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Mine For The Taking

by forbloodysummer

Chapter 4: The Park

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As they left the main hall and strutted down the corridor beyond, Spitfire braced herself for the frigid night time air that would await them after the main entrance. Passing through the doors, though, and nodding goodnight to another couple of bouncers outside, the shock never came. It wasn’t as much ‘cool’ outside as it was ‘fractionally less stifling,’ being one of the hottest nights of the year, and even after midnight she felt completely comfortable without a jacket.

Spitfire drew level with Adagio, still holding her hand, and led her off to one side, far enough away from the club entrance to avoid attracting too much attention. She leaned against the side wall of the building, giving her legs a minute to stop wobbling, her whole body almost shaking from the exhilaration of their brazen exit. The marble was refreshingly chilled to the touch, a pleasant contrast to the night air itself.

Although Spitfire felt a pang as Adagio released her hand, being given a bit of space for a couple of minutes to recover wasn’t unappreciated. Adagio stood a few feet away on the wide sidewalk, gazing out across the expanse of the vast square they stood on the edge of, taking in the bright lights and billboards of central Canterlot. Even at this hour, numerous cars were passing through, and while the streets were hardly thick with pedestrians, there was no shortage of moving figures winding their way from one spot of the city’s bustling nightlife to another.

Even with all the electric lights, a minute later Spitfire’s attention was drawn when a white flash lit the dark sky, somewhere over on her left. Glancing up, she saw the sky above them free of clouds, but there was a thickness in the air, and a charge she could almost feel, making it obvious that the storm would be coming their way. Adagio too had looked toward the distant lightning, and now turned to Spitfire.

“We’d better get moving,” Spitfire said, pushing herself away from the wall and into a steady walk over to the edge of the sidewalk beside Adagio, glad her legs had mostly sorted themselves out. Adagio took up step beside her, and Spitfire gave a kind smile, realising how she’d probably sounded like a gruff drill sergeant.

“Shall we flag one down?” Adagio asked as they stood on the kerb, nodding towards the cab they were waiting to pass before setting out across the road. That particular cab had been taken, but from the way Adagio looked in specific directions while asking, Spitfire guessed others had been spotted.

“It might sound silly,” Spitfire shook her head, “but I don’t often carry money on me.” She saw Adagio grimace, who she noticed had no bag of her own, with no conspicuous bulges in her clothes that might be cards, notes or coins.

They reached the other side of the street, with Spitfire leading as they wound their way between a row of parked cars, heading towards the middle of the square, the sharp clopping sounds of their shoes on the asphalt cutting through the quiet murmur of Canterlot by night.

“We could steal a car,” Adagio said from behind her, and Spitfire could practically hear the smirk in her voice.

“We could,” she agreed non-committally, without looking back. “I wouldn’t really know how, but we could try.”

She heard the anticipated snort from Adagio as they stepped back up onto the sidewalk beyond the cars, but hadn’t been expecting the intrigued look she received as the two of them fell in side by side again. Adagio was glancing sideways at Spitfire from where they walked, her head tilted, with a tiny smile on her lips.

“Would you do that?” she asked curiously, but also sounding flattered and tempting. “Steal a car to impress me?”

Spitfire felt her breath catch, but tried forcing herself towards amusement at the idea before her heartbeat could pick up too much from the excitement of it, the fear of what might follow, or the way Adagio might look at her if she did it.

Then Spitfire caught herself, realising that for a fleeting moment, she might have been vaguely considering it. Risking everything she had worked her whole life for, for a girl she had just met. That wasn’t romantic; it was terrifying. Luckily, within a split-second she’d convinced herself that she hadn’t been serious, and the very idea that she might have been made her laugh.

“Bit of a catch 22,” she said dryly. “In order to be brave and stupid enough to try stealing a car, I’d have to be way too drunk to drive it.”

Adagio grinned knowingly, the street lamps reflecting the gleam in her eye. Beyond another wide sidewalk, they continued onto a tarmac path that stretched across the centre of the square, a row of gentle electric lights running down the middle of it, and flat expanses of grass disappearing into the near-darkness on either side.

“Don’t worry, we can walk,” Spitfire said confidently. “It’s not far.”

