Chapter Text
“Must you do this here? Really?”
“What? You needed to get rid of it somehow!”
Fortuna rolled her eyes as Jacob dumped the body bag into the ditch. Armor clunked around as it hit the ground inside, and he just brushed off his hands. “There. Perfect. Now they’re never going to have to deal with this mess ever again.”
“You are aware that they wouldn’t have caught us anyway?”
“Look, it’s the little things that count. And really, this is on you for not, you know, cleaning up after yourself. You’re lucky I had those body bags.”
“Do you really think I came here without any body bags? Me?”
“I don’t know, you seemed surprised that this guy was here.”
She rolled her eyes again as Jacob climbed back into the convertible’s shotgun seat. “He had attempted to ambush me shortly after arriving. I thought I had fought him off, but evidently not.”
“I know, I’m just messing with you.” He rolled his shoulders. “Can’t believe you booby-trapped your hotel room. God, those poor cleaners. You did mark it as " do not disturb, right?”
“Of course I did, I’m not stupid.” The car started up and was moving again right away, leaving the corpse-filled bag behind in the desert. “I noticed that you didn’t, though.”
“I had a pretty solid idea of their cleaning schedule. Also, I didn’t exactly get the chance between after I threw you into a desk and…yeah, I just didn’t get much of a chance. It was a busy night.”
“Indeed it was.”
Silence fell on the two of them for a moment before Jacob broke it again. “Thanks again for helping me get my stuff. I had a plan out, but Taylor, and everything–”
“It’s no trouble.” Fortuna shrugged. “We’re sharing victory, and I can’t fault you for that, ultimately. I respect why you did it.”
“You still think it was dumb.” “I do think it was stupid, yes.”
“Eh, whatever.” He leaned back in his seat. “I think it was worth it.”
“You do have an interesting moral code for this job, I will admit.” Fortuna sped up some to match the speed limit on the highway. “Not a conscience, but some sort of guiding principles.”
“I’m old fashioned. It used to be way easier to get away with this stuff as long as you could actually get away. Plus, skill lets you be a little more flexible with what you do in this. I’d never be able to do half of what I do if I wasn’t entirely confident in my ability to kill everyone I meet.”
“And yet, all of that extra foolishness ends up working out for you.”
“I’m also just really good at head games.”
“Perhaps you could teach me then.”
Jacob stared at her for a second, before smiling. “It’s more instinct than anything, but I can give you a few pointers. Mainly, you just need to recognize people as who they are. Individuals. There’s types of people, but you can’t group them all together, going off of them by type only gets you a decent starting point. Interactions, evidence, and research. That’s how you figure it out.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“You make it sound like I’m a magician.”
“I supposed I do.” Fortuna nodded. “But then again, one could say the same to me. I’m certain you’re far less technologically adept than I am, and just brute-force your way through more things. You got a keycard from Calvert. I had to try and make my own through knowledge of the Bellagio’s security architecture.”
The sun glinted off something shining in the road ahead of them, and Jacob averted his eyes, blinking as he raised a hand to block the glare. Fortuna had brought sunglasses, but didn’t think she’d need them quite yet. They were heading more northwards, out of the way, and because neither of them had any of their actual plans work out for this, they had no plans for waiting in the aftermath. So they were still riding out to a safehouse Fortuna had up north, until a new plan took shape.
“Yeah, I don’t know how you do it,” Jacob said through gritted teeth. “You’re genuinely an expert. I knew some very techy people, but you’ve got to be on a whole new level. Did you learn it from anybody?”
“There was somebody.”
“Ah, you don’t want to talk about it, gotcha. I’ll just let that one sit by itself. I do have another question, though.”
Fortuna sighed. “You have a lot of those.”
“I like to hear myself talk. But, anyways. I’ve got a few contracts on the line for a while, ones that aren’t urgent but they want some sort of real expert for or just some sort of big plan. Ones that might be a little tricky, targets that are really solid or would take nightmares to crack open. And I want to get them done, I like having money and my job.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“Well, you like having money and doing your job too, don’t you?”
The meaning got through Fortuna’s brain in a second. “This is competition, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely. No offense, but you’re very much not a collaboration person. So we could make a little game out of it, trying to see who can do a job quicker. The winner gets the payout, or a share split depending on if it was close or something, we can work out the rules later. But the point stands. So?”
She gave him a sideways glance before returning her focus to the road. “I like the idea of the profit split. This is a game, isn’t it? If we’re both professionals, then we should both be paid for our work. And neither of us should hamper the other in merely succeeding if it’s really for fun like you said.”
“You’re cheered up.” “Vindication does that.”
“Hell yeah it does.” Jacob stretched, linking his arms behind his head and groaning with satisfaction. “Are you ever going to do anything with that chip, by the way?”
“I’ll keep it as a trophy.”
“Only if we both go on the plaque.”
She smiled.
It had been a draw, in the end. But it was a draw of a stalemate, of two of equal skill locking each other out of total victory. It was a draw that in the end was a success for the both of them.
Nobody could compare to either, save the other. If they were the only two in their categories, only two at the top, then it didn’t really matter if there were two of them. They were both at the top.
Jacob closed his eyes as the wind whipped by.
Sometimes, you just had to take your winnings and walk away.
And honestly, he was glad he’d met Fortuna.
He had a feeling they were going to have too much fun in this little competition of theirs.
And his feelings were always right.
End.