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lemonade-coolattas · 3 years

Text

how this is gonna go

rowaelin month day 5, prompt: “I accidentally hit you with my car.”

vigilante!Rowan & thief!Aelin au

wordcount: ~2.9k

tw: language, hella light violence?

part 2

It was hour six of his stakeout. There was a crook in his neck from hour two, his stomach had been rumbling since hour four, and he’d had to piss for the past forty-five minutes.

Needless to say, Rowan Whitethorn was not a happy man.

All of that would be worth it, though, if the night panned out like he needed it to.

Or, at least, if it ended better than the last time he thought he was closing in on Ardalan’s Angel.

That night had ended in a trap, with the museum vault doors slamming down just as he caught a glimpse of a lithe figure by the entrance on the other side, covered head-to-toe in black, fucking wiggling their fingers at him. He’d had to escape by the skin of his teeth when the cops arrived.

No, whoever the famed thief was, they were certainly not an angel.

But this time was going to be different, he could feel it.

Just like he knew, deep down, that this obsession of his was probably more trouble than it was worth.

But in the four years he had been doing this, the four years he had been on his little crusade of justice, nobody had evaded him as well as the so-called Angel had, or for as long as they had, and he couldn’t deny the thrill whenever he showed up at a crime scene just to see a pair of taillights disappearing in the dark, the way his heart raced when he deciphered their next move, the way he felt more alive than he had in years whenever he played this little chess match of theirs.

Even more so when the thief had started taunting him, when they had started leaving not only their own calling card at the scenes of their impossible thefts—a small, carved wooden figurine of a stag, no bigger than his thumb—but also a carved hawk, like they were teasing him for the nickname the public had bestowed upon him. The Silver Hawk. He scoffed now just thinking of it, even while cursing himself for letting a civilian catch a glimpse of his bright hair when leaving a crime scene after he had deposited a criminal at the feet of the cops with them none the wiser. No pictures, thank the gods, but the nickname had stuck.

And it seemed his target had found it as ridiculous as he had, and he wasn’t sure if that kinship was thrilling or terrifying, but he knew he had to catch them just so he could one-up them once and for all.

And get a little revenge for the whole museum incident.

Hence the six-hour stakeout in his car in the alley behind the jewelry store, heat blasting to ward off the winter chill, waiting for some movement from at the end of the alley.

He had stalked the perimeter earlier, knowing that the only way out was the door in the alley, or the front gate, and the Angel wasn’t stupid enough to go with the latter.

They might be bold enough, though.

But whatever exit they planned on using didn’t change his plan. He would incapacitate them the way he had all his targets in the past four years—using as little violence and force as possible, make them turn themselves in to the nearest police station, and their little game would finally come to an end.

He tried not to think about how that filled him with a sinking feeling not unlike dread. Instead, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, trying to keep the yawns at bay.

Where were they? Every one of their crimes had take place in the early hours in the morning, and it was nearing three a.m.

He was getting antsy. After months, he thought he had finally cracked the pattern in the Angel’s hits while the police had done nothing but chase their tails, but as the clock on his dash kept ticking, he wasn’t so sure.

He shook his head, running through what he had learned in the past eight months. While seemingly random, all of the Angel’s thefts had one common thread: veiled through layers and layers of shell companies, the targets were all owned by Arrobyn Hamel, and each theft, whether of jewels, gold, art, had been enough to bleed each place dry. Hamel was at the head of one of the largest crime syndicates in Rifthold, and while Rowan had tracked down a couple of his cronies over the years, he had never gotten close to the man himself. Just identifying this place as the next target had taken Rowan days of research, several bribes, and one break-in to the city’s record facility.

Rowan cracked his neck. He had done his work, and he had down it well. The Angel would be here.

As if on cue, a screech of tires on pavement interrupted his musing, followed a beat later by the blaring of alarms, and before he could blink, a car tore by the mouth of the alley way.

In all his planning, he hadn’t counted on the fucking roof, which the Angel had undoubtedly scaled down to get to their getaway vehicle.

Which he should have thought of, because he had used roof-access countless times in his own missions, his own escapes.

Stupid.

Rowan cursed, and threw his car into drive, swinging onto the main drag, where a pair of taillights glared in the distance.

He sped up. This could still work. He could trail from a distance until the Angel felt safe, follow them back to whatever little hidey-hole they crawled into, and grab them there. His fingers flexed on the wheel, and he leaned forward in his seat, a grin splitting his face as he pressed down on the gas. This could work.

