CHAPTER 5
STAKEOUT

IRIS hadn't done a lot of stakeouts in her career. Honestly, she thought of it as a way to do nothing and get away with it. She knew loads of detectives that used stakeouts to get a few more hours of sleep on the job, or to jerk off in cruiser and get paid for it. She never liked stakeouts for this reason. Iris wasn't about to take a nap or watch porn during one, but they were so boring that there was nothing else to do but that. She could almost sympathize with those lazy detectives. Almost.

Thankfully, Dick hadn't found out about her planned stakeout that night. She had an extremely strong premonition that St. Anne's would be the robbers' next stop, and it had to be tonight. Over the past three weeks, each place was hit on Thursday night at exactly 10:18 PM. If they still went according to plan, tonight would be no different. At least, that's what she hoped.

Iris parked her cruiser over a hundred feet from St. Anne's back entrance. Burglars were known to hit from the back. She never really liked driving this thing. She much preferred the train, even with its stash of regular characters, but sometimes she needed to suck it up. After putting the cruiser in park, she turned the whole car off to make it seem like no one was there, so she now had to suffer through the cold night with no heat. Iris wore a heavy parka that she tried wrapping around her legs when she pressed her knees to her chest. Her only source of heat – which was hardly anything – was the sweet taste of nicotine that lingered on her tongue from her cigarette. She smoked at least eight of them during this time just to stay warm – well, that was what she told herself, as if a tiny killing machine could fight against the frigid autumn air.

She felt herself nodding off around 10:10 PM. Iris kept bobbing her head back and forth, trying to keep it afloat over the sea of responsibilities and anxiety. Eventually, her eyes shut, and she fell deeper and deeper into the void of darkness. She slipped into a dreamy reality where everything was okay and she didn't have to worry about things like dumb stakeouts or the fact that she was incredibly addicted to cigarettes or that she maybe had a tiny problem with drinking too much whiskey every single night. Everything was warm and dark and peaceful –

A car door slammed outside. Iris woke with a start.

There was an old coffee toppling down in the cup holder and she flung her hand out to stop it. Cold coffee spilled onto the passenger side, but she didn't have time to clean it now. Iris popped her head up, zeroing in on the car parking itself behind a large bush across the street. It was a jet black SUV. She slid closer to the window, sitting in the small puddle of week-old Starbucks, and watched a group dressed in head-to-toe black pile out of the van.

"Oh, shit," Iris muttered, shoving herself out of her own car.

She had to go in through the back. If she went into the front with them, it would be too obvious, too calculated. Iris tore off her parka, tiptoeing warily towards the shop. She pulled her weapon out from its holster and approached the back door of St. Anne's. It was painted a teal blue and rusting around the doorknob. When Iris wiggled the knob, she realized it was locked. Well, she really wasn't surprised – every door had to be locked after closing.

This wasn't even technically legal – per say. But if she didn't do this now, this group would continue to plague the whole city and cause even more chaos. They needed one less problem in the streets of Detroit, what with a fucking masked vigilante running around. (But I digress. Back to the story.)

Iris was taught in training how to get through a locked door, but the good old bobby pin trick never failed her. It was oldest – and best – trick she had ever learned. Plucking a bobby pin from her dark locks, Iris bent the metal just a little bit and fumbled it into the lock. She twisted it back and forth, anxiety rattling her bones, but eventually, the lock clicked open. Iris ripped the door open and headed inside.

She walked carefully, like a prowl, her weapon pointed directly in front of her. Noises echoed from the front of the store. Iris did her best to meander through the darkness, allowing the thieves' soft whispers to be her guide. She arrived near the front seconds later, pushing past the dusty curtain that led to the backroom, and found a group of three pacing around the jewelry section. Their flashlights swiveled around a glass box. They asked each other who would be the one to do it.

Iris flipped the safety off and cocked back her gun. "Police!" She hollered. "Put your hands up! All of you!"

One of them turned her way, a pair of light eyes burning into her own. Before she could shout a warning, they brought the end of their flashlight down, smashing the glass case.

"STOP!" Iris shrieked, rounding the several clothing racks to catch up with the thieves. They pushed on each other and yelled for someone to "get it," whatever it was. Iris didn't care. She wiped the sweat from her brow and shot at the wall, hoping it would cause the robbers to fumble. They weren't fazed at all.

The group of three continued to shove each other towards the entrance. They tripped and almost fell when Iris shot again. The bullet bounced off the tip jar on the counter, sending it across the floor. Her pursuit was not finished. She was closer this time. Close enough to reach out, fingers itching to snatch the black ski masks right off their heads. She shot again. The sound was almost deafening, and her ears began to ring. They slipped right into each other, but it didn't matter, because two of them were already reaching the door, skidding out like a runaway car.

But she reached further, pulling a muscle in her shoulder as her fingers curled around the collar of the last one in the group, and she jerked them backwards with all the might she had left in her. It was difficult. Her lungs burned and her voice was hoarse. Maybe if she hadn't smoked so much, it would be a different story.

The man fell back. (Iris concluded then that it was definitely a man.) His spine collided with the ground, but he still had some fight left in him. He tried bouncing back up, swinging his fist to land a quick punch in her gut. She dodged it, and took the split second she had of him falling face-first into the floor to notice the other two thieves driving off in the black SUV.

"HEY!" She shrieked, though she knew it was useless. They were already gone and her voice was straining so hard that it felt like it was bleeding.

