Work Text:
"Rocket Fuel!" Chad exclaimed, whipping off his ever-present sunglasses and dropping into the largest chair at the end of the table. "Hit me people! What have we got? Gimme what's cool. Gimme what's hot-!" He pointed the sunglasses' temple tips at the man sitting nearest him, Michael.
"You! Tell me what we're paying you for. What are the kids into?"
Always a little sweaty, pale, and over-prepared for these meetings, Michael riffled through his messy stacks of paper, "Uh, well, the girls are into My Little P-"
"I'm not interested in girls. Girls don't drink energy drinks." Chad span his chair to face the next unfortunate underlying. "Tell me what the kids are into."
"My kids like those alien robots?" Meredith, at the back of the room, stuck her pen in the air. She tactfully refrained from mentioning that two out of three of them were girls, who according to Chad, didn't count as 'kids'. "They're popular. Current. Especially the big one, the truck?"
Chad tapped his mouth with the end of his sunglasses. "Trucks are for five-year olds. That's too kiddie." He waved her off. "We want to attract the rebels. The cool kids. We can't alienate the teenagers, people!"
His selective-hearing tuned out the room's collective sigh.
"What about one of the planes instead?" Tom (Chad's-aspiring-clone) suggested. "They're sleek, they're fast. Older kids can relate to that. Even ties in with the branding." He waved his hands through the air, "Rocket-Fuel; fly to the moon and back."
"I like it, Tom. I like it a lot!" Chad slapped a hand to the table. "Alright, lemme see these things. They've gotta be photogenic if we're gonna plaster them all over the campaign. Meredith, get us visuals, and some coffee while you're at it."
Meredith managed a smile, "Sure thing, Boss."
It didn't take long to gather some images together. Unfortunately, the group of alien planes weren't the most recognisable of characters, taking a backseat to some of the more prolific Autobots. More disappointingly, there was a problem with their ...colour.
Chad's smile began to slip away as he flipped through the pictures, "Red and white. Red and white -who are these guys, Canadian?"
"...They're aliens," Meredith reminded him.
"They're supposed to be American aliens," Chad muttered. "At least the goddamn truck looked patriotic."
"What about this one?" Michael slipped another picture out from his stack of papers, sliding it across the table.
Frowning, Chad lifted it up.
"...Oh, yes," a smile began to spread across Chad's face, his whitened-teeth glinting. "Yes, this is the one. Red, white, blue, and modern- she's gorgeous."
"She?" Meredith leaned over to look.
"It's a machine, isn't it?" Chad lifted his coffee for a drink. "Don't guys always name their cars after girls?"
"But they're not someone's property, they're-"
Chad grimaced, extending the coffee back it her, "You forgot the sugar, babe."
Meredith took it in silence.
"So," Chad clapped his hands together. "We make some calls, get ahold of one of these-"
"F-15 Eagle," Tom supplied.
"-One of these beauties, get rid of all those boring military colours and give it a new patriotic lick of paint, hire a couple models-"
"-Have them pose on the wing!" Tom pointed.
"Pose on the wing in bikinis," Chad grinned. "We'll set it up like a car wash-"
Meredith stared, "What have models in bikinis got to do with an energy drink?"
"Sex appeal!" Chad threw his arms up. "Sexy girls on a sexy jet." He tossed his pen down. "Genius, well done guys. Good thinking going with the aliens, Tom. Oh, and Meredith," he turned to her. Meredith blinked in surprise, wondering if for once, she was going to get credit for her own idea.
Chad set his sunglasses back on his face, "I'll take that coffee to go, babe."
Come down to the Rec.
Sideswipe's optics flickered online as Sunstreaker's voice echoed through his mind. He glanced at his chrono, groaning at how close the numbers were to midnight.
I'm on the early shift, he sent back, rolling over and burying his face in the pillow. Trying to recharge.
Come. Down. To. The. Rec. Sunstreaker sent firmly, with a nudge of urgency. You gotta come see this.
Sideswipe exhaled heavily, Can it wait till morning?
You don't want to miss this.
