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three.
PARTNERS IN CRIME
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TATE'S PHONE BUZZES IN the middle of her punch. The noise startles her, making it land awkwardly on her fist, her last two knuckles skimming the bag instead of her first ones. She grimaces at the shock that travels up her arm and takes a step back.
Ronan is unimpressed. "I told you to keep it on silent."
"I thought I did," she replies breathlessly, squaring up to fix her mistake and beat the punching bag bloody. Her next hit is a solid uppercut that would knock the wind out of any grown man.
It's not Wednesday, but she'd requested another private training session with Ronan anyway in preparation for the upcoming auction. She has absolutely zero faith that things will go smoothly enough that she won't have to fight at least one person. She thought she'd be chill about this and have fun with the idea of going undercover, but all it's done is made her nerves even worse.
She's really going to do it. She's going to see her sister again.
The thought makes her sick to her stomach with both fear and rage.
"Who's Nathan and why does he need to know how to cut the power?"
Tate freezes and forgets to either hit the bag or move when it swings back toward her, causing a hundred and fifty pounds to smack into her head-on. She stumbles back, arms windmilling to catch her balance, but succumbs to the pull of gravity anyway. She's a millisecond away from hitting the floor when Ronan catches her and hauls her to her feet like she's weightless.
Slightly bemused by her failure, he shows Tate her phone. On the lockscreen is a series of texts.
UNKNOWN: It's Nathan
UNKNOWN: Still can't figure out how to cut the power
Tate mentally applauds him for his confidentiality. She has half a mind to prank him and say he's got the wrong number, but that would be downright mean, and she has a soul.
"He's our bartender," Tate reminds him, picking at the tape around her knuckles and wrists.
Recognition fills Ronan's face as the information clicks. "He gave me the history of Ireland when he learned my name, right?"
"That would be him."
"And you gave him your number?" Tate doesn't know whether or not to be offended by the pure disbelief in her friend's face and voice. "Who are you and what have you done with Tatum Braddock? Did he seduce you with his weird history knowledge?"
Tate reaches up and flicks him on the center of his forehead. "We share a common goal. We are... comrades."
"I think a normal person would just call him a friend."
"We're not friends. We hardly know each other." Tate goes to put her phone back down and face the bag again, but Ronan shakes his head and points to his athletic watch, which displays that their time is up. "You're seriously gonna make me end on that?"
"You're the one who got hit by the bag, not me." Ronan is not sorry for her whatsoever, which he makes clear by unwrapping the protective tape around his own hands with an infuriating smirk.
Tate glances at her knuckles and then back at his face, wondering if she could manage to punch it without him catching her hand first.
"Don't even think about it," he says, because he can read her mind, because they're best friends.
Best friends and she's been lying to him the entire time.
Tate will tell him everything after this mission is over. She will. For now, she needs to focus on her plan for the auction. A plan that will fall to shit if Nathan doesn't figure out how to cut the power by tomorrow.
After painfully unwrapping the tape from her hands, showering, and applying healing salve to her raw skin, she starts the walk home without Ronan— he has another client after squeezing in her impromptu session. Instead of filling her trip with chatter like she normally would if he were here, she pops in one earbud and puts on one of her favorite educational podcasts to make the walk less boring.
She sighs. She should probably text Nathan back.
TATE: Sully was right, being inconspicuous really isn't one of your strengths
NATHAN: ????
TATE: Imagine if this was a wrong number and you just admitted to being part of a heist
NATHAN: If this was a wrong number, you wouldn't know about the heist.
TATE: Touché. But maybe you should try a little harder to figure out the power thing. That's kinda important
INCOMING CALL: NATHAN
The sound of her podcast being cut off makes Tate jump mid-step before she answers the call. "Hello?"
"You know, I really expected some support, here." Nathan's tone is dry.
"I really don't know what to tell you," she says. "You literally have one job."
"Oh, and you've already got your plan all figured out, huh? How are you gonna keep everyone else distracted?"
He's condescending, but also — and Tate really hates to admit this — correct. She had been planning on just winging it. There isn't a great method to plan a distraction beforehand since it relies entirely on how other people are acting. If they aren't suspicious, she'll have less work to do. And if Nathan manages to cut the power at the right time, her job will be even easier.
"I was planning on winging it," she admits.
"Great plan."
"At least I have one."
"Look, it's just — I have a map here, okay? And I figured you might want to check it out, memorize some exits. After all, you're staff, and staff's gotta know where things are."
Damn. He's right again. Looking up a map of the place would've been a smart idea instead of letting her anxiety eat her alive and taking it out by over-exerting herself at the gym. She'd been so focused on readying her mind and body that she hadn't thought ahead.
"Fine," she sighs. "Send me your address."
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Nathan's apartment is tiny. It's a studio with barely more than six steps between the kitchenette and the opposite wall, creating a cluttered yet cozy space near the top of the building. The room appears bigger thanks to the arched windows on the far wall that overlook the city. It's sparsely and cheaply furnished, with a folding table acting as a desk and books littered everywhere.
Tate fights off a smirk as she steps in. It seems they have a book-hoarding problem in common.
He has two glasses of alcohol waiting for her arrival. "I don't have a full bar in here, obviously, but I did the best I could."
"You're drinking while planning?" Tate questions.
Nathan raises an eyebrow and starts pulling her glass away. "I mean, I guess I could just take yours then—"
"I was gonna say I like how you think," she says, interrupting his movements. He slides her glass over the counter and into her open hand with the dexterity of someone who's done the motion a thousand times before.
He'd blown up a map of The Augustine so that small portions fit entire sheets of paper that he'd taped to his window. It allows them to catalog specific pathways and read the minuscule font size on the floor plan, along with being able to jot down notes like Nathan's large label of "EXIT" at every outside door.
