Miranda knew she was not going to enjoy her day long before Jack ever even opened her mouth. She knew the moment her office doors slid apart to reveal the skinny, tattooed, shaved-headed, woman framed in the doorway, an indignant scowl sketching dark lines into her face and her scrawny, tattooed, arms folded defiantly across her chest. And Miranda really knew her day was not going to go well when Jack stomped into the room without bothering to ask permission, draped her forearm across the center of the desk between them, and swept it sideways, clearing the table of half its possessions. They plummeted to the floor beside the desk to mass in a disorderly heap, and Jack's scowl only deepened as she narrowed her eyes on Miranda's.

"Well, where the hell are they!?" She snapped, raising an accusatory finger up and jabbing it in Miranda's direction. "Huh?"

Miranda maintained her composure, leaned back in her chair, and crossed her arms over her chest herself. She sighed and took a moment to maintain her composure before addressing the glowering young woman before her with forced calmness. "Hello, Jack. Can I help you with something?"

"Oh, don't play stupid with me, cheerleader," Jack growled, barring her teeth and practically biting the word 'cheerleader' in half. "I know you took them, and I want them back. You hear me? I want them back right now!"

"Jack, whatever you've had taken from you, I assure you I had nothing to do with it," Miranda explained, honestly clueless as to what the woman was talking about. "Now, I have work to do. If you go and take this up with Commander Shepard, I'm sure-"

"I'm not going anywhere," Jack said, her scowl suddenly shifting to a sneer as she leaned back and shook her head. "I already asked Shepard if I could come confront your dumb ass. He wasn't in the mood for it." Her grin widened. "He said it was between you and I, and we have to 'sort things out' for ourselves. So, no. Hell no. I'm not leaving this little room of yours until you give me back what you took!"

Miranda pinched at her brow; Jack's grating voice was already awakening a headache there. She's been working so hard all day, the stress and tension she'd accumulated was already at its boiling point; Jack, apparently, was the last bit of fire it needed to come boiling over. She pulled a deep breath and humored the loudmouth by asking, "And what exactly is it that I took, Jack?"

"My socks."

Miranda looked up incredulously. "…Socks?"

Jack's sneer didn't waver in the slightest. She stood her ground, tapping her fingers impatiently along her outer arm as her eyes bore daggers into Miranda's own.

Miranda sighed; her headache throbbed. "You're in here bothering me over socks!?"

"Give 'em back and you won't have to put up with me another second longer."

"I don't-" Miranda nearly shouted her defense of not knowing what the hell Jack was talking about, but thought better of it, cut herself short, and slid her chair back from her desk instead. She stomped back to the dresser beside her bed, slid back the top drawer, and scooped up two handfuls of bunched-up socks. She carried them before Jack and tossed them down on her desk. "There. You want socks? Take mine. Take all of them, I don't care, just take them and leave me the hell alone already, Jack! I've got work to do, and the last thing I want to hear right now is your big mouth, so take them and go."

Jack grimaced. "I don't want your stinking socks!"

"Funny, though, you think for some reason I would want yours…"

"I don't think you swiped them to wear, you idiot, I think you swiped them to mess with me. Mess with me like you always do…"

"Mess with you?"

Jack began pacing the length of the desk back and forth, her hands clenching and unclenching around her arms, her apoplectic glare never leaving Miranda's eyes. "You're always trying to mess with me so I lose my cool and do something stupid and get kicked off the ship. You've been on my ass since day one. Not like I give a crap, anyway. I can handle myself… prissy-ass cheerleader. But I want my shit back. You had no right to come and steal it."

"I didn't steal your stuff!" Miranda snapped, louder than she'd intended, and her temples throbbed.

"Yeah, ya did!" Jack retorted.

"Oh my God, fine!" Miranda conceded, throwing her arms to her sides. "I stole your stupid socks. Alright? I stole them and I'm keeping them and you can't have them back. There, now get the hell out of my office, Jack, because you're really starting to piss me off."

"Oh, I'm pissing you off? Am I really cheerleader?" Jack asked. She licked her lips. Her eyes lowered to Miranda's computer terminal. A mischievous look crept into the features of her face that Miranda knew all to well: it was the look of a calm before the storm brewing something wicked up in Jack's head.

