Stars Fall

A/N: It's not a follow-up to Time Disruptor (yet), more like some one shots I didn't know what to do with. So...eh. Enjoy! (May or may not mention stuff raised in the season finale, since I'm most curious where they're planning to go with it in S13). Mostly this is more of the Master and the Doctor being hopeless and not communicating, but other characters will appear too.

(Small trigger warning on part 1 for sexist language and rape jokes)

1: The Old Boys' Club

If there was one thing the Master hated more than the lousy paperwork he had to do, it was having to listen to the other agents chattering. For humans literally working for an intelligence agency, their chit-chat was awfully...boring. Just everyday discussions about their spouses, or their weekend, or other mundane details in their tiny little lives. He was starting to regret that so much of his plan relied on undercover work. Maybe he should just shrink all of them now and save himself the pain...

No, no. Couldn't do that. It would ruin all the fun he could have later.

Over time he either avoided all of them, or learnt to tune it out. It worked pretty well, well enough that he almost failed to notice some of the agents in the office peering out the window.

That was until Agent F said, "She's back again already?"

Agent D laughed. "Swanning around like she owns the place, too."

The Master straightened up and looked out the window by his desk. Sure enough, the TARDIS was parked down below, which could only mean-

He spotted the Doctor waltzing up to the door a second later, hands buried in the pockets of her sky blue coat, easy smile on her face. Honestly, was she actually whistling to herself?

The tiny smile on the Master's face froze when Agent D gave a low wolf whistle. "Wonder what it's like," he said, and the Master looked up to see him raising his eyebrows at Agent F. "You know, with an alien?"

"Are you serious?"

"What? She's pretty easy on the eyes."

The Master tried to lower his gaze, focus back on the stupid paperwork, but he couldn't seem to do it. His eye caught a younger agent, Agent S if he remembered rightly. S was listening too, and he looked mildly uncomfortable.

Agent F hadn't noticed them paying attention. He was chuckling too. "C'mon. You're not smart enough for her. Doubt you're her type."

Agent D shrugged, and the Master could feel his grip on his ballpoint pen getting tighter and tighter. "So what?" he said, smirking. "She's pretty little. Doubt she'd put up much of a fight."

The Master's jaw tightened and he breathed in harshly through his nose. He struggled to contain his expression, but Agent S was looking directly at him. The younger agent at least had the decency to look deeply uncomfortable, and the Master realised he might have been hoping for local alien expert Agent O to intervene.

Alien expert. There was a chance the Doctor had come to see him.

The Master's chair clattered as he stood, distracting Dumb and Dumber from the window. He fixed a neutral expression on his face and hurried out the door, intercepting the Doctor just as she appeared in the corridor. She beamed at him, blissfully unaware of the anger that was still seething below the surface.

"Agent O! Just the man I wanted to-"

He cut her off by taking her arm and shepherding her towards the stairs. "You wanna get coffee, Doctor? I found a great new place."

She looked momentarily surprised by the physical contact - had he never done that as O before? He couldn't remember - but then smiled again. "Love a good tea, myself. Do they have that too?"

"Sure," he said, almost growling the word as other agents turned to watch her pass. Didn't they have anything else to do? He let go of her arm and tried to relax again. There was no way he was explaining the source of his foul mood. He didn't even know why he was so bothered...

"O?" She was looking at him, concerned.

"Hmm?"

"Break something?" She was pointing at his hand.

He looked down, unclenched his fist. He'd brought his ballpoint pen with him without thinking...and crushed it in his hand, the blue ink leaking through his fingers onto the perfect lino floor.

The Doctor was staring at him, a look on her face like she wasn't sure whether she wanted to ask him about it or not.

He laughed, giving her his best puppy dog smile. He shook his hand, dumping the pen in the first bin he could find and pulling a hander kerchief out of his pocket to wipe his hands with. "Just don't make them like they used to, do they?"

The rest of the day passed quickly and luckily the Doctor didn't notice anything, but the Master kept going back in his head to earlier that day.

He was still thinking about it when he took his lunch break in his TARDIS, tinkering around with a new invention. A couple of regenerations ago, comments like that wouldn't have bothered him at all. He probably would have been the one making them...

But then he regenerated into a woman. An older looking one than the Doctor currently was, but he still could imagine the problems she must have started encountering. People taking you less seriously, or making disgusting passes at you. And the Doctor wouldn't even kill a couple people to get them to knock it off.

The young ones seemed to be the worst, especially in the chronically male Mi6. At least crusty old Agent C knew how to behave like a professional.

The Master finished his tinkering, tapping his fingers as he considered.

A familiar itch had started under his skin. He had been good for far too long.

He cornered Agent D in a car park after work. All the cameras had been disabled. No one else was around.

"Appropriate name," the Master called out. Agent D turned, not remotely alarmed. How had Mi6 ever employed this fool? "Agent D. Did you pick it for your one track mind?"

"What's your problem?" he said, chuckling. "You trying to stake a claim?"

"You're really just an animal, aren't you?" the Master said, dropping the friendly facade completely. Agent D's face froze, fear starting to creep into his eyes. "I think you should have a size that matches your brain."

He raised his TCE and shrunk the compensating-for-something red sports car down to the size of a toy. Agent D cried out, flinching back and looking at the Master with terror.

"W-What the-"

"Say you're sorry."

Agent D paused, horrified.

"Say. You're. SORRY!"

The poor animal looked confused. "I'm sorr-"

He didn't get finish before the Master shrunk him down to size. He knelt down, picking up the mini agent and sitting him in the shrunk car. Just like a little doll. He chuckled, unable to stop himself shivering with the pleasure of the kill. Maybe he could gift wrap it and give it to the Doctor as a paperweight for her TARDIS. Then again, that was just asking to get caught. In the end he dumped the doll car and its occupant in his TARDIS with some other clutter.

He debated taking care of Agent F, too, but then he thought...nah. He could have too much of a good thing in one day.

He had bugged Mi6 and was lying in wait outside. The plan was finally getting underway, since Mi6 had finally cottoned on to how useless they were and called the Doctor in.

He watched through the windows as crusty old C greeted the Doctor and her group. "You really do exist," he said...to the old man. Someone behind whispered something the bug didn't pick up and C laughed and said, "No, no, no, I've read the files. The Doctor is a man."

The Master didn't even have time to grind his teeth before the Doctor's voice cut in. "I've had an upgrade," she said, the usual cheek in her voice. Pride welled up in his chest. "Hi."

They were sure to be moving to C's office now. The Master moved to get in position, weapon in hand. Turned out he was wrong about the old fool, but never mind. C was next anyway, along with anyone else in the old boys' club that got in his way.

He listened to the Doctor roasting C for having fired him and smiled.

Let the games begin.