Idea came from a PM Fluehatraya and I were having about Chikage maybe doing a few more heists after her second retirement. Just meant to be funny in a crack-y way, no offense intended. Chikage acts dumber and more reckless than she really is for the sake of comedy (I hope).

Takes place when Kaito confronts his mother about his father and she tells him how they met. Some references to my DC series (Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and etc) but it's not a part of it.

Like every good boy would do after finding out that his magical, wonderful father was an international criminal, Kuroba Kaito went to his mother after his very first heist to have a deep talk about this sudden new discovery of the room hidden behind the portrait on his bedroom wall and the meaning it had for their family.

Unfortunately, she was in Las Vegas, which meant that there was an ocean and lots of land between them. A plane ticket cost too much and he had school the next day so instead of going over to Las Vegas to talk to her in person, he had to settle for calling her over video chat to talk about this secret.

She picked up with a happy smile. "Hi, Kai-kun!"

He began his gentle, pre-planned speech that would tell his mother the truth about the man she had married without knowing who he really was. Good boys didn't break their mother's hearts, after all. "You knew dad was Kaitou Kid, didn't you?" he asked, gentle as a sledgehammer being swung by a lumberjack.

"Of course I did! He wore the costume when he first met me on top of the Eiffel Tower."

"You said you two first met at a magic show of his!" This was a day of many revelations for Kaito.

"I lied. Sorry, Kai-kun~!"

Screw being a good boy, Kaito hated his mother sometimes. "Any other skeletons in the Kuroba family closet I should know about while we're at it?"

Kuroba Chikage rolled her eyes around as she thought. "Umm . . . I'm pretty sure that Jii's nephew is the head of a gang in Osaka . . . and the designer of the Kid costume is the Head of a school just for future phantom thieves . . . what else . . . oh, and I used to be the Phantom Lady."

"You're kidding me."

"Oh, I see what you did there! But no, amusing as the pun is, I am not kidding you. You see, I first met your father when I was forced out of retirement by some jerks who thought they could take advantage of a lady . . . ."

One romantic and yet really weird story later.

"Well, that explains a lot," said Kaito, who had just learned why he was so good at stealing stuff. That, and just why his father had married his mother. She was everything Kuroba Toichi could have ever wanted in a woman or a spouse; criminal, warped sense of justice, twisted sense of humour, weird talents and a pretty face with a functioning brain. "So after that, Phantom Lady never resurfaced?"

Chikage bit her lip. "Well . . . ."

Nine Years Ago

In the supermarket, Kuroba Chikage, former international criminal and present housewife/mother was currently trying to make up her mind.

'To buy bacon or to not buy bacon,' she mused as she eyed the slices of lard and meat. Lots of lard, microscopic meat. 'That is the problem.'

The biggest problem wasn't the health issue – not only did every single Kuroba, born with the name or married in, have a ridiculously fast metabolism but they also exercised regularly. Bacon could be easily worked off.

No, the problem was the price. The cost had somehow doubled without her knowing and now she was at a dilemma.

'Okay,' she thought. 'I promised Kaito and Toichi I'd get them bacon for dinner someday this month. Tomorrow is the last day of the month and I can't give them bacon tomorrow because I need to visit my friend and I know if I leave them to cook they'll burn my house down. But I can't just buy the overpriced bacon because that gives the food corporations power over me. What do I do?'

Decisions, decisions. She loved her family more than anything in the world, but she absolutely, utterly hated having to take responsibility for dinner.

Sometimes, Chikage missed the good old days, back when she was a thief and she could do whatever she wanted.

One second . . . .

Two seconds . . . .

Three seconds . . . .

Blink! A light bulb went blazed into life over her head as the store's employee turned it on to make the meat look more attractive.

While the lights failed to make slices of mostly-lard-but-some-meat desirable as a date, it did give her an idea.

A plan beginning to form in her mind, Chikage bought everything else she needed and then headed home without the bacon.

Thirty Minutes Later

The mothers shopping for groceries screamed. The men that had been forced to go to the stores by their mothers, daughters, sisters or spouses cheered. The employees gawked and the manager just wondered why this all had to happen in his store as the returned Phantom Lady barged into the store, her two battleaxes in her hands.

"Bonjour!" she waved enthusiastically with one hand, forgetting about the axe. A sign declaring a sale for salted crackers fell onto the ground.

A child waved back and then dropped his lollipop. He began to cry.

She ignored him and walked up to the section where the overpriced bacon sat in all of its fattiness. "I," she began. "Was forced out of my peaceful retirement when I was told that the bacon here is fake."

All the male customers in the store gave a collective, dramatic gasp.

"Yes," she nodded gravely. "And as the Phantom Lady, I cannot allow such a travesty. Therefore, I shall confiscate this counterfeit bacon."

One of the employees edged towards the depressed manager, eyeing the bloodstained battleaxes that she thought were real and sharp. "Shouldn't we call the police?" she hissed as the Phantom Lady began shoving all the bacon into a Santa sack she had brought along.

The manager shot his employee a dirty look. "Are you kidding? We'd just get laughed at."

With a wink no one else could see and a cheerful "Au revoir!" the Phantom Lady skipped off into the sunset-drawn backboard of the 'Scratch-and-Win-a-Vacation-to-Hawaii' contest before running off for real.

Back Home

From his seat at the dining room table Kuroba Toichi, renowned world magician and international criminal leaned backwards to call into the kitchen where his wife was cooking. "Chikage? What's for dinner?"

She slapped three slices of ninety-nine-point-nine percent lard and one-percent pork onto the frying pan where it began sizzling immediately. "Bacon!" she called back.

They could have as many slices as they wanted. She had stocked the freezer with enough bacon to last a lifetime.

Present Time

Chikage crossed her fingers under the table where Kaito couldn't see them. "Never," she assured him with a perfectly straight face.