Miranda shook her head, raising a conciliatory hand. "Jack, please, don't do something-"

Too late.

Jack grabbed the computer and yanked it up to her shoulders, a stream of wires and cables dangling from the terminal's belly as it rocketed out of the desk. She roared and chucked it across the room where it crashed against Miranda's closet, filling the room with shrill clash of shattering glass, and spraying a shower of sparks as the display died and fell to the floor in a bent heap, utterly and entirely useless. Jack stared at her work a moment before turning a satisfied little smirk Miranda's way and raising a brow. "Oops."

Miranda gaped up at her. She was so enraged, she could barely muster a sentence. "I… I can't… you…"

Before she could finish even one of her broken trains of thoughts, the doors to her office slid apart again, and this time it was the asari Justicar, Samara, who stood framed in the doorway. Jack turned to face her and cleared the way for Miranda to glimpse the pale blue eyes of the asari flicking between the two of them.

"I'm… sorry to interrupt," Samara said, casting a bemused look towards the smashed computer terminal against the wall. "I was actually looking for you, Jack. Some of your clothing got mixed up with mine." The asari lifted a small bag and handed it off to Jack. "It was likely the new engineer they assigned to laundry duty. It would appear to be an honest mistake."

Jack pried the top open, stuck a hand in, and a moment later had fished out a pair of socks. "Oh…" She glanced Miranda's way. "I… I guess you didn't take my stuff then."

Miranda balled her hands to fists so tightly she could feel her fingernails cutting into her palms.

Jack looked to the disorderly mound she'd created next to Miranda's desk that had once been stacked neatly on its top before flicking a cursory glance over the computer terminal she'd smashed. "Well… I guess I messed up, cheerleader," she said with a nonchalant shrug of her scrawny shoulders. "Shit happens."

And with that, Jack simply turned and sauntered out of the office.

Miranda was on her feet before the words had even left her mouth. "Jack! Get the hell back here!" She didn't even apologize, Miranda thought as she shuffled around her desk, a warm rush of anger igniting her skin, quickening her heartbeat, putting sweat into the palms of her balled fists. She shouldered past Samara and stomped into the Normandy's third deck. Around the corner where her office was situated, she saw Jack making her way into the mess hall, where the rest of the crew were just gathering and beginning to settle in for lunch. "Jack!"

Jack glanced back and rolled her eyes. "Oh, fuck off, cheerleader, it was an accident. I said I messed up."

Fuck off. Miranda couldn't believe it. She ground her teeth together to keep a scream in her mouth and glared incredulously at Jack. "Are you serious!?"

Joker was seated on the long bench at the back of the mess hall between Tali and Garrus. He lifted his eyes from his tray of food and looked between the two of them. "Oh, this is going to be good."

Jack folded her arms across her chest and leaned forward aggressively. "I said I messed up. Chill yourself the fuck out."

"You…. you… brat!" Miranda snapped. It was the first word that came to her, and upon a moment's reflection, was in fact the perfect word to describe her adversary. "You're just an immature, big-mouthed, hot-headed, brat, Jack. You know that?"

Jack chortled. "And you're an annoying, bitch, cheerleader." She smirked. "Did you know that?"

Thane and Grunt were just entering the mess hall from beyond Miranda's shoulder. Grunt shook his head and gave the two a wide berth, but Thane laid a hand on Miranda's shoulder and softly said, "Perhaps it would be best to resolve this when you're both in a more stable emotional state, Miranda. Let's sit down. Eat."

Kasumi stalked between the two of them and folded herself gracefully into a chair as she looked between them with an amused expression. "I don't know, Thane. The tension between these girls is bound to come boiling over sooner or later…" The thief grinned. "Might as well be sooner. Better here than in the middle of a gunfight, no?"

Joker nodded enthusiastically. "Yes!"

"She smashed my computer terminal!" Miranda told the group. Her headache was coming back and she winced when a sharp pain struck her temples.

Jack rolled her eyes. "Oh, I'm sure you can afford a new one on your precious Cerberus budget, you cheap bitch."

Miranda narrowed her eyes and stepped forward, her breath coming in hot spurts through her nostrils. "Jack…" she growled through clenched teeth.

