Riley Poole x reader ~A National Treasure Fanfiction~

Chapter 4

You were driving again. This time, Riley had insisted you sit in a seat with a seat-belt on, probably because he felt awful about last time. Ben drove a lot smoother than Riley though, you had to admit. He parked in the middle of nowhere. "They have my license plate, and they'll be looking for my car. This should at least buy us time." "C'mon, (Y/N), you're coming too." Riley opened the back and offered his hand to help you out, but you just leaped down. Ben looked a little surprised that Riley knew your name, but he soon shrugged it off and commanded, "Let's get going. We have a long walk ahead of us." The three of you said nothing for a long time, the only sound being your soft footsteps on the sidewalk. Finally, hoping to break the awkwardness, you curiously asked, "So why did you guys steal the Declaration in the first place?" Riley grinned and turned to Ben. "It's a long story. Ben?" Ben glanced over at you, trying to appear reluctant, but you could see from the smile that he just couldn't crush that this was his favorite thing to talk about. "My ancestor, Thomas Gates..." 

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"Whoa. Riley's a hacker, and he hacked into the National Archives building? And your family's protected a treasure map for generations?" You exclaimed, your mouth hanging open. Ben nodded, and then smiled. "Everyone called us crazy, but now..." "Ben. We're here." Riley interrupted, gesturing to a medium-sized house. "Have you... how are you going to tell your Dad?" Ben let out a sigh, averting his eyes to the sidewalk. "I'm not going to tell him. He'll see it for himself eventually." Ben pulled himself together and cleared the distance to the house in long strides, forcing  you and Riley, who both had shorter legs, to jog to keep up. Without hesitation, Ben rapped on the door. An older gray-haired man with a guarded expression opened it slowly. "Dad." Ben's expression was scared, just a little. Riley leaned over and whispered with a snigger to you, "He can steal the Declaration, no problem. He can have a gun pointed at his face, who cares. But this..." You suppressed a laugh and shoved Riley to get him to shut up. "Can we come in, Dad?" Ben finally asked. Ben's dad, who made it clear by his expression that he'd rather not have the three of you come in, gruffly said, "Alright. This had better not be about the treasure." Riley and you exchanged glances, but you stepped into the strangely neat house. "There's some pizza over there. Help yourselves." Riley, thrilled by this announcement, headed shamelessly over to the pizza. You followed, feeling awkward standing in between the stare off. Ben's dad sat down and stared straight at Ben. "What do you want." Ben blurted, "We need the letters. I'm sorry Dad. We found Charlotte, though. She was an actual ship!" The old man's eyes widened. "The Charlotte? She existed? So you found the treasure." Ben shook his head. "Not exactly. But we did find a clue." Oh no, here it came. You could tell from Ben's dad's expression that a rant was coming on. "Another clue. Which will lead to another clue. And another. And another. You're wasting your life searching for the treasure. And you had to drag these two into it?" You and Riley quickly looked up. "Actually, it was him who dragged me into it." You jabbed your thumb towards Riley. Riley smiled and helpfully chirped, "I volunteered."  Ben's dad scowled at Riley. "Well, unvolunteer before you waste your life searching for a treasure that never existed!" Ben cleared his throat and started to unroll the declaration of independence. "Dad. Now's really not a great time. We're running a very tight schedule." He glanced out the window as if he expected to hear police sirens any second. "Riley, (Y/N), come on." You sat up, shocked that he had called you over as well. You shot a questioning glance towards Riley, who responded by signaling with his eyes towards Ben's dad. Oh. Ben didn't want to let his dad know that he'd kidnapped an innocent teenager. You shrugged and followed Riley to where Ben had the Declaration spread out face-down on the table. Ben handed you and Riley some cue-tips and two half lemons. "Riley, start in that corner, (Y/n) start in the bottom corner." You squeezed some lemon juice onto the tip and started lightly spreading it around. "You two see anything?" Ben asked and looked up with a frown from his side. "Nope." You and Riley responded in unison. "Stick it in the oven." Ben's dad suggested. "No!" Ben, you, and Riley shouted at the same time, horrified. Ben's dad shrugged. "You need heat." You suddenly leaned over and breathed on the document. "Ben! Look." Numbers had appeared in the area you had breathed on, and now were slowly starting to fade back. Ben nodded to you. "Nice work. Dad? Do you have a blow drier?" 

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After heating up the invisible ink, you had finally found a long list of numbers that Ben called an 'andor cipher'. Ben had enthusiastically exclaimed that it was a key to help read certain letters on, in this case, the Silence Dogood letters. But then... "You don't have them?!" Ben's mouth gaped open. He took a deep breath, and then asked, "Where are they?" Ben's dad smiled as if nothing in the world was wrong. "I donated them to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia." Ben nodded and then turned to you and Riley. "Let's go." "More driving?" You grumbled as you walked out of the door. Riley gave you a friendly nudge and grinned. "You'd better get used to it. We've got an awful lot of driving coming up." You over-dramatically groaned, but then turned to Riley with a laugh. "Ok, but Ben has to drive." Riley jokingly complained,    "Are you still mad at me for that? You weren't even in a seat! It totally wasn't my fault!" Ben's dad watched the three of you walk away with a slight smile. He wasn't sure how Ben had gotten a young teenager to join his strange squad, but she certainly got along extremely well with Riley.