now, and a better surveillance system--"
"Nix on the last one," Hot Rod interrupted. "He's created a dead zone over the target area. We wouldn't even be able to tell he was there until we went down and got a visual."
Prowl looked like the fact that Hot Rod was still here and not on a prison ship bound for Garrus-9 was a grievous crime against the galaxy. "Then I wouldn't touch it at all," he concluded sharply. "We know the location of the Decepticons' main installation. Let's take the fight there and have him come out to meet us."
"Major Prowl, I don't want to have to remind you again," Ultra Magnus said sternly. "This is no longer an Autobot operation. This is a police action. I didn't come here to participate in a retaliatory strike, no matter what Megatron's forces might have done to your base."
Abruptly, Slingshot, one of the new privates, broke rank and said, "Hold on, mech! You're Prime's brother, aren't you? You're an Autobot through and through, no matter what you wear on your shoulder! The Decepticons aren't playing around this time! If we don't take them out while we've got the chance--"
"Eliminate Stark and the rest of Megatron's house of cards falls straight down," Magnus responded. "The only question is how. If it's even possible at this point."
There was a long, stinging silence. Ratchet watched his mate carefully-- small, pale, armourless. What was going through his mind?
Finally, Wheeljack said, in a quiet voice, "Megatron had it right. Back in Latveria, the first time we even ran into those superhuman brats. Stark's one weakness is that he's human."
If he was looking for affirmation, he didn't get it. Even Prowl, supernaturally perceptive even when he was being slighted left and right, only seemed confused.
Ratchet understood. In no time at all, Wheeljack had descended further than the medic had ever expected him to go.
"You want to kill him," he interpreted. "Because it's the easiest solution."
"Yes," Wheeljack confirmed, without hesitation.
There were a few anxious murmurs among the rest of the crew. Then, Prowl spoke up, saying, "I agree."
"Prowl!" Ratchet exclaimed, horrified.
"It's an acceptable loss," the Major said tersely. "One organic for the lives of thousands of our own mechs? Don't tell me you've forgotten the human casualties we've incurred already, Lieutenant. They get underfoot. It happens."
"If I'd actually killed that creature, it would not have been an acceptable loss, Major," Ultra Magnus said stringently. "And neither would it be acceptable to kill Stark rather than have him face justice."
"We don't have many other options," Prowl argued.
"Then you'll have to invent one."
"I don't get what the problem is," Sideswipe complained.
Ironhide rounded on him, "The problem is, what the hell're we fightin' for if we play as dirty as those Decepticons?! Don't you nextgens know anything?"
"It's attitudes like that that have us losing territory megacycle after megacycle!" Slingshot objected. "We'd've won this war before we started if anybody in command had the bearings to make the tough calls!"
"The only way to win a war is with allies!" Hardhead shouted. "Just how many of those y'think we'll get nuking everything from orbit?"
Then the whole group broke down into bickering.
"Gee, great allies we've accrued, playing good cop all the time!" someone said. "We've been alone on this crusade as long as I can remember!"
"Yeah! What good's diplomacy done us so far?!" bellowed someone else.
"If we sent diplomats instead of military mechs to do the talking, maybe we'd see better results!" another 'bot contended.
"Enough, all of you!" Ultra Magnus snapped. "This isn't the place for your politics! And murder is not a policy supported by the CIC! Wheeljack," he continued, returning to a more normal tone of voice as the room quieted: "you have my authorisation to develop whatever tools you need to disable Stark, including devices which exploit human vulnerabilities. But I want him alive and able to answer for his crimes in a galactic court of law. Those are my only stipulations. Understood?"
Wheeljack nodded. But Ratchet could read him, even if no-one else could.
He hadn't changed his mind at all. If the opportunity arose, Wheeljack would try to kill Stark anyway. What did he have to lose?
===
Ratchet found Wheeljack in the medbay close to the team's departure time. Lacking a proper workshop on the orbital, this was the only place with the tools Wheeljack needed to work.He glanced up when Ratchet entered, then turned back to tightening the bolts on the device, the one he had built to go against Stark. He stood wearing his old Cybertronian kibble; there seemed little point in subterfuge anymore.
Ratchet closed the medbay door behind him and leaned against it. "I can't believe you're doing this," he said quietly.
"For once, Prowl's right," Wheeljack muttered. "It happens. Get over it."
"You can't tell me that. Not after all we went through to save Verity and Jimmy--"
"What you went through. The rest of us had other things on our minds."
Ratchet left the door and strode angrily over to Wheeljack's side. "There are other ways to end this," he insisted. "This isn't how you operate. I know you. Look-- here--" He showed Wheeljack the datapad he had brought with him. "This is Stark's silent channel signature. Even if he's connecting by a HUD, it should be enough to infect whatever system he's running."
