Levi Donovan surreptitiously checks his watch and sighs. Just two more hours on his shift, and then he can go home and fall down.
It's been a long day – hell, it's been a long week. This party had been the only thing on his team's agenda for the past eight days, and in two hours it will be over. Granted, he'll still have to get up at some ungodly hour for the morning debriefing and final report, but that'll just be a couple of hours, and he'll have a few days of paid vacation time afterwards.
He has to admit, though, that as exhausting as the past week has been, their efforts are paying off. The party has gone off without a hitch so far, minus the occasional champagne-fueled spat between hysterical socialites or posturing husbands. They've only had a single attempted gate-crasher so far, and he was peacefully escorted off the premises: just a teenage dare, nothing malicious, and Craig slipped him a cocktail napkin to show to his friends as proof of ingress. Nothing's been broken, no one's been threatened, the catering's been seamless, and for the most part the guests are high-spirited but good-mannered.
For a New Year's Eve party in Washington, D.C., that's nothing short of a roaring success.
Now they just have to make sure it stays that way.
Levi scans the crowd in the ballroom below, sees nothing out of place, and sets off on his circuit of the second floor. He makes it to the first room, then pauses. All night he's been doing his rounds clockwise, and getting sloppy at the end of his shift won't do him any favors in that promotion he's angling for. He'll do this room, then turn and go the other way.
Door locked, all quiet inside. He moves on.
Same with the next, and the next. The next after that is a lavatory; a brief pause by the door tells him it's occupied, so he moves on to the room after it.
The door is unlocked. He freezes, then remembers that it's just a supply room – there's probably a maid inside getting some silver polish or fresh towels or something. Still, he should double check. He really can't afford to fuck anything up, and the household staff know that security'll be doing checks every so often, so he shouldn't startle her too badly. He'll just knock, stick his head in, confirm that it's someone who's supposed to be there, and move on.
He knocks and opens the door.
The woman inside isn't a maid.
She's dressed like one of the kitchen staff, but he doesn't recognize her from the preliminary meetings, and the butler hadn't said anything about last-minute personnel changes. After a fraction of a second of startled stillness she scowls, and suddenly he does recognize her – the countess, he'd mentally dubbed her, tiny and brazen and hot-tempered but absolutely stunning in a pale gold dress that always seemed to catch the light just so. She hadn't been involved in any of the altercations he'd intervened in, but he'd seen her on the sidelines of a couple, clutching a champagne flute and looking delighted at the chaos.
As a cover, it'd been perfect. He hadn't spared her a second thought after she'd been let through by Leon at the door, and as much as he wants to kick himself for not noticing something off about her, there hadn't been anything off. Fuck.
"Fuck," he says, breaking the tense silence. "I mean. What are you doing here?"
Her scowl deepens, and she slams something shut against the wall with a heavy clunk. Wait, what? "I was going to get rich," she snaps, voice lightly accented and surprisingly husky, turning to him with her hands on her hips, "but hell, I'll settle for making sure someone else doesn't."
What the actual fuck.
"I," Levi starts, then stops again, totally wrong-footed. "I need to call this in."
The woman snorts, and leans back against a shelf, crossing her arms. "Sure," she says dryly. "Go ahead and do that, and while everyone's scrambling up here, the guy who actually robbed you will get away, just like he fucking planned."
What? Where does he even start with this? Christ, he's already getting a headache. "What do you mean, 'the guy who actually robbed you'?"
She jerks her head towards the wall he'd found her facing. "There were supposed to be diamonds in that safe," she says bluntly. "They're already gone, which means that someone got here before me, and I'm just pissed off enough to tell you who it is. If," she adds sternly, "you let me go."
"I— What? No," Levi finally gets out. He's not falling for something that obvious. "Tell me who it is, and we'll question him. If any of what you just said checks out we might be able to come to an agreement, but I wouldn't count on it, missy."
