The Stillness of Winter Chapter 2: Cold Hard Cash, a teen titans fanfic

Chapter Two: Cold Hard Cash

Shouta sighed, letting his head rest against the cool tile, trying to relax and let it flow. "…Do you really have to stand there watching me pee?" He finally asked, looking over his shoulder at Batman.

The bat-themed vigilante looked very out of place in a normal bathroom, leaning against the sink. "I'm not standing here watching you pee," he retorted, "I'm leaning here watching your back while you don't pee."

"I can't go while people are watching me!" The cryomancer complained, shaking his head, "…And I also just realized I have to, uh…more than just pee."

Batman rolled his eyes.

…

"...God dammit…"

"What now?" The vigilante sighed, standing outside of a stall, somehow frowning even more.

"Just…do you know how hard it is to wipe with your hands cuffed?"

"Yes. Deal with it," Batman grunted. His eyes flickered as the door opened slightly, letting the teen poke his head out through the gap.

"Listen you pointy-eared punk-ass," Shouta growled, blue eyes narrowing, "I turned myself in so that I could tell you what happened, to give you all the context for my crimes. I'm not going to run. So can you please…uncuff me so that I can go to the bathroom with just an iota of dignity?" He offered his cuffed hands as Batman arched an eyebrow. "Point number two: you're Batman. I couldn't escape if I wanted to."

The vigilante stared at him, the blank white lenses covering his eyes adding much to the intimidation factor. After thirty seconds, he reached over and unlocked the cuffs. "You have five minutes."

"Thanks!" Shouta whooped, shutting the door. Then cracking it open again. "Sorry for calling you a punk-ass." The door shut and locked.

Batman silently pulled out his notepad and made a note.

…

"Alright, where were we?" Shouta asked as he sat back down at the interrogation table, taking a drink of water.

"Grand Central Banking Services," Batman said, pad and pen in hand.

"Right, so I figured out what I needed to do, Recon," he continued, tapping his fingers on the surface of the table, "And obviously some guy loitering around a bank is just suspicious, so I needed a subtle place to hide and observe. I went to a hardware store, bought a couple of wooden dowels and had them cut to a couple feet long, then some tarp, silver spray paint, nails and duct tape. I told the clerk it was a school project and didn't get any second looks." He took a quick drink. "Then I hit up a camping store to get a bigger backpack, a sleeping bag, binocs, some netting, jerky and 'astronaut food'...which was just regular food, but freeze-dried. It was alright, though the ice cream was actually kinda good. And a book of birds, so if anyone asked I could just say I was interested in bird watching."

Batman grunted, making a note.

Shouta cleared his throat. "After that I took a bus out of town, spray-painted the tarp and nailed it to the dowels, then put duct tape on it in lines. Day later, I walked into town, found the bank and climbed a fire escape on a nearby building and set up my little recon nest. It looked like one of those outflow pipes for air conditioning, with the netting over the front so people couldn't see in but I could see out of it. With the sleeping bag, it was actually kinda comfortable, and I spent the next two weeks observing the bank."

…

"-Again, manager pinches his secretary's butt, sexually harassing bastard," Shouta wrote down with a sigh, "Manager eats lunch, sub sandwich, and…12:15 on the dot, Mrs. Henderson shows up to see her lockbox." Setting his pen down and taking up his binocs, he peered into the bank through the lenses, watching as the balding manager welcomed a stooped old lady into the back where the vault was kept, desperately wiping his hands on his pants.

Grumbling to himself, he adjusted the lenses to try and follow the manager and the old woman back to the vault, but it turns out the very secure place they kept all of their money wasn't visible from the windows, who knew. Letting the lenses wander, he noted the presence of security; two guards, armed with pistols, tasers, pepper spray and such in the lobby, two cameras covering the entrance with another two covering each side. He had noticed, however, that one of the cameras on the sides was fake. It swept back and forth with a blinking red light, but the day before a particularly fat pigeon had nested on it and it had fallen from the mooring to dangle on a power cord. More particularly, it had taken security over an hour to figure out the 'camera' was down.