"Don't fucking step up to me, cheerleader, I'm serious," Jack warned. "Don't fucking come near me unless you want to be knocked the fuck down."

Miranda took another step, closing the gap between them to only a handful of feet.

"Don't mess with me," Jack told her, a solemn look in her eye as she shook her head. "I'm warning you, bitch."

Miranda could only hear the sound of her own hear pounding a war-drum furiously in her chest. She took another step-

-and Jack pounced.

The tattooed women flung herself into the gap between them, wrenched back her arm, and sent her balled fist alight with the blue tinge of biotic power. But instead of trying to dodge the blow, Miranda stepped into the attack, and so when Jack's skinny arm came thundering around in a wide arch to bring a fist down on her, Miranda caught the strike against her body, clamped her own arm down, and pinned Jack's in place against her side. Jack winced and made to swing at her with her free hand, but Miranda was a hair quicker, jabbing her foot between Jack's own feet, hooking her ankle around Jack's calf, and shoving her backwards to trip her to the floor. Jack tumbled back with a roar and landed hard on her back. Miranda gave her no time to counterattack. She dropped to a knee, took Jack by the wrist, and twisted it hard enough so that Jack had no choice but to roll onto her side to ease the pain. When she had, Miranda flipped her over on her belly entirely, pinned her lower back with a knee, and her wrist with her hand.

"Argh!" Jack bellowed. "Get the fuck off me you bitch!"

Miranda calmed her breathing and focused on keeping the squirming woman pinned beneath her. Jack twisted and turned in every way she could, kicking her feet at Miranda's back and trying to wrench back her free arm to punch at her, but outside Jack's biotic powers, she was physically pretty weak, and it wasn't very hard to keep her pinned in place. Miranda stared at her, collecting her thoughts, but Jack wouldn't be tamed so easily. She thrashed and writhed and kicked and rolled, and soon enough, Miranda's hold on her wrist slipped through her sweaty grip and Jack rolled free to clamber to her feet.

Miranda made to rise with her, but Jack came plowing over her with a war-cry. The two tumbled to the floor beside the mess hall's main table and one of Miranda's legs caught a chair, sending it skidding back to crash into the wall. She got an elbow beneath herself to recover, but Jack hopped up and kicked it out from under her. When Miranda tried standing, Jack leaned down to grab fistfuls of her hair and flipped her over to her belly. Miranda tried resisting, but then Jack's foot was on the small of her back, pressuring it over and down and, finally, slamming her to the floor. Miranda twisted her hips, but Jack's weight came down on top of them.

"This is amazing!" She heard Joker cheer, and lifted her eyes enough to see the rest of the Normandy's crew was gathered around them in a circle, watching.

"Jack!" Miranda cried, trying to work herself free from the skinny woman's pin. "Get off!"

"Shut the fuck up," Jack snapped, taking a fistful of her hair to keep her head in place. "You attacked me, you Cerberus bitch. You shouldn't have done that if you weren't prepared to deal with the consequences. I told you not to fuck with me."

"What!? You came into my office and-" Miranda began, but was cut short when her hair was yanked and her head pulled back, stretching her neck and chest and causing her to wince and fall silent.

"I said: shut - up!" Jack repeated. "I'm sick of hearing your big fucking mouth."

"I don't-" Miranda started in again till Jack yanked her hair hard enough to silence her.

"That's enough, Jack," Garrus warned from beside them.

"It's over," Thane agreed.

"Let her go," said Jacob.

"Oh, fuck all of you," Jack growled, and then the mess hall filled with a booming smack as something fierce and hard and thunderous came barreling down across Miranda's ass cheeks.

"Ooooh," Miranda moaned, unable to stop herself. The slap had come so sudden and hard down upon her butt, and had taken her by such complete surprise, she felt her skin flush and her eyes widen and her mouth gape and… something else stirred within her as well; something down between her legs.

Then her hair was released and Jack's weight lifted from her body. She fell to her stomach to splay out on the floor, snapping her head sideways to watch Jack casually sauntering off towards the elevator lift. "Did you-!?" Miranda stammered. "Did you… just spank me!?"

