September Challenge Fic
Title: Misperceptions
Day: September 2, 2010
Prompt: "Piss me off and we'll see just how submissive I am."
Verse: G1 AU / IDW
Rating: PG
Words: 3,249
Other Characters: None
Warnings: Dark undertones, Cybertronian cussing, kissing
Summary/Notes: Jazz, recently promoted to lieutenant, finds it troublesome working with his new team member who seems uninterested in caring for others.
This story was sparked one day because I was really upset about work when I came across the prompt. Like a good little deviant, bunny!Jazz bit down hard with an idea how I could rant about work in a way where he could still get some action :p
Much thanks to Evil Ratchet for beta reading, despite 2+ jobs.
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“These as well.” The newest tactical advisor on Prime’s team heaped even more datapads onto Jazz’s arms, already filled with datapads.
“You’re kidding, right? What the slag was wrong with these?!” Jazz cried out indignantly as he tried to adjust his arms so the new additions didn’t topple off. He had a suspicion Prowl would be the kind to look down on him for dropping a couple. A suspicion only furthered by the expression Prowl wore now.
His newest colleague gave him a disapproving frown. “Please refrain from using language or exhibiting any other mannerism unsuitable for an officer. I’m aware you only recently joined Prime’s team as well but that’s not an excuse.”
‘Less recently than you,’ Jazz mentally snipped back. Before he could make a more “professional” comeback however, his lecturer continued.
“The previous issue occurred on these as well. I understand you are more of a ‘fields’ mech where only necessity matters, but I assure you that in an office setting accurate and complete documentation is crucial.”
“They’re only missing the headers on the pages past the initial screen! Those headers would’ve contained the exact info from the initial screen. And these reports were done on the field so I’m pretty sure filling out the extra pages with tedious information goes beyond ‘necessity.’”
“They were done after you completed your assignment, when you didn’t bother to follow protocol and report immediately back in,” Prowl interjected. “Your lack of following rules and the tactical impairment they cause aside, all datapads must be correctly filled out.”
“Even on the same datapad?” Jazz’s pointed look was evident enough it was meant to be a rhetorical question. Nonetheless, his adversary for the moment responded anyways.
“Yes, even on a single datapad containing a single report. As you know, information can be extracted and imported into other datapads. If someone were to extract any pages from your reports for a broad-scope analysis while assuming the required information was present, they would later be at a loss what the data was for since the proper identification heading would be missing.”
Jazz practically growled. He was had; there was no way out of this one. “Fine; I’ll take care of them all.” Without another word he pivoted sharply on his heels and left.
****
By the time Jazz arrived back at his desk he was fuming. Some might have called his earlier emotions as “fuming,” but that was because few knew what a truly angry Jazz was like. Luckily for Prowl this was not the battle-rage-fuming Jazz, but stupid-bureaucracy-issues-fuming Jazz. He had over 20 datapads to correct for a tiny error that may or may not cause someone to do extra work. To make matters worse, the datapads had a program installed preventing a simple copy and paste for some asinine reason. It was going to be a long orn before anyone would see his pearly-blue visor, all thanks to Prowl and his high standards.
How Jazz was beginning to loath that mech. His distaste for Prowl was not just limited to the tactician’s rigid ways, no; Jazz was a mech of intuition and intuition relied on trusting his feelings as well as the ability to read others’ effectively. Prowl neither had them nor relied on understanding what others were feeling. In all of the times he’d dealt with Prowl on matters most would normally get at least angry or choked up over, Prowl never once seemed the slightest affect. Of all the mechs since his promotion who frustrated him for their lack of understanding a warrior’s struggles Prowl infuriated him the most. The others would yell, rant, or break something in the occasional fit of passion. But Prowl? It was as if he was removed from it all.
In fact, besides doing a decent job of getting on the saboteur’s nerves during those times, the tactician would also scare him for the same reasons. He’d never seen a mech capable of being so detached before with the exception of a handful of Decepticons - or to be more specific, like Soundwave. That idea alone was enough for him to keep an optic on the mech. Certainly Prowl had never once harmed an Autobot even remotely in any way, but the lack of response to those around him probably helped prevent that - or could make it all worse one orn. Jazz really didn’t know so for now he kept a distant optic on the quiet mech.