The city was deserted, nobody out at such a late hour, especially with the bitter cold. Soon, the Angel slowed to a reasonable speed, likely considering themselves in the clear and trying not to attract any unwanted attention, while he cruised about a quarter mile back, only starting to close the distance when his target flipped their turn signal on, taking a right onto a different street.

Steeling himself, fingers tightening on the wheels, he turned right.

And let out a sigh of relief when he saw the outline of the same taillights in front of him.

He followed for another several miles, the city whizzing by outside his windows, keeping far enough back not to draw suspicion, but not far enough to lose them.

As the scenery changed, the city gradually bleeding into the suburbs, Rowan’s excitement grew, his left leg bouncing up and down. Close. We’re getting close.

Sometimes, he thought that this was what he loved about what he did, his old promise to himself be damned. It was the feeling of his heart in this throat, blood pumping in his ears, as he did something, accomplished something, that made him feel free, alive.

And he would be damned to let the Angel take it away from him.

At a red light near the outskirts of the city boundaries, the Angel’s car, a little red sedan without plates, rolled to a stop, and Rowan pulled up behind them, trying to calm his pounding heart, sure, somehow, that they would hear it. They were the only two cars at the intersection, likely the only two cars within a few miles’ radius.

Rowan thought he saw the outline of the figure in the front seat glimpse in the rearview mirror. He averted his eyes, pulling the black cap lower on his forehead, and pretended to look out his window while keeping the car in his peripheral vision.

A beat passed. Then two.

Then, his target revved their engine, and before Rowan could realize what was happening, they whipped into the intersection, ignoring the red light and banging a u-turn to speed back toward the city.

He was made.

Fuck, fuck.

Rowan cut hard to the left, his back tires spinning out as he tried to get back onto the other side of the divided road.

The Angel, likely seeing him in the rearview mirror, began to floor it, speeding down the main drag in an attempt to get rid of him.

Rowan only gritted his teeth and slammed his foot on the gas.

He was so close, and he was not losing them.

He sped after them, closing the gap between the two cars inch by inch, until the sedan cut a hard left. Rowan, going nearly too fast to follow, almost side-swiped a streetlight in his attempt to make the turn.

It was then that the car started weaving back and forth between lanes, and Rowan was immensely grateful there was no oncoming traffic from the other direction. The car whipped a few more hard turns, Rowan nearly snapping his steering wheel in an attempt to keep up, and as they neared the slums of Rifthold, where the roads were full of potholes and hard curbs, the first seed of doubt trickled in. He knew the streets of the city, his city, but still, without the easy, neat grid of streets of the downtown, it would be infinitely easier for his target to lose him in the tangle of streets in this district.

Though Rowan wouldn’t make it easy for them.

There were maybe a hundred feet between them now, Rowan closing fast, when suddenly, the car slammed on the brakes, and Rowan, swerving to avoid rear-ending them, overshot them by enough that in the time it took for him to turn back around, they had turned down a side street off the main drag.

Then, the power of the few streetlights cut out—because of course it did—blanketing the street in an inky darkness only broken by the weak beams of his headlights and the stray lit window in the run-down apartment buildings bordering the road.

So, then, whoever the Angel was—they weren’t not working alone, if they were able to cut the power like that, because there was no way in hell that was a coincidence.

He caught a glimpse of red taillights just before the Angel, just out of reach of his own high beams, cut their own lights, disappearing into the night, and he lost a visual.

Shit.

He sped down the narrow road, swearing again when he came to an intersection where the road branched into three with no way of knowing in which direction the Angel had gone.

He paused, easing up on the gas and breathing hard, fists white on the steering wheel, trying not to let the weight of defeat crush him. He had just started to lower his head to the steering wheel when—

There, to the right, a flicker of movement in the dark.

As he rolled down the street on the right, he flicked his own lights off even though it effectively left him blind, hoping, maybe, to sneak up on them when they were vulnerable, when they were likely thinking they had lost him.

He knew the hours spent poring over maps of the city would come in handy, knew that this particular road went on straight for at least half a mile before he’d have to worry about the street curving west. He allowed a grin to cross his face as he picked up speed again to make up ground, knowing he could probably navigate with his eyes closed, so driving in the complete darkness was no different.

Which is why the unmistakable thump of his car hitting something caused his heart to drop.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He slammed to a stop and flicked his lights back on, taking in the crumpled form lying on the pavement in front of him, already trying to push to their feet.

Fucking shit.