"I need to get inside," he mumbled, "And figure out the code…and the other protections on the vault…" Shouta sighed and let his head rest on his notebook, idly reaching over to dig in his bag of jerky, sticking a bit of salty dried meat in his mouth. Propping his chin up on his arm, he peered through the binocs again and noticed someone new opening the doors; a young man with the patchy beginnings of a goatee, carrying a briefcase and wearing somewhat professional clothes. He was greeted with a handshake from a security guard and escorted up to the manager's office. "Must be for an interview…" Shouta mumbled, a smile spreading on his face. "I've got an idea…"

The jerky dropped from his lips and fell on the paper, making the teenager curse under his breath as he dried to wipe the resulting grease stain away, only to pause in thought. Looking up at the bank, recalling the manager eating lunch before showing the old woman to the vault… "Make that two ideas."

…

Six days later, Shouta entered the bank dressed in new, fancy clothes. Pressed black slacks, a white button up, a dark blue tie and a charcoal vest, along with a leather briefcase that had belonged to his dad. They were the most expensive clothes he'd ever owned, but even then they wouldn't be considered a drop in the bucket for the likes of Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen and Lex Luthor. Part of him felt guilty that his clothes had been bought with his cut of the money he'd stolen, but the other part thought he looked good.

"Excuse me," he greeted the teller with a professional smile, "I have an appointment with Mr. Stevens at noon, could you direct me, please?"

"Oh, you must be the student who's doing a report on the bank!" The teller smiled, her eyes briefly sweeping over his attire before she waved a security guard over, "Roberts, can you take this young man up to the Manager's office?"

"Sure," the bearded man said, subtly flexing his arms as he waved Shouta over, the male equivalent of batting his eyelashes at the teller. "So, a report on a bank, eh? That's…not too exciting."

"It's supposed to be," the teenager muttered conspiratorially, "Everybody's doing reports on the Flash and his Rogue's Gallery, so I'm hoping the teacher just passes me without looking too deep."

"Smart," the guard snorted, straightening up as they approached the big office. "Have fun, kid. Mrs. Stevens, here's his twelve o'clock."

"Thank you, Roberts," the woman said kindly, and from a distance Shouta realized the woman was older than he thought, and given that she and the manager had the same last name, he mentally crossed 'sexually harassing bastard' off of his notes. She smiled at him, minutely adjusting a frilled blouse. "Welcome to Grand Central Banking Services, Mister Corvinoff. Please take a seat, the manager will be with you in just a couple of minutes."

Nodding, he sat down in a comfortable pleather chair and pulled a notebook from his borrowed briefcase, pressing harder in certain spots to bleed the ink through the paper as he wrote. It was a simple description of the building, with small notations to add detail as he looked around, making sure not to linger on the cameras but on the various shiny features. The floor was granite but made to look like marble, the chairs resembled leather but weren't, and the various wooden furniture looked like mahogany but was some other wood stained to look like it. Not to mention the lamps and metal fixtures, which were brass made to look like burnished gold-

…

"-How do you know?" Batman interrupted.

Shouta paused, mouth half-open as he mentally shifted gears. "...What?"

"The floor, the furniture, the fixtures," the vigilante listed, "How do you know they're fake?"

"Well marble has subtle dark streaks while granite is more liberally pebbled," the teenager started, "the floor in the bank looked like marble except around the edges, like they'd gotten plate glass over granite and sanded it to look like marble, then added carpets to draw attention away from the clearer spots. As for the pleather, I told you my dad works with cars, right? Leather and pleather can look the same, but it just feels different, even the high quality stuff. With the fixtures-"

"I understand," Batman interjected, making a note in his book, "Continue."

"Hey, you asked," Shouta shrugged, "So, I was making notes when the door opened-"

…

"Ah, Mister Corvinoff!" The manager, a balding man with a bit of paunch from his fondness of heavy lunches, greeted him with a smile as the secretary led him inside the well-appointed office. Unlike the rest of the building, the furniture was real leather and mahogany, with a plush red carpet over marble flooring. "Welcome, please, take a seat!"

Shouta did so, resisting the urge to relax on the comfortable cushions of the chair, instead sitting up straight with his notebook on his knees. "Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to see me, sir," he replied with a respectful nod.