Sunstreaker had never dragged him from his berth without good reason (that was Sideswipe's role in their relationship) so he made a begrudging effort to rise. He was a only steps out the door before an impatient Sunstreaker was harassing him again. Are you coming?!
I'm coming, Primus! What's going on?
You have to see it for yourself.
Sideswipe walked a little quicker, thinking that if this wasn't worth crawling out of his nice warm sheets, he was going to take the screws out of Sunstreaker's berth and see how well he recharged when he-
He stepped into the Rec and it was packed. Not just packed for the dead of night, but packed for the middle of the shift change. It was busier than he'd ever seen it, and everyone was gathered around the TV set, the volume set to max. Sideswipe navigated around friends and colleges, craning his neck to try and see.
"Sweet Primus," Ironhide breathed as Sideswipe reached his side.
Sideswipe frowned, "What's going...?"
A commercial was playing on the TV, in the loud, colourful, and attention-grabbing style that seemed to appeal to humans. What caught Sideswipe's attention was a shockingly familiar fighter jet.
His optics nearly popped out of his head, "That's-!"
"Shh!" Blaster hushed him furiously from his position on the floor, sat right in front of the screen.
The camera panned over a women wearing a Stars and Stripes bikini, sat on the wing. She wrung out a sudsy sponge and water cascaded down her chest and dripped over the white wing below. It then cut to a group of three women with long hair and high heels, standing behind the rear of the fighter jet. They were laughing and drinking from a can as sky-blue thrusters blew up their short, fluttery skirts to reveal undergarments marked with the words RocketFuel!
It changed again and now there were women with hoses, some standing on the tarmac, some sat straddling the jet, spraying the machine down in slow motion, drenching it. Wet armour glinted in the sun.
Then another close up on a women standing directly beneath the jet's undercarriage, one hand reaching up with a sponge to rub soapy circles over the metal, the other lifting a can of drink to red-stained lips.
A lone droplet of water dripped off the end of the jet's nosecone.
Next to Sideswipe, Bumblebee covered his mouth and whispered a prayer.
"RocketFuel," a masculine voice announced over the sound of woman moaning and catchy music. "It'll send you to the moon and back."
Sideswipe's mouth had fallen open. He shook his head, trying to blink himself back to reality, "What the-?"
"Me Grimlock want replay!" Grimlock demanded from the back of the room, stamping a pede.
"Sure thing, buddy," Blaster murmured, already scooting closer rewind the footage.
"Was that Starscream?!" Sideswipe looked around at the gaping audience, searching for someone still with-it enough to fill him in. "How does he know so many women?"
"It's a commercial kid," Ironhide grunted, nudging him subtly aside so he wouldn't block his view. "It's jus' some jet they painted up to look like him."
"Why?"
"Hell if I know," Ironhide's optics narrowed as the commercial began to play again, starting with a jet whooshing dramatically through the air. There was a close up on sharp, glossy wings, ailerons moving back and forth. Ironhide made a noise like a purr, "Damn if it don't look good though..."
Too confused to let himself been drawn into the rare sex-appeal just yet, Sideswipe backed away from him.
And walked right into Optimus. He must have just arrived. He was still stood in the doorway. Frozen in the doorway.
"Oof!"
Optimus blinked himself out of a stupor, reaching out to steady him, "Sideswipe, I apologise, I was just..." He trailed off, optics refocusing on the screen.
"...Prime?" Sideswipe nudged him. "Optimus!"
Optimus was transfixed. Hypnotised.
Sideswipe risked a glance and knew instantly why. The jet on screen was passing through a curtain of water in slowmotion, coming out the other side drenched and glimmering.
"That's enough of that!" Prowl made a sudden appearance, furiously barging his way through the enraptured Autobots. "Turn that off. Now."
"It's just a commercial!" Bluestreak argued. "Come on, it's funny-"
"I don't hear laughing," Prowl said darkly. "Need I remind you all that Starscream is an enemy-"
"That ain't Screamer," Ironhide snorted. "We can look if we wanna."
"There's no way you can spin this that doesn't end with you trying to justify lusting after a Decepticon solider-"
"Who said anything about lusting?" Ironhide argued.
