Part 2.1
She landed on the roof in a roll, the gravel pressing into her palms and knees as she popped immediately to her feet. In front of her, Rider didn't make the landing as well, stumbling to find his feet again, and hopping slightly the first few steps to shake out the leg that had twisted under him. It gave her enough time to catch up with him and shove him off balance.
He slid the the side, blocking her first punch and planting his feet in preparation for the fight from which he'd been running. Their chases had fallen into a pattern, running that paused for fighting, which transformed into groping one another, followed by more running. A few nights previously she had caught him twice in his escape. She had a feeling he was purposefully running slower for the second leg of their race.
The only difference tonight was that she had got the drop on him before he stole anything. She caught him on his way there. Now they were looping around and around the Ritz Hotel, as if he still intended to rob it when he managed to get far enough ahead of her.
Could he rob it while fighting her? That would be impressive, especially as the commotion would bring a whole swarm of security down on him.
He ducked, one way, then the other, slipping back and forth with a fluidity like trying to catch a wave with her clenched fist. He took a blow to the stomach, giving him an opportunity to land a blow of his own, pushing her back, changing the tide of the scuffle in his favor as they paced backwards together, blocked blow after blocked blow, one crunching forward pace for each of her backwards steps. He pushed and pushed, hitting each wall of resistance, descending on her like a dark cloud of electric energy and power.
Her back hit the wall and her grasped wrists followed immediately, pinned on either side of her face, the rough stone scraping into her knuckles. And then they were fighting a different battle, one of opened mouth kisses and panting breath, one where she growled and pulled at her hands to break loose, kissing him harder, one where he pressed against her more tightly, more completely, possessive and determined.
It baffled her how he could be so frustrating all the time. Restraining her didn't accomplish anything but making her annoyed, annoyed to be put in a position of relative helplessness, annoyed that with his hands occupied he wasn't touching her. She fought against it by deliberately rolling her hips against him and biting into his lip. As long as she fought back just as passionately, he wasn't really winning. As long as she didn't just sigh in bliss and let him ravish her.
Maybe she liked being shove up against a wall. Did he think of that? No. So there.
His mouth dropped to her throat, biting and sucking enough to leave a mark, licking at her sweat salted skin, reveling in the flutter of her pounding heart. Her leg bent, her thigh riding slowly up his leg, her foot pressing against his calf, until he dropped one of her hands to pull her more firmly against him, his fingers rubbing circles into the flesh of her hip, her ass, her thigh, focusing the pressure building between them into something molten.
She used her new found freedom to fist her fingers in his hair, tugging painfully and getting him thoroughly rumpled, dragging his mouth closer, deeper, down past her collar bone towards her chest, where he focused his attention in a way that was almost ironically dutiful and obliging.
She pulled him up for another kiss, pressing up against his full height and dragging as much from him as should could, savoring the hope that she could make him crumple even as he looked down at her, that she could make his greater strength meaningless, that even as the underdog she could be victorious, making the triumph all the more sweet.
He groaned running his hand over her ribs, breaking the kiss to breathe her name. It was pained and needy, a crack in his facade as he tried to hold himself back, as he tried not to give in to her completely.
"Blondie."
And when he kissed her again it was deeper, slower, more enraptured, as if he was sinking, a change so pronounced yet still so ardent that her shoulders rolled back and her head spun and she cupped his face in her hand with an undercurrent of tenderness they'd never shown each other before. His arm wrapped around her, to hold rather than restrict, to envelop rather than possess, and she was so ensnared in the moment that she forgot to bask in his defeat.
"Too bad we can't just do this all night," he said, his eyes closed, his lips barely leaving hers.
"Why can't we?"
"Aww, Honey, I gotta work."
"No, you don't."
His eyes eased open, and she could see his guard slowly fall back into place.
"You don't have to," she said, fighting not to lose the moment, to cling to it and him and not let her confidence slip away. "We could just... stay here?"
"This your new crime fighting strategy? Keeping me busy through seduction?"
"No. I- You're just wasting your talents stealing stuff. You could be helping people. You could be doing so much good."
He rolled his eyes and the moment was over, his posture changing completely. "What? You want me to give up? Go straight? That it?"
Despite the sarcastic derision in his tone, for one fleeting, blissful moment, she couldn't help but imagine the possibilities. She squashed the idea as fast as it arose, but he clearly saw some emotion dance across her face, causing him to look at her, assessing her in a way she didn't like at all.
He lowered his head and lowered his voice, watching her with warm, lust filled eyes and drawing her close again, this time trying to lure, to persuade.
"Come with me."
"What?"
