sometimes the king is a woman [reed]

This is as far as my intel goes. "What? You're shitting me, right?" Tara hissed immediately, her hair flying as she turned to glare at him. This is as far as it went? This? Through some shabby casino and into an Employees Only door? She expected him to know a little more, be a better lead at whatever the hell they were walking into. But then the reality of it struck her. She had been relying on him to provide answers, show her the way, rescue her like a goddamn damsel in distress.

Her spine snapped straight and she pushed her glossy dark hair over her shoulder, pulling out of his grasp as he guided her away from the door. "I'll let you take the lead when you've earned it," Tara threw back at him. It wasn't something she gave up lightly and even though adrenaline was pumping through her body, the delight of the secrecy and intrigue of this all, she still knew she had to look out for herself. And now that she knew he was just as blind in this situation as she was, she wasn't going to be using him as a crutch.

She prowled down the hallway beside him, alert, focused, angry. Even further annoyed when he thought this was time to play with a cigarette and she huffed a sigh of irritation as she gave him a hard look. "Of course I do," she snapped with a glare. "So.. your plan is to just barge in and start rapid firing stun spells? What if they have good enough defensive shield charms?" she asked, poking holes in his plan. "We have to take them by surprise. Something they wouldn't expect," she told him even though she had probably less experience in covert ops like this than he had.

But she did have an idea.

A distraction. A plan.

They barged through the doors a few moments later, her legs wrapped around his hips and arms around his neck as they looked the very picture of lusty lovers eager for a private moment. As he pushed his back to the wall, she felt his lips on her neck, his face hidden by her hair so he could survey the room before he turned them so her back was to the wall and she got a subtle look too. It was then that they gave up their charade and she looked up, innocence painted on her face, as she murmured an "oops" just before she started firing stunning spells to the left, him to the right, like they had agreed.

Tara's attitude flipped again, and Reed ignored her ire as they pushed through the kitchen and toward whatever was coming next. While the wizard wasn't exactly excited to walk into the next room, not knowing what they would find, he had learned a long time ago that not everything could be controlled. "Suppose I was a bit busy saving your ass from getting pinched, and this is the thanks I get," There were excellent reasons why Reed rarely worked with others. Reed was better off on his own. By himself, he could calculate situations like they were numbers on a chalkboard, putting numerals into columns based on vulnerability and volatility. Working with someone made everything more complicated. He grew aggravated by the infinitely complex variables and by the small talk.

Alone, Reed knew precisely what he would do in any scenario, but now he had to consider what she might do. And if this walk through the kitchen was any indication, Ace was going to make this as difficult as possible. If he wasn't mentally preparing for whatever might be behind those doors and the fight that was sure to follow, Reed might have been impressed by her strength. Silently, he pulled his wand from his sleeve and deactivated the sprinklers above them. The wizard lit his cigarette anyway and shrugged at her iteration of what she thought his plan was. He didn't have all the details, and as uncomfortable as that was, he wasn't going to back down. In his line of work, nothing was easy.

A surprise was the best play, and he was caught off guard as she suggested it so quickly. Maybe she was more cut out for this sort of thing than he had initially assumed. "Alright, what did you have in mind?" Reed asked, and not long after, they were making their play. Reed's discarded cigarette burned slowly at the bottom of a dry sink, and his hands wrapped around her thin frame as they pushed through the door. Reed's fingertips dug into her thighs as he hit the wall, his hips pressed into hers, but his focus was elsewhere. He counted three wizards, two witches, and a goblin at a poker table with two large blokes and Ace's broom against the wall behind. Reed noted the waitress carrying a tray of empty glasses from the table toward a side door and cigars burned down to nubs in the ashtrays. They had been here a while, and that was advantageous for Reed and Ace. Inebriated wizards were less likely to be able to hex his soul from his body.


Reed spun them, pressing Ace's back against the wall as his body pushed against her. He supported her weight as his lips moved to her ear, whispering ever so quietly against her skin. "Let the waitress leave, brooms in the back," Reed had never been a fan of collateral damage. Slowly, he let go of Ace, and as she moved to stand between him and the wall, Reed's wand slid back down his sleeve. He stepped to the side, the waitress exited through another door which closed behind her, and then the fight began.