"I dunno," Wheeljack breathed, helm-lights glowing. "I would..."
Prowl shouldered Ironhide aside and switched the TV off. The Rec room exploded in protests.
"Out!" Prowl bellowed, pointing at the door. "That goes for you as well, Optimus!"
"You know that bit we're they're all sitting on top of him?" Air Raid whispered, leaning across the table so they could all hear him. "And he bounces a little on his landing gear, and you see his wings do this little ...jiggle?" Air Raid bit his bottom lip with a groan and shuttered his optics. "Man, that's my favourite part."
"I liked the bit when they got his cockpit canopy all wet," Bluestreak sighed dreamily, "And the water was dripping down the glass-"
"Me Grimlock want to ride him Starscream like puny humans did!" Grimlock boomed.
"Shh," Bluestreak hushed him quickly, "Same here, big guy, but keep it down. We don't want Ratchet to overhear."
"I just wish we could watch it one more time," Air Raid mumbled miserably. "I would have appreciated it more at the time if I'd known Prowl was gonna destroy the TV."
"Jazz said he and Ironhide were watching it on Teletraan," Bluestreak whispered. "It's not like Prowl can throw that in the volcano."
There was a screech of tires in the hallway outside of the mess galley. Bluestreak twisted in his seat and saw Sideswipe and Sunstreaker skid inside and tumble into a transformation sequence. They were out of breath when they came jogging up to their table.
"Guys," Sideswipe began, tone filled with exuberant excitement. "It's not just on TV."
"Aren't you supposed to be on patrol?" Air Raid's nose crinkled.
"Just got back, and you'll never guess what we found," Sideswipe made grabby hands at Sunstreaker. "Show em, Sunny."
Sunstreaker reached into his subspace and pulled out a rolled up sheet of paper. It was torn in places but still intact. It looked like they'd peeled it off a billboard. Together the twins rolled it out and stood with it held between them.
A women laid across the jet's white and red accented wing, her skin glistening and her hair wet. The metal she laid across was polished to a mirror-shine and covered in water droplets. She was staring at the camera with hooded eyes and a sultry pout. But she only took up one-third of the picture. To her left was an open cockpit, the canopy lifted away to reveal all the intricate workings of it's interior, and presumably, draw attention to the case of energy drinks placed in the pilot's seat.
They could clearly see the jet's control panels, some of the wiring even. It was likely lost on humans how intimate such a thing could be.
"...Can I have that?" Air Raid breathed.
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker rolled it up between them. "Get your own. It's not like they're hard to come by, they're everywhere."
"Billboards, bus stations, magazines, lots of different ones two." Sunstreaker clarified. "There was one on the side of a bus with a close up on the rear thrusters."
Bluestreak slumped back against the table, feeling a little overwhelmed. "What is happening?"
"I don't know, but I'm not complaining," Air Raid said, already swinging his leg over the bench to leave in search of a poster of his own.
"Do you think this might be some kind of weird Decepticon plot? To distract us? No one's ever gonna be able to look Starscream in the optic again-"
"Me Grimlock not look at him Starscream's optics," Grimlock said proudly. "Me Grimlock look at him Starscream's-"
"-Yeah, I think we can all guess where you'll be looking," Sideswipe interrupted him quickly, patting him on the shoulder.
"I didn't think so," Sunstreaker answered Bluestreak's query. "Starscream thinks too highly of himself to let human's crawl all over even an image of himself. They probably have nothing to do with this."
"But they're using his likeness," Bluestreak winced. "Do you think he knows?"
Sunstreaker struggled, "Let's hope not. Or there'll be a lot of human blood to clean up." He glanced at Sideswipe behind him, sneaking another peak at the poster. "And Cybertronian too."
It was noon and Megatron wasn't up yet.
Earth's day-cycles were so impractically short it made more sense not to adjust his circadian rhythm to such ineffective eight-hour recharge cycles. He slept when he felt like it, and for however long his hectic lifestyle allowed him.