The trees, benches and flowerbeds scattered about gave Spitfire the impression of a park, although the illuminated windows of high buildings could still be seen in most directions. The sky to their left lit up again, and she caught a glimpse of thick clouds in the distance. The oppressive, still heat of the night seemed to be reaching out to the storm, longing for something to break its tension.

“Neither is the storm,” Adagio replied, looking back at it, and while her voice sounded wry, her face was apprehensive as she scanned their surroundings, probably searching for shelter should they be unexpectedly caught in a downpour. Then she continued with more of her usual bravado, “And I’m all for being drenched in warm water when it’s this hot – and your dress would absolutely go see-through – but...”

Adagio hesitated, clearing her throat, then curled her hands around her middle and spoke more quietly, and while her tone implied she still found it funny, Spitfire had never heard her sound so self-effacing.

“My hair... the rain... you don’t want to see that.”

Clamping her lips together in an effort not to laugh and feeling her face reddening, Spitfire raised a hand to her wavy quiff, thinking of problems she’d never have to deal with.

“My hotel is that building just there,” she said, pointing to the grand white three-storey building straight ahead of them, “man up a bit and we’ll be fine.”

The look she received in return started with outrage and ended with a wicked promise of how much that remark would cost her. The hurt between the two, while obviously not at all sincere, made Spitfire laugh so guiltily that she snaked her arm around Adagio’s waist and pulled her close as a physical apology, pressing their hips together as they walked. After a moment Adagio did the same with her own arm, which Spitfire took to mean she had been forgiven, and they quietly strolled on in that fashion, with neither moving to widen the distance between them again.

“You mentioned your family’s thoughts on your lifestyle,” Adagio said after a quiet but pleasant couple of minutes. “How do you deal with it?”

Spitfire barked a short, bitter laugh, but then swatted the imaginary bile away with her hand, as if it hung in the air in front of her.

“Oh, you know,” she said, a little sardonically but mostly resigned to something she’d accepted a long time before, “evasions, half-truths, sometimes outright lies.” She closed her eyes briefly, exasperated that her own family would sometimes prove the toughest hurdle, but it was fine really. If that was her biggest problem, then things were hardly bad.

“My mom has guessed pretty close to the reality, I think,” she smiled. Good old Mom. She could certainly live with whatever the others thought, as long as she had her mom on her side. “But I offer the same old answers each time, trotted out for every relative.”

Just from having mentioned it, she could hear the phantom questions in her head. The usual suspects that would crop up at each family event. Is there anyone special in your life at the moment? When do you think you’ll settle down somewhere? How much longer are you going to put off having kids?

“The questions aren’t so bad – I mean, they’re probably just something to be expected at family get-togethers – but it’s the things they don’t ask that put me off. Things they’d never think to ask, because they take the answers completely for granted.”

Do you actually want to have children? Does the notion of motherhood appeal to you in the slightest? Just how perfect would somewhere have to be for you to consider ‘settling down’ there, in order for it to live up to the life you’ve spent chasing your dream and experiencing the finest of everything across the planet? Would you rather have a single ‘special someone’ to share your life with, or a whole team of them? Blaze at Spitfire’s hospital bedside sprang to mind again.

“The things they ask show they’re interested in knowing I’m ok, but the stuff they don’t says they’re not all that interested in knowing me.” She threw up her free hand in frustration, and felt Adagio rub her side in sympathy. “Not enough to go to the effort of trying to see someone else’s worldview, at least, rather than just applying those circumstances to their own.” Not enough to consider that maybe a career could provide just as much satisfaction for some people as all those things Spitfire was apparently lacking did to those asking after her, if it was the career you truly wanted and not just something you settled for.

“Do they matter?” Adagio asked simply. “Does it matter what they think?”

Perhaps that attitude explained some of Adagio’s confidence: it wasn’t so much haughty superiority, but more like independence. She existed separately to whatever anyone else thought of her, and her actions would be unaffected by their opinions.

“Not really,” Spitfire agreed, “although I grew to hate the family gatherings where I’d have to talk to them.” The endless aunts, uncles, and whoever else was obliged to be concerned about her. “And I didn’t like resenting my family for it, or not wanting to spend time with them, so I started using an implied cover story.”

The white walls of Canterlot’s finest hotel loomed larger in the distance, a safe port in a... that mental metaphor didn’t really work when a storm was literally the thing they were seeking shelter from. Adagio gave her a shrewd look for a second, biting her lip.