"Nonsense young man," the manager waved it away with a gregarious smile, "It's a genuine pleasure to nourish the next generation…though I must say, I was surprised to hear that a student wanted to do an in-depth paper on our establishment. With all these superheroes and whatnot running around, most kids don't think it's all that 'cool.'"

"Well, my parents are both part-time owners in separate small businesses, and if there's one thing I've learned from them, it is that finances are the most important part of any business," Shouta supplied, casting his gaze around the room, looking suitably awed as his eyes took in the details, "I wasn't sure what they meant then, but I do now."

The manager launched into spiel about the importance of money, handling it and whatnot and though he was genuinely enthusiastic about the subject, nothing could make taxes remotely interesting. Shouta made sure to nod and take notes, surreptitiously confirming his earlier look, pointing out a row of plaques on the wall that were awarded to the bank for their ethics. He also noticed that the other wall was mostly a bookshelf, with leather-bound tomes of popular, pretentious and popularly pretentious books lining the shelves, like Ozymandias, The Prince, The Iliad, and other such things.

They weren't alphabetized, either, and for some reason that detail pissed Shouta off just a little.

"-And that is why the Premium Tax Credit is so important," the manager finished, smiling as Shouta dutifully noted it down. "Now, do you have any questions for me?"

Shouta listed off a couple of basic questions, along with a few his dad had added for him, ending with: "-My dad says it's never too early to get work experience, so last question: are you looking to hire an intern?" He shrugged playfully, already knowing the answer.

The manager laughed obligingly. "It's against company policy to hire minors, but here," he wrote down a quick list, handing it to the teenager across his desk, "These are the classes, certificates and degrees we look for in prospective employees. You seem like a smart boy, I'm sure you could complete more than half of those before you begin college, and if you do that, I can see no reason why you couldn't intern here right out of the gate." He leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially, "Plus intern hours count as college credit."

Shouta didn't know what that meant exactly, but he smiled like he was sharing an important secret, looking over his shoulder as the door opened to admit the secretary, who gave them an apologetic look. "Sorry to interrupt, but your 1 o'clock is here."

"Good grief, has it been an hour already?" It definitely had. Shouta reached over and into the manager's hand, the older man patting his shoulder. "It's been a treat speaking to you, Mr. Corvinoff, but I'm afraid I have to get back to work."

"Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk to me, Mr. Stevens," Shouta replied with just a bit of smarm, "The world of finance is an intriguing, complex web. I bet I could get an A just by turning in my notes."

"Indeed it is,," the manager nodded as another security guard entered the room to escort him from the room, "Have a wonderful day, Mr. Corvinoff, I hope to see you here again soon."

Sooner than you might think, Shouta thought, nodding as he was led from the room. Halfway down the hall, he stopped and adopted an embarrassed look. "I…uh, I gotta use the bathroom."

The guard gave him a flat look and gestured for his backpack. Handing it over, Shouta did his business and washed his hands, pulling a pair of cheap sunglasses from his pocket and donning them. It was little known, but the polarization chemicals some companies used, especially the cheap-ass ones, did usually block the sunlight, but they also let the one using them see through other polarized surfaces. Like the domes covering the cameras in the bank, for instance.

Shouta whistled as he emerged from the bathroom, stretching and wiping his hands on his pants, eyes taking in the cameras, trying to stall to see if they moved or stayed still. "Man, if I got to pee in a bathroom that nice everyday, I'd take being a security guard as a job."

The guard huffed. "Yeah, that's for visitors, the employees have their own bathrooms," he muttered, handing the teen his backpack, "C'mon, no lollygagging."

He noted the lack of movement in the cameras and took his pack back, letting the guard lead him down the stairs and into the lobby. Just as they entered, Shouta held up a finger and tilted his head, scanning the cameras. Just as the guard began to frown and eye him suspiciously, the teen sneezed into his sleeve. "Sorry," he mumbled, wiping his nose and walking out of the bank.

At home, Shouta laid out the floor plan for both floors of the bank, images that were publicly accessible on the Internet, peeling a pair of pages, thin like grease paper, from the back side of his notes. Where he had pressed down and the ink had gone through, when aligned with the floor plan, it marked where he'd seen the cameras. Recalling what he'd last seen, he added arrows which ways the lenses were pointed.