His hand slid to brush against the side of her breast, causing her breath to catch against her will. "Think of it, Blondie. Together we'd be unstoppable. You 'n me - we'd have Corona on its knees."
She blinked at him, too shocked and confused to respond. Then his eyebrows rose slightly in encouragement and the disgust at his proposition came crashing down on her.
"How- No! Never!"
He rolled his eyes again, and her rage boiled up to take the place of whatever stupid emotions had been controlling her. She shoved him away, her eyes narrowing in a glare, her stance dropping into something aggressive.
There was something in the set of his jaw and the slight frown on his face as he backed away. It was like he was irritated with himself for voicing the idea, for expecting anything different, for setting her off so that she threw up the wall between them once more. For putting himself out there or allowing himself to hope.
The idea that he actually might want that just made her irritation more acute. Irritation. Not terror that their relationship had gotten too close, that he might actually like her.
Not terror at all.
Rapunzel lived in a tired, old apartment building, tucked away on a little-used street on the East side. The neighborhood left enough to be desired that most people had flat out abandoned it, leaving only small, failing businesses, graffiti, and anywhere from one to two dozen drug dealers.
But it wasn't the worst place in town, and Rapunzel didn't mind it so much. It was private and the rent was cheap.
Although they had a landlord, Rapunzel had only seen him once. Any repairs that needed to be made to the water heater or the stairs or the pipes would only get fixed if one of the tenants fixed them. Rapunzel didn't really mind that either. She liked being proactive. She liked taking control of her fate and her life.
The first floor was occupied by a storefront pizzeria, run by a fat man named Charlie, who tried to stay gruff, but somehow managed to still be a sweetheart. When she came home, tired and sore after a long night of stopping crime or fighting with Rider or sitting and waiting, Charlie always gave her some cannoli and let her watch his television.
Most of the apartments on the second floor were unoccupied. The exceptions were a little old woman named Edith, who had lived there for nearly twenty years and had no energy to move, and a young man with a beanie and circles under his eyes. Rapunzel tried not to make assumptions about people. Maybe he worked very hard and thus came home tired and disheveled. But it seemed more likely that he was a lazy stoner, and she had the suspicion that he was actually squatting in his apartment.
The third floor was empty.
Rapunzel lived alone on the fourth floor, in a small, studio apartment with easy access to the roof, and from there access to the next roof and the next, until the whole city spread out in front of her.
She'd had an odd night of waiting for Rider to hit a particular jewelry store. Waiting and waiting on the roof of the office complex across the street, she snuggled in between the front feet of a gargoyle in an attempt to stay warm as the night grew colder and darker, quieter as the city fell asleep. He didn't show. An hour after the latest she'd ever known him to appear, she pulled out her police scanner, shifting through the static and check-ins and the usual calls for disturbances at the university and the port.
She listened in earnest for a hint that she had missed him, some sign that she was in the wrong place. It wasn't like her to miscalculate him – other criminals, sure, but not him. It wasn't like him to pass on an opportunity to grab a tiara.
He liked tiaras.
So at last she gave up, slumping home with a crick in her neck and a chill in her fingers.
She reminded herself that these things happened. And it was actually for the best if it was a quiet night. Less crime was good. It was why she was there. This didn't stop the nagging thoughts of uselessness, foolishness, and irrational disappointment.
Maybe she was just tired.
She slipped into her dark apartment from the fire escape, deciding to just retract her hair rather than haul it all inside. For a moment she stood there, listening to the silence and the quiet brush of her hair, to the call of her bed and the shower and the night's leftover pizza downstairs. In the end the pizza won, as she figured that would make her feel the most normal. She'd have Charlie feed her, then pass out on his deteriorating sofa while she watched an infomercial and he grouched about how the latest delivery boy had quit.
Her suit felt as though it had shrunk and plastered itself to her skin. For some reason the sleeves were difficult to peel away, and she narrowed her eyes at the thought of how she'd worn it for hours without ever using it. She might as well have gone out in her comfy pajamas.
Or just stayed in!
She flicked the lights on long enough to check herself in the bathroom mirror. She hadn't done much, so there wasn't much to check - no debris in her hair or noticeable wounds, her hair short and brown, her mask and suit folded and stuffed in the odd crawl space above the shower where there was once a hinged sash window. Beyond her tired eyes, she looked perfectly normal.
She wasn't sure if she liked that or not.
The transition was always hard. Super to average. Exciting to hum drum. Impressive and powerful to shy and awkward. For a few moments she always struggled with the question of who she was, how she should react, what she was doing. She struggled to cement it in her mind and feel at home in her own skin.
Or maybe that was just part of who she was without the mask: someone who was never comfortable, never at home anywhere.