When Soundwave's priority ping overrode the Do Not Disturb function he'd set on his commlink, Megatron stirred. Something was restricting his left side. Cracking an aching optic online, he recognised the wing floating about in his peripheral vision as Starscream's. With a groan he began to untangle himself from the seeker's clutches, deciding that someone had better be dying for him to have been disturbed like this.
He preferred to rise on his own time.
When Starscream was present, he preferred not to rise at all.
The Command Centre was still when he arrived, no blaring alarms or panicking seekers. Just Soundwave standing beside the main computer, projecting a tense sort of worry usually reserved for imminent Autobot attacks.
"I was asleep," Megatron reminded his Third testily, "What was so important that it couldn't wait?"
Soundwave didn't answer with words. He stepped aside to give Megatron an unobstructed view of the main computer just as the screen switched on. A human broadcast began to air, the picture quality low with lines of static distorting it where the signal struggled to reach their underwater base.
Megatron dropped back into a nearby seat in surprise. It was ...Starscream. Starscream and human women?! Prancing about with hoses and sponges -?!
"RocketFuel!" A distorted male voice announced, "it'll send you to the moon and back!"
Megatron's anger and confusion began to abate as the slogan popped up at the bottom of the screen. It was a commercial. And it wasn't Starscream- they'd used the wrong shade of red paint, the nosecone was too pointed, the wings were flimsier, and Starscream's cockpit canopy wasn't that translucent.
It appeared as though someone had stolen his Air Commander's image, exaggerated his already admirable assets, and was using him to promote some charmless product.
The commercial ended with a soaked jet and laughing women, and Megatron felt oddly compelled to watch it again.
Soundwave turned the screen off. "Awaiting your instructions, Lord Megatron."
Megatron leant back in his seat with a creak, considering. Starscream was unlikely to find any entertainment or humour in this situation, nor was he likely to let something like this go. It would be better, safer, more sanity-preserving to keep this ...quiet. To keep this from Starscream entirely.
"This is beneath our notice," he decided, because human's were, even the misguided fools who had sort to exploit the image and reputation of one of his finest warriors. He leant forward and clasped his hands together. "It would be in everyone's best interest to keep this from Starscream."
Soundwave shifted, "That may be difficult."
"Unless you plan to show him this, I doubt he'll ever know it existed," Megatron frowned. "He doesn't waste his spare time watching this organic drivel."
"Affirmative," Soundwave looked down at his feet. "However, the vast majority of troops do."
"Do what?"
Soundwave gestured to the screen, "Indulge in mindless organic entertainment."
Megatron felt a niggle of nervousness in the pits of his tanks. "...You don't think they would have seen this, do you?"
Swindle flipped the human magazine open onto it's centrefold advertisement and wriggled it coyly towards Barricade. "Three cubes."
"Three?!" Barricade exclaimed, "I only got two-"
Swindle whipped it back across the table out of reach, "I'm making a loss on this as it is-"
"How?! You stole them-"
"Hey!" Rumble slammed his fists against the table. "Me n' Frenzy risked life and limb getting these things outta the newsstand!"
"The guy selling them chased us down the street with a rolled up newspaper," Frenzy confirmed.
"Alright, alright, I get it," Barricade waved them down. "You'll get your cubes, gimme the magazine-"
Frenzy slapped his hand away, "It's gone up to four-"
"Four?!"
"Hey," Swindle grinned, "I've got plenty other buyers if you're not interested?"
Barricade clenched his hands and glanced over his shoulder at the line growing behind him. Motormaster was glaring at the back of his head and tapping his foot. Behind him, Skywarp was bouncing impatiently, trying to repress a grin.
"Fine," he muttered through gritted teeth. "Four."
"Pleasure doing business with you," Swindle slid the magazine over. Barricade took a moment to appreciate the glossy image of the jet impersonating his superior officer. "And don't forget, if you get caught with it, you didn't get it from us."
"Yeah, sure," Barricade mumbled distantly, rising out of his seat, unable to take his gaze off the picture. His optics followed the arc of water spraying from the end of a hose and raining down over the cockpit canopy.
"Drool over him on your own time," Motormaster grabbed him by the kibble and shoved him aside to loom over Swindle and the twins. "You got any of the posters left?"