Slinging an array of stunning spells toward the players at the table, Reed focused on the goblin first, knowing he'd be the biggest challenge despite his stature. Playing cards and poker chips flew into the air as spells were shot and deflected on both sides, a lamp on the wall behind Ace and Reed exploded, and Reed felt the familiar stinging of a severing spell across his cheek. The goblin was down, one of the wizards had fled, but the fight was far from over. "Quick, before he brings the whole casino down on us!" Reed said, moving closer to Ace to shield her from spells as best he could. Not because he thought she couldn't handle them, but because she was the only one who could call her broom.

His whispered instructions were only met with a nod. She hated being told what to do, even if she agreed, even if it made sense. She gripped her wand tightly before she exhaled and the dance began. Her dark hair flew around her as she focused on the two wizards closest to her broom, her gaze narrowing in on getting her most prized possession back where it belonged.

In the next moment though, she knew it had been a mistake to disregard the two witches who were further out as one of them hit her with a hex that looked red as it flew at her. Tara barely had a chance to throw up a shield - quick and dirty and not all that effective - and the force of the sneaky hex picked her off her feet and slammed her back against the wall. Her ears rang and she couldn't imagine what she would look like if she hadn't shielded herself. Fuck.

She saw one wizard fleeing, coward!, and one of the witches go down when Tara's stunning charm hit its mark, but the sneaky bitch was still going and quickly approaching her broom. The look in her eyes made Tara act quickly. She accioed her broom, the only in the room who could, and felt a wave of sweet relief as the familiar handle smacked against her palm a moment later.

The issue now was the surviving long enough to get the hell out of there part. "Door on the left?" she said to her temporary ally as she flung more stunning charms at their foes.

Reed witnessed Ace being tossed like a ragdoll into a wall out of the corner of his eye, but he was too busy to have done anything about it. He saw the speed at which she’d managed a shield, and it impressed him, but there was no time for that either. Instead, he flung another hex at one of the wizards who was targeting him and then realized a witch was headed for Ace’s broom. He would have never been able to get there fast enough to stop it, not with the brutish wizard bearing down on him, but Ace took care of that too. Reed focused all of his energy on the last spell to stop the man in front of him and watched in cruel delight as summoned chains coiled around the enemy. The silvery chains began to constrict, squeezing the wizard as a snake would, and Reed took a sharp breath and spun around. He stunned the witch who went after Ace’s broom and nodded.

The door on the left was their way out, but they only had moments before reinforcements arrived. Reed wasn’t sure if the pounding in his ears was the sound of adrenaline coursing through his body or the heavy footfalls of soldiers bearing down on them. “Quickly, now,” he demanded and rushed for the door. His wand still at the ready, Reed managed a locking charm as they passed through the exit. The frame of the door sizzled as the wood fused into a makeshift lock. “That’ll keep em’ busy,” Reed nodded at his spell and turned back toward Ace with a wicked grin. This was probably the most fun he’d had in months, and it was written on his face. That chaotic and childish smile lighting up his otherwise sinister features. He saw a lot of action in his job, but it was rare that Reed had good reasons for anything he did, other than a fat paycheck.

“Ready to go?” He asked, holding his hand out to her for the umpteenth time this evening but giving her proper warning this time.

Tara couldn't help but notice how adept Reed was in this whole battle situation they'd gotten themselves into. It wasn't ideal and it certainly wasn't her first choice, but hell if she was going to let some backwater band of lowlifes steal her pride and joy. She watched gleefully as silver chains sprang from his wand and wrapped tightly around the burly man who had been bearing down on them. Yeah, hope your head pops off, motherfucker.

But there wasn't much time to appreciate his spellwork, although she did have time to give him a sarcastic "you think?" after being told to go 'quickly'. As if she didn't understand the urgency of getting the hell out of there. She was smart enough, however, to book it without much other delay.

Despite her chest rising and falling quickly with the running and the effort, her magic humming through her wand and into her body, Tara grinned at him, matching his devilish expression look for look. She knew that feeling. She understood it fundamentally. It's how she felt every time she raced and won in the little illegal ring that had been infiltrated tonight and there was something to be said about the fact that he had just risked his neck to get her broom back. She wanted to know why, but at least he wasn't being a total dick anymore.

"Ready," she said easily. She was now gripping her broom so she was happy to get out of there. Tara slapped her hand into his a little harder than she needed to, but her grin lit up her face. "You're not a bad kisser, by the way," she told him, shortly before they disappeared.