A tiny, small part of him, a part he hated, wanted to keep going after the Angel, not wanting to let them slip through his fingers again.

The louder, more human part of him screamed that he had just fucking hit someone with his car, and that the Angel could wait.

With another litany of curses, he threw the car in park and braced himself against the slap of cold air as shoved his car door open and jogged around to the front, where the person—a woman, he could tell now—had finally pushed to her feet, though her hands were braced on her knees.

“Are you al—?“

She whirled on him, “What the actual fuck, man?”

He froze at the icy fury in her gaze, her turquoise eyes—the only part of her face visible with a beanie pulled low to cover her ears and a scarf wrapped around her neck—blazing. As he stared at her, he swore her eyes widened a hair, and he pulled his cap lower on his head, tucking any strands of hair that escaped under behind his ears.

He needed to dye his hair.

He shook his head. “I’m so—“

“I mean, who the hell drives around at night without their fucking headlights?”

He shook his head again.

“Are you—?”

“I should fucking sue you, asshole.”

His winced, and he jerked his head to the side, even as he took her in, making out the running leggings and a thermal long-sleeved tee in the glow from his headlights. She had one of those phone holders for running strapped on her arm and earbuds dangling from her ear. A jogger, then. And she didn’t appear to be hurt, even if she was holding herself a bit stiffly.

Even so, she was stunning. And confusing as all hell.

“You should.” At that, a bit of the tension went out of her shoulders. “But, if I can ask, why the hell were you running around this part of town at this time of night when it’s fucking freezing out?”

The stare she pinned him with could’ve fried the balls off a man. “I’m sorry, who are you, my mother?”

He winced again, holding his hands up. “Listen, are you alright? Let me drive you to a hospital—“

She shook her head before he even finished, bracing her hands on her hips with her eyes aimed at the sky. “No hospital. I’m fine, you only caught my side. Will bruise like hell, but nothing I can’t handle.”

Rowan stared at her, and she shifted under the weight of his gaze, still not looking at him, her fingers drumming against her thigh. “I really think I should take you to—“

“Listen, man.” she looked anywhere but his eyes, almost like… almost like she was anxious. “I just want to finish my run and head home. Is that okay, mom?”

No, it wasn’t okay, not when he was about to be sick from guilt. He could’ve killed her.

He began to shake his head, and she continued. “Let me rephrase. If you do not let me go home, I will sue you, or call the cops at the very least, and I don’t think that’ll be fun for either of us.”

He knew he shouldn’t relent, but the night had gone to shit as it was, and he didn’t feel like adding a lawsuit to the list. He nodded, and a bit more of the tension leaked out of her. She eased away from him, before pausing.

“Where the fuck is my phone?”

It must’ve been knocked from its holder in the impact, and they both turned in circles, looking for it on the ground.

He spotted it first, the cracked screen glinting on the gravel at her feet. “Got it,” he muttered. He closed the distance between them to bend down to grab it, the scent of jasmine wafting to him, and he shook his head before he could inhale deeper. As he bent down, he caught a glimpse of the strip of exposed skin of her ankles above her running sneakers.

His breath caught.

Because, on one ankle, was a tattoo of a stag. The stag.

Which wouldn’t have been all that damning if it wasn’t for the gun strapped in the ankle holster on the other leg.

He froze. She froze. He swore he could hear her breath catch, and then, so low he knew he wasn’t supposed to hear it: “Fucking hell.”

Before Rowan could move, before Rowan could even think, the woman—fucking Adarlan’s Angel—was driving her knee up into his face, crunching his nose. He felt a gush of warmth leak down his chin as he stumbled back. He tried to catch his balance, vision blurry, but then his feet were being swiped out from underneath him, and he fell hard, breath getting caught in his chest. He forced himself to his elbows just in time to see the woman dive into his car through the door he had stupidly left open. She had barely slammed it shut before she was throwing the car into reverse, and peeling off in the direction he had came from, tires spitting gravel in his direction.

Rowan could only stare after her.

She must have dumped her car somewhere, thinking she had lost him for good, then posed as a runner to avoid suspicion should anyone run into her. Which he had. Literally. Only he would hit his target with his fucking car as she was making her getaway. And then get said car stolen by said target.

Some vigilante he was.

As her taillights—his taillights, really—faded in the distance, Rowan, ass still firmly planted on the pavement, dropped his head in his hands.

Shit.

He was in such deep, unending shit.

a/n: Rowan gets an A for effort. he tried his best.

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