Rumble and Frenzy dipped into their subspace. "Sure, which one?"
Motormaster didn't even bothering looking at them. "Both of 'em. One for our wash-racks, the other for the ceiling over my berth."
"Gross," Skywarp muttered.
"Well what're you gonna use them for?" Motormaster glared.
Skywarp scoffed, "I happen to be a fan of the drink."
Swindle glanced around Motormaster's bulk, fear etched into his features. "...You're not gonna show this stuff to old Screamer, are you?"
"Of course I'm not gonna show Screamer the human's whored-up version of himself," Skywarp snorted, "Do I look suicidal?"
Swindle didn't answer, but his reservations didn't stop him selling the contraband to Skywarp anyway.
For what it was worth, Skywarp had no intention of just walking up to Starscream and showing him the images.
His good self-preservation instincts indicated it'd be much safer to send them to him from a distance. That way, he couldn't shoot the messenger.
Cracking down on the deluge of contraband promotional media would be much easier for Megatron if he could simply delegate the task to Starscream himself. Tearing up the personal belongings and living quarters of their subordinates was something he had always enjoyed. Megatron found it to be more of an awkward chore. He could have done without the knowledge of what Astrotrain hid under his berth.
But involving Starscream in the contraband issue would reveal the existence of the advertisement campaign in the first place, and Megatron was not prepared to deal with that fallout.
Starscream would expect him to be just a righteously furious at the humans for disrespecting him in the first place, and Megatron had better things to do with his time than start a crusade against a soft-drinks company.
That being said, Megatron had torn down over a dozen posters of red, white, and blue jets just that afternoon and his factions' growing infatuation with this likeness of Starscream was beginning to wear on him. Starscream was his after all. It was an open secret, but he expected them to show some respect, some deference to their Air Commander.
He did not appreciate their constant and unabashed lusting over him.
He stepped into his quarters to the sound of the shower running. The private wash-racks in his quarters were open and not separated from his office and sleeping space by a wall, so he was treated to the view of a real-life wet and sudsy Starscream. Frankly, the image the advertising campaign had created couldn't hope to compete.
"You left me this afternoon," Starscream said over the rush of the water-solvent solution, his back to Megatron.
"I was called away," Megatron grumbled, casting a depressed optic over the stacks of data-pads waiting on his desk that he hadn't even started on yet.
"Must have been important."
His tense tone caused Megatron to glance over. Starscream was stiff and scrubbing himself aggressively - a far cry from the fever-dream-like hose-down his likeness received in the commercial Megatron had been 'forced' to watch.
"I didn't want to wake you," he replied diplomatically. He had learned, in recent years, how to navigate the conversational minefields Starscream liked to throw at him.
After a pause, Starscream's shoulders loosened up, and Megatron breathed a sign of relief.
He sat himself down on the end of the berth and watched Starscream turn off the shower and fluff out his plating to aerate the wiring under his armour. The edges of his wings dripped water. Megatron's optic was drawn to them. Starscream noticed, smirking.
"So what drama was so confidential that it justified my exclusion?" He asked, crossing the room. "It wouldn't have anything to do with utter shambles the Coneheads turned air manoeuvres into today, would it? The second I took to the air they all started crashing into each other..."
For one spark-stopping moment, Megatron feared he knew. But no. He wouldn't be this calm.
"No," he lied simply, meeting Starscream's curious gaze with a frown. "It was a contraband issue. Beneath your notice."
Starscream's optics narrowed, "But not beneath yours?"
Megatron looked down, searching his mind for an excuse, but that drew Starscream's attention to his hands, or more specifically, the knuckles of his right fist, scratched and dented where he had punched Motormaster during a scuffle over the possession of a certain poster.
"What's this?" Starscream asked softly -dangerously- reaching to take Megatron's hand. Megatron tightened it into a fist, but Starscream wouldn't let him pull away. "You've been fighting."
Megatron needed a distraction. Fast.
He caught Starscream's fingers and tugged him in, causing the seeker to overbalance and fall across his thighs. Starscream scowled and shoved at his shoulders, hating the degrading act of sitting in his lap, so Megatron stood and span with him, letting him go with a firm shove that sent the seeker tumbling over the berth.