****
The following orn after returning the datapads - in a rather unique fashion allowing Jazz to avoid the tactician - he received a hail from Prowl with a message asking for his presence. The polite but frank message annoyed him but it was nothing compared to that “ping” Prowl used for a hail signal. Some time ago a mech accidentally ignored Prime’s SIC during an important battle so now officers could use a specific signal to prevent such an occurrence from repeating. Whereas Jazz had picked an upbeat tone, Prowl had chosen a loud ping, with a specific frequency due to its “statistical results of being too difficult and irritating to miss,” or something like that. All amounted to the same even if Prowl said it with fancy words. Jazz couldn’t care less about statistics. To Jazz it was just another sign Prowl knew nothing of war’s impact on a soldier. At least Jazz picked one that was vaguely relaxing in these stressful times, whereas Prowl’s occasionally caused others’ systems kick into alert.
For all the problems Jazz had with stuffy office mechs, that one was probably the worst. With his relatively-new promotion he’d run into more and more of those mechs who didn’t understand what it was like to be a “brute,” whose job was to be surrounded by mechs trying to kill them with zero time to think about it. Neither did they understand the difference between an agent and a soldier very well. In his field it was all about trends, first hand knowledge, and intuition with a short time to execute Plan B. There was no shelf by his side to pull out for statistical results on what the Decepticon guard in front of him might do. Going from a work environment where most of his colleagues worked in the field 75% of the time to probably less then 10% had been a difficult transition. Office politics and abiding to ridiculous and unyielding standards were the new unforeseen dangers for him. He’d take a Decepticon any orn over another office politics matter.
Shaking his head, Jazz snapped back to reality. Time to deal with whatever new grievance Prowl had with his work.
****
“Jazz,” Prowl’s neutral voice greeted him as he stepped through before the door closed. It immediately irked him, that tone… those several datapads neatly stacked by Jazz’s side of the desk. A couple astroseconds in and he already wanted to say something rude to Prowl.
“Jazz, some of these have incorrect information,” Prowl began.
“Excuse me?”
“It appears the data was incorrectly added on several pages in these seven,” Prowl gestured towards the datapads.
“Well maybe if there was a better system in place it wouldn’t have happened!” Jazz nearly failed to stop himself from hitting the stack, masking his strike on the offending datapads by turning his open palm in a manner where he picked up the first one instead. “This system of adding everything individually is a load of crap! Seriously, what’s wrong with copy and paste?”
Prowl regarded him silently for a moment, added to Jazz’s frustration at the situation. He didn’t understand why this inefficient system was in place. The glitch was probably going to scold him about his behavior again and send him out the door with the datapads again.
Apparently Prowl was a bit of a mind reader. “You entered all of it manually? Are you still accustomed the old method of writing reports? Jazz, one of my first tasks when I started was improving the system for reputable and viable reports for tactical analysis. One of my changes was effectively speeding up the initial report process without compromising accuracy. Namely, minimizing repetitive entries within a single report.”
“Don’t you dare claim I could’ve copied the info from the initial screen and quickly added it to the rest, ‘cuz I tried every way I could think of and guess what, Prowl? I got zip.”
“Did you try the ‘Verification’ option under the ‘Signature’ menu?”
Jazz shot Prowl a pointed look. “Gee, no I didn’t Prowl. I thought I was imputing report info, not my signature for claiming its all fine and dandy.”
“Well, had you looked at the menu, you would’ve seen a new option for ‘General Information.’ The old system was built on the idea most field mechs didn’t know what they were doing and therefore would be more likely to seek assistance for better accuracy if they had to enter it fifty times, as opposed to a couple of taps. I added the ‘General Information’ option so an individual could verify all the general information was correct on the initial screen, sign their acceptance, and it would automatically populate in the correct fields, over previous entries if necessary. In other words, Jazz, it should have taken you a breem to correct all those datapads without any mistakes.”