Charlie glanced up from the dough he was rolling as Rapunzel slipped into the kitchen. He offered her a pitying look and asked, "More nightmares, girlie?"
"You're in a better mood tonight."
He grinned at her, nodding absently toward some misshapen pastries not fit for public consumption. "New delivery boy."
She inhaled the first cannolo before she even made it to the sofa and perched on the arm, plucking up a second from the paper plate. "Do you think he'll stay?"
Charlie grumbled, turning back to his pizza dough as if it had personally offended him. "He better."
Rapunzel smiled to herself and settled in on the couch to watch the man on television try to sell a broom with an extendable, bendable handle. His over exuberance made her exhaustion ever more overwhelming, and she dozed off before starting the third pastry.
She woke to the smell of pizza fresh from the oven and the sounds of muffled voices.
"Do people ever stop ordering pizzas? It's almost four in the morning."
"Hunger never sleeps. And now neither do you."
"Fantastic."
"You'd best watch yourself."
"I'm watching. I'm watching."
Charlie grumbled as Rapunzel rubbed her eyes and pushed herself out of her cramped position. Maybe falling asleep there wasn't the best idea she'd ever had. Oh well. At least she'd get to meet the new delivery boy before he quit. The new delivery boy who-
Her heart stopped.
Her lungs jerked and froze. The color drained from her face, like cold water rushing to her feet, chilling every inch of skin, slowing time nearly to a stop.
Because there, in front of her, standing in Charlie's kitchen, just three floors below her apartment, was Flynn Rider.
Charlie completely missed the horror of the situation. "Oh good. You're up. Now I don't have to whisper in my own place of business. Eugene, that's Rapunzel. She lives upstairs."
Her panic boiled, hissing in wait for the moment when Rider would turn, when he would look at her, recognize her. He knew where she lived. He knew where she lived and now she had to move. And she'd liked it here. She should attack him. Beat him and slow him down enough to give her time to grab her stuff from upstairs and escape. Beat him until he didn't remember her name or what she looked like. What was he doing here? How did he find her?
And of all the fake names! Harold and now this? Eugene? Was he crazy!
She held her breath and tensed her muscles for an attack as he turned, gave her a tired smile, and said, "Hey."
…
What!
No gasp of shock. No widening of his eyes. No smirk of recognition. No overturning the table as a diversion for his escape.
No telling Charlie who and what she was.
But then that made sense. He couldn't out her without outing himself in the process. Right?
But where was that spark in his eyes? The one that said, "Found you! I win!" The one that promised eternal torment. The one to remind her of the last time they'd met and how he could mention it or think about it anytime he wanted. The thought made her blush. It was one thing to fool around with someone so absurd they couldn't possibly exist in real life. It was something completely different to fool around with someone normal, with a job and a life and maybe even feelings. Someone who wore a blue sweater vest over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow.
A sweater vest. She thought she might die. From embarrassment or laughter or fear or from the sheer weirdness of the whole image.
And was he wearing glasses? That was his disguise? He couldn't be serious. This was a joke - a cruel, horrible joke. She was still asleep and this was a really bad dream.
He hadn't even done something different with his hair. Just glasses and the sweater vest and maybe the slightest change in attitude.
She really wanted to comment on the glasses. But then that would give her away. Could he not see her now? Could he not see her all those other times?
Could she ask about them later? Was that against the rules? What were the rules?
Yes. This was definitely some kind of heinous torture. Right when they'd slipped into a sick kind of normalcy, he had to go and change everything and throw her off again. Jerk.
She had to remind herself not to glare at him.
Did he not recognize her? It was too surprising a thought that her disguise actually worked for her to believe it. She held herself back from grabbing at the ends of her hair to check them. If he didn't recognize her then some small part of her was offended. Such a jerk.
What was she supposed to do? Just as he couldn't say anything in mixed company, she couldn't either. She couldn't fly at him. She couldn't glare or sneer.
Should she even be looking this shocked? Shocked was a Rapunzel emotion, so that was good. But the reason for the shock was from Blondie, and that was less good.
Before she could decide how to act, Charlie pulled him away to hold open the hotbag so he could ease two pizza boxes inside and prattle away directions to the next delivery.
Without another word, another glance, he left. And she just stood there, blinking after him.
He was surely up to no good.
Why on earth would he want to be an all night pizza delivery boy? Maybe he was using it as a cover for a job. Someone fancy was going to order a pizza and he'd show up, weasel his way in with his charm and good looks and wit, and then steal it - whatever it was. But then again, their delivery area didn't really cover anywhere with anything worth stealing. Not that she could tell anyway, and she stared at her map for a very long time.
