-Your Pov-

You were sitting around in the room with your older brother, Mercury and the two of you were playing video games. As always, you beat him at the game, and he kept making snarky comments to try and throw you off your game. The two of you were supposed to be working and moving crates of Dust, but you had paid Emerald to make an illusion of the two of you working for an hour so you could get out of it. It had cost a pretty penny, but you could always just steal more whenever you needed, and working with Roman was always something you were glad to get out of whenever you had the chance.

" I'm glad we were able to pay Emerald enough to get out of work," you tell Mercury as you press a series of buttons that defeats him in the video game. He sighs, and then makes another excuse and then the two of you select a new game. Your scroll rings with a text from Emerald telling you two that in another five minutes, she's done with her end of the bargain and is going to drop the illusion. You send her a brief text to thank her, and then tell Mercury the news.

" You like Emerald don't you," he says, and then you start to choke on the popcorn you had been eating. He suggests it seemingly out of nowhere, and then you had swallowed the popcorn in shock. Mercury watches you choke for a few moments, and then he sighs and then does the Heimlich Maneuver until you cough up the pieces of popcorn. Mercury rolls his eyes at this, and then hands you a think of water. You take it from him and begin to chug it, and then he watches as you do. Once you finish, he repeats his question.

" No, I don't like Emerald. Quit being stupid Mercury. Why would you even ask that," you wonder to him, and then he just shrugs and the two of you walk down to start helping move containers of Dust, although the two of you do stall for as long as possible, taking every possible detour there is in the base, and purposely getting lost. As the two of you walk, Mercury has his hand on his chin as he tries to look scholarly, and that look in his eye scares you more than anything else.

" Well, you can't tell her I said this, or I'm going to kill you. But, she's hot," he says, and then you look at him with a concerned look on your face, and he shrugs. " I mean, do you remember the first thing I told you when we met her. I said, ' Great rack, excellent butt and her hips have a nice sway to them.' Do you remember that (y/n)?" You nod at him, the memory of his comments having been buried and then brought up. " I catch you staring at her hips and ass all the time man. You don't have to deny it."

" That isn't what I like her for though," you tell him, and then he looks at you, with a triumphant smirk on his face, clearly pleased with himself that he managed to get you to admit you liked Emerald with only a little prodding. Rolling your eye, you realize it's too late to take it back, and Mercury probably has an audio file he can use to blackmail you with later. " She's funny, and kind in her own way, and is one of the best people I know."

Mercury makes the motion of putting a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger, and then he sighs and looks at you. " Yeah, okay we'll agree to disagree on that one. I personally think Emerald is a bitch, and I wouldn't go out with her if she were the last person in the world," says Mercury, pretending to throw up when you compliment her.

" She would reject you even if the two of you were the only people left in the world," you point out to him, and then he rolls his eyes at you, and tries to make a comment about how she totally wants him. " Mercury, she and I play a game where the two of us come up with insults for you, and the first person who can't come up with one loses. And she always wins. She hates your guts, you know that right?"

" Here's a lesson bro," he says, in a tone that indicates not to take anything he says next seriously, not that you do anyways. " No girl hates Mercury Black. They all just have varying levels of attraction is all. Emerald totally wants me, but she spent so much time denying it, she has to forever."

The two of you walk in silence for a bit, and then he rolls his eyes. " She doesn't actually like me if that's what you were worried about," he says, and then you look at him. " And even if she did, I'd turn her down since I know you like her. Don't say I never did anything for you. And well, I actually have a bet with Roman about the two of you being a couple, and I kinda need to win so, there is that."

" You might lose," you tell him sadly. " I don't think Emerald really wants to date me, or anybody. She and I steal wallets from people all the time, and whenever we find a sappy love poem or love note, we make fun of it. Heck, Em doesn't even call couples that. She just calls them 'rob one, get one free.'" Mercury smirks when you say this, and then he holds up a hand again, like he has more sage wisdom to depart to you, which makes you sigh, wondering what he could possibly have to say about this that could be mistaken for helpful.

" What I said earlier still stands. If Em spends so much time denying she loves someone, she has to do it even more now. I stole her diary once, just for the hell of it. She talks about having a crush on someone. And before you deny it being you, let's think about this. There's like four dudes in our entire operation. There's me, who would normally be the obvious choice, but she doesn't like me for some reason. Roman, but Neo has him whipped. Adam, and he's way too obsessed with his ex girlfriend. And you. By probability, you technically have the best chance of being the one she likes."

He says this, and then the two of you end up in front of where the members of the White Fang are hauling Dust back and forth. The two of you see Emerald projecting her illusion, and then Mercury smirks when he sees you staring. " Well, go get her tiger, gotta run," he says, and then he pushes you forward and makes a break for it.

Rolling your eyes, you make your way over to Emerald. You see her let out a sigh of relief as she drops her illusion, and then she smiles at you, which makes your heart flutter a little bit. Reaching into your wallet, you find a note from Mercury saying he has a lot of money riding on you, and then you roll your eyes and then hand Emerald the money, and she takes it and counts it with a smile.

" Pleasure doing business with you (y/n)," she says as she slips the money into her wallet, and then she gets an idea. " I know we need to finish moving the rest of this, but I could also cast a few illusions and get us out of this." You nod, and then she smirks and then concentrates for a few moments.

" Alright everyone, go home for the day, I mean it," says Roman all of the sudden, a trickle of blood from his nose. Everyone looks at him confused, and then begins to scramble and leave, and then Emerald smirks.

