Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing…sniff….but I sure have a load of fun using them for my own devious plots…p.s. I don't make any money from this if you're wondering.

Authors Note: This has been stuck in my head for a while now, I thought it would be better out...

Thank You to AmePiper for beta'ing this!

To Catch A Thief

Chapter 1: Easy Pickings

The first time I met him I robbed him. Hey, its not what it sounds like. We weren't like 'hi', 'hi' and then – wham bam! - I nicked something from him, no! It wasn't intentional. Now, don't look at me like that. I swear on my next meal (which is like gold to me) that it wasn't intentional! Pah! I give up. I can see that a thief's honourable word won't convince ya', I can deal with that. Though I gotta say that hurt – sniff – anyway I'll tell ya what happened, then, we'll see whether you believe me or not.

Like I was saying, I robbed him. But before we get into the details let's rewind events a bit. I'm a professional pick pocket, or I'd like to think so. It isn't like, recognised professional world wide, or anything, but it might as well be in my neighbourhood. Bank robberies aren't really my forte.

Confused?

Give me a few seconds to explain. I stunk at them; the whole 'stick em up' thing just wasn't for me. Anyway a buddy of mine asked me to back him up at a stint. It was meant to be an "in an' out" kinda job. Yanno? It defiantly didn't turn out like that. The guy who I called my 'buddy' – well here the term 'buddy' is used pretty loosely, heck the guy who mugged you could be classed as a 'buddy', see.

Well the guy who I was doing the favour for, let me clarify, was a complete idiot. So why did I go along with it, your wondering? I owed him, enough said – now owed is something completely different here on the streets, ah, what the hell, you'll catch on as I go along.

Skipping a few beats; so we were at the bank. Let me get it into your heads, the guy was an idiot, how in the nine hells did he expect us to go unnoticed in this marble museum filled with these rich snobs? We would have made a better impression if we waltzed in with signs on ours heads saying 'Robbery in progress, please remove any expensive items from your person and form a nice orderly queue, we will collect each item shortly, sorry for the inconvenience.'

At least it would have given us enough time to snag a few pricey items from some heavy pockets. This was basically what the idiot was proposing, that's basically where his plan would have got us. Still it wasn't my place to open my big mouth. But I would definitely be tweaking most of the plan to suit myself – secretly of course. Hey…every man for themselves.

We got into the bank and right on queue the security hard asses were already on alert. Jeez…I don't know whether to be proud or what. I just paste on my most innocent expression, heh! I can wear innocent to the crumb, I could probably sell cookies better than any scout I've ever seen but I'd be no good for that profession; I would eat all the cookies myself.

I smiled at the guard making sure to lace as much innocence as I could and blinked my large bluish eyes at him. Hooked and reeled in. It never failed.

"Hey there son,"His voice was deep, stepping forward he looked me over.

"Now what are you up to all alone? Hmm?"

I could already see that he'd already let his defences down the second I flashed my smile; my part of the plan complete – distraction 101. Meanwhile my buddy was meant to have slipped past, which in fact he did. About the only thing the jerk did right.

"I was just wanting to open my first bank account...sir." I say, then on queue; blink, blink. Batter my eyelashes a bit.

Adding 'sir' on the end as a sign of respect was the icing on the cake. He bought it. Hook, line and sinker.

Pathetic really if you ask me, his hand was already on my shoulder like some long lost son, if only he knew, though in the long run it's better he didn't.

In his mind he probably thought I was fourteen or fifteen-ish, I'm actually going on seventeen but I don't look it most of the time – or act it for that matter - stunted growth and all that jazz.

Anyway, the easy part- my part-, was to distract the chief guard. Of course as I said before nothing went as planned. Big guy decided that I was just a tad too young to manage the Oh! so amazing adventure of opening my own bank account without help. Really, I think by then I was really insulted but hey, I can't blame anyone else – sadly – but myself.

He took me by the elbow and led me towards one of the tellers, or so he said. Tell what? I wondered stupidly – now that I know what the word means - still I didn't want anyone to tell me anything, fucking hell I was just trying to rob a fancy bank, give a guy a break?

I tried every trick in the book to get him to leave me alone but he just kept calling me 'son' and steering me towards a bank employee. Gah! I was dead meat. Just as we were reaching the barriers near the beginning of the desk, a godsend happened - the bank alarm was set of and with it all hell was let loose.

It was one of the funniest sites of my life! The high class snobs no longer strutted about with their noses held high.

Man, I had to chuckle. Did they split! Bags were dropped as the owners skedaddled! Oh, my God! What a laugh! And while they were all doing impressions of headless chickens, I did what I do best.

They were basically spoon feeding me all that cash. The things they dropped… I picked up. What can I say? Finders' keepers, losers' weepers. And there would be a lot of weeping tonight! I must have taken nearly three grand worth of money not counting the jewellery I managed to snag. How did I stash it all? Well darlin' that's what hidden pockets are for!

Life was good.

It was what I would call a job well done. Unfortunately among my easy pickings was a tiny green gem that would end up causing me more trouble than it was worth. I had robbed the wrong thing from the wrong guy and frankly, he was determined that I would pay.

Did I say life was good?

You see you can reach a point in life when things are just too good. You've reached the top of that particular curve so it's time to bring you back down to earth.

Painfully.

Chapter One: End

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