With all that information in front of him, Shouta took a deep breath and began to plan. "Hey dad, can I borrow your car tomorrow?"

…

The next day, he was back in his recon tent, watching through his binocs as the manager tapped away at his keyboard. It was a normal Wednesday, but there was a special delivery coming. He watched as the delivery boy jogged into the bank, handing off a bag of visibly greasy food to a teller, who carried it up to the secretary, who wrinkled her nose and brought it into the manager's office, crossing her arms as he denied ordering such food. As soon as she left, the manager dug in, munching on fried chicken.

Of course Shouta had ordered the food, specifically the breast and thigh meal from 'Aunty Selina's Heavenly Chicken,' a Central City staple known for being damn good and damn greasy, especially since he'd ordered double-battered extra crispy. The grease on that was almost impossible to remove, no matter how many times one washed their hands. It was the glitter of grease.

"...And 12:15, here comes Mrs. Henderson," Shouta smirked to himself, watching the old lady hobble into the bank, seeing the message get passed up to the manager who tried to clean his hands, first on napkins, then his pants before finally being forced to shake the old woman's hand with his greasy fingers. He watched as the two disappeared into the hallway containing the vault, nodding to himself before breaking down his tent, packing it into his backpack before scaling down the fire escape.

Hopping into his borrowed car, Shouta drove himself back home to wait for nightfall, going over his plan once again. When the time finally came, he loaded two bags of laundry into the trunk of the car before heading into town, pulling up to a laundromat three blocks away from Grand Central Banking Services. Loading the clothes into washers, he started the cycle before sidling up to the supervisor, who was supervising a book with a bored expression. "Hey man, I gotta run some errands," Shouta muttered, offering the man a folded twenty, "Can you switch my clothes over for me?"

The man shrugged and accepted the bill before returning to his book, and the teenager slipped out of the back. He walked a block before changing into his 'crime' outfit, with the addition of a small version of his camera map taped to the inside of his wrist. Sneaking to the back of the bank, he hid himself behind a dumpster, out of sight of the real camera mounted above the door.

Taking a deep breath and licking his lips, Shouta took careful aim with his finger, firing a small beam of frost at the power cord plugged into the wall, a ball of ice forming around it until the weight pulled it down, pointing the lens straight up. Wiggling his fingers, the ice cube cracked and fell to the concrete, shattering. He licked his lips again, mouth feeling incredibly dry as he shifted in place. The sound of the door opening was like a gunshot in the oppressive silence, the grumbling of the security guard as he tried to fit a ladder through the door less imposing.

"Yeah, the cord's just bent, there's no damage," the guard muttered into the walkie strapped to his chest, leaving the ladder blocking the doorway. "I'll get it fixed, just a sec." As the guard struggled to get the ladder out, Shouta took one more look at his camera map and a deep breath before making his move.

The guard was setting up the ladder while the door began to swing closed. Creeping forward, he lunged through the doorway, pressing himself against the wall just as the door slammed shut. Breathing heavily, he crept through the halls, checking his map before darting across to the stairwell. On all fours he went up the stairs, pausing at the top as the camera mounted above swept over the landing. As it swept back, Shouta slipped underneath, kneeling behind a potted plant before crouching over to slide under a bench. There, he waited for an agonizingly long couple of minutes.

Eventually, a pair of stomping footsteps reached his ears as the guard returned from fixing the camera, grumbling all the while. Sliding himself out from under the bench, Shouta almost followed behind the guard as he entered the security, stopping himself as the camera swept back in his direction. Quickly, he ducked behind a chair, throwing a hand out as a beam of ice shot from his finger, freezing the bottom hinge just before the door could close.

The camera swept back and he stealthed forward, carefully opening the door before rolling through, the shattering of ice covered by the slam. "What was that?" One of the guards asked, a mostly-empty cup of coffee in one hand.

"That was you, dumbass," the other replied, casually clicking through the feeds. "Guess that'll be the most excitement we have all week, eh."