Iris notched her hand around the man's collar again, yanking him up to his knees. Her arms begged for release. They throbbed with pain, a sudden reminder that maybe she did need to work out more often. But that wasn't important now. She held her breath, sliding her weapon back into its case and pulling out a spare set of handcuffs she always kept in her jacket. (Chief's orders. He did have important rules from time to time.) Locking them around the man's wrists, Iris cocked her head to the side and wondered why his build looked so familiar to her.

"Let's see who you really are, dipshit," she whispered, lifting the mask off. Iris suddenly couldn't breathe.

A mop of dark brown curls. Peridot eyes that liked to stare at her for way too long. Warm, honey-colored skin that looked like it could've been made of the sun itself. That goddamn stupid smirk that bordered on the verge of creepy and flirtatious. She almost didn't want to believe it. None of this made sense.

It was Josh.

•••

Iris had taken a lot of medication in her life. When she was a baby, her lungs were too small, too weak for her own body, leaving her with multiple hospital visits and piles of meds from the ages one to three. When she was fifteen, she started to take these pills that the doctor said would combat her hideous acne – the kind that left your face in a blanket of painful, red bumps – but after being on those for a year, she realized they were just a placebo and didn't do shit. At the age of eighteen, she began seeing a therapist, who convinced her parents that she bipolar, which then led to her taking medication that she didn't even need. She just had anger issues, and the therapist knew that, but Iris learned that all doctors were crooked and pills were always the same. They tasted alike and went down the same way.

But this – learning that her neighbor was part of some local burglary group, realizing that him waiting outside his apartment every night could've been him watching her, having to put him in handcuffs ... This was one of the toughest pills she had to swallow.

It didn't take long to get a few cruisers down to St. Anne's. The alarm had apparently gone off anyways, so they were already on their way by the time she rang them in. A few officers wrapped the crime scene in that famous, bright yellow tape that you saw in every CSI episode, except the sight of it felt different when you saw it in real life. Iris had been near caution tape for years, but it always left her with a churning in her stomach. That feeling only worsened when she turned her head to the side and watched an officer lead Joshua to the back of a squad car. He was going to be taken in for questioning and booked.

Josh hadn't said a word to her when they had waited for her team to show up. Granted, she didn't even know what to ask. How? Why? Her throat closed up and all she could focus on was how calm he was being in a pair of handcuffs, as if he expected to take the fall. She'd learn more tomorrow when she came into the station. Maybe she'd even get a chance to question him in the morning. But she knew she wasn't going to sleep tonight. Not when she now knew that her flirtatious neighbor had been watching her this whole damn time.

The break-in had been stopped, but the case wasn't over. She still had two other criminals on the loose, and if her intuition was correct, they weren't done just yet. There had to be more to this than just trivial robberies.

Another pair of headlights arrived on scene. Iris turned and held a hand out in front of her, shielding her eyes from the bright lights. The car shut off and she squinted, recognizing the silver Porsche. Iris lowered her hand as the driver slammed his car shut. She raised an inquisitive brow, "Dick?"

His arms were already out, but not to hug her. (Fuck out of here with that assumption.) No, he was angry. More than angry, actually. His eyes were furious and full of malice, much like her own from time to time. Dick stalked towards her quickly, like a predator approaching its prey, though he knew she'd never been the inferior one in their partnership. They were two sides of the same coin, constantly battling for who was on top, or who was in more control. She won this time.

"What the hell, Iris?" Dick exclaimed, halting in front of her with a thunderous stomp. "Why?"

Iris looked from him to the caution tape blowing through the wind. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Why what?"

Dick blinked rapidly. "Why didn't you call me? Or at least tell me you were planning a stakeout?" He demanded, tone bursting with haste. "I had to find out from the fucking security guy that sits outside the station eating a dozen donuts every night shift!"

"I didn't need you," she replied with a roll of her eyes. "I could do this on my own."

He couldn't speak for a moment. He had absolutely no words. It felt like they had this conversation at least twenty thousand times, and he was officially over it. Dick was standing his ground.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? We're supposed to be working together and you just shut me out all the time!" He ran a hand through his hair before whipping it down directly at his hip. "You know what? I'm fucking tired of it."

Iris narrowed her eyes. The blue irises darkened and sparkled against the stars in the night sky. "What do you think this is? A marriage?"

"No, no, no. We're done with your questions." He wagged a finger in front of her nose, and she was tempted to smack it away. "Seriously, what is your deal? Do you just not like new people or something?"

"I do things solo," she said, extending the last word for more emphasis. "Always have. Always will."

Dick scoffed and rubbed at his eyes. She was glaring at him, as if he did something wrong, but it was her. All their problems and arguments and everything in between – they started with her, simply because she couldn't let a single person into her life. It was time for her to get used to change.

"Yeah, well, keep that up and you can consider yourself off the force."

He stepped around her, bumping the end of his shoulder into her own, like how she'd done to him. Iris thought she hadn't heard him at first, but that couldn't be – she had excellent hearing. So that meant ... she had heard those words, she had listened to his warning, and she wasn't having it.

Iris spun on the tip of her boot. Her voice was like ice as she asked, "Are you threatening to fire me?"

One side of Dick's lips lifted the slightest bit, and he looked back at her, raising his voice so it matched her own: "What gave it away?"

•••

A/N: well