“Ah, a decoy,” Adagio said a moment later, the satisfaction in her eyes at having found the answer quickly shifting into a smirk. And not undeservedly so; Spitfire knew how silly the situation was. Between her wealth, power, talent and looks, she knew she must have been one of the most desirable figures in the country. And if she had to make up a partner to keep her family happy...?

Nodding, she said, “My second-in-command, Soarin – he and I grew up together, so he sometimes pops over when I’m back home. Joining us for Christmas dinner, that sort of thing.” The very thought made Spitfire smile, and not just at pulling the wool over her family’s eyes, or how easy it was to do so.

Few could miss the warmth about Soarin, and she couldn’t think of a family conversation his being there hadn’t improved. He had a different kind of charisma about him to her own: his was welcoming and inclusive, where hers often made her seem all the more removed. Soarin’s presence could still hold attention, but didn’t demand it, and her family adored him for it, just as they had when he and she were kids.

“As far as company goes, he’s tried and tested. He’s always fun to have around, so I never resent having to invite him,” even if that did mean she never heard the end of it from him or the rest of the team. And while she had the authority to silence their teasing anytime she liked, she chose not to, as it was one of those precious areas in which she could act like just another Wonderbolt, and not be separated from her team by her captain’s badge. “And we’re genuinely very close, so the bond doesn’t really need faking.”

And that was the other reason she couldn’t really hold it against him – that was just who they each were, and who they were together, and why they were so convincing in front of her family in the first place.

Not to mention that he was doing her a massive favour, of course.

Adagio said, “And there are no doubt rumours about the two of you together in the press anyway,” from the sound of it admiring how neatly it tied together.

“Inevitably,” Spitfire rolled her eyes. The tabloids and tacky magazines had to make up something week after week to keep selling copies, and the quicker they came up with one gossip story, the sooner readers would forget how baseless the last had been. But then, in defence of second-rate journalism... “There’s real love there, after all,” she relented, smiling at the thought of the pie-loving idiot who was undoubtedly the best friend she could wish for, “just not in the way my family are thinking they see when they read between the lines.”

And in fairness, it wasn’t like she and Soarin hadn’t slept together a few times. Not that that would ever come out, but it was the sort of thing everyone else would probably insist on seeing as some romantic connection, rather than just something bound to happen when you spent most of your time together and drunkenly partied a lot.

“That’s the advantage of using the ones you love the most,” she said. “But he certainly doesn’t mind either. He loves my mom’s cooking,” the mere mention of which had been all the encouragement he’d needed, “and they all think he’s great.”

The boundaries of the city park were rapidly drawing up in front of them, the light from the street beyond spilling in over the last few feet of grass. The white expanse of the hotel spread out along the opposite side of the street, only a few sidewalks and lanes of tarmac away.

The hotel was one of those equally suitable for royalty or rock stars, where one would be just as likely to see armed guards waiting to escort dignified guests as less dignified ones hurling televisions from upstairs windows. More likely, in fact, since no one had actually thrown a TV out of a hotel window in about forty years.

Not that that had quelled her family’s imagination, of course. The constant deluge of drugs they pictured her being offered, in hotels and elsewhere, which she, as a grown adult, clearly needed warning to stay away from. Never mind that they’d never had grounds to question her judgement, or the drugs tests Wonderbolts had to pass regularly.

“And having him there helps me see the funny side of it all,” she added, thinking back to how they’d laughed about it together after one particularly awkward conversation with her aunt, with Soarin providing reassurances at the time instead of Spitfire blowing a gasket over it.

Reaching the end of the path across the park, they marched straight on towards the hotel’s main entrance. The street they crossed was quieter than that outside the nightclub, despite being on the far side of the same square, with cars only visible in the distance.

Adagio’s hip still nestled snugly against Spitfire’s own as they reached the threshold, and the compartments of the gold-plated revolving door, designed for guests with suitcases, were more than large enough for them to share one. Lightning flashed again somewhere behind them, Spitfire turning to peer back as she heard the first peal of thunder. She couldn’t see the night sky clearly enough to tell how close the storm clouds were, but from how soon the deep rumble had followed the lightning, she guessed they hadn’t missed the storm by much.

Yeah, yeah, it would’ve been fine.