Wheeljack stared at the encoding as he finished wrenching the last bolt tight. He looked up at Ratchet.
"I get it now. What's up with you," he said. "You haven't stopped liking him."
"That's not it at all."
"It's close enough." He set the finished device down on his work tray. "Sorry, Ratchet. I'm not changing my mind. You can be on any side you like; I don't mind. Your spark shines for everyone."
"Not everyone," Ratchet said adamantly. "For friends. Good people."
"Everybody thinks they do good."
"What you're doing doesn't qualify, and you know it."
"If I know, then he's gotta know too," Wheeljack said. "And it ain't stopping him, now is it?"
Ratchet held his head. Confusion and frustration were batting around inside his circuitry; nothing seeming to make the connections it was supposed to. How did this whole thing get so broken?
"Wheeljack," he began.
"I love you," said his companion.
Ratchet hit him. Maybe a little stronger than intended.
"How can you use that word?" he demanded, as Wheeljack staggered to regain his balance, nursing his faceplate. "With the lights on? With people outside? With that thing on the table?"
"You said it too."
"You asked to hear it!"
"You knew what to say," Wheeljack accused. He fingered the crack webbing through one side of his faceplate. It didn't seem to have broken any cabling. "Puts us in the same place again, don't it?"
"But you still won't see this rationally."
"Because it doesn't matter what I do to him," Wheeljack answered softly. "There's six billion of them. And they blunder their way into genius no matter what anyone does. They build a computer twice as good as the last one every kilocycle. They go where we can't, they think how we can't, and they still keep words like that in their vocabulary. Ratchet, they don't make any sense, and they're gonna make us obsolete, if we aren't on our way to it already." Wheeljack met his gaze straight-on again. "The only thing we can even think of accomplishing here is putting off the inevitable that extra bit longer. I gotta undo my own mistakes."
Ratchet's hands shook. He couldn't take it any longer.
He reached out with both hands and framed Wheeljack's face, then leaned in to finish the kiss they'd started in the forest.
The universe seemed to slow down, but didn't exactly stop. Wheeljack's optics, wide and bright, stared right into him. They'd explored inside each other's bodies so much that they knew the nature of every duct and circuit and wire, but they had never seen one another this close before.
Then time caught up to them again, and Wheeljack lifted Ratchet's hands and pulled away, settling back down on his heels.
He said, "I don't have a mouth, remember?"
The corner of Ratchet's own mouth twitched, stinging from static discharge. Maybe Wheeljack had said it to break the tension in the room, but it wasn't really all that funny.
He was right. Humanity was already edging up on them. But even Ratchet couldn't guess at the real implications of it.
The door to the medbay rattled, as someone outside discovered it was locked. "Wheeljack!" It sounded like Hot Rod. "Show time, buddy!"
They held each other's gaze so long that it felt like snapping a wire when Wheeljack finally broke eye contact to lift the device off the table. Ratchet stared at the floor. Wheeljack left the room without a word-- but took Ratchet's datapad with him as he went.
===
They flew in from the west and landed on a plateau to the south side of the reserve. Megatron had initially insisted on an entourage of three Seekers and Astrotrain, but Stark had bargained him down to just two. Neither was really the pick of the litter.The group transformed as they touched down and headed to the edge of the cliff on foot, trudging up red sand as they walked. They stopped just before the precipice and scanned the horizon.
Orange rock and a bunch of orange sunlight to go with it, and that was about the extent of it. Once upon a time, Hollywood shot half its Westerns out here. That was pretty much the limit of Stark's ability to relate this place back to the history of human civilisation. By all accounts, it was desolate, untouched, and a little forbidding. Even this late in the day, the air sizzled.
Skywarp was the worse for wear of the three, having the darkest armour. He grumbled and prowled back and forth, possibly looking for something to step on. Stark ignored him; he started uploading a 3D topographical scan of the area to his HUD. Thundercracker reported no other electrical activity in the area.
"They're late," Skywarp growled.
They were. Stark wondered vaguely if Magnus had gotten confused about the time zone.
"What if they're not taking the bait?" Thundercracker demanded. "What if they're headed for the base right now?"
Stark hadn't mentioned Ultra Magnus to Megatron. As far as Megs knew, the CIC had no interest in this conflict at all. Whereas really, the Decepticons were completely out of danger, and Stark might as well have a huge target painted on his chestplate. Sure, that still meant Magnus might make a go at the Oregon base to knock him off-balance, but it was far too politically risky, in Stark's estimation.
"They'll be here," he said, closing the terminal in the mecha's forearm.
So far, the new mobile suit was working out quite well. It was a little springy in the joints, but Fujiyama hadn't let him down with the foldspace drive. Shame that the guy would wake up tomorrow with a headache and the belief he'd just spent the past week building a Takeshi Murakami sculpture.
