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six.
DON'T BE A SPAIN
IN THE BUTT
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TATE'S BREATH BURSTS from her mouth in rapid pants as she chases after Chloe Frazer. Fortunately, their position on the bridge should give her some advantage over the thief given that directions to run in are limited. Unfortunately, Chloe is not about to play games. She climbs over the iron railing on the other side and drops down below.

Sully is still yelling at her and Nathan as they follow her. Tate tunes out the sound of his voice and channels Ronan's spirit to guide her as she vaults herself over the barrier in a single smooth motion, keeping her balance when she lands on a red-shingled section of roof. Concrete runs between each large square of shingles, allowing Chloe to sprint down it without tripping.

Nathan chases after her with his sneakers pounding against the ground. The path is only wide enough for them to move one at a time, so Tate crosses to the right side in case Chloe tries to make an abrupt turn. Luckily, she does. Unluckily, she keeps moving straight with Nathan charging behind, and he doesn't notice Sully coming from his left until they crash right into each other.

"Could you move any slower?" Nathan yells at him.

"I got a bad ankle, kid! I can't be running around out here."

While they're arguing, Tate keeps moving. She finds her platform shoes helpful for giving her the additional height necessary to propel her up onto the higher section of the roof. It leads to a lookout point that Chloe also vaults herself over the edge of without a second thought.

Tate is impressed. The girl's got guts.

Fortunately for her, so does Tate. She follows right on her heels down to the patch of garden, dropping onto her side in a roll in the soil so she doesn't fuck up her knees. Chloe's red dress makes her easy to spot through the green foliage of the plants that she fights her way through.

One step behind. Always one step behind.

Tate pushes herself to move even faster even through the pain in her feet, unsure if she should attempt to tackle Chloe since they're in the middle of the street now, or if she should reach for the bag bouncing at her side.

She's distantly aware of Nathan screaming, "Oh, shit!" when he overcompensates for the unexpected drop and falls into the garden as well. It makes her roll her eyes.

Tate swings her body to the right to avoid an onslaught of oncoming cyclists. Her feet thunder down stone steps, arms whirling to keep her balance. She's back to cursing her boots again when they almost cause her to trip.

Chloe leads her to a ginormous fountain that splits the plaza in two. Tate, moving on autopilot, doesn't stop to think before jumping in after her and clomping awkwardly through the calf-deep water like a newborn horse.

"These - boots - were - a - hundred - and - fifty - dollars!" she exclaims between every step.

The water splashes up her calves and drenches the legs of her pants, causing them to stick to her skin once she clambers out of the fountain and back onto the street. Then she's running again, her wet shoes squelching in time with them striking the pavement, making her movements much less graceful as she fights gravity. The last thing she needs is to eat shit when she's this close.

Her target slides over the hood of a car and sprints toward a small parking area. Tate makes a wide turn and approaches the black SUV that Chloe is running toward from the opposite side, her arms pumping wildly and her heartbeat thundering in her ears.

She times it just right. Chloe unlocks the car and Tate flings herself into the passenger side. When Chloe climbs in and starts the vehicle, it's obvious she hadn't heard Tate, so she jumps at the sight of her.

"What the fuck?" she demands.

"Hey." Tate smiles at her before lunging.

She isn't sure what she's aiming for - the face, the bag, or even the start button to cut the engine - but Chloe fights her hands away like a bat out of hell. She slams her foot on the gas, causing an unbuckled Tate to fall forward into the dashboard. She releases a pained grunt when her abdomen barrels into the center console and her side connects with the glove compartment.

Something smacks against the hood and Chloe breaks hard. Tate jerks her head up to see Nathan - soaking wet, probably having fallen into the fountain - shaking a finger at Chloe like an angry old man.

"Listen!" he shouts. "You don't know where you're going with them keys! Look, you're looking for a tree, right?"

"Piss off!" Chloe yells back through the window.

