He wasn't quite drunk, just at the stage where his ideas seemed (to him) to be outstandingly brilliant.

As ideas went, this one was even more brilliant than the one he'd had on Mark's eighteenth birthday. He smiled reminiscently. That had been truly outstanding and worthy of his evil genius (and Jason much preferred being called an evil genius to any of the other tags he'd had pinned to him).

He'd managed to get Mark drunk, and the two of them had then proceeded to transmute to birdstyle, and spent the evening perching on anything they could balance on (quite a feat in itself given their drunken state) and then swooping down on unsuspecting passers-by in the complex.

Their fun had only ended when they decided that Princess, wandering alone along a corridor, would be their best target yet (which, in itself, gave a fairly good indication of just how drunk they were).

It was the first time they truly appreciated just how good she was with her yoyo. It'd been humiliating as she dragged them, trussed up with the yoyo string and their own wings, to Anderson's office. The long way. She'd been sweating and slightly flushed at the end of the long trip, but that was nothing as to the humiliation of the newly appointed Commander of G-Force and his Second, who were both a shade more usually associated with the Swan's uniform.

The fact that she'd been chuckling the whole way (to say nothing of when she had stopped to chat to a friend) had merely added a gloss to their humiliation.

Anderson had decided that they'd been punished enough. Jason just hoped that he'd actually managed to destroy all the photographs of them that had been taken by various amused ISO staff, and Mark had been inordinately proud of Princess (once he'd gotten over the embarrassment of the whole episode). Ok – they'd been drunk, but she had taken them out all by herself – thus proving the people who had cringed at the thought of a female on this elite team well and truly wrong. And proving to her teammates that she was in possession of a very impish sense of humour.

It had been a valuable lesson that everybody on the base took note of. Jason decided that it was really at that time that Mark had moved from crush to love (well, adoration bordering on obsession, was what Jason thought) with her. Even if he did tend to spout "duty" and "chain of command" every time anybody tried to get him to actually act on his feelings.

Now, years later, she was every bit as deadly – and even lovelier than ever. The past few months, she'd bloomed and all Jason could put it down to was that the war seemed to be over, and she and Mark could get on with their lives.

Except they weren't, and the strain was starting to tell on their friends. Only yesterday, as they watched Mark and Princess manoeuvre around each other, Tiny had muttered to Jason about how pathetic it was, and that if he had to put up with more of this, he'd start getting pointed at them, and could he borrow some feathers from Jason?

Jason agreed, but was at a loss as to what to do, other than go with Keyop's suggestion of a plank and Mark's head, or Tiny's of using a few feathers.

And that lead him to today.

He'd won a race that he'd long desired to – previous attempts had been foiled by the war. It had always humbled him how his friends would always show up to watch him race, and he always felt good that there were at least four people in the crowd who knew just how much each and every drive meant to him.

As a thank you, and to piss Mark off, he'd dedicated his win to her, and had enjoyed having her beside him on the podium, his arm around her, holding her snugly to his side. She had been laughing as she was draped with flowers and sprayed with Champaign. He'd been amused at the filthy looks Mark kept giving him, and his obvious jealousy.

Serve him right. The there had been no attacks for six months now, and as far as he could tell, Mark still hadn't done anything about the situation between him and Princess.

It was getting plain embarrassing. He was fairly certain that Princess was a virgin (he wasn't stupid enough to actually ask her), but he knew for sure that Mark wasn't (Jason could have told anybody who cared to know the exact place and time that occurred. Especially since it was the same time that he lost his – 18th birthday presents courtesy of the Red Rangers. It had been a very eventful birthday).

He also knew that Mark's obsession with planning things was usually his downfall – and he would have bet all his winnings that Mark was planning his next move with Princess. Mark, however, would probably be so nervous about it all that he would be discarding plan after plan in his search for the "perfect" one.

Some things, however, you needed to just go for.

Jason had been startled the previous morning during their training session when he glanced at Princess and saw the naked hunger in her eyes as she watched Mark. He hadn't been surprised, though. Nor was he surprised to see the look reciprocated when Mark watched her.

So it was, that at 3pm in the afternoon, just slightly drunk, Jason decided that he would give Princess something really special for her 21st birthday tomorrow. Something he knew that she wanted more than anything else.

He'd give her Mark, naked, tied to her bed with a nice big bow. And probably handcuffs and rope as well. He had absolutely no illusions about Mark's escape abilities. He was sure that Prin would be able to take things from there; she was a bright girl.

All it would take would be a little planning, and a lot of sneakiness. And if there was one thing he could do, it was sneaky

It was, in his opinion, the most brilliant idea he'd ever had. It would force him to use all his skills, and would make his two best friends happy.

And – even best of all – he'd have a win over Mark, in more ways than one.