Stark tested the flexibility of his fingers. As opposed to the earlier Gillian model, which had basically behaved like a two-legged tank with jet boosters, this version had a full-body 1:1 navigational interface, a sort of reversal of Ratchet in a holomatter view. Maybe not the most precise mapping he had ever pulled off, but it did the job. The kibble felt like having a couple giant sheets of foamboard strapped to his back, though.
"When?" Skywarp complained.
"Well, they've got a long way to walk," said Stark. "I sort of jammed their satellite targeting within a twenty kilometre radius."
The mecha's rear cameras reported Thundercracker twitching into a grin. Skywarp, standing a ways off and peering over a ledge, let out a low brutish chortle Stark preferred to think of as his drooling jock laugh.
"That's what I like about you, boss," Skywarp declared. "Always thinkin'."
What a charming guy. He probably made a hobby of pushing people down stairs. Say what you would about the Autobots-- at least they had more interesting personalities.
Unfortunately, the satellite jamming meant he had no outside communication either, not that he really had any lifelines at this point anyway. Someone could still get on if they accessed through one of his own relays, but it wasn't like anyone could actually pull that off.
The mecha's head-mounted cameras reported movement about ten kilometres away. He zoomed in for a closer look. It was barely discernible at this resolution, but it was definitely a set of dust trails. Stark supposed it could be jeepers on vacation, but the size of the trails suggested five vehicles at least-- and at speeds no jeep was going to manage over this terrain.
"There we are," Stark said to his chaperones, drawing their attention to the rising dust. "Game faces, you two. We're on company time now."
Stark did a quick check of his system clock. It was presently two hours and three minutes until sunset in Oregon, the deadline agreed on by Megatron. A few uncertain variables aside, everything was pretty much calculated and in position. The Autobots were playing the role intended for them. The Decepticons would never know the exact details of the transaction.
It was kind of awesome, taking care of someone else's war for them. Stark wasn't normally so generous.
===
Pepper didn't know how long she sat in that corner. At one point she might even have fallen asleep, leaned against a wall; she stirred, stiff and aching all over, bra strap digging into her shoulder and skirt creasing uncomfortably into the backs of her thighs. She was no more mentally put together than before, but a lot hungrier. The hospital cafeteria breakfast and the espresso She-Hulk had brought her seemed like something that had happened over a week ago.She climbed onto her feet and stretched, trying to work blood back into her legs, the pins-and-needles sensation making it a little difficult to walk at first. Thank god Jennifer had brought her the shoes without the monster heels on them. Climbing eight flights of stairs with a sprained ankle didn't sound too fun.
Come to think of it, the shack waiting for her on the surface probably didn't have much to offer by way of food, nor a way to get the hell out of these mountains, considering her ride up here had apparently vanished into thin air. More than likely, if any armoured humvees were waiting outside, they were ones still driven by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and accompanied by probably more than a few members of the Avengers.
Pepper checked her watch. 5:51 PM. If this was a normal day, she would have just finished her commute back to her apartment in Santa Monica. Even on a less-than-average day, a time like this would be spent fixing dinner and changing Tony's bandages while waiting on the risotto cakes to finish baking. Just because Stark suffered a near-fatal injury here or there didn't mean he stopped liking a gourmet supper, and horrible things always seemed to happen on the cook's night off...
Pepperjack risotto cakes and chicken. Was that his idea of a joke? She swore it didn't even occur to him, the things he said half the time. How many years had she put up with this nonsense? She wasn't-- She didn't want to--
And then he'd just up and left and it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to leave her in this position again. Things weren't as simple as they had been a few years ago, and they hadn't been simple then either.
Pepper wandered into the adjacent room, where Stark's avatar and Ultra Magnus had spoken. The console was still lit up, an array of a dozen or more screens displaying things Pepper couldn't even begin to interpret. The main screen still flickered with the co-ordinates Stark had shown the Pepper-doll, some longitude and latitude that seemed to resolve somewhere in the United States, but where specifically she wasn't able to guess.
What had Tony said? He was going off for a showdown there with the Autobots. How far had things actually deteriorated when she was in the hospital? Was talking it out just not an option for anyone anymore? And how long was a decicycle supposed to be? Was he there right now?
Frowning, Pepper scanned the keypad and tried entering some Linux commands. She hadn't made any apparent progress at all when the ancillary screens froze and the main monitor went totally black.
She leapt back, regretting having touched anything at all. Moments later, as she watched, a few words suddenly appeared on the screen.
Hello Professor Falken.
Would you like to play a game?Pepper's blood went ice cold. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. There was no possible way for this to end well--
Suddenly, the screen went black again, and then completely white, save for a blue bar in the middle. The bar shook into a sharp trembling waveform as a voice began emitting from the console speakers. "Just a little joke, Miss Potts."
"...J.A.R.V.I.S.?!"