Jack glanced back over her shoulder. She smirked, winked, laughed a bitter, brief, laugh, and vanished around the bulkhead separating the mess hall and the lift. Miranda was still as stone as she helplessly stared after the tattooed woman long after she'd disappeared.

"Miranda?" Tali asked, bending down to lay a hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Miranda pushed herself off the floor and found the entire crew staring at her. Their eyes felt like scanning probes, and she felt a flush of deep embarrassment color her cheeks and send a chill up her spine beneath them. She spanked me, Miranda thought, lowering her chin to stare at her own feet and avoid eye contact with the rest of them as she stomped back to her office. Jack actually spanked me. The most disconcerting thing about the thought, however, was that she wasn't mad. Really, she wasn't even that embarrassed once she was back in the confines of her office, away from the rest of them. She only felt… strange. It was the only word she could think to describe it.

She sat back at her desk, ignoring the fact that half its contents were still spilled in a pile beside it and the place where her work terminal had been was now nothing but snapped and fraying wires protruding from an empty nook, and leaned back in her chair to fold her arms across her chest. Her throat felt dry. Her headache had temporarily faded when Jack had… did what she had, but now it was coming back with a vengeance. She shifted in her seat and felt the rectangle of flesh between her cheeks where Jack has spanked her still stinging from the blow, a bit numb. She spanked me, Miranda thought again, shaking her head and staring vacantly into nothing. She just held me down and took a handful of my hair and spanked me. She replayed the incident in her head, trying to visualize it from a third person perspective. She could see herself defeated in their little wrestling match and mounted helplessly by Jack. She saw Jack's fist closing around her hair to control her movement. She could picture Jack's other hand, firm, strong, authoritative, stretched out long and coming down and… and punishing her.

That feeling came again, the one between her legs.

Miranda jolted to her feet, all at once entirely uncomfortable sitting in her chair, and paced the length of the room, fanning her suddenly-hot face with her hand and taking deep breaths to still her nerves. He mind's eyes saw Jack's hand slapping against her ass again and again, and Miranda had to squeeze her eyes shut tight till it passed. What is wrong with me? She surveyed her office and decided to clean almost at once. It was, she hoped, the only way to put her mind elsewhere than Jack and her stupid hand.

And so, Miranda cleaned. And when she'd finished piling the fallen items back onto her desk and neatly arranging them again, she set about cleaning up the terminal. And when that was done, the broken monitor lying dormant in an old box she'd had stored beside her bed, she sat back at her desk. And then shortly after that, her thoughts drifted back to Jack spanking her and pulling her hair and dominating her, and all at once all her work to forget it was forgotten, and her breath was heavy and labored in her chest.

"God!" Miranda stood and laid her hand over her eyes, but in the dark, she saw Jack waiting for her with a paddle. An agitated growl erupted from her throat as she went back to pacing. This is so stupid, she thought. Why the hell am I so caught up on this? It was stupid. It was a stupid slap and it's over.

But when she finally pushed the thought from her head, it wasn't long before she sat down and her ass hurt a little where the numbness had worn off on her cheeks, and just like that - the whole thing was cycling through her mind yet again.

After a long moment's debate, Miranda realized there was truly only one thing to be done, and after a deep breath, she, begrudgingly, lifted to her feet to go and do it and get it over with.

She found Jack in the little hiding hole she'd been camped out in since the Commander had brought her onboard; a little, dark, nook wedged into the very bowels of the ship's engineering deck, overhung with thick pipes that cast shadows in dark stripes across the grated floors, far away from anything or anyone. Jack, apparently, did not share Miranda's uncomfortable fascination with the incident they'd shared only a half standard hour earlier. She was laid back on her little cot at the very end of the room, her feet kicked up casually atop a pillow before her, a datapad clutched between her fingers. She appeared to be reading something, a somewhat-bored look on her face as her eyes scanned left to right, lowered, and repeated.

When Miranda stepped tentatively around the corner of the room and emerged from the shadows of the big, hissing, pipes and into the dim lighting of the illuminated domes that dappled the ceiling, Jack's eyes lifted over the rim of the datapad and narrowed. "Oh, fuck me," she snapped, tossing the pad aside and swinging her legs off the cot to stand upright in an aggressive pose. "Alright, you bitch, you want to go for a round two?" She curled her hands to fists. "Just know you don't have a crew of uptight shitheads to pull your ass out of the fire this time."