Dumbstruck, Jazz couldn’t help but stare back. “Say what?” Shock and a general sense of stupidity while cursing Primus were all that came to mind at the moment.
“It was part of the notification I sent out my first decaorn here.”
‘Slagging, glitch-headed - ’ Jazz mentally started hurdling more curses but mostly towards himself. Now he really looked like an idiot on top of things. “So I suppose this makes you the superior one, huh? I mean, here I was trying to do my job to the best of my knowledge but in a few decaorns you’ve managed to make almost everything I knew about office work obsolete. Time to shut up and just sit there while taking notes from now on?” he said, somewhat snarky. He was starting to feel more defensive now, and Jazz had a tendency to strike so others looked at least a little bad when he got to this point.
“Perhaps you should take this lesson as further evidence it would be beneficial to you if you started spending more time in the office, or at least ask for my assistance more often. In that aspect, I would agree you may want to start ‘taking notes.’”
“So you want me to sit around in the office more, listening and being submissive to all the fat turbofoxes here who can’t tell when a soldier needs a kind word and who needs to be left alone?”
Prowl almost seemed taken back by that statement. “Submissive? If that’s how you choose to see learning the office side of operations, then so be it. At least it would save you some anger.”
“Anger? Trust me; you haven’t seen anger yet - at least not from me. Since you seem to have all the answers and I just keep screwing myself over, I’ll play along. But know this: piss me off again and we’ll see just how submissive I am.” Jazz turned to leave, needing once again to remove himself from his comrade.
“Jazz, wait.”
Jazz paused at the door not daring to look back.
“You forgot the datapads.”
Now Jazz looked back. The proverbial gloves were so close to coming off. “Why don’t you do it? If all it takes is a single freaking signature.”
“It’s against protocol; only the report originator or his manager can sign a report, with the exception of the portion meant for tactical acceptance.”
“’It’s against protocol,’” Jazz repeated, fighting to keep his voice from rising.
Although his expression never changed, Jazz could’ve sworn he could still tell what Prowl thought about repeating himself. After some length, Prowl finally spoke. “Yes.”
The saboteur laughed. “Oh good Primus. Here I am, wasting time on protocols over nicely printed glyphs, when I could be assisting on training my new troops. But nooo - I’m spending all my time here with mechs who know nothing about the reality of war, squabbling over whether or not a field agent has enough intelligence to correctly copy and past ‘super important’ - and yet virtually irrelevant - stuff, or whose signature is on what!”
For the first time Jazz could’ve sworn he saw something briefly glitter in Prowl’s optics, but he quickly dismissed the notion. That glitch was as emotionless as they come. “You believe these matters are insignificant and irrelevant in the course of war.” Prowl’s tone was deliberate and slow, almost as if he was forcing himself to not focus on something else. Against his better judgment, Jazz was intrigued by the slight change and couldn’t stop himself from pressing harder on Prowl’s buttons. Maybe he would finally get his answer whether or not Prowl was someone to be feared.
“When it comes to wasting my time to make sure the trivial things were done by me and only me, then yeah.”
“Furthermore, you believe I care more about protocol for ‘irrelevant’ tasks as opposed to the mechs on the fields.”
Jazz snorted. “Hey, if the armor fits. I’ve never once seen you affected by any of the damage or destruction during your demonstrations or deliberations, let alone even seen you with the mechs post battle.”
Jazz watched Prowl with his full attention, expecting to be reprimand or maybe even shot. Instead, for the first time with all of his attention finally focused squarely on Prowl, he noticed just the slightest twitch of the mech’s doorwings before he spoke. “You think that I don’t care, that I’ve become so removed from battle that the burden and suffering of others is lost on me? Perhaps it is you who has become removed, Jazz; maybe in all of your endeavors away from the office you missed a few key elements back here.”
“What, someone admitted they forgot to give you a complete CPU, capable of basic mech emotion?” he retorted back.