She lurches the car forward again, and Tate is about to swing her elbow back and smash it into Chloe's face before she runs Nathan over when he speaks, causing her to pause.

"Whoa! Listen to me! The eighteen were willing to wait years to go back for the gold. They wouldn't have picked a tree as a marker. They would've picked something more permanent."

His eyes briefly meet Tate's, showing that he'd understood what she'd hypothesized on the plane.

Chloe, however, doesn't seem to care. "You're full of shit."

Tate's gaze flickers between her and Nathan, unsure if she should keep attacking her or stop for the moment.

Luckily, Sully appears and chooses for her. "Hey. Let her go. Tate, get out of the car."

Tate levels Chloe with a threatening 'I don't care what Sully says, I will grab onto the back of this car while you're driving if I have to' look before exiting the vehicle. She slams the door shut and walks toward the two men, crossing her arms over her chest.

"She knows where to use the keys, then she doesn't need us, right?" Sully continues.

Tate fights a smirk off her face when she realizes their plan. This is the exact tactic that would work on her- get her to admit that she needs them. Maybe she and Chloe are more alike than she'd initially realized.

"Okay," Nathan says, raising his arms in surrender as he moves out of the way. "Be my guest. Get out of here."

"Thank you."

"Mmhmm. Bye."

Chloe makes it about five feet before stopping the car and heaving a sigh of relent. It's as much of a confession as they'll get.

Tate leans against the passenger door and raps her knuckles on the window. "Should've let him keep talking."

"If it's not a tree, then what is it?" Chloe asks.

Nathan trades a victorious look with the other two before answering, "At the auction house, Moncada called it an 'altar crucifix.' I didn't think about it then, but something Tate said made me realize that the cross was originally made to stand on an altar. In a church."

"Which church?" both Chloe and Sully question at the same time.

"God, you guys never stop, do you?" Nathan asks.

Tate shrugs as she comes around to his side of the car. "You really do have to start being more specific."

"Look, if we wanna get the gold, we're gonna have to figure out a way to trust each other." He holds a hand out to Chloe. "So give me the key."

"Like you had it last time, only for it to get stolen?" Tate approaches Chloe's open window and holds out her hand as well. "Give me the key."

The girl hovers the cross over Tate's palm, repeating her question to Nathan, "Which church?"

The Santa Maria del Pi is a Gothic-style church in the city's Barri Gòtic district. Like many parts of Europe, it has withstood bombings, collapses, and anarchy, standing tall and proud above the stone streets of Barcelona.  Tate cranes her neck to take in the beautiful rose window in the building's front façade. It's obvious now that she thinks about it- the church's name literally translates to "Saint Mary of the Pine".

The placard to their left has the same image of the tree that was in the captain's book. Tate doesn't know whether to be impressed by Nathan's thought process or angry that she hadn't realized this first.

"This has to be it," Sully says. He sounds impressed as he smiles at Nathan and rifles through the journal. "You might just be a genius."

"I wouldn't go that far," Tate says. She's jarred away from the intricate carvings in the stone by the point of his elbow digging into her ribs.

"It is a stretch," Chloe agrees.

"Oh, yeah?" Sully asks. having located the page in question, he holds out the tattered book so she can see the painted image of the tree. "Look at that. Now you know why I brought him."

Nathan smirks at Tate. "It's zero to one."

"I didn't realize we were keeping score," she replies.

"You mean you weren't starting a tally?"

She was. And she curses her competitive nature for being so obvious. It's fine when she's winning, but when she has yet to score a point... it stings. No, more like it burns, festering within her and igniting a spark of rage that churns in her gut, making her feel antsy to prove herself. Prove her worth. That she's not some ditzy airhead who gets too distracted by birds to realize she's been stolen from.

When Tate doesn't answer and instead glares at the ground, Nathan's smirk grows into a knowing smile.