Miranda raised her arms placatingly. "I'm not here to fight, Jack."

"No?" Jack sneered. "Then what the fuck do you want, cheerleader? An apology? Fuck yourself."

"No. I don't want an apology."

Jack fixed her with a shrewd look. "Then what the fuck are you doing here?" She craned her neck to look around the cluster of pipes cornering her little nook, a sudden mistrustful look wrinkling her brow. "What is this shit? What do you want?"

"I…" What do you want? Miranda looked to her feet and shrugged. "I'm not sure."

"Then get the fuck out of here," Jack growled, pointing back the way Miranda had come.

"Why did you do that to me before?" Miranda said, the words spilling out of her mouth in an awkward rush before she could stop them. She lifted her eyes to Jack's, saw the fiery look in them, and dropped her gaze again immediately.

"Do what?"

"You…" This is so stupid. "You held me down and…" Miranda laid a hand over her eyes and shook her head. She'd never been so flustered, so awkward, with another person before. "Why the hell did you spank me, Jack!?"

There was a long and deep quiet, and in it Miranda was about as uncomfortable as she'd ever been. She looked up to see Jack staring at her pensively. Above, the faint sound of the Normandy's engines whirring and humming was the only noise sitting in the ten foot gap of silence lingering thickly between them.

"What is this?" Jack finally asked. She stepped forward to look left and right, her eyes scanning the shadows of the hall at either end leading to her hiding hole. "Are you trying to get me to confess to some bullshit to get me kicked off the ship? Are you recording me or something?"

"What? No. Of course not."

"Then what is this?" Jack repeated, taking another step closer. "What exactly are you asking me?" She squinted. "Why did I slap your big, stupid, ass? Because you were being a mouthy little bitch and you needed to be put in your place." She stepped closer. "And if you think for one fucking second that I won't bend your prissy ass over and do it again if you try fucking with me, you better think twice, bitch."

When Jack took yet another step, Miranda reflexively took one backwards, but her back was already close to the wall behind her, and her heel found it almost at once, halting her retreat dead in its tracks.

Jack pressed in tighter on her. "So why did you really come down here? And you better think long and hard before you open that pretty little mouth of yours to answer, cheerleader, because I will tear you a new one if I don't like what I hear."

"I just… I don't know Jack. Honestly." The answer sounded so stupid, even to Miranda herself, she had to try rectifying it. "I was just sitting in my office and I was thinking about what happened between you and I, but when I tried to stop thinking about it, I couldn't, so… so I came down here and now I honestly don't know what the hell to do, alright?"

Jack pulled up her advance a meter short of Miranda, folded her arms over her chest, and squinted shrewdly, eyeing Miranda up and down, head to toe. When their eyes met again, Jack asked, "When's the last time you got fucked?"

"W-what!?"

Jack rolled her eyes. "You didn't hear me? Alright. Then listen carefully. When - is - the - last - time - you - got - fucked, cheerleader? That clear enough for you?"

Miranda felt her neck and cheeks run hot. She lowered her eyes and shook her head. "What does that matter…?"

"It matters because, clearly, you want to fuck me. Or you want me to fuck you. Either way…" Jack grinned. "…looks like your nothing but a horny, dyke, bitch." Miranda gaped at the tattooed woman standing just a few feet in front of her, but before she could muster up a retort to the accusation, Jack went on. "What, did my little slap on that big, bubbly, ass of yours shake the cobwebs off your cunt?" She laughed. "You horny slut. You me to fuck you, cheerleader? Is that it? Huh?"

"Jack!" Miranda snapped. "I never said-"

Jack jolted into the gap between them, shoved Miranda back up against the wall, and before Miranda could even collect her bearings, had snatched her by the wrists and pinned them up over her head. She meekly tugged at them, but Jack tightened her grip. When she opened her mouth to protest, Jack's free hand reached up and clamped firmly over it, pinching her lips together and silencing her immediately.