Maybe he was planning on slipping contraband into the pizza boxes to cart them across town. Maybe drugs or diamonds!
Maybe Charlie had a secret fortune hidden in his office that no one knew about. She doubted that one. If he had a fortune, he would have told her.
Rider surely didn't need the sad paycheck. The profit from that ruby alone would make him rich enough to live happily in a different country where she would never have to see his dumb, handsome face again.
So, besides driving her crazy and keeping her up at night, what was he doing?
The most obvious answer was one she didn't really want to think about: he was there because she was there. He wanted to use her or hurt her or get close to her.
Her thoughts stuck on the "get close to" part and she had to shake it off and remind herself that he was a bad, bad man. Always had been. His appearance in her life like this was simply not okay.
But then, if that's what he was up to, then maybe she could do the same. She still hadn't found his hideout, and maybe she should take advantage of this new route that had magically fallen in her lap. Maybe he still had that ruby somewhere.
It didn't take much to sneak into Charlie's office the next day. Even if Charlie found her there he wouldn't have cared or even thought it was odd. The hard part was figuring out how he had organized his paperwork. It was all in a mess on his desk and overflowing out of a few of the open drawers.
It took several minutes of digging with several false alarms of footsteps or shouts from behind the door, where Rapunzel shifted away quickly and looked innocent until they passed, but eventually she found Rider's contact information, written on the back of an old, voided order form from the produce market.
His name was Eugene Fitzherbert.
She scoffed. Fitzherbert? Please.
She scribbled down a copy of his information, hid the sheet back in a random pile and hurried from the building.
His address took her to a friendly little part of the city, in the opposite direction from the area she had tracked him to for the last few months. So it really wasn't surprising when the location turned out to be a public library. She narrowed her eyes at it from across the street, then went inside to use one of the computers to sneak into the police data base.
His phone was a prepaid, disposable thing. She thought about calling it to see if he'd pick up. But then he probably used it regularly for his pizza deliveries, so he would most likely answer, and then she wouldn't really have anything to say except that she had found his phone number and was prone to dialing it.
His social security number really did belong to a Eugene Fitzherbert, which filled her with rage at Rider's gall to steal someone's identity. That was just rude.
The license plate on his car checked out as well. It was registered to Eugene Fitzherbert, and had been for six years, which was odd. So he either stole Mr. Fitzherbert's car along with his identity, or he fabricated the documentation, which would have been a fair bit of work. Or maybe he'd been using this pseudonym for quite some time. The idea that he'd had use for a fake name before she started chasing him for some reason made her jealous.
He had a string of parking tickets, but no moving violations, which seemed like a good reason to take on this identity. Pizza deliverers were supposed to be safe drivers, believe it or not. But something didn't add up. He wouldn't have created this persona six years ago solely for the purpose of one day becoming a delivery boy to drive her crazy. And then it was one thing to say you had a car and a clean record, but it was another to produce the solid evidence of an ugly, old car.
The car was ugly. It was boxy, and the white paint was rusting away around the edges. The back fender was held on with duct tape. He always parked it in the back alley between deliveries, and she took the opportunity one day to break in and go through his stuff.
He didn't have anything hanging from the rear view mirror, which pleased her. No fuzzy dice or tassels or little, cardboard trees. No one could give her a decent explanation for what such things did and she ended up looking weird every time she asked. After a few tries, she decided that she disliked such decorations and their incessant need to mock her.
Despite the fact that the car was clearly falling apart on the inside as well as out, he seemed to keep it relatively clean. From general neatness or from restricting the amount of evidence he left, she wasn't sure.
She scribbled down the name and phone number of his insurance agent, who was a real person but refused to give her much information when she called him later.
Rider's road atlas, although crinkled on the edges, lacked any helpful markings – no bright red X to show his apartment or his hideout, no circles around his next heist, no arrows pointing to his accomplices.
His CDs were unimpressive. With the exception of three albums that seemed to be in everyone's collection, it was all stuff she'd never heard. She picked one with an explosion of colorful swirls around the disk and a name that sounded funny, and took it with her. Listening to it that night in her apartment, she decided it was too weird and loud for her tastes.
She put it back the next day and attached a button sized tracking device under the car's bumper. Its signal led her to a pot-hole filled street, where it sat, innocently blinking at her from the torn and cratered asphalt.
She plucked it off the ground between thumb and forefinger and narrowed her eyes at it. Had it honestly just fallen off? Was it possible that he had found it and removed it? She hid it so well! With no way to know, she was left to speculate the whole idiotic situation, while the useless tracking device blinked up at her mockingly.