Shouta crept to the back of the room, finding a plain door that opened to reveal a bathroom with a single stall, a urinal, a sink and a hand dryer. Carefully closing the door, he went into the stall and stood on the toilet, pulling the door shut. Feeling unbearably sweaty, he resisted the urge to pull up his mask and wipe his face, instead waiting for the inevitable. Minutes later, the door screeched as it was shoved open, a voice calling back, "Just gotta pee real quick, relax!"

Gathering power into his hands, Shouta threw his palms forward as the stall door opened, the security guard barely having the time to look shocked before he was frozen in place. He carefully applied another layer of ice before using his fingers to dig small holes so that the guard could breathe through his chilly prison, but not enough that he could shout.

Pushing the bathroom door open, Shouta didn't bother being quiet as he walked up behind the other guard, tapping him on the shoulder, then freezing him as he spun around to look. He made the breathing holes before wheeling the other guard into the bathroom as well, shutting the door and approaching the computer. Several different screens covered the wall, some showing static angles and others slow sweeps. Accessing the console, he searched through the program commands before sighing, Control Alt Deleting to bring up the Task Manager before forcing every program to close and turning the whole thing off.

With the threat of him being recorded gone, it was like a weight had lifted off of his shoulders. Breathing a sigh of relief, Shouta stole a donut from an open box and bit into it. "Mm, lemon-filled." With an unburdened stride, he opened the door to the manager's office and stepped inside, flipping on the lights and finishing his donut. "Alright, what kind of password would that jackass have?"

He tried the dumbass passwords first, bobbing his head as none worked. Checking the hint, it read only 'In Front of You.' Looking up, Shouta found the bookcase full of unalphabetized books, squinting his eyes at the spines facing towards him. "Oh," he muttered, reading the first letter of every book and typing it in. It wasn't a word, but using book titles for a password when the books were literally on the other side of the desk was about a little better than having the password on a sticky note.

With complete access to the manager's computer, Shouta began looking through his most recent tabs. There was a stunning amount of porn. "Ew," he mumbled, noting that the participants in said porn were usually an older guy and a younger woman. Leaving that aside, he searched through the manager's email account, noting that a few emails had been deleted for seemingly no reason; everything else was pretty boring, being work memos and occasionally messages to his wife. Following the trail of the deleted emails led to a folder marked 'Tax Documents' which revealed something intriguing.

The manager had been dealing with villains and criminals, keeping them away from robbing the bank itself by bribing them with routes for the armored cars that transported money from the bank. After it had been transferred, the money was then the responsibility of the car company, and thus it could be stolen without damaging the bank's reputation. The money was still insured through the bank, so when it was lost they got a cut of the payout.

Shaking his head, Shouta looked at the plaques with the ethics awards on them. "Ethics my ass," he muttered, grabbing the most recent one off of the wall and stuffing it into his backpack. Then he set up a little surprise: the next time someone logged onto the computer, it would autoplay porn at the highest volume, while displaying all of the files and records the manager had kept from his dirty deeds.

Nodding, he started rifling through the desk, looking for a keycard. Finally in one of the drawers near the bottom, tucked in between actual tax documents and- "More porn," Shouta huffed, giving the cover a glance, "Vintage, too." Shrugging, he shoved that in his backpack too before claiming his prize: a spare keycard for opening the vault's first and largest door.

Anticipation bubbling his veins, he nearly skipped down stairs and to the door in the central hall; thick, metal, imposing and polished to a mirror shine. Set in the wall next to it was a simple keypad and a fingerprint scanner. Pushing his balaclava up over his mouth, Shouta blew a light, cold breath over the scanner, grinning as the greasy imprint left behind frosted over slightly. Wrapping a bandaid around his thumb, he ran the card and pressed down, the light flicking green.

With a great clunk and the grinding of gears, the knob at the front of the vault spun before the door slid open smoothly, letting out a rush of air. Merely a few steps into the vault and he found the second door, a gate with a keypad. Using the same breath trick, the greasy fingerprints marked the numbers for the key code, though it added a complication, seeing as how Shouta didn't know the code. Grabbing a piece of scrap paper and a pen from his backpack, he wrote down the numbers, finding that if the manager only pressed every button once, he would have a seven-digit code.

The amount of combinations for those numbers alone would take hours to go through, and while he could just freeze the lock off, he was keeping that as a last resort. He couldn't know if doing so would trigger a silent alarm or not.