She actually stomps her foot at that, and her hands ball up into fists at her side. "But I didn't do anything," she cries, fury in her rising voice.
"You clearly forged an invitation," Levi snaps back, "and how am I supposed to know that you haven't stolen anything else? Actually," he realizes, and unholsters his gun to train it on her, "empty your pockets, slowly. Put anything in them on the ground."
"Oh, right, like you'll shoot me," she mutters, but shoves her hands in her pants pockets and turns them inside out. A scrap of tissue paper comes out of one and bit of lint tumbles down from the other, but nothing else. Still grumbling to herself, she takes off her vest, unbuttons her shirt cuffs and collar, slips out her tie, and even kicks off her shoes. "There," she says peevishly when she's done, "happy? Or should I take my shirt off, too?" She starts unbuttoning it before he can answer, but if she was hoping that it would turn him into a staring, blushing mess, she'd gambled and lost on some pretty long odds. He'd liked the cut of her dress, that was all.
He doesn't react beyond raising an eyebrow, and doesn't let his aim waiver. Her eyes narrow. "Fine," she says. "Anything else, or do you believe me?"
"I believe you don't have any stolen goods on your person," Levi allows, "but I'm still gonna ask you to get dressed and come with me."
Her expression tightens, but she doesn't move. "If you march me out of here like a prisoner, word will get around and the real thief will get away with the diamonds, and it'll be your ass on the line for it."
Christ. Okay. He's got an allegedly would-be thief and a so-far-probably-fictional actual thief, and if something was stolen then it will be his ass on the line, because this is his floor and he's responsible for anything that goes sideways on it, but if it wasn't stolen – or if it was but he gets it back – then he might still have a shot at that promotion. Fuck, he's been awake too long for this shit. He does a mental inventory of his options, runs some scenarios, and decides with a sigh that as long as he doesn't let her get away, not believing her is riskier than taking her at her word.
He'll get the description from her, then cuff her and take her to a room with a door that locks. If the description seems legit, he'll radio one of the first floor guys to bring up whoever it is, and then he'll question them together and see who breaks.
"Fine," he says, and lowers his gun, doing his best to look tired and defeated. It's honestly not that hard. "Who's the guy?"
"One of the waiters," she answers promptly. "Tall, dark hair, blue eyes, cleft chin. Looks and acts like he's fresh out of Kansas or somewhere – you probably wouldn't look at him twice."
"A conveniently vague description," Levi points out, though he's already cycling through what he knows of the waitstaff in his head.
"I think he's going by Nick," she adds airily, and shit, he actually knows exactly who she's talking about. Nick Denner, junior member of the catering staff, had struck Levi as earnest but a bit dull, good-natured but a little too meek to be friendly. Begrudgingly, he has to admit that she was right: Levi had met him, shaken his hand, committed him to memory, and never thought about him again.
The waiters don't wear name tags and aren't supposed to get chatty with the guests, so either she's the world's best guesser or she actually knows him. Or, he supposes, Nick is just really bad at his job.
"If he did steal the...diamonds, was it? And hold on, how did you know they were supposed to be there?"
"A diamond necklace," she confirms, "and I don't know, maybe because I've been casing this place for two weeks, only for Nick to come waltzing in here and get to it first, probably using my plans, like the fucking arrogant pig he is, and—"
"Would he still have it on him, do you think?" he asks, cutting her off. She really does seem angry, and the sooner he can be done with this, the better.
"Probably. I think he gets off on it, walking around with a fortune in his pocket, feeling like he's so much better than everyone, knowing that no one suspects him of anything— honestly, seeing him go down for this would make my fucking year."
She swears a lot for someone who did such a good job of pretending to be a socialite, and as much as Levi really doesn't need any of this right now, or ever, he can appreciate her skill. "Well," he says, "we can probably make that happen. Could you pop open that safe again, show me it's empty?"
"It's not empty," she says, rolling her eyes, "it just doesn't have any diamonds."