Chloe hums as she examines the drawing. "Okay. Good work." It sounds like it pains her to compliment him. "I'll go see when we might have a private look inside."

She heads over to speak to two nuns who stand outside the main entrance. Their habits and veils are all white, but their shoes are black and their ankles are showing. Tate wonders if this is considered scandalous for the Lord.

Now that she's aware of Chloe's two-faced nature, she doesn't want to let the girl out of her sight. Gone are the moments of trying to identify pigeons while in her presence. Her eyes carefully track Chloe's steps toward the sisters even if it's only a few yards away.

When she returns, she tells them, "There's a midnight mass tonight, so tomorrow's the earliest we can poke around."

"You got our gear at the house, right?" Sully asks.

"Yeah," Chloe replies. "Come on."

Minutes later, Tate finds herself back in the very same SUV she and Chloe had just nearly scratched out each other's eyes in. Sully had called shotgun - of course - leaving her and Nathan to climb into the back. Tate casts a resentful glare at the center console for the bruise she's likely to form on her stomach, rubbing at the tender area left bare by her cropped tank top.

The so-called "house" that Sully mentioned is really a flat in an area full of narrow streets and shops crammed together. The interior suggests that it isn't used often. A hodgepodge of mismatched furniture sits in the main room, which was probably once a formal dining room, but is now a sort of sitting area. The wooden table has been pushed to the far end and doesn't appear to be the location of many meals judging by the clutter stacked on top of it.

Not for the first time, Tate wonders if there's some sort of secret organization Sully and Chloe are a part of, or if they just know each other from being treasure hunters. Do you meet colleagues while on the job? Who pays for this flat? Tate's mind is restless as she sits on a yellow sofa with Sully and bounces her leg up and down.

This is what she's bad at: a waiting period. She is usually always doing something. If she has downtime, she usually spends it reading, practicing her languages, exploring, or training in the gym. But even her suitcase that's half-stuffed with paperbacks doesn't sound appealing to her.

She leaves Chloe and Sully talking about some past adventure in the sitting room and sets off to explore the rest of the flat. She finds a small kitchen that also appears scarcely used judging by the old appliances and the dust gathered on the counters. This is clearly a place just for these in-between moments of adventures, mainly for sleeping and occasional plotting, not actual living.

Tate is about to move on to the next room when Nathan emerges from the bathroom, his hair now dry and gelled back into place. He also appears to be wearing a new pair of jeans since the other ones had been soaked.

She leans against the wall and folds her arms over her chest. "You won't be in the lead for long, you know."

"Is that so?" he questions, copying her playful tone. "Well then, I'm eager to see when Sully calls you a genius."

"I don't want praise from Sully," she says. "I just want to figure something out before you do." Her head tilts to the side. "Does catching Chloe first earn me a point?"

"She was about to drive away," Nathan points out.

"I was also in the car."

"The cross was still in her hand."

"I would've grabbed it."

This volley back and forth could have continued, but Nathan shakes his head and pulls a face. "I just don't think it counts."

Tate frowns. She tries not to show that she's so irked by this, so she forces herself to reply in a level tone, "Fine. But don't get too cozy in first place."

"Oh, I don't know. I've already taken my shoes off."

"Put them back on," she says as she brushes past him to continue looking at the other rooms.

From behind her, he adds, "And I have a toothbrush here."

"I'll dunk it in the toilet when I get there."

One thing is for sure: she isn't going to finish this mission without emerging victorious.

_______

a/n:

EEEEEEE i love the teasing/flirting between these two. it makes me so giddy to write. i'm out here giggling and kicking my feet whenever tate and nathan interact LMFAO

also shoutout to tate for being unnecessarily extra when it came to catching chloe and jumping into her car. then again, "unnecessarily extra" is basically tate's middle name

thank you for reading! i'm really excited to get more into the action and mystery of the plot, but first, more tathan bonding to build up the chemistry between them

- kristyn

( word count: 2.4k )