Licking his lips, Shouta wrote a combination down before tapping it in with his pen. There was a quiet buzz and a light, one of four above the keypad, snapped on with a red glow. He tried the same combination backwards, getting another red light in the process. Tapping his chin with his pen, he bent down to examine the keypad more closely. Up close, he could see that some of the fingerprints left behind were more or less greasy than others. Logic dictated that the greasier prints were the numbers that had been pushed first, so after eyeing them carefully, he tapped the buttons and almost hit enter when a detail caught his eye. One of the numbers was a bit more smeared than the others, almost like it had been pushed twice…

He tapped the number again, then hit enter. The key pad chimed as the light became green, the metal frame of the door shuddering as the lock withdrew. Shouta looked up, blinking in disbelief behind his goggles. Slowly, he reached over and pulled, the door swinging open easily. He stepped through the door, and there it was: the vault.

Secure boxes lined the three walls, but his eyes were locked on the center of the room, where a metal table sat, piled high and lined up in neat rows on top of the table…

Money.

Carefully, as if it were made of glass, Shouta reached out and pulled a bundle of bills from the pile, running his thumb along the edge as the crisp dollars snapped against his finger. It was twenties, banded together to make a thousand dollars. Another bundle was hundreds to make five thousand.

He couldn't resist the urge. Taking his backpack off and setting down, he turned around and lay down on top of what had to be millions of dollars in bills, more money than he would likely ever see again in his life. He giggled shrilly, the sound gleeful and almost maniacal in equal measure, the adrenaline of successfully sneaking into a bank, neutralizing the security, hacking into the system, and cracking the vault finally crashing down on his head.

He was terrified.

He was thrilled.

He wanted to cry, throw up, piss himself, cheer, make it rain and create a cash angel. Closing his eyes, Shouta pressed his hands together, letting his power flow between his palms, letting the cool sensation wash over him as he tamped down on his emotions. Taking a deep breath, he sat up and jumped down, grabbed his backpack and started shoveling cash into it.

"...Wait a minute," he mumbled, looking at the cash on the table and the miniscule amount he'd shoved in his pack. "I need a way to carry more…maybe I should've brought a duffle bag, but honestly, I didn't think I'd make it this far." A thought occurred, a vision of the guard carrying a ladder playing before his eyes. "…Idea!"

It took a minute of searching, but Shouta found the Janitor's closet, the door still slightly ajar. Besides the chemicals, mops and whatnot, there were a pair of 32 gallon, wheeled trash cans. Grabbing a pair of trash bags, he lined the cans with the bags then wheeled them into the vault. Tilting the first over, he shoveled armfuls of cash into the can until it was almost halfway full before switching.

With that done, he grasped the legs of the table, watching the metal surface distend and distort until a crack rang through the vault and he leaned back as the legs collapsed, spilling the money on the floor. It wasn't just pettiness; the longer they spent trying to count all that was stolen, the more time his trail had to go cold. And, well, he couldn't resist making a cash angel in the pile.

Breathing heavily as he wheeled both cans to the back door, Shouta ran back up the security office, grabbing a roll of tape from the desk as he went. Then he wheeled the one frozen to his chair under the hand dryer and taped the switch down, blowing hot air down in the guard. He locked the door behind him and hurried downstairs, pushing the door open and wheeling the trash cans full of cash down the alley, pausing to tie the tops of the bags and switch his outfit back.

Spotting a pair of carts in the back of the Laundromat, he reached into the trash can and tried to pull the bag out. 'Tried' being the keyword. "Christ, money is heavy!" He panted, wiping the sweat from his forehead. Licking his lips and keeping out of sight of the cameras, Shouta wheeled the trash cans to the back of his dad's car, popping the trunk and setting the rim of the can on the trunk. Then he bent down and grabbed the bottom of the can, heaving it up until the bag rolled out into the trunk, then doing the same with the other.

As he was pushing the now empty cans to the back, he noticed that they were spray-painted with the words 'Property of GCBS.' They were evidence, and even someone as uncaring as the owner of the Laundromat would find cans from the recently burgled bank in the back of their shop suspicious. Gripping the top and the bottom, he lifted the can over his head and concentrated, letting the cold flow through him. He worked until the subtle crackling of ice had faded completely before hurling the trash can on the ground.