Reed had never liked working with other people; it was dangerous and not the sort of chaos he chose for himself. He preferred to work alone and control every variable, but that didn't mean he wasn't impressed by the way Ace had handled herself tonight. She'd done better than most in such a dire situation and had wholly outshined the fucks at the ministry, for all the good their training and fancy spells did them. Ace had kept her head enough to fire off some powerful hexes and managed to reclaim her prize. While he still would work alone first, Reed imagined he could have picked a worse dance partner tonight.

Ace moved toward him, slapping her hand into his, and he matched her wicked smile with one of his own. "Glad you think so," he teased, pulling her closer with his opposite hand as the magic of apparition folded around them. From behind her back, Reed's wand swiveled as he cast one more spell on the way out. In the final seconds, before they moved away, Reed targeted the filing cabinet in the back of the room. As the blackness drowned them, a magical fire began to consume the space they evacuated. Reed was confident the cabinet, and every bit of precious information locked inside, would be destroyed in the blaze, and his smirk grew.

Reed had no intention of telling Ace about his real target tonight, and he expected she'd be far less worried about some paperwork in a dossier than getting back her prized broom anyway. Her broom had gained him access, and he'd managed to kill multiple birds with one stone tonight. Reed was nothing if not efficient. As they resurfaced in the same back alley he'd brought her to after the race, Reed took a step back from her.

"Try not to lose it again," Reed quipped, that snarky tone back in his voice down that they had finished the task at hand. He pulled the silver case from his suit and repeated terrible habits as he placed a cigarette between his lips. Reed imagined he would see her again, but he doubted any of their future meetings would be as fun as tonight had been. He did know one thing for sure, though; he would be betting on her on the next race. He'd seen the fire and venom in her eyes when someone stole what was hers, and if she was anything like he imagined her to be, Reed knew Ace was going to move heaven and hell to feel in control again. And for someone like her, he expected that meant she'd do anything to win.

"If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer you to leave first," Reed said, blowing a bit of smoke up into the air and turning his eyes back on her.

She thought she smelled a tinge of smoke as he apparated them out, but they were gone in the next second and so was the scent.

"Ha ha, you're hilarious," Tara said deadpan, throwing him a dark look. As if she lost it in the first place. Right. Sure. She wanted to snap one of his fingers off for that 'joke'. She was sure as hell not going to let that happen and as much as she didn't want to admit it, she didn't want to go back to the races until the why and how of them being found out was all sorted.

His way of dismissing her would've rubbed her the wrong way if she didn't find what the said amusing. "Why, so you can get one last view of my ass?" she tossed back at him with a sly grin, but didn't argue. She was ready to get out of there and get back to the shop where she could inspect her broom and make sure there had been no tampering. And while she liked his combo of reckless and results, there was an edge to him that she didn't want to know more about. Or maybe she did. Either way, she needed to get out of there. She'd had enough of the risk that seemed embedded in every fiber of his being for one night.

"Bye," she called just before she walked away a few steps and disappeared into the dark, disapparating away.

A moment later she reappeared steps from him, a grin on her face. She had changed her mind. "One last thing," she said, before she clutched his lapel and kissed him the way she wanted. She had been distracted earlier by the pending fight to really enjoy the first kiss so she indulged in this one before pulling away and touching his cheek with a light pat. "Seeya, playboy." She was gone in the next second, a whisper in the dark and her dark hair flying.

/end

It was impossible to know if Reed actually thought she might lose her wand again. Ace lived in a dangerous world after all, or if he had only been angling to guarantee that fire in her eyes again.

Reed's arced one eyebrow at her question, and said nothing in return. The only movement he made was to let another puff of smoke billow from his lips. He wouldn't mind another look at her ass, but he assumed he didn't need to say that out loud for her to know. Ace turned around to walk away, and the smoke around Reed lingered as if on stale air. No wind, no breeze, and then he felt the slightest woosh around him,

Ace had returned.

And Reed's eyebrow lifted further, until he saw the look in her eye. For a woman he'd only just met, she quickly became one of the more interesting ones. She raced brooms, could hold herself in a duel, and (as he learned multiple times tonight) was not afraid to take the lead. All things he found fascinating. Reed didn't waste time with decorum, as his free hand wrapped hungrily around her waist, pulling her body close to his for just the right amount of time. When she pulled away, he watched her apparate and smiled. Not a bad night's work.

/end