Chapter Text
“I never got her name,” Rusty said as they walked out of the cafe, realizing just how distracted he’d been by her. She’d practically pulled the one thing thieves guard with the most precaution, their identities, straight out of him with a smile and never even gave up hers. Danny threw his head back and laughed.
“Like I said she’s good, like really good. Her alias is Nightshade, but her real name is Zara. Although I don’t know her last name…” Danny trailed off, once again lost in thought.
Rusty sighed, putting his hands in his pockets as they walked down the street. It took him a second to realize that they were walking in the wrong direction, he always followed Danny whenever they were walking in a city they didn’t know because Rusty was horrible with directions. A moment later he realized Danny wasn’t even paying attention to where he was going, when three people moved out of his way because he just kept walking Rusty quickly slipped his arm through Danny’s and looked for a place to pull him to snap him out of his thoughts.
He’d seen Danny get lost to the world in thought, anything could’ve happened, and Danny wouldn’t have known. Sometimes Rusty liked to take advantage of it, steal his food, mess up his hair, and so on and so forth. But right now, it worried Rusty, because even though they’d just gotten, as Danny put it, one of the best thieves in history on their team this job was still dangerous. He didn’t want to lose Danny to it. Not in planning it or executing it.
Eventually he saw an alleyway and steered Danny towards it. Thoughts ran through his head as he led Danny into the alleyway; does he kiss him? Slap him? What was he supposed to do to get his partner out of a head space so consuming he didn’t even notice that the surroundings had changed.
“Oh! What the fuck?!” Danny screeched, holding his face where a red hand mark was forming. Rusty gave him a lopsided grin, he’d decided kissing would probably not do the trick and he didn’t want to rape his partner to try him get out of a lost-to-the-world mind space, so a hard slap to the face was his decision.
“You deserved it,” Rusty said with a chuckle.
“Did not.”
“You weren’t paying attention.”
“It’s not like it was a big deal.”
“You walked the wrong way and didn’t listen.”
“You were talking?”
“Yes!” Rusty lied; he might as well make Danny feel bad about it in hopes of preventing him from doing it again.
“So, say it to me again,” Danny said, not deterred in the slightest. Rusty sighed, rolling his eyes.
“Tell me what’s going through that dense-ass head of yours,” Rusty pushed.
“First of all,” Rusty raised an eyebrow, “rude. Second of all, I’m trying to figure out how we get the blueprints. I don’t have a plan yet, just an idea, a concept really.”
“So, you’re telling me that you just enlisted the help of one of the best thieves, as you say, in the world and you don’t even have a plan?”
“When you put it that way-”
“Danny!” Rusty said with a laugh, “there’s no other way to put it! How are we even gonna fund this thing, huh? Out of our own pocket? If we fail we’ll be dead anyways.”
“Rueben?”
“Rueben? Really, haven’t we put enough strain on his wallet?”
“You aren’t thinking like a thief.”
“Yeah asshole, I’m thinking like a friend. One of us has to, we can’t be solely focused on the job.”
“Okay, that was low.”
“Do you really think we can pull this off with three people?"
“We have to, any more than that and we could arouse suspicion.”
“Danny,” Rusty grabbed him by the shoulder, making him look directly at him, “can we really do this?”
“If you’re so worried about it, I’ll call Linus. He hasn’t let us down yet,” Danny relented.
“No! Keep the kid out of this,” Rusty snapped.
Linus was like a son to the two. All of his success they took in stride; knowing exactly how to recognize his work. Rusty felt pride in the kid and all that he’d accomplished, and he especially would not risk his life on a job like this, not when he still had it all in front of him.
“You really don’t have any idea how to pull this off do you?” Rusty asked finally, glancing out at the passer-byers completely unaware of the premeditation occurring in the alleyway.
“I think we should talk to the crew,” Danny replied after a few seconds, leaning up against the wall and running his fingers through his hair.
“You’re the ideas man, they just execute them, remember that” Rusty said.
“So, you’re saying they’re useless to me?”
“No, I’m saying don’t be surprised when they call you ‘fucking insane’ and not take anything seriously.”
When they walked out of the alleyway Danny was his normal scheming light handed self. Rusty could’ve sworn he saw the back of Zara’s head walking down the street when they exited the alleyway but before he could get a better look she was gone. She really was good.