" An illusion of Neo in a bunny costume," she explains. " Works every single time. Wanna go rob students at Beacon," she asks, and then you nod and then the two of you walk down to catch a cab to Beacon.

When the two of you arrive, she pays the cab driver with the money she had stolen from him, and then the two of you walk around Beacon, taking wallets from unsuspecting people, using every dirty trick in the book you knew. It eventually became a little bit of a competition which one of you could steal and earn more money. By the time the two of you met up under one of the benches, you had been able to gather thousands of Lien between the two of you, as well as love notes since the dance was coming up.

-Emerald Pov-

As I read from one of the notes and pretend to mock it, I sneak a glance at (y/n). One of his eyes is shut as a result of the abuse he and Mercury endured when the two of them were kids. His shirt is unbuttoned enough I can see the scar his father left on him. As always, I wince when I see this, but smile as his hair blows in the wind a little bit, and his eye sparkles with light and energy. He looks down at me as he laughs at the cheesy sentiment in one of the notes, and my heart skips a beat.

This can't be happening. I can't be falling in love with him. He and I spend hours making fun of couples in the White Fang, and in Beacon. For Oum's sake, we call couples, ' rob one and get one free.' We have a betting pool with Roman and Mercury about which couples will last. In all of our jokes, couples and the idea of being in love is one of the punch lines. And yet why does my heart flutter every time I see him smile?

" Yeah, that kid is gonna get rejected," he says, which breaks me out of a daze, and then the two of us go back to laughing at the notes and making fun of them. This time however, I begin to really pay attention to the reasons he says these students will be rejected, and my mind can't help but take notes as to the reasons he rejects someone. As he and I go through this process, I begin to come up with a confession to him he wouldn't turn down, and then I shake my head, and tell myself it's too late.

When we get back to the base, Mercury pulls me aside, and then (y/n) goes to pay off some of his debt from a bet gone wrong. Mercury takes me outside, and then looks at me for a long moment. " I'm going to just tell you everything since I literally bet my legs on this. I made a bet with Roman you and (y/n) would get together. I know you like him, read your diary and I know he likes you, because all dudes can tell when another dude is in love. So, why aren't the two of you together? Because if you aren't together by the school dance, I have to give Roman my legs."

Before I even answer his question, I take the wonderful opportunity to laugh at him for making such a stupid bet, and he just scoffs at this, and then rolls his eyes and is left with no other choice but to endure my mocking. " Seriously though Merc, I just had no idea he liked me," I tell him. " I'll take him to the dance with me so you can keep your legs." I laugh one more time at this, and then he rolls his eyes and is about to walk off.

" Oh, don't use his condoms. I poked holes in all of them," he says, and then I roll my eyes again and then go back to my room, and then I take a pen and paper, and then begin to write the perfect confession (y/n). When I finish, I sneak into his room to see him sleeping, and then I find and open his wallet, curious since I've never seen the inside of it before.

In his wallet are a few credit cards, wads of cash, and condoms rendered useless by Mercury. As I take the cash from his wallet, I notice a picture of me in his wallet. Taking it, I see the picture from the day he and I went to the beach together to rob from couples, and then ended up faking a proposal to avoid being caught. I smile at the memory, and then realize he had really wanted to marry me that day, as I wanted to marry him. Seeing this, I slip my confession into his wallet, and then leave back to my room for the night, tossing and turning as I wait for him to see how I really feel.

-Timeskip Emerald Pov-

Ever since (y/n) read my note, he and I have been one of the happy couples we used to waste so much time making fun of. We go on dates every day, and use the money we've amassed to pay for them, and then spend every night cuddling. I never thought I would be one of the people who said cheesy things like, ' Money can't buy love' or ' Love is priceless' and yet here I was, snuggled up to his chest as he watched something on the TV about famous heists, all of which we had attempted and pulled off.

He eventually turns off the TV and falls asleep, and then I drape a blanket over him and then go to watch him sleep for a few moments, until be begins to whimper and shake, asking for someone to stop. As I watch for a few moments, I realize that he's probably having a nightmare about being abused by his father. Quickly, I wrap my arms around him and pull him into a hug, rubbing his back and peppering him with kisses, and yet nothing seems to work.

I reach out, and then place my hands to his head. Reaching into his mind, I see his dream of him being kicked around. Using my Semblance, I begin to shift his dream to something much more pleasant. After a little while, I manage to make him see something the both of us have talked about. I make him see him carrying me home bridal style, the both of us newlyweds. As I do, his breathing returns to normal, and his heartbeat slows and I hold onto him, every so often whispering to him that he's safe now.

" I love you," I tell him.

" I love you too," he says sleepily, and then I cuddle with him until he falls asleep.

-Epilogue Your Pov-

You sit on the couch with Emerald, and then blink with both of your eyes for the first time in ages. When the two of you became a couple, she requested that Salem heal you in exchange for her loyalty. And so, your eye had opened after years, and the scars on your chest faded. And little did your wife know, the deal you had made with Salem erased the years Emerald had spent starving on the street, leaving her only with happy memories.

" Oh, I'm pregnant by the way," she says to you, and then you smile and let out a sigh. Mercury probably poked holes in all of the condoms again. However, your annoyance with your brother soon turned into delight, and then you and Emerald were overjoyed at the news.

" That's awesome," you tell her, and then the two of you begin to go over baby names, and then she smiles and looks up at you.

" There's something else money can't buy. Like your heart," she says.

" Yeah, but you stole that," you tell her.

" Dork," she says, and then she goes to cuddle with you, and you hold onto her, happy to have her in your life.

( let me know what you thought.)