A/N: This is based off an anon ask on tumblr and the Heist Society series by Ally Carter. Because when I thought "Rivetra heist AU" (the prompt) I immediately thought of them in Kat and Hale's situation. None of these ideas are mine; I'm just writing them out. Terms are heavily borrowed from Heist Society because I know absolutely nothing about heists/sneaking around/international art theft. Some dialogue is borrowed too. (Wow, I'm original.) I got carried away and wrote three versions of a "Rivetra heist AU," so I'll be posting the other two versions later.
The thing I wrote for Rivetra Week Day 4: AU will be posted later today on my profile because it's way too long for this collection. These three drabble things were just written on a whim while I was supposed to be finishing Day 7's prompt.
The manor was supposed to be deserted.
He'd been planning this particular heist for a quite a while now; it had been no picnic getting the blueprints and surveillance camera locations—Hanji had mentioned that the firewalls around the Rals' security were unusually tough to crack—and there had been a recent art theft at the Henley that had caused all the private owners of Rembrandts and Monets to lock them up tightly in safes harder to crack than Petrovichs.
But according to the security footage Hanji had gotten into, the Rals' most prized Monet—a hundred million dollars' worth of century-old paint and delicate brushstrokes—still hung in their grand foyer, displayed just as proudly as it had always been, and the Rals had been invited to the Schulz family's vacation home in Bora Bora for the week. Their household staff had been given the week off; no one was supposed to be home.
Levi hadn't encountered any trouble when he'd "borrowed" a car from the parking lot at the shopping complex twenty minutes away from the manor. He hadn't had any problems scaling the fence around the manor. There was no difficulty in staying in the cameras' blind spots, waiting for the guards to shift their attention from where he planned to enter, climbing the trellis outside a first-floor window and clipping the wires around the window. He'd dropped inside and landed soundlessly on his feet without a single complication.
It wasn't until he stood in the foyer of the mansion, looking up at the painting hanging over the fireplace mantel in the center of the room's back wall, that trouble arrived in the form of quiet footsteps and the flicking of a light switch.
Years of stealth kept him from jumping in surprise; he only blinked and turned. A girl, only a few years younger than him from the looks of it, stood at the foot of the stairs in the entrance hall, frowning at him. Her copper hair was loose and messy around her face and her tank top and pajama pants were rumpled; she looked like she'd just climbed out of bed.
Had she just come down the stairs? He should have heard her.
"You shouldn't be here," she said. Her voice was surprisingly calm for a girl who'd just found a male intruder in her home.
"Neither should you," Levi said. He remembered the Rals who lived in this house had three grown sons and two daughters; the older daughter was currently studying law at Stanford. This must be the younger one then.
Her expression was wry; she pushed a strand of hair behind one ear and cocked her head at him. "Yeah, tell that to my dad. You here for the Monet?"
Well, at least she wasn't screaming for the guards yet. Levi looked back up at the painting and shook his head.
"Really?" She arched an eyebrow. "I doubt that. How were you going to get it down anyway? You're pretty short for a thief."
You're one to talk, Levi thought; the girl was most definitely shorter than him. All he said was, "No, this is a fake."
For the first time since discovering him, the girl appeared taken aback. "What? No, it's real. The Ral family has the largest collection of Monets in the States."
"Private collection," Levi said, "and this doesn't belong to it." He gestured at the bright paints, the careful brushstrokes—too careful. "It's a forgery; a well-done forgery, but a forgery nonetheless."
The girl stared up at the painting, eyes critical. "Really? How can you tell?"
Levi suddenly thought he was being stupid; he'd miscalculated and despite all his careful planning, the heist had failed. Thieves stayed in the shadows for a reason; it was way past time to leave. Instead of answering the girl's question, he shoved his tools back into the pockets of his jacket, his boots, and headed for the window he'd entered through.
Footsteps padded after him. "Where are you going?"
"You don't want to know," he said, easing the window back open. He swung one leg over the sill and was preparing to climb back down when a hand on his arm stopped him.
"Tell me or I'll scream."
He turned back to the girl; her eyes were perfectly serious, but there was a lightness to her voice and in her face that didn't match the situation. She almost seemed to be… enjoying herself?
Levi was a thief; he dealt with all sorts of art and occasionally jewelry, not people. He wasn't sure how to handle himself around this girl, especially with her apparent bravado—didn't she know how lucky she was that he wasn't any other sort of male intruder? He wouldn't knock her unconscious or worse to prevent her from screaming.
"Why do you want to know?" he finally ventured.
She smiled; it lit up her face, her eyes beaming. "I want to go with you."
"No fucking way."
"Why not?"
"I'm not going to kidnap some girl."
"You wouldn't be kidnapping me. I'd be coming along of my own free will."
"What the hell do you want to come along for anyway?"
She raised her chin and looked him straight in the eyes, and a random tidbit of information popped into his mind; the youngest daughter's name started with a P. Patricia? Pamela? "That's my business. Let me come with you or I'll yell for the guards."
"I came for a painting, not a girl. Nobody would believe me if I said I hadn't kidnapped you."
"No one will miss me," she said. "I'm home alone, aren't I?"
She sounded so sure, so confident, and for a moment he entertained the idea: letting her go with him, bringing her back to Erwin and Hanji (who would be ecstatic to have another girl on the team), finding out her reasons for wanting to leave her fancy house and posh lifestyle for a completely different one, learning her name.
The thought flashed in his mind for only a moment before he made his decision.
"Sorry," he said, and pushing her hand from his arm, he dropped from the window and onto the trellis below.
He would take his chances with the police for a break-in rather than a state court for kidnapping.
He climbed down the trellis as quickly as he could and darted across the manor grounds, trying to stick to the shadows, but haste made him rather reckless. He didn't check for guards—they were going to be chasing him in a moment, anyway—and made more noise than he should have scaling back up the fence, and he didn't even bother to be quiet as he revved the engine and peeled out of the driveway leading up to the gates of the Ral manor.
It wasn't until some twenty minutes later, after he'd returned the car to where he'd found it and was standing in line at the train station for a ticket, that he realized she hadn't called the guards on him.
A bit different from what happened in Heist Society, but I just can't picture Levi letting her go with him, so yeah.