“No,” Prowl snapped back. “Maybe because you would have known I transferred here after the council was killed and I was one of the few mechs left partially alive. Not much after my entire city was destroyed, killing everyone I knew, as my superiors often mention. Perhaps my ‘cold-demeanor’ you described is not the result of apathy but self-preservation, along with the ability to do my job without my judgment be clouded. If I cared nothing for those soldiers I would not pour over ninety percent of my time into my work - nor would I work so hard to show no cracks so my supervisors will eventually stop questioning whether I am mentally competent for work.”
Jazz paused; all of his anger evaporated upon hearing Prowl’s tense words, which, from Prowl’s small change in his facial expression, was probably more then he intended to say. Those unintended words were all it took to change Jazz’s perception of Prowl. The mech’s cold demeanor was not the result of apathy, but from being surrounded by those above him questioning his emotional stability and those below him depending on him being right all the time for their survival.
For all of his prided intuition, Jazz had Prowl pegged as a calculating, cold Autobot with the eerie possibility of being a psychopath. However, now with a part of Prowl unexpectedly laid out bare in front of him, he could only see the new evidence. A mech who wore no emotion on his face still sat in front of him, but his shoulders were drawn far back and his doorwings held painfully high. His hands were clasped almost painfully tight. A sign of someone feeling threatened. Although Prowl had never been one for casual conversation, his small speech had a neutral and yet dark tone - as if he was trying to distance himself from Jazz.
Well too bad, what he said mattered more than how he said it as far as Jazz was concerned. Jazz made it his personal mission long ago to have some friendship with his team members, and with his office promotion that now included Prowl. Especially since Jazz was for the first time seeing a mech who needed a friend the most because other people were not trying to get to know him, too busy writing him off. Suddenly an idea popped into his head. With a small devious smile Jazz sat down, across from Prowl. He focused on keeping the rest of his demeanor relaxed and non-confrontational. “Ever cared for someone more then as a soldier who relies on your job performance?”
Prowl must have been caught off guard by that, judging by the slight change in elevation in his doorwings. “That question is outside of the scope of the original conversation. You need to correct these datapads, preferably in an efficient manner.”
“Nu-uh, Prowl” Jazz wagged his finger. “You can’t drop a couple of personal bombs like that and expect everything to go back the way it was. Not with Jazz.”
Again, his shoulders straightened. Jazz was secretly thrilled at the prospect of learning a whole new ‘language’ of sorts. During most of his missions and other duties, so many of those he encountered could be easily placed in five main personality groups. While Prowl may not create Personality Group No.6, he certainly wasn’t going to be an easy mech to file away in any one particular group. Not that he should be - so many had clearly filed Prowl away in their minds, just as Jazz had. Well, Jazz wasn’t going to do it again - nor was he going to let Prowl file Jazz away as just another mech who he’d never know.
Unaware of Jazz’s musings, Prowl finally spoke. “It is beyond my scope to care,” he replied coldly.
Tilting his head, Jazz looked straight into Prowl’s optics. “Why are you doing that? Why are you purposely trying to push me away, to have me walking out of here thinking the worst of you?” Jazz leaned over until was a breath away from Prowl’s face. Prowl may have looked unaffected about Jazz’s proximity, but Jazz could easily guess Prowl was fighting to prevent any expression for slipping though to hold up his neutral façade. Jazz refused to make Prowl comfortable. “Why are you afraid of someone trying to know you as a mech, and not just as a colleague? I think you need to try seeing what it’s like spending time and getting to know others.” Giving no other warning, Jazz delved in and caught Prowl’s unaware lips with his own.
After a few moments Jazz pulled back, swinging around to leave. He snatched the datapads before tossing over his shoulder a casual comment. “I’ll be back in a bit with these corrected.”
Once Jazz head the doors closed, he smirked once again to himself. Oh yes - he’d be back soon. Jazz could easily find Prowl’s schedule so he could return at the end of Prowl’s shift. Jazz knew Prowl was too duty-bound to leave a breem earlier.
Jazz looked forward to finding ways to goad Prowl into spend time with him in outside of work. It would be a difficult and long process, and Jazz had no idea what the end result would be. Casual friendship or something more he didn’t know, nor would he speculate - but he knew whatever it was, it would be worth it.