"So open it up," Levi repeats. "I want to believe you, but I need to see it."
"Fine." She turns away, reaching for the panel in the wall, and Levi darts forward and snags first one wrist and then the other in the cuffs, spinning her around and getting them secured behind her back. She curses vehemently in German, but cuts off with a sharp noise and goes still after testing the give and finding none. "Fine," she says again, and turns as soon as Levi steps back to get her back to the wall. "What now? I can still make this hard for you, you know."
"I know," he says. He believes that much, at least. "The room next to this is an office. We'll wait there while someone finds Nick, and then we'll talk this out. If you want to try to scream or run, that's fine with me, but I will stop you."
She glares at him – sizing him up, he realizes, and the thought should be hilarious given that he's about a foot taller than her and probably twice her weight, but something about the look in her eyes tells him that she's not intimidated by that, just calculating around it. After a moment, though, she seems to relax, and even chuckles a little.
"Fair enough," she allows, and doesn't put up a fight as he pokes his head out into the hallway to confirm that no one's around, unlocks the study next door, and goes back to the supply room to get her. She just makes an approving sound at the sight of an overstuffed club chair on the other side of the room and makes a beeline to it, dropping into it and wiggling around a bit to get comfortable with her hands still behind her back.
Levi stays by the door and takes out his radio. He tunes it to Craig's command frequency, and waits for the static to settle. "Team leader, this is Lima. Got a tip that one of the waiters might be suspect, could you have someone bring him to the upstairs office?"
"Copy, Lima," Craig's voice crackles back after a second. "Who is it?"
"Nick Denner. Need a description?"
"Nah, I know him. I'll send Kilo. Upstairs office?"
"Yeah, a guest thinks he might have taken something from her, doesn't want to make a fuss."
"Copy that," Craig says, sounding tired. "Thanks, Lima."
"Sure thing," Levi says, and switches the radio off.
"Lima?" the woman asks, smirking a bit. "That's cute."
Levi shrugs, then checks his watch again. Another hour and fifty-five minutes. Jesus.
They wait in silence for a few minutes, Levi at the door and the woman sprawled in the club chair. He keeps an eye on her shoulders and doesn't think they've been moving enough for her to be trying to slip the cuffs, but even if she does she won't be able to get to the door before he can do something about it, so he's not too worried.
He hears footsteps in the hall outside a couple of seconds before there's a knock on the door, and he cracks it open quickly. Karl and Nick, as promised. "Thanks, Kilo," he says, and Karl nods. He's holding onto Nick by the elbow, and propels him into the room with a little shove. He stumbles a bit, looking confused and unsure of himself.
"Call if you need backup," Karl says gruffly, then turns and stomps away.
Levi shuts the door and locks it.
"Hello, Jack," the woman says icily. "Or should I be calling you Nick?"
"Tabitha?" Nick – or Jack? God, this just keeps getting weirder – sounds surprised, and looks back to Levi as if for an explanation. "Wait, did you— Shit, Tab, come on, what's going on?"
"You know what's going on," she snarls. "You knew I was going after those diamonds, and you couldn't stand the idea of me doing anything without you so you decided to do what you do best and steal someone else's job!"
"Now wait a minute," Nick starts, but Tabitha spits something in German and then they're both shouting.
"You left me!" Nick says, and Tabitha scoffs.
"I slept with you twice, I was never with you in the first place—"
"It was three times—"
"—and what about Panama, hmm? Did you think I'd forget that?"
"Nothing happened in Panama except that you got dead drunk and I had to smuggle you out in a burlap sack on a donkey—"
"And don't even get me started on Berlin—"
"Clearly I don't have to!"
"—crashed my fucking car and stank up my apartment—"
"It was truffle risotto, it's a delicacy!"