"Shut up," Jack demanded when Miranda mumbled against her palm. "Shut - up! I'm sick of hearing your big fucking mouth. Now you listen to me, cheerleader, and listen to me good. I don't like you. Understand? And I don't give a fuck if you like me, hate me, lust after me, or whatever the fuck else is going on in your dumbass head. I think you're a bitch and a Cerberus cheerleader, and I would like nothing more than to throw your ass out the airlock and watch you freeze to death in space."

Miranda's eyes widened at that, but she couldn't say even one word in reply with Jack's hand still firmly clamping her mouth shut. There was something… exciting about that idea, but Miranda could barely think straight with Jack's face pressing so close to her own. She couldn't help but stare at the features of Jack's face: the sharp cheekbones and long lashes and pretty brown eyes and the full, red, lips that she'd, somehow, never noticed looked so inviting and warm and moist before.

Jack seemed to be studying the features of her face as well. "I don't like you," she repeated, took a pause, and added, "but you are fucking hot. It pisses me off. I want to hate you entirely, but I unfortunately also happen to think you're about the sexiest bitch I've ever laid my eyes on, so there… you're hot, fuck you."

Miranda stared; her heart racing; her palms sweating.

"So here's what I'm going to offer you," Jack told her. "That slap turned you on? Got in your head? Made you remember that, despite all your 'perfect' genetic engineering bullshit, that you're still just flesh and blood and you want that tight slit between your legs filled up just like any other chick? Good for you. But you can't have me just because you want me, you conceited whore. If you want to play, I'll play, but you're my fuck toy, not the other way around. Got it? I'll do what I want to you, when I want to you, and you'll lie there and keep your fucking mouth shut and take it. If that doesn't sound appealing to you?" She nodded to the stairs back the way Miranda had come. "Get the fuck out, and don't bother coming around here again."

Jack's eyes, dark and fierce and passionate, bore into her own. Miranda could only stare back, waiting to be allowed to answer. A dozen thoughts and feelings were barreling through her mind, but she knew only one truly mattered.

"Well," Jack began with a raised eyebrow, "what's it going to be, cheerleader?"

At once, Miranda nodded.

Jack held her eyes a moment before licking at her lips and saying, "Don't think I'm going to be eating that desperate pussy of yours anytime soon though, bitch. You want to be touched? You'll have to earn it. I'm going to let you go now. And you're going to go. And then you're going to come back here, later tonight, when the ship powers down and the lights get dim and the crew goes to sleep." She nodded as a mischievous little smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. "Then you're going to beg me for the privilege to massage my fucking feet. Then, if you're good enough at that, you'll be allowed to rub my back. And if you're real fucking lucky, cheerleader, I'll let you touch my tits a little and pinch at my nipples. Is that you something you want, you dirty slut? Huh?"

Miranda swallowed, nodded. By then, she'd do just about anything to relieve some of the intense tension that had been mounting and mounting between her legs since Jack had pinned her against the wall.

Jack stared. "Are you going to keep your big fucking mouth shut about this to everyone else?"

Again, Miranda nodded.

"Good. Because if you don't?" Jack leaned close enough for the hot breath of every word she spoke to tickle at Miranda's nose. "I'll hogtie your ass and lock you up in that trunk at the foot of my bed. Then you'll really be nothing more than a fuck-toy, because the only time I'll bring you out is to eat my pussy. You understand me?"

Miranda wasn't sure she'd ever been more turned on in her life than she was in that moment. She wanted to be locked up in Jack's trunk and used… she could hardly believe it, but the thought of such helplessness… it was driving her mad with arousal.

Jack, clearly, must have noticed, for she was watching Miranda with a strange expression wrinkling her brow. After a moment, she said, "Now get out of here. Not a word, either. Just turn around and go. Come back later if that little itch between your legs is still bothering you, though I won't make any promises to scratch it anytime soon. Go."

Jack released her, and Miranda obediently went.

She'd gone three steps before Jack's hand thundered across her ass cheek. She gasped, felt her crotch tingle from the blow, and, slowly, a faint smile crept across her lips. She didn't turn back, only kept walking on back towards the lift with her freshly-spanked ass stinging from the blow. She hadn't been so excited in a long, long, time, and she hoped Jack was watching her.

And she hoped later, Jack would be waiting for her.