Chapter Text
Then
“Do you have eyes on the mark?”
His voice crackled slightly down the line through her little earpiece, breaking her moment of silent contemplation in the empty room.
The binoculars in her hand were beginning to grow heavy, and yet she smirked lazily as she peered through them at the street down below.
Well, not quite at the street, but something down there at least.
“Oh I have eyes on something alright.”
She heard him sigh, if only barely over the chatter of people in the background as he wove through the crowd.
“Yen.”
There was a warning in his tone, and she laughed airily as she raised the binoculars from where she’d been killing time appreciatively studying the curve of his ass in his unfairly well-fitting jeans as he tailed their target.
“What?” She drawled, feigning innocence though she knew it’d get her nowhere with him; he knew her too well for that.
It was impossible for him to see her from down there, but he glanced up in her general direction all the same, and if she knew him at all -which she did- he’d already counted the windows out in his head to determine where she was.
“The mark, Yen.”
She pursed her lips, her head resting on her hand, her elbow propped up on the table in front of her.
“Fine, killjoy. You never let me have any fun.”
“There’ll be time for fun when we finish this job. Now, please tell me you’ve at least confirmed his exit route.”
She could hear the smile in his voice as he spoke, despite his feigned annoyance at her distraction. Her pout would go unseen, but she knew he’d hear it just as easily in the tone of her words, too.
“Are you doubting me, Wolfie?”
Her eyes had found their way back to the man he’d been tailing, as they should, but in her mind’s eye she could see the way he’d roll his eyes.
“Never,” he promised right in her ear down the tinny line, “now, if you’d just please confirm for me that he-”
“Yes, yes,” she cut him off, “the white royce, just as expected. Just stay on his six and we’ll be golden.”
“Next time you’re doing the boots-on-the-ground recon,” he swore, though she knew it to be an empty threat.
She was glad she was alone, so that the fond smile that crossed her face was for once entirely free to do so without her needing to mind how it came across.
“Sounds thrilling,” she replied lightheartedly, “then next time you can sit in an empty room to fucking bore yourself to death on lookout.”
“Sounds relaxing.”
“Maybe we should just switch things up entirely! I’ll do the tracking and anything that requires brute force, and you get to do the research and play the honey pot.”
“Hm, great, does that mean I get to seduce Mayor Berrant next?”
“We’ll have much bigger fish to fry than Berrant, next time,” she purred, “but if seducing fat, old, rich men is what gets you going don’t let me kinkshame you, darling.”
She heard him laugh, and at the sound the almost uncomfortable ball of heat in her chest threatened to swallow her whole for a moment. The void of the room around her felt far less all-encompassing with even just the earpiece-diluted vibration of his laughter languidly filling the humid air around her.
“We’ll discuss the details of this little endeavor when we’re done here,” he promised, “I’m almost at the take-off point.”
She watched their mark impatiently check his watch as he marched on in the direction of his car for another moment before she finally lowered the binoculars. Soon, the man would get in his car and drive in the direction of his bank, and her man would be right on his heels.
He shouldn’t be doing anything that’d put him in real danger, but she also knew him better than to think that what he should be doing would stop him from making stupid choices.
Her stomach churned at the thought.
“You’ll be good to go once he’s off,” she said, almost reluctantly, “and… Geralt?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t do anything stupid, alright? Just get that new passcode and come back to… to the rendezvous point.”
To me. Come back to me.
For a moment, silence crackled down the connection between them. Yennefer stared unseeing out into the world beyond the room she had trapped herself in, the binoculars clutched in her hand.
If she didn’t know any better she might have taken his silence for distraction or disinterest, but she did know better. She knew him, had long since given up on trying to convince herself that she wasn’t invested in their partnership.
He cleared his throat, chasing away the deafening silence, and when he spoke she was surer than ever that he knew her as well.
“I’ll take you to dinner tonight to celebrate a job well done.”
It was a promise to be safe- or as close to one as he was able to allow to pass his lips without him beating himself up for making big, sincere promises he couldn’t be sure he’d keep. It was reassurance without explicitly making an attempt to reassure her, and she was grateful.
