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The Braavosi Job

Chapter 15: "I Could Take Your Smallclothes"

Summary:

The Con comes to an end.

Notes:

It's almost done, guys! Just one chapter left after this one. Good news is that chapter is basically written. I just need to edit a tiny bit, and then I'll post. Thanks again for all your support!

Chapter Text

“FBI, don’t move.”

 

Petyr felt himself brimming with satisfaction. 

"Are you alright, sir?"

A man wearing a cheap, blue FBI coat stepped forward. 

Petyr sighed, “Oh, I’m fine,” only to be interrupted by the tattooed Braavosi actor. 

“Yes, of course.”

Petyr ignored him, annoyed , ‘honestly the manners of these people.’ “I’m fine, thanks for asking, everything’s perfectly--”

Two agents surged forward, grasping his arms. 

Petyr could feel his incompetence-triggered anger rising to the surface. “What? What are you …? Wait a minute, wait a minute, let go of me!” He tore his arms out of their grasp. “What are you looking at me for? The criminals are sitting right over there, look at them! Listen, I spoke to Special Agent Higgins, if you call him on the phone...” He fought the urge to roll his eyes.  How could they think he was the criminal? 

The tallest agent stepped forward “I’m Special Agent Higgins. Petyr Baelish you are under arrest for soliciting a bribe from these Braavosi Government officials.”

Petyr felt his jaw drop. ‘WHAT?’  “I’m not-I’m not soliciting--these aren’t even Braavosis.”

Higgins rolled his eyes. “Of course they are,” he said, as he gestured towards the ugliest of the actors, who then pulled his passport out of his pocket. 

Petyr was fighting the urge to spiral. Everything was going wrong, but he had to maintain control. “No. No, no.” His thoughts were a jumble. 

The man Petyr had known as the head Braavosi spoke. “Your woman knew that when she contacted us last week.”

“My… woman? ‘ Ros? No…Alayne?’ “Alayne?”

He frantically looked around the room, but Alayne Stone was gone. Gone. “Alayne! Um, Special Agent Higgins, Alayne Stone works for them.” He had to think of a way out of this, and quickly. 

Dreadlocks scoffed. “Ridiculous. She contacted us on your behalf. She told us she worked directly under you now.” He said the last part with a hint of innuendo. Petyr couldn’t help the hopeful twitch in his cock before the pieces started to click together in his mind. 

“But… b-but she took me...,” Petyr stuttered. “She took me to their office.”

One of the other Braavosis spoke. “No, we do not have an office in this city.”

 Petyr felt the ghost of vindication. “Exactly!”

The Braavosi continued. “We met her at your other office.”

 

A few days ago:

Sandor Clegane smirked as he drilled the last screw into the sign that read “Fingers Consulting. Petyr Baelish."   He paid extra attention to the sign, making sure it was hanging straight and looked convincing enough. “We’re good,” he said, into his comms. 

Five minutes later, Sansa Stark met with the six Braavosi officials just outside of the fake offices. Sansa smiled, shaking each man’s hand in turn.  “Alayne Stone from Fingers Aerospace, directly under Petyr Baelish.”

 

As the gears in his brain slowly creaked to life, Petyr made a horrifying realization. ‘ Oh God.’ “The shareholders! The shareholders!” and briskly walked from the room.  The FBI could wait.  The shareholders corralled downstairs could not. 

Petyr, now uncomfortably out of breath, despite using the elevator, was greeted by a horrific sight. Squad cars, unmarked cars, and vans of different sizes came blasting through the street, their sirens unsynchronized and agonizing to the ear. Out of their depths emerged countless law enforcement officials, several of which were sporting the same jackets as the FBI agents Petyr had thought he left upstairs. He watched in horror as the shareholders he'd just impressed hours earlier looked aghast as they were corralled towards the center of the courtyard, agents swarming them like a bunch of sheepdogs.  Unfortunately for him, the agents had also followed him down, just steps away. He was trapped. Petyr Baelish did not like feeling trapped. 

The shareholder Petyr had spoken to just an hour before looked around in confusion and disgust. “What in God's name?!”

Fuck.’ “ No, no, no. Uh, everybody, could I have your attention? It’s just, it’s just a permit problem.” Petyr scrambled to think of a way to keep the shareholders calm. Alarming them was the opposite of what he wanted or needed, right now or ever. Especially now that he was up for that promotion he so deeply deserved. 

"Petyr, what’s going on?" asked one of the other anonymous suited shareholders. 

Petyr could feel himself starting to sweat. He hated to sweat. "I can explain."

Agent Higgins then chose the least opportune time to produce a megaphone from...somewhere and asked "Anybody else here involved in the bribe?" The sound echoed off the building, making the words ring out over over. " BRIBE, BRIBE, BRIBE!"

A whisper echoed through the, quite literally, captive audience. "Bribe?"

Petyr shook his arms wildly. He knew he was losing control of himself and the situation, but he felt like Sisiphus, trapped to a rock, rolling down a hill.  "There’s no bribe!" 

"I handed this man an envelope containing a cashier’s check for 200,000 Crowns." Of course, the Braavosi actors had followed them down the stairs as well.  He didn't know if he could hate those men more than he already did. 

"No. No, no. Nobody-- I wasn’t handed any…" 'Wait.'

 

A Few Days Ago

Sansa Stark watched as Mr. Tycho pulled an unblemished and unremarkable white envelope from his jacket pocket, handing it to her.  She opened it, pulled the check out, and looked at it. She hid her smile.  As she walked to Baelish, she slyly switched it out for the envelope in her other pocket.  Arya had cheered when she finally got it right, then immediately suggested they get celebratory tattoos. Sansa politely declined. For now.  

