Hey look a new chapter! I'm honestly probably going to apologize every chapter for my slowness in writing this but...at least it wasn't two months this time! :D Anyways, hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!

Rose was shocked but she melted into the kiss for a few moments like she had in her dreams for the past year. It was only a couple of seconds before her brain caught up with her body though and she wrenched her mouth away and pushed at John's chest.

"What the hell, John? You can't just kiss me like that!" Her whole body was tingling and it was an effort not to pull him back down and snog the life out of him.

The hacker quickly stepped back and ran a hand over his cropped hair and then down his face. "I'm sorry, I didn't really plan that. We were fighting and you were right there and…" he trailed off. "There's no excuse for that, I'm sorry."

The only word ringing in his head was a resounding fuck. That had been the exact wrong thing to do but he'd given in to the magnetism that kept pulling him towards her, let logic and sense fly out the window when she tried to leave. Now she was glaring daggers at him and all he could think of was the feel of her lips moving across his and the fact that he could still taste her.

Fuck.

Rose scrutinized his face, trying to judge his sincerity. Slowly, she smiled. "Apology accepted, just don't ambush me like that again in the middle of an argument."

"Does that mean you're planning on staying and having more arguments with me while we plan a bank heist?" He tried not to sound hopeful but he knew he wasn't successful. What was it about her? He wanted her to stay but when she was around she drove him absolutely barmy.

"Maybe, we probably need to talk though." Rose giggled at the look on his face, dispelling the tension. "You don't have to look so terrified at the thought of talking. I promise I don't bite."

"That's debatable," he shot back. "Earlier you looked like a wolf about to launch herself at me and tear my throat out with her teeth."

"I thought about it," Rose said, smiling sweetly as she appropriated his chair for herself.

"In that case…" he backed away, hands in the air and a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Git," she said. "Grab a chair and come over here, I wasn't kidding about the talking thing."

He huffed but did as he was told, sitting just out of arms reach from Rose.

"What do we need to talk about?"

"What don't we need to talk about?" She asked sardonically. "The main problem right now is we're trying to work as individuals instead of as a team and we need to be a team for this to work."

John had been expecting her to try and talk about whatever it was between them, about the kisses, hence his nervousness. He was sure she'd work around to it and ambush him as soon as he let his guard down. That's just how Rose worked.

"Is this going to be another conversation about trust?"

"Probably."

"I think I've made myself clear on that front." He crossed his arms over his chest and leveled a cool gaze on her.

"You have." Rose met his glare with a smile that was more terrifying than any smile had a right to be. There was no malice in it but it still set John on edge. "Obviously I'm not going to change your mind since you're about as stubborn as me but I need to be able to trust you at least a little bit or else this isn't going to work at all."

She glanced at him, trying to read any emotions off of his face that would give her an idea of how to proceed but he'd put on that impassive mask that he was so damn good at and was giving her nothing.

"I mean, right now I'm finding it real hard to find even a grain of trust in relation to our temporary partnership. The bottom line is that you betrayed me at the end of our last job." He tried to interrupt her but Rose held up a finger and kept talking. "No qualifications. You cut me out because you didn't trust me and I don't forgive things like that easily. If Jack didn't need us I would've been happy to never see you again."

"Well that's nice," John cut in acidly.

Rose just glared at him. "That's not even takin' into consideration that you have an annoying habit of making decisions for me and not letting me in on what you're working on even when it involves work I need to do as well."

"You don't exactly jump to let me know what you're doing either," he pointed out.

"Okay, it's something we both need to work on then," she conceded. "The thing is, John, I don't know anythin' about you except that you're a doctor and a hacker and it's hard to work with someone I don't know."

"I'm not spilling my life story just because you've some misguided notion that you need to know me." There was no way John was going to dredge up his past just to satisfy her curiosity. She was a conwoman and there was no telling what she'd do with the information she got.

Trust was not a luxury he could afford no matter how much money he had or how much he found himself liking his partner. Rose kept harping on it like he would just change his mind all of a sudden but he just couldn't. He knew exactly where misplaced trust led and he was not going down that road again.

Rose reached out with her foot and nudged his knee. "I don't need to know the dirty details, just want to get a sense of who you are as a person. Like…" she trailed off, trying to think of an easy question to start things off. "How do you take your tea?"

"That's really what you're going to ask?"

"Shut up and answer the question."

"I don't think I can do both of those at the same time."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Answer the question, John."

"I take my tea with two sugars, no milk."

"See that wasn't so bad, was it? I take mine with one sugar and a splash of milk, in case you were wondering."

"I wasn't," he lied.

John was determined to keep up the façade that he cared nothing about her life even though he thought about it often, wondered what she liked to do when not planning robberies and stealing blueprints for fun. Those kinds of thoughts veered towards an interest in her that was more than merely physical so he tried to ignore them.

He could deal with wanting to drag his partner to a bed and not let her leave for hours, could deal with the musings about what the sounds she'd make as she came for him. Any interest beyond that he would deny vehemently.

"Alright, umm, what did you do with your cut of the money from the Agency job?"

His eyebrows flew up his forehead, "That's quite the jump from asking about tea!"

"Couldn't think of a good intermediate question," Rose admitted. "At least not without gettin' too personal for you."

"Good to know that asking about money doesn't rate as a personal question with you."

The thief smiled, a feral gleam present once more in her eyes. "Money is business, not personal."

John chuckled. "That's true."

He didn't say anything more and Rose nudged him with her foot again.

"Fine, I bought a few things for in here," he gestured around to the state-of-the-art technology all around them.