“The job’ll hardly be done after this,” she said, swallowing the odd, unwanted swell of emotion as best she could.
“To celebrate a job halfway through, then.”
“I’ll hold you to that. Good luck, Wolf.”
“Copy that, Raven,” his deep voice rumbled through her chest, “see you soon.”
They never explicitly closed the channels of communication between them, but in their business they could never be sure when they’d be caught in the deadzone of a vault, or when a line would get corrupted, or when something worse would go wrong.
Acknowledging that chance felt too big, so they didn’t. Instead they made do with their casual goodbyes, again and again and again.
Now
The sound of idle chatter had never been among her favorite things to listen to, and the sound of idle chatter amongst rich assholes even less so.
They were dull people talking about their dull lives, and she could not possibly care less about who took her bachelorette party to Cabo or whose son crashed their disgustingly expensive new sports car.
To her great dismay those exact conversations were the endless soundtrack she couldn’t escape if she wanted to get her job done.
The hall around her was so large and white it seemed to stretch beyond its natural bounds with every step she took. Expensive marble and frivolous, decorative golden swirls covered every surface as far as she could see. Packed within the extravagant walls was a crowd of tailored suits and dazzling dresses, of shimmering necklaces and gravity-defying updos.
The extravagant shimmer of it all was dizzying, and though it was exactly the reason she was even there in the first place, it also made it rather difficult to keep track of her target.
She’d lost sight of her mark in the crowd minutes earlier, and just standing there wasn’t going to help her find him, so when a newly familiar silhouette stepped in front of her and blocked the ostentatious display of wealth from her line of sight for a moment it was almost a relief to the headache she’d felt coming on at all the dancing reflections of lights caught on diamonds and gold.
“I’m sorry for making you wait, you know how much Abelard loves to hear himself talk, though none of it is ever particularly interesting.”
She laughed and uttered her agreement as though she had any clue what -or who- he was talking about. With crowds like these it was always the smarter choice to pretend to be in, to be in the know; more often than not the people she met here were so desperate to seem like they were on top of things that they’d pretend to know her even better in turn.
They were a lying, slithering bunch, and she was good at pretending she belonged among them. With some research beforehand and her penchant for manipulation she’d gotten away with it all so far.
“I was hoping to run into Sheala here tonight,” the man continued, oblivious as she’d hoped, “she’s quite the academic, much more bearable than most of the attendees here. I’d have liked to introduce you to her.”
“I’m sure I’d have liked to meet her,” she conceded without a shred of true interest, “if she’s anything like you I’m sure we’d have gotten along swimmingly.”
He smiled down at her, her flattery clearly working its magic, despite how she’d nearly cursed herself for being so transparent and overt while using it to her advantage.
“She’s more like me than anyone else here, that much is certain. I wish my job didn’t come with quite such a high pressure to network, but when needs must, I suppose.”
“Certainly,” she agreed, “I feel very similarly about the events my line of work has me attend.”
“And yet you seem so at ease at them. I wonder how you do it.”
“Practice, darling. Besides, it’s all worth it for my craft.”
She reached out to give his arm a brief, reassuring squeeze, and he nodded, convinced.
It was easy, telling people what they wanted to hear, to pretend to be exactly what they needed her to be.
Most of the rich assholes she used as a cover to get into events like this wanted a ditzy trophy on their arm, and she’d play the role of a vapid party girl well. Her current ticket was a brilliant academic and decent social strategist, but one who clearly felt out of place in this scene, and she’d play on his need for validation that others were in the same boat just as easily. She’d most enjoyed herself with the exceedingly rare type of old money that’d already long since grown jaded and cynical of the flattery and schmoozing, who’d respond best to her being sarcastic and as close to open about her true opinions as she could get under the guise of social commentary.
Though it still only allowed her to drop a fraction of the first layer of masks she wore, it was already more freeing than the other cases.