Any thought of how his knuckles came to be scuffed disappeared as Megatron crawled after the seeker and began kissing up Starscream's leg. He was at the knee when one of Starscream's data-pads on the side table lit up. Spotting it out of his peripheral vision, Starscream reached for it lazily, letting his legs lull open in wordless approval for Megatron to continue.
But Megatron lifted his head and saw a preview of the file that had been sent to the data-pad. An image. He had seen the same one dozens of times already that day.
With a jolt of panic shooting through him, he surged up and grabbed Starscream's wrist. Starscream dropped the data-pad with a hiss of pain. Megatron rolled off the berth and stamped on the offending item before it could be recovered.
Then stamped again for good measure.
He turned around to see Starscream sat up on his berth, glaring and cradling his wrist.
"...I thought I saw rust," he explained lamely, the data-pad's broken screen cracking under his pede.
As much as he had liked to think of Starscream as a fool in the past, it was far from the truth. Starscream's sharp, calculative mind was ticking away behind those glaring optics. Megatron weighed up the magnitude of suffering he was likely to endure if he continued to lie, against the fallout of telling the truth.
He opened his mouth, about to reveal a heavily edited and carefully spun version of the events of his day spent ripping down raunchy posters and breaking fingers so infatuated mechs couldn't sate their feelings of inappropriate lust with fantasies of their Air Commander -when Starscream's wrist comm pinged with an incoming file.
Starscream glanced at it. "Skywarp," he read with a frown, tutting. "Why is he sending data-files to my personal-"
Megatron flew at him -not entirely sure what he was going to actually do to prevent Starscream from opening the file as he couldn't simply rip the seeker's arm off- and pinned him down just as Starscream's optics widened with horror. It was too late. He'd seen it.
One small mercy was Starscream's enraged roar was muffled against Megatron's chest armour. Megatron cringed and tightened his hold, too fearful of what Starscream might do if he let him go. He patted him reassuringly on the wing.
"...If it's any consolation," Megatron began, clearing his vocaliser and doing his damnedest to offer some comfort. "They made you look very attractive in the commercials."
Starscream's claws were suddenly digging into Megatron's pelvic seams.
"I want the company eradicated," Starscream began listing off his fingers. "Their headquarters turned into a smoking cater. I want the marketing director who came up with this fire-bombed, and I want those women grinding up on that cheap, charmless piece of scrap they're trying to impersonate me with drowned in that filthy water, I want-"
"I think those models have suffered enough, Starscream," Thundercracker interjected softly, studying the poster he was pretending to have only just seen and frowning at the dead-eyed look of one of the women. "And as for bombing the headquarters, Megatron said-"
"I don't care what Megatron said, it's not him who's been relegated to a sex prop for disgusting organics!"
"Maybe it's just a coincidence. They needed some ugly jet for their commercial and the design they came up with just happened to look exactly like you?" Skywarp joked.
"It'snotacoincidence!" Starscream shrieked.
"Well you can't just murder them all- the Autobots will get involved," Thundercracker reminded him solemnly. "And do you really want them seeing this?"
"They already know, TC," Skywarp hid a smirk behind his hand. "Who do you think gave Swindle the heads up on the billboards?"
Starscream flung his head back and screamed.
"What's Megatron going to do about it?" Thundercracker interjected quickly, before Starscream could blow out their audials.
"He said I should be flattered!" Starscream raged, kicking a chair over. "I'd like to see how flattered he'd feel if they did this to his alt-mode! You know how phallic human's find guns? If he thinks I won't stoop to selling his specs to a dildo manufacturer-"
"Have you tried asking them to take it down?" Thundercracker suggested quickly, before that mental image could become imbedded in his brain-module forever. "Human's have laws themselves, they don't make much sense but I know they can sue each other over this sort of thing."
"Soundwave already contacted the 'company'," Starscream sneered. "He received a response from their legal team stating that as I am not a citizen of Earth I am not protected by their silly little laws, and that my image, my look, is not copyrighted and not only can they use it however they see fit but they're under no obligation to compensate me for it!"
