hi kids! I hope you're all doing well. I follow this golden blog on tumblr called "terrible-miraculous-ladybug-aus" and they posted this prompt someone submitted. I thought it was great, so I decided to pick it up. I originally wanted it to be a funny and light-hearted crack, but AS USUAL my dramatic style swooped in and now it's all serious. I'm still excited about it tho. I been on my heist grind since I was like 10 and baby driver was my top movie last year so SAFE TO SAY i have lots of ideas for this. it's supposed to be a small project tho (KEYWORD SMALL) so many 2-3 chapters at the most. let's see where this goes ladies.
some songs that got me into this story were "say 'a" by a boogie wit da hoodie and 'WHERE THE CASH AT' by brockhampton.
One-hundred and twenty four seconds.
Marinette's mental clock ticked away in her head. She clicked her nails on the red helmet that was sitting on the handlebars of her moped, letting no second pass uncounted. A man in an expensive black trench coat and black toque entered the large class revolving door, a mother and child existed right behind him, the child's cheeks working up a flush as she vigorously licked her lollipop from a nice teller.
One-hundred and fourteen seconds.
She felt her moped key inside her sleeve against her wrist, and practiced sliding it into her palm for speed. Just as smooth as the last fifty times she'd done it. A brisk wind blew her dark hair around her face, but she didn't stop to move it away. She slid the key again, making it move in time with the clicking of her nails and her counting.
Ninety-six seconds.
Marinette abandoned her moped with a final pat on the seat, and joined a small group of people waiting to cross the street. Her red sunglasses covered her sweeping eyes as she took in the traffic coming to a slow to her left.
Thirty-eight seconds.
High heels clicked just behind her on the pavement, and changed pitch as they moved from road asphalt to sidewalk concrete. Only Marinette made the left turn towards the tall marble-face building. She didn't stop to gaze up at the French flag flying above the dirtied marble frieze along the top of the doors.
Twelve seconds.
Marinette pushed one hand against the cold glass of the revolving door, it's last moving moments before it locked behind her, and the other into the inner pocket of her overcoat.
Seven seconds.
The inside of the bank was a busy scene of lines and clicking keyboards. She counted the people in each line, who was walking where, and quickly identified the woman working behind the main counter in the navy pantsuit. Marinette could hear every sound, every roll of every pen, every shuffled of paper and every squeak of every shoe. So much activity filled her senses, an orchestra to the ticking clock in her head.
One second.
And then there was silence. In one smooth motion, she removed one handgun from inside her coat and aimed at the security camera to her right. Her free hand reached across her body and pulled out a second gun, this time aiming for the camera on her left. No more clock, no more paper, no more shoes. In the wake of the gunshots, Marinette's head was finally clear from the noise, the only sound the ringing in her ears and the blood rushing in her veins.
"On the floor! Everyone! This is a robbery!" She let loose one more shot at the camera right above the center teller's desk, the lens and mechanics exploding in a brilliant spray of glass. There was one more central camera that she knew about from her meticulous planning, and that was right above the entrance. She went to turn around, but froze when she felt the cool press of metal at the place under the back of her jaw.
"This is cute and all," a voice whispered in her ear, "but I think I was here first, princess."
Marinette's left arm was still extended from shooting the last camera, and she didn't dare put it down as the mysterious person walked around to stand in front of her, gun still at her jaw. As he walked around, the rest of his weapon came into view, and she couldn't help the small intake of air as the rest of a giant assault rifle became visible. She shouldn't have been surprised at the fact that this man had one- he was a criminal after all, and this was a robbery- but they were still difficult to get in France because of gun laws, and how had he managed to get into the bank with one unnoticed by her or anyone else?
Marinette tore her eyes from the gun, doing the best she could to block out the uncomfortable press of the rifle muzzle at her neck. It was the man she'd seen walk in only a minute earlier, the one in the long dark coat and hat. Except now she saw the hat was really a ski mask, pulled down over his whole head, with spaces for his lips and green eyes to show through.
The two sized each other up for a moment. Marinette swallowed. Someone on the floor had started crying and was sniffing rather loudly. She weighted her options: Her extended arm went past his body, and in the time it would take to move it to get a clear shot at him he could pull the trigger to his gun conveniently pointed right up at her brain. Her other hand was down by her side, but she wasn't sure if a blind shot at his leg would do much good. She needed more time to think, but already her mental clock was ticking again, and the pain at the top of her jugular was getting too much to bear. The list of possible plans always got significantly shorter when you were at the business end of a gun held by an unknown opponent.
"I don't care who you think has dibs in this situation," Marinette started. She shifted on her feet a bit to test and see what would happen, but the muzzle of the assault rifle just pushed harder. She had to keep it cool. "But I do know that we have approximately seven minutes and twenty-eight seconds before the police get here, so we'd better get moving."
The man was silent for a second, considering her words. To drive her point home, Marinette lowered her raised arm back to her side. A second later the pressure at her neck vanished, and the man casually pulled the rifle against his chest, crossing his other arm over it. "Well, you seem like you have a plan." He stepped to the side and gestured towards the row of teller kiosks. "Ladies first." Marinette's only response was to turn and shoot the final camera before huffing and making her way towards the counter.