When she reached Baelish, she handed him the other blank envelope; the one containing a piece of paper with a proposed amount written on it. He accepted it gratefully, his hand lingering upon hers a few moments too long. 

 

“I didn’t—nobody handed...” 

Agent Higgins gave him an almost pitying smile. “This will look a lot better for you if you did not deposit that check. Do you still have it?”

Petyr felt like he was being sucked into a black hole. “I didn’t get a check.”  He didn’t even bother raising his voice.  He was getting the distinct feeling that he’d been had.

Agent Higgins’ radio crackled to life. A slightly garbled voice echoed out: “Sir, we got people searching the lab, seizing the files and computers.”

Baelish felt ice shoot down his spine. The designs. “Higgins you can’t do that! You can’t take my computer.”

Higgins smiled. Petyr noted that his teeth could use some whitening. “This company has government defense contracts. There are very serious rules regarding contact with foreign nationals. The Patriot Act applies here my friend. Sir, I can take your smallclothes.”

“Okay, it’s getting a little aggressive. Everybody just take it easy, relax...have a drink…” he said, dipping into a shallow bow. “I’ll be back and explain everything.” He took off running as quickly as he could, heading towards the back entrance of the building.  He had to get to the servers before the agents. If they found the evidence of the theft, he’d be screwed. The shareholder’s voice boomed after him. “Where are you going? Petyr! Petyr!”

Entering the hallway, Petyr was greeted with the frantic voices of his employees. “Guys, we gotta get rid of this stuff.” Keep shredding, keep shredding!” He watched as one snotty kid ran across the hall, threw open a window, yelled “Help me!” and began pouring the contents of his shredder out, creating a paper snow storm for those down below. ‘As if that wasn’t suspicious at all,’ he thought, with a shake of his head. “Amateurs,” he said, under his breath. 

Amidst the blizzard of shredded documents, the front doors swung open.  Emerging from the glass building was a long line of FBI agents carrying CPUs and boxes full of evidence. 

 In all the chaos, nobody batted an eyelash at the five agents who looked just slightly out of place. Two were too small, one was too handsome, one was much too pretty, and the last was too large. Each wore a satisfied smirk as they made their way to their awaiting vehicle. 

 

...

 

Petyr had been sitting hopelessly in his office for what felt like hours.  He’d long since drained his gin bottle, and had since switched to vodka. The chaos outside was muffled by his closed door, but nothing could drown out the sound of the news anchor blaring from his computer screen. 

“In a massive sell-off sparked by multiple federal investigations of Fingers Aerospace the stock plummeted 33 percent before trading was halted--”

The reporter’s voice was interrupted by the ringing of his phone. He stared at his phone, taking another sip from his bottle.  Petyr knew who it was. Who it had to be. 

He took one more sip and swiped his thumb across the screen resignedly, lifting it up to his ear. 

“Yeah?”

 

Tyrion Lannister was sitting alone on a nearby park bench. He could see the rest of his team perched at a nearby table, looking at a small computer screen.  They were waiting for their earnings to flood into their individual accounts.  Tyrion could wait.  He had other business to attend to. 

Tyrion smiled. “You should have just paid us.”

Baelish sighed. “How did you do it? I found the transmitter.”

Tyrion couldn’t fight the urge to chuckle. “Oh, you found the transmitter with the blinking light, yeah, we wanted you to figure some of it out. Then we just gave you what you were expecting. What, did you think we were amateurs?”

“I am Petyr Baelish, I am going to beat this.” 

Petyr switched his computer screen to display the security camera footage of the rest of the building.  He watched as several agents started to unlock his personal vault. They wouldn’t find anything there but some naked pictures of that Arya bitch and her Fleabottom paramour, some antiques, and weapons he had procured legally.  He wasn’t stupid enough to store illegal goods in a public office. 

Tyrion’s voice brought him back to the present. “Aren’t you forgetting about the bribe? That will send you away for a nice, long time.”

Petyr scoffed. “Who cares? You can’t prove anything, I didn’t get any mo-”

Petyr’s jaw dropped as the agents opened the vault, causing mountains of cash to fall out. “What the fuck?!”

“Ah, they open the vault?” Petyr could hear the amusement in Tyrion’s voice. “Yeah, Arya had fun with that one. And, no, that doesn’t account for all of it. Alayne kept some to donate to a local abuse survivor’s fund. Said it felt ‘right.’. 

“Then you did this all for free? Bullshit. I know the Lannisters. You're all greedy shits.”

Tyrion laughed. “Didn’t you pay attention in business school? See if a company’s stock price falls ten, fifteen percent in one day and you see it coming, you sell short, you make a lot of money. If it’s going to fall thirty percent you can make shattering amounts of money.  We didn’t really need the FBI to show up and take you to jail, we just needed them to show up and take boxes out of your office, all day long in front of TV cameras, scaring your investors. You going to jail is just a bonus.

Petyr paled. The liquor was getting to him. Just at that moment, an FBI agent opened his office door. Without knocking, Petyr noted. 

“Mr. Baelish--who is that on the phone?”

“I wouldn’t say anything about us to the Feds. Next time we won’t be so nice.”

Petyr felt the bile rising in his throat. He hung up the phone and turned to the agent. “Nobody.”

...

Satisfied with his phone call, Tyrion tossed the burner phone into a nearby garbage can and joined the rest of the team. 

“Okay,” Gendry said. “Check your accounts. The earnings should all be in there. For real this time.” 

Tyrion stood next to his screen as Gendry loaded the information for Tyrion’s personal account. “Job well—Whoa!”

Gendry shrugged. “There was an overlap in the King’s Landing stock market. Valuation carried over to NASDAQ and…look, I’m just very good at what I do.”

Tyrion looked up from the screen. Arya was practically beaming at her phone, then up at Gendry. “This is the