Then again, her current company was far from the worst she’d dealt with; he was a decent man with a bright mind, and though he clearly valued himself and his intellect highly he wasn’t all that bothersome about it. It wasn’t enough to make her feel bad about using him, but it was enough to almost be a distraction.
She inwardly shook herself and drew her attention back to their surroundings. Hadn’t she just decided that standing there wouldn’t help her spot her mark in the crowd?
“Well, it may not be Sheala, but there must be other people here worth knowing that I haven’t met yet.”
It was a small victory when her remark immediately had him glancing around to see who he could introduce her to, and quickly once again filling her ears with negligible chatter about the other guests.
She took her chance to glance past his lean form in hopes of seeing something that would be of use to her after all.
Couples whirled across the dancefloor behind him, swirling dresses tangling around tailor-fitted slacks. Boney arms wrapped around thick necks, coral nails contrasted against charcoal collars and ties, bald heads ducked down to whisper promises just above diamond earrings. A head of alabaster hair was ruffled by restless fingers. A middle aged woman cried out as she spilled her drink, a group of belligerent men laughed uproariously at her predicament, and a member of the waitstaff tried their best not to look too annoyed as they rushed in to clean the spill.
The head of alabaster hair turned momentarily towards the commotion.
Before her brain had even had the time to register why, her throat had already gone dry, her eyes clinging to the movement.
She’d only ever known one person with hair like that- it was so fucking distinct she’d teased him about how dumb it was for him to go into their line of work when he looked so unique, so recognizable.
She’d only ever known one person with hair like that, and she hadn’t seen him ages.
Surely it couldn’t be…
Her heart skipped a beat in her chest, a sickening hopefulness flooding her for a split second before it could be replaced by the rage she’d conditioned herself to feel at the mere thought of him instead of the childish heartbreak that'd been there before.
She tried to be inconspicuous as she tilted her chin up in an attempt to catch another glimpse of the man over her date’s shoulder, and found herself surprisingly unsure about whether she was relieved or not when she couldn’t actually spot him again.
Maybe she’d imagined him. It’d been a while since her traitorous mind had created a ghost of him in a busy room to fill in a gap between strangers, but it wasn’t like it was an entirely unheard of occurrence either.
With an unconvinced sigh she tore her eyes off the spot she’d been sure he’d been occupying, and turned her attention back to the task at hand.
Even then it took her a moment to realize she was being spoken to. In her distraction she hadn’t been listening for the fake name she’d given her date.
Yennefer pointedly shook her head, pretended to openly pull herself out of her own thoughts at the sound of his voice.
“Oh!” She feigned surprise as she turned to look up at him. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
“Is everything alright?”
She quickly schooled her face into a carefully trained mask to cover her shaken demeanor. With a silent curse at almost having let herself slip up over him, she blinked up at her date through her eyelashes.
She leaned forward alluringly to derail whatever direction his thoughts had taken at her distraction.
He, as any man too blinded by his own ego being stroked by her attention alone to see her manipulation, swayed towards her, his eyes dropping to the low neckline of her dress.
“Almost everything,” she drawled, leaning closer for another beat before straightening up and pouting at him, lifting her empty champagne flute for his consideration.
Val Istredd tore his eyes off her cleavage with clear effort, a polite smile working its way onto his face as he visibly regained control over himself. To his credit, he was quick to take her glass from her.
“I suppose I’d best resolve this issue before the lady dehydrates,” he quipped, “I’ll be but a moment, and then we’ll make our rounds.”
She did her best to look natural as she smiled back, tucking a strand of hair that’d escaped her updo behind her ear flirtatiously.
“Try not to miss me too much.”
He winked at her words but didn’t reply as he turned to walk away, and she allowed herself the relief of letting her mask slip only for a second before forcing herself back in line. This act wasn’t truly even for Val’s benefit, after all.
Her eyes impatiently scanned across the large, marble-covered venue, taking quick inventory of the guests in search of her mark.
A traitorous voice in the back of her head came at the same time an icy hand squeezed around her stomach.
In search of the mark. Right.
Yennefer Vengerberg was good at what she did, but not so good that she could keep fooling herself.