"—and now you think you own me so when you got tired of waiting for me to crawl back to you—"
"You robbed me blind and tipped off Interpol on your way out of Rome, how am I the bad guy here when—"
"—you decided you'd make sure I never got another score ever again—"
"I just wanted us to have a life together!" Nick yells, and Tabitha reels back like he'd slapped her. For a moment they stare at each other in silence, panting.
"So," Levi starts, cautiously, but then they're off again.
"Why would I want to have a life with you when all you've done is screw me over—"
"Don't act like you have any sort of moral high ground here, you're the one who sold me out—"
"But you still want to marry me," Tabitha crows, "is that it? You still think I'm in love with you?"
"Jesus Christ, Tab, I know you're short but that's a reach even for you—"
Tabitha says something else in German, and this time Nick responds in the same language. Levi looks back and forth between them as they go, and has just started to wonder if he should step in when Nick reaches into a pocket and pulls out a huge diamond necklace, brandishing it like it's some kind of venomous snake.
Levi tackles him.
Nick's about his size, but clearly doesn't have any training, so it's pretty easy to keep him down. He doesn't have another set of handcuffs, but he does keep a few Ty-Rap cables on him – knew they'd come in handy someday – and gets Nick's hands secured much like Tabitha's.
"Motherfucker," Nick groans into the carpet. "I think you broke my sternum."
"Definitely didn't," Levi says cheerfully, and stands up. He puts the diamond necklace into his own pocket and gives it a little pat. Oh yeah, he's definitely getting that promotion. "Team Leader, this is Lima," he says into his radio. "Item has been recovered, and perps are secured."
"Hey," Tabitha says loudly. Levi ignores her.
"Perps, plural?"
"It's a long story."
Craig sighs a staticky sigh, then, "Okay. I'll call the cops, and you keep an eye on things 'til they get here."
"Yessir, will do."
"Nice work, Lima."
Levi nods to himself and signs off.
Immediately, Tabitha and Nick start going at it again, this time entirely in German.
Nick hasn't even gotten up off the floor, and Tabitha's still hunched forward from the angle of her arms behind her, so Levi feels pretty justified in slipping out of the room, locking the door behind him, and leaving them to it.
"Nice work, Gabs," Solo says as she drops from the window to the ground beside him. "Sorry you had to leave the dress, though."
"I'm not," Gaby huffs, and tugs Solo's black tailed coat tighter around her. "It's fucking freezing out here."
"What happened to your shoes?"
"Figured it'd be easier for Illya to hear what was going on if they were off, in case things went south. Thought I'd have a chance to get them back, though."
"It is pretty muddy," Solo observes mildly. "Want a piggy-back ride?"
"Did that guard actually hurt you?"
"Oh, please. You hurt me worse trying to get me out of bed this morning."
"Hmm. Okay. But if you tell Illya, I'll swap your hair gel with your toothpaste when you least expect it."
"Fair enough. Here, hop on."
She scrambles up onto his back and tucks her feet up under her, trying to keep her wet socks out of the wind so they don't freeze.
"How'd you know I'd have that necklace?" he asks after a bit.
"Because you're you," she answers. "I saw you eyeing it, and then I noticed it missing, later. I know all your tricks, Jack Devoney. Where'd Tabitha come from, though?"
"First name that came to mind," he admits, and she snickers. "I almost feel bad for him," Solo goes on after a bit. "He really was just doing his job."
"He switched up his route at the last minute," Gaby grumbles. "Wouldn't have had a problem otherwise."
"Hmm. That'll teach him."
And all because I decided to go counter-clockwise, Levi thinks as he looks forlornly into the empty office. That'll teach me.
Oh, well. If he's fired, maybe he can go home early.
...
Written for the 2021 TMFU Winter Holiday Gift Exchange over on AO3; prompt was "Gaby and Napoleon having to talk themselves out of a dangerous situation and acting their butts off."
Blatantly inspired by the fic "In Which Markus (Professional Highywayman) Gets Stabbed" by Octinary.
Thank you for reading! As always, please feel free to leave whatever feedback you'd like to.