It burst apart into greyish-black snow, settling in uneven piles on the cracked concrete. By the time it melted, it would be indistinguishable from the ground, the puddles and the trash juice that oozed out of the dumpsters.

After doing the same to the other, he gathered the wheels and tossed them in the trash, then taking a moment to run his hands through his hair and take a deep breath, trying not to look like he'd been doing something extremely stressful. Once he was certain he looked normal, Shouta walked back into the laundromat, trading nods with the supervisor as he piled two loads of dry clothes into baskets and wheeled them out, dumping the clean clothes on top of the trash bags. He pushed the baskets back in, grabbed the keys and turned his dad's car on.

Slowly, he backed out of the laundromat and into the street, pulling away and driving calmly down the road.

No cops suddenly pulled out behind him, lights flashing and sirens blaring; no superhero yanked him from the car.

There was nothing.

He had done it.

Shouta drummed his hands on the wheel, letting out a wild noise somewhere between an excited howl and a shrill scream. "I DID IT!" He cheered, laughing, "I fucking did it! HA!" He sucked in a deep breath, his stomach roiling as he slumped in the driver's seat. "Holy shit," he mumbled, resisting the urge to close his eyes, "I robbed a bank…"

Torn between wanting to cheer and wanting to hurl, he breathed deep and looked up at the road.

And immediately slammed on the brakes.

The car skidded to a stop just in time, making their long coat flap in the wind. Before him stood a man with a hand held out, a smirk on his face.

Shouta jumped as someone else leaned into view. A woman, with curly blonde hair and a beautiful face, leaning on the car with a seductive smile. On the other side, another man leered at him through the window, burn scars stretching up his neck and part of his face.

They weren't wearing their costumes, but he recognized their faces. There wasn't a person in Central City who didn't know who those three were. The man in front of the car was Leonard Snart, the woman was his sister Lisa, and the other man was Mick Rory.

Otherwise known as…

The woman mimed rolling down the window, and Shouta slowly did so. "Hey cutie," she said, batting her eyelashes at him, "Mind giving us a ride?"

Captain Cold, Golden Glider, and Heat Wave. Thieves. Supervillains.

Shouta gulped.

…

A/N: Welp, there was an oopsie on my part. I meant to publish this months ago, but I'm still getting used to my new posting schedule and I forgot this chapter was finished. I only remembered when I was like, 'aw yeah, chapter three is gonna be a doozy!' and then wondered why I didn't have any reviews on it so I checked and realized I hadn't posted the fucking thing.

…ugh.

Speaking of doozies, how about this chapter, eh? Shouta pulls off a bank heist by himself using planning, infiltration, a little bit of action and a whole lotta luck…then runs into supervillains? No one ever said it was just good luck, eh.

Big thanks, as always, to NSG for being a sounding board and beta and whatnot, why not check him out and tell him Soleneus sent you?

Also, thank you to all my Patrons on P Atreon! If you want to support me, even a dollar a month gets you early access to all of my stories, plus a vote on what I'll write next in the upcoming monthly poll! And for this story specifically, this chapter's been available since I finished writing it. I'm also creating a Subscribe Star for those who don't want to use P Atreon.

Also also, a chapter 15 of The First Pillar was published about a week ago, and chapter three of STAR WARS: The Old Empire was published before that! Chapter four is already finished and can be read on my creator page!

And of course, thank you for reading, favoriting and reviewing the story! I appreciate you spending your time reading what I wrote, and I hope you look forward to reading more.

Happy Holidays, by the way.

Stay Awesome.

~Soleneus

P.S.: I'm going on vacation for Thanksgiving, so by the time you read this I'll have hit the road on my way to my Grandparent's place nearly a thousand miles away, which means a lot of time spent in the car with nothing to do but write and read. Then I'll get to spend time with my family, then spend more time hiding in a room to get away from spending too much time with my family.

Whatever you celebrate, I hope you have a wonderful time and if not, there's always alcohol. And my other stories.

Stay Awesome Some More.

~still Soleneus