Skywarp clapped his hands together, "Guess we're gonna have to bomb the company then."
Thundercracker stopped them, holding up a hand, "I think I have a better idea. One that won't end in Optimus Prime just rescuing the marketing department and wasting our whole afternoon."
"What?!" Starscream demanded.
"Chad?"
Chad swivelled around in his large leather seat to face Meredith in his doorway. He frowned, lifting up his full mug, "Don't need any more coffee, babe."
"No," Meredith stepped further into his office. She seemed nervous. Chad noticed then that she was flanked by two of the building's security guards. "There's a problem outside-"
Chad lifted himself out of his chair with a groan, "Not another protest. Call the damn cops."
"It's an advocacy group for advertising standards," Meredith stumbled aside to let him out through the doors. "They're mostly just moms, but-"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Chad muttered, rolling his eyes at the security guards behind his sunglasses as he headed for the elevators, "Nobody ever wants to manhandle a bunch of women and children-"
"Chad, wait, it's not just-!"
Chad waved a hand at Meredith as she tried to get into the elevator with him, pressing the button for the lobby, "Hey, c'mon, you know I need my personal space. You guys can take the stairs, right?"
He didn't wait for an answer. The door slid shut on Meredith's offended frown.
When he stepped out into the lobby, he was surprised to see the girls had left the reception desk unoccupied. They were gathered with everyone else in a crowd in front of the windows, looking out into the parking lot.
He could hear the sound of chanting, and spotted a couple of colourful, badly-designed signs waving about in the air. Painted slogans like 'we are not props' and 'respect women' and all that feminist crap. He should have known.
His head of security was standing besides the doors, speaking into a WalkieTalkie and doing jack all to move along the shrieking hags outside.
"Sir," Security went to stop him as he approached the windows. "We're waiting for backup."
Chad looked between the tiny women outside and his burly, jacked-up security, and held his arms open. "Are you fucking serious?"
"Sir-"
"Tell them to get their asses off my properly before the cops get here."
His security looked confused, "We didn't call the cops, we had to call-"
"You haven't even called the cops yet?" Chad snapped. Honestly how many times had they been through stuff like this before. "Who's in charge out there?!"
His security pointed to a young women standing besides one of the raised flower beds, closest to the building. She was bouncing an infant on her hip and wore a bright pink shirt with the symbol for femininity on it. Chad brushed past his security and marched outside.
"Sir-!" One of them called him frantically.
The sound of the door swinging open drew the women's attention. They began to chant their slogans louder, waving their signs about more vehemently. Chad plastered a goodnatured smile across his face and waved his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, you've made your point ladies!"
"Are you in charge here?" The young women asked.
"You know this is private property?" Chad dodged the question, coming to stand across from her.
The young women adjusted the child at her hip. She might have been pretty if she'd bothered to smile. "We're a group named SPAFTD and we're here to protest the degrading advertisement your company have put out-"
"Degrading?" Chad interrupted. "What's degrading?"
"Your depiction of women in that commercial-"
"You're got this all wrong lady," Chad smiled. "We're all about celebrating women. Maybe you should take your signs and chants someplace that actually needs protesting instead of bothering us ."
"We have a right to protest peacefully-"
"And I have the right to call the cops on you for disturbing the peace," Chad allowed his smile to slip. "Get the Hell outta here before I have you and your snot-nosed kid there thrown in a jail cell."
She puffed herself up. "I think the president of our group might have something to say about that," she sneered, nodding behind Chad.
As she spoke, the sun seemed to disappear behind a cloud. Chad whipped his sunglasses off to better see, turning around and frowning at the frightened faces of his employees and colleges still inside the building behind him.
"Where the Hell is this president then?" He demanded, just as the sky darkened further and he looked up to realise it wasn't a cloud the sun had disappeared behind.
A white wing loomed overheard. Attached to it was the body of a towering alien robot, red glass-eyes glaring down at him.
Chad dropped his sunglasses. They broke as they hit the pavement.
Inside the office building, watching Chad beg for his life from the fifteenth-floor window, Meredith had to work very hard not to smile.