"At your service, Miss Potts. You haven't been by to visit for some time. Is everything all right these days?"
Pepper nervously approached the console again. She backgrounded the waveform display to one of the tertiary monitors and finally found the main navigation menu. "I've been in the hospital, J.A.R.V.I.S., but thank you for your concern. I need you to catch me up on what's been happening with Tony."
"I'm not entirely sure on the details," said the AI, "but it's been quite expensive."
"I expected that. I'll balance the books in the morning, but right now--"
"Oh, no need to worry, Miss Potts. I've been looking over Mister Stark's finances and I believe I've liquidated the items he is least likely to miss. His stock is steadily improving as well. I admit that, unfortunately, I have had to forge your signature on several occasions in order to convincingly conduct business."
Pepper stood in baffled silence. Since when did J.A.R.V.I.S. possess the programming to do any of that? "Um, that's great," she said finally. "Sorry to put you in that position."
"My pleasure, Miss Potts. Naturally, I await your and Mister Stark's return, so that we might all get on with our daily lives."
"Right. Um. J.A.R.V.I.S.? Can you tell me where Tony is right now?"
"Satellite targeting is presently off-line..."
Damn it. Of course, Tony was going it alone as usual, and had blocked off any means of getting to him. Even if J.A.R.V.I.S. held the keys, there was no way Tony would have left her the right access permissions. Her hands slowly withdrew from the keypad.
"...However, in light of present circumstances, I believe I can bypass Mister Stark's instructions," J.A.R.V.I.S. concluded.
"...You can do that?" Pepper asked, shocked.
"I can now, Miss," the AI said brightly.
The main screen expanded with a new window, which showed a birds-eye of ruddy red desert. Subscreens ID'd it as a remote part of northern Arizona. So close to sunset, there were thick shadows streaked across the terrain, such that she could barely make out any of the moving dots until J.A.R.V.I.S. helpfully zoomed in.
There. She saw them. Autobots. Pepper recognised Ultra Magnus weaving through the fray as well, his dark-blue shape so much more massive than the other robots, but still so much smaller than the things that were flying over their heads. There was the blue F-22 she had seen kidnapping Wheeljack's Stark-doll, and another just like it, except mostly black-- and then a similar but bulkier plane, in familiar, garish red and gold.
"--Tony!"
On screen, to her surprise, Pepper saw the red plane take a sudden dip, as though momentarily losing control. A familiar voice crackled over the console speakers. "Pepper?!"
Pepper gripped the edge of the console. "Oh my god, Tony! What are you doing?!"
"I'm, ah... hanging out with some friends!"
"Those aren't your friends!"
On screen, the red plane rolled sharply to the right, narrowly dodging a spray of what seemed to be gunfire from one of the Autobots far below. Pepper saw the blue and black plane dive to return fire, causing the ground forces to scatter. The mostly black one darted off to engage two of the smaller robots which seemed to have something like jetpacks strapped onto their backs.
"Can this wait?" Stark snapped back, dodging fire again. Even though he was piloting some kind of jet, he zipped around almost like a kite. "I don't have time for this right now!"
A shutdown notification popped up on the main screen. He was trying to shut her out again. Pepper frantically typed a cancel command into the console, but it seemed Tony had locked out the keyboard as well. She slammed her hand against it.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.!" she said desperately.
Abruptly, the shutdown timer vanished.
A wave of relief passed over Pepper, but it didn't last very long. "Listen. Tony," she implored, leaning closer to the screen. "Just tell me what I can do. I just want to help."
No answer. Not even static. So even if the AI had kept her online, Stark had blocked out the voice transmission. Now what? She could take a look at the satellite feed, and she could see what was going on-- but what could she do about it?
As though predicting her, J.A.R.V.I.S. spoke up again. "It might not matter, Miss Potts," he said, "but I am networked with all of Mister Stark's other installations, including all Stark Industries satellites. And I might remind that Mister Stark has not exactly disarmed some of his remaining weapons silos."
Pepper's mouth fell open. She struggled to contemplate this. "There's no way... I could never figure out all the..."
"Make the effort, Miss Potts, and I will meet you halfway. Sound fair?" J.A.R.V.I.S. said kindly.
Pepper hesitated. Then she nodded anxiously. "Okay," she said.
If Tony really meant what he'd said, in that message he had left with Magnus... then she wanted him around to say it to her face. That way neither of them could run away anymore.
She moved her fingers into position over the first keys. "Okay," she repeated.
No more being forced out of the running. No more picking up the pieces after the fact. If she was in, then she was all in. That was how it should have been from the start. Who knows: she might have avoided some unnecessary disappointments that way.
Anyway, she might not have been much of a genius, and she certainly wasn't any kind of superhero unless it dealt with paperwork, but she had been a wiz at Missile Command back in middle school.
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