"That doesn't nearly cover all the money we got away with," she said.

After a moment's deliberation he decided to just tell her the truth about what he'd done with the money. "Gave the rest away to people who needed it more than me," he said with a shrug.

Rose's mouth dropped open but he didn't see since he was pointedly not looking at her, trying to downplay his words.

"But that's what I did!"

His head snapped up. "You did what?"

"I donated most of my cut too. Don't need that much to live on and I know what it's like to not have enough to eat." This time it was Rose who shrugged and looked away. She didn't want to go into her past any more than John wanted to go into his.

"Well we're quite the pair aren't we?" John said, shaking his head, one corner of his mouth twitching upwards in amusement. "Regular Robin Hoods, we are."

"Quite. I knew there was a heart somewhere under the sarcasm and leather and lack of trust," she teased, tongue sneaking out to play with the corner of her mouth. "And see, just knowing that makes me want to trust you a little bit."

"Does that mean we can be done yappin' and get back to work?" John's head was still spinning from the revelation that Rose hadn't kept the money either so the rejoinder came out a bit harsher than he intended.

"It means that we can get back to work, but we're not done talking, not by a longshot."

John groaned theatrically, rolling his eyes. Rose just continued talking. "We haven't really talked about how you like to tell me what to do without listening to anything I have to say. But we can deal with that if it becomes an issue again."

"Can I have my chair back now?"

"No, I might give it back when I've forgiven you but maybe not. It is rather comfortable." Rose bounced in the seat a little to emphasize her point, smirking as her partner's gaze dropped and jaw slackened a bit with the movement.

"I thought you'd already forgiven me?" John sounded very confused as he flicked his eyes back up to meet hers.

"I forgave you for ambushin' me with a kiss." She levelled a cool glare at him. "I haven't forgotten about the fact that you tried to accuse me of leaving Jack high and dry by walking out though. You have some work to do to make me forgive you for that one."

"Ah."

"Right then. To work?"

John gestured for Rose to move out from in front of his workstation and settled in at his computers again, pulling up the info he'd gathered to share with Rose.

"I still think you going into the bank beforehand is not a good play," he said, still typing away.

"It wouldn't be putting the job in jeopardy. I could get a sense of what the area was like and what it would take to infiltrate. Plus I could see the actual boxes and know what I would need to crack them," Rose argued.

"Can't you do the same amount of recon if I hack the camera feeds and a blueprint?"

"Technically, yes. But I prefer to get an in-person look if it's at all possible and it's very possible for this job."

"Possible, yes. Advisable? No."

"You're a stubborn bastard, you know," Rose said, no heat behind her words.

"So I've been told."

He shot a wicked little smile at her over his shoulder and Rose felt something in her stomach clench. She could still taste him on her lips and it was distracting. She may have not been expecting the kiss and might have rightfully told him off for springing it on her but there was no denying that there was still a spark between the two of them.

Lots of sparks. Damn near a fire actually.

She just had to try and ignore it until they were done working together. Maybe things would go her way at the end of the job this time and she could finally see what was under those tight jeans.

"You haven't explained why you think it's such a bad idea for me to go in."

"Someone will remember you. You're charismatic, you'll make an impression. If you just use the blueprints and camera feeds like you did for the Agency you won't run that risk."

Rose cocked her head to the side. "I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult."

"What?" John spun around in his chair to face her again, letting his program run unsupervised for a moment. He'd just been using it as an excuse to turn away in the first place.

"You managed to compliment me as a person and insult my skills as a grifter at the same time. If I don't want people to remember me, they won't. I'm very good at not drawing attention to myself if it's necessary."

"I find that hard to believe." John quipped, running his eyes over her slowly again. "You seem like the kind who goes for the flash in order to distract people from what you're really doing. Flash is memorable."

"Oi, insulting my skills again!"

"Am I wrong?"

Rose glared at him, "No. But I'm perfectly capable of being nondescript as well!"

He looked insufferably smug. "So do you agree that it would be safer to work off blueprints and video feeds then?"

"Fine, yes I agree. Get back to work then and get me something to work with."

"Yes ma'am," he said, sketching a salute at her before turning back to his screens.

"Idiot," she muttered, settling in to wait.

"Talented idiot," he amended for her. "Go check the printer, there are some basics for you start working with."

She took the chair with her and went back to the table she had set up at earlier, spreading the papers out in front of her. There were street maps of the area surrounding the bank, maps with all the buildings labeled, lists of the hours of the bank and surrounding buildings and their general dimensions.

"You were paying attention to how I set things up on the Agency job, weren't you?" Rose said, surprised. This was all information that she would have looked up herself as she organized a heist.

"Course I was, always interested in seeing how other people's minds work."

"Just don't like working with them?"

"Hate it. Prefer working against them."

Rose didn't even bother answering that one. She kept having to remind herself that they were just two people working together out of necessity, not an actual team. Comments like that helped bring it home.

She buried herself in organizing all the data John had procured for her, she just needed to ground herself in the work and ignore the politics involved in negotiating this weird non-partnership with John.

This is why she typically avoided working with others. It was too hard to try and mesh opposing styles and personalities. And it didn't get much more opposite than her and John. She knew there was potential for the two of them to work extremely well together. They'd done it on the Agency job most of the time. Now though there were two kisses, a betrayal and a lack of trust hanging heavily in the air between them and she did not want to deal with it.

Life would have been so much simpler if she'd never met the infuriating hacker. She let a rueful smile play across her face as she shook her head, much simpler, yes, but probably much less interesting as well.