"So, I'm assuming that Sully will have you come in through the staff entrance, which is over here, in the back," Nathan says, circling an area on the map and labeling it in blocky capital letters. He points at each thing he mentions with the cap of his marker. "That leads to the main room of the auction, which is on this floor, according to the info Sully sent me. I think I'll mostly be upstairs to find the power system, which I was thinking I could get to from here."
He points at a staircase on the main auction room floor. Tate nods along with his speech.
"Okay, fair, but how are you gonna get in there?" she asks. "It's gotta be locked off."
"Easy." Nathan shrugs. "I'll just take someone's badge."
Tate folds her arms across her chest, raising an eyebrow. "Oh yeah, I forgot you were a thief."
"I am not a thief!" Nathan retorts, his jaw falling open in indignation.
"So you've never stolen something?"
That puts him at a loss for words, his mouth opening and closing uselessly, averting his gaze from hers when it becomes obvious he can't argue. Tate realizes that she's never been this close to him before — there's usually a bar separating them — and now the last remnants of sunlight that stream through the window bring out accents of amber in his brown eyes. He's shorter than she thought. Her ankle boots make her several inches taller than him.
"Just make sure you bring back whatever it is you took from me before I notice," Tate says with a teasing grin, taking a sip of her drink.
"I did not—" When Nathan looks back at her and notices that her eyes are smiling as she sips the alcohol, he releases a breath and relaxes. "You're fucking with me."
"Yeah." She sets the crystalline glass onto the folding table again and takes the marker out of his hand, marking a lone exit he'd skipped over. "You missed one."
After Nathan has gathered some semblance of a plan and Tate feels more confident that she can navigate her way through the staff area without getting lost, they decide to take a break. The area of the apartment with the most space is the floor, so that's where they sit, the light in the room growing increasingly yellow as night falls. It seems that the entire room is lit by one single bulb that's holding on for dear life.
"So are you just a girl who reads translated copies of books in bars and is a pain in the ass for a living, or is there another reason why Sully sought you out?" Nathan questions as he pours each of them another glass.
Tate fidgets at the inquiry, seated with her knees folded to her chest and her arms wrapped around them while Nathan is open and cross-legged. She taps her fingers on her arms while she thinks of how to respond.
"If that's your way of saying you'd like to get to know me..." she trails off, restlessly scratching at her curls. "Uh, I don't know where to start. I know five languages— English, obviously, Korean from my dad who was born there, Spanish, German, Italian, and I'm trying to learn Arabic and French, so that'll make seven. I majored in History at NYU and work at the American Museum of Natural History in research."
Nathan's eyes widen. "And how old are you?"
"I'm twenty-four."
"Jesus. And I'm just a bartender."
"Hey." Tate reaches out and pokes his arm. "You supply me with drinks. That's an important job."
When she pulls her hand away, her injured knuckles catch the light. Nathan's eyebrows crease when he notices the bruised skin. "Hey, are you okay?"
"Oh." She holds her hand up to examine it. Her knuckles are slightly inflamed, but not as raw as they'd been before she'd applied the salve at the gym. She'll have to put on another layer tonight before bed. "I do kickboxing and martial arts. My roommate's a private trainer — you've met him — Ronan."
"Clark Kent," he recalls from Sully's description.
Tate nods. "He really does look like he could be Superman. But anyways, he's been teaching me for years. I've just been doing too much lately."
Not that she's told Ronan that. If he saw the state of her knuckles, he'd force her to rest for weeks until the skin heals, and she can't afford that downtime.
"Well, don't hurt yourself," Nathan says. "We kinda need you for the heist."
Tate pulls a face at him that makes him chuckle and take a sip of his freshly-filled glass. Tate watches the shadows grow on the floor in response to the sky darkening outside. In the same way the window had broadened the room in the daylight, it now shrinks it at night, reminding her of just how small this apartment is.
A few days ago, they had merely been a server and a customer, familiar with each other only because of Tate's frequent visits and the fact she'd sometimes drag Ronan along with her. There hadn't been anything linking them together. And now they're sitting in his apartment to plan the start of a mission that will lead them to Ferdinand Magellan's lost gold.
If it even exists.
Tate's weird life has just gotten so much weirder.
She swirls her own drink around in her glass, her blood warm from the effects of the alcohol. "How about you?"
Nathan shrugs with a sardonic smile and repeats his earlier statement. "I'm just a bartender."
"Clearly that's not true," Tate says. "You pulled out facts about Magellan's crew like you were his best friend. Also, you talked Ronan's ear off about the history of Ireland when you recognized the origins of his name. Literally no ordinary person does that."
He fidgets as she had before, only he rubs the back of his neck instead of messing with his hair. "I mean, I've always liked history, I guess. My brother Sam and I — we were kinda always into Magellan. Did you know he was actually the second guy to sail around the world? Juan Sebastian Elcano was the first, but Magellan took all the credit."
Is it weird that Tate finds her heart skipping a beat upon hearing historical facts?
"Anyway, uh... yeah, I'm just into Magellan. And history in general."
"And you're a thief."
Instead of growing defensive, Nathan accepts the title, relinquishing his pride by nodding. "And I'm a thief."
In the glowing lighting of the apartment, they share grins.
_________
a/n:
writing this chapter had me like
eeeeee they're so cute i love them so much <33333
also .... can some of tate's intelligence rub off on me pls. homegirl is basically a genius tf.
the next chapter is the heist and i'm so excited to get more into the movie scenes !!! as much as i love writing original stuff like this, it's also fun to incorporate tate into the main parts of the film. i'm excited for you guys to see how it all plays out, especially with tate seeing jo again!
— kristyn
( word count: 2.4k )