The cool air hit them the moment the door opened out into the main lobby, rolling off the polished white marble lining the floor and the columns that stretched up to the triple-height ceiling far above. She and Adagio shared an unspoken look of relief; in all their anxiousness to escape the torrential downpour likely to follow, Spitfire didn’t think either of them had been focusing so much on the heat. Now they were through it, though, she appreciated how stuffy it had been.

“Nice place,” Adagio grinned, sweeping her eyes over the banners adorning the walls as she wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead with a delicate finger.

Ordinarily Spitfire might have made a crack about Canterlot and its obsession with white marble, but when it was this hot and the thick stone kept the air inside cool, she didn’t care. At least the band of burgundy encircling the wide room a few feet off the floor broke the monotony a little.

“I like it,” she instead said in response, shrugging with a smile. “It’s become a bit of a home from home for me, with how often the Wonderbolts have shows in Canterlot.” A lot like the club. She used the hand on Adagio’s waist to steer her towards the ornate elevator off to one side, giving a small wave to the night receptionist on the front desk with the other and hoping the signature scrawled across Adagio’s chest in thick black ink went unnoticed. The thought did bring a rebellious thrill, though, from which she slightly quickened her pace.

The elevator doors opened at their approach, though the doorway was so narrow they had to separate, Spitfire feeling the cool air through the sweat-drenched fabric of her dress on her newly-vacated hip. She led Adagio behind her by the hand into the small elevator car, barely bigger than the revolving door compartment they’d shared entering the building, but considerably more intimate.

The doors slid closed without a sound, and the elevator whisked them upward in similar fashion, with only a quiet guitar riff coming through the speakers in the ceiling. Spitfire suddenly found Adagio very close in front of her and taking her other hand, holding both sets of hands out to the sides with elbows bent, level with their chests, with fingers intertwined, their bodies a few inches apart. Spitfire’s breath caught for a moment, feeling her heartbeat hammering through her chest as she recovered.

Try though she might to halt its progress, a blush bloomed on her cheeks as Adagio looked her up and down with a playful expression. “Now, where are you hiding your room key?” Adagio whispered, sounding intrigued, as her eyes roved over Spitfire’s dress.

Dropping her eyes for a second to look over her own outfit, taking in her open shoes and tight yellow dress that would have shown any concealed bulges, Spitfire thought that taped to the inside of her upper thigh would have been about the only place to carry a hotel key card. Since it was safe to assume Adagio had reached the same conclusion, Spitfire’s breathing quickened as she wondered how long she’d have to keep her mouth shut to entice wandering hands into finding out for themselves.

Probably longer than we have here, given that we’re nearly at the top.

Redirecting one pair of their joined hands and extending her index finger, Spitfire pointed to her face.

“This is the key,” she said as the upwards motion slowed and came to a stop. “Private elevator to the penthouse suite. Reception wouldn’t open the doors for anyone else.”

Right on cue, the doors slid apart again, but Spitfire hardly noticed with how Adagio’s eyes smouldered as they held her own. Adagio didn’t so much smirk as a smirk tantalisingly-slowly faded into existence on her face. It made the air-conditioned elevator feel as hot as the night outside. Mouth dry, pulse racing and slamming through Spitfire’s chest like the bass had in the club, it was a small wonder her legs weren’t trembling. She felt like the youngest girl in high school in front of the hottest senior.

But she wasn’t some schoolgirl, she was a Wonderbolt. And a schoolgirl, in her situation, wouldn’t have pounced. The Captain of the Wonderbolts met nerves head on; she charged into the fight instead of seizing up as it approached. And so she did.

...Or so she would have done, if Adagio hadn’t pulled away again a fraction of a second beforehand. Adagio released both hands and backed off to the far side of the opened doorway in one smooth movement, and Spitfire remained locked in place, as if the pounce command she was barely able to stop in time had never been sent to her limbs.

You tease. You evil, evil tease. But they were so close now. Just a few more seconds. Blood was roaring in her ears. Nervous energy and anticipation gave way to primal need.

“Well then...” Adagio said, extending a hand to offer the doorway for Spitfire first, her eyes losing none of their dangerous lustre. Spitfire stepped through into the ambiently-lit suite that beckoned beyond, with Adagio close behind her, and only realised afterwards that Adagio had acted as if inviting Spitfire into her own room.

Author's Notes:

Posting this from an airport departure lounge while waiting for a connecting flight on the way home from Bronycon.

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