Seven minutes.
He walked behind her, but Marinette thought it left her plenty of leeway to get her thoughts going again. She shot the low glass plate that separated the tellers from the customers and lifted herself over the counter. The man in black followed. The woman in the navy pantsuit was laying on the floor face down, but when Marinette pulled her up by the collar she stayed limp.
"Aw, poor thing. You probably scared her with your dramatic entrance."
Marinette cast a glare over her shoulder, and then stuck her arms under the woman's armpits and dragged her across the floor over and into the back room of the bank. In her mind, Marinette could see the map of the bank, and the strange trio made their way to the safe in the center of the bank. She grabbed one of the unconscious woman's hands and stuck her thumb onto the touchpad at the door of the safe, and stepped back to let the lock mechanism work.
"What were you going to do if she hadn't been unconscious?" The man asked.
Marinette glared at him again. "I do have two guns."
Five minutes and fourty-two seconds.
"So? What if she refused?"
Jesus, this guy was awfully chatty. "How did you walk in here showing your face? The security tape still recorded everything up to the point they were destroyed." She deflected.
"There's a blind spot in the corner where the door is." He said smoothly. "Didn't you know that?"
Marinette wrinkled her nose. She did not. How had that escaped her knowledge in her meticulous planning? No time to dwell on it now. The safe was open, and she pulled on the heavy door. Cool air spilled out, and she stepped over the lip of the doorway and entered the safe.
Five minutes.
Marinette was back in the zone. She put her handguns into their respective pockets, then pulled two rectangular cloth bags that were tucked in the back of her waist band and began stuffing stacks of euros in them. The man in black placed his assault rifle on the ground and pulled out his own massive duffles. Marinette cast an eye at them, then turned back to her own stacks.
"Those things are tiny. What's even the point?" He didn't hid the disdain in his voice as he carelessly tossed stacks into his bag.
"I know how much I need, and how much can fit if you're stacking it right." Marinette replied hotly.
"Also you keep whispering numbers, why?"
Fuck, this guy was a real asshole. A Grade A bitch. Then again, this was a bank robbery, so maybe she should lower her standards for conversation while on a job. "I'm counting how much time we have left." She growled, wishing for a second her sunglasses were gone so this prick could see how angry she really was. "We have two minutes and thirty-three seconds left, by the way."
"You can count that accurately?" He looked surprised.
"Of course I can. A necessary skill." Marinette carefully began to place her last row of bills into the now perfectly filled bag. "I'm going to double check the lobby."
The man in the coat didn't say anything as Marinette took her bags and left the safe. Carefully, she placed them on either side of the doorway that lead into the lobby of the bank. Softly, sirens could be heard in the distance. Right on schedule.
One minute and fifty-two seconds.
Marinette carefully drew one of her guns from her coat and said a silent prayer before running back to the door of the safe. "They're close. We need to go, now!"
Without looking at her, the man zipped up his two duffle bags and shouldered them. He stood, turning to walk back to the safe entrance where his gun lay, but Marinette was ready. One eye closed, and she squeezed the trigger on her own gun.
With a twisted scream of pain, the man fell back onto the floor. He gasped for air has he pawed at his shoulder, already bleeding from his gunshot wound. He pressed his face into the tile as he rolled onto his side. "What the fuck? You-you bitch!"
Marinette calmly walked over and shoved him flat on his back again, pressing the ball of her foot onto his shoulder like a gas pedal in a car. He screamed. Marinette tisked.
"Oh, pity. Looks like I missed." She cocked her head to the side as she looked down at him, making an exaggerated pouty face. "Too bad you're still alive, now the police will have to pick you up."
Forty seconds.
"Hm, I'd better scoot." She picked up one of his duffel bags in each hand. "Did you really think I would split my profit so easily?" Marinette stepped back, removing her foot from his shoulder. He rolled back into a ball, pressing on his face with his good hand.
Marinette almost turned to go, but then had one last thought.
Thirty seconds.
She picked up the massive assault rifle and slid the strap over her head, slinging the gun across her back. "I don't think you'll be needing this anymore." She picked up the duffle bags again and went as quick as she could with the heavy bags out the door, grabbing her own cloth bags on the way. He left foot slid slightly across the ground with every step, the bottom of her shoe slick with blood. "Nice working with you!" She called over her shoulder.
Fifteen seconds.
As she re-entered the lobby, her internal clock told her she was cutting it very close. She slid over the teller's desk again, and momentarily shifted all four bags into one hand so she could shoot at the glass front of the bank, since the revolving door had locked behind her automatically as part of the bank's emergency systems. The wall of glass came crashing down in a thousand tiny diamonds, and Marinette booked it across the street to her red moped.
Nine seconds.
Her cloth bags slid perfectly into the leather satchels on either side of the seat, but the duffles were an unaccounted for item. She slung them cross-body over her head like she had with the rifle, slipped her trusty key out of her sleeve.
One second.
Parisian police screeched to a halt in the road, sirens flashing and screaming, jumping out of their cars just in time to see a flash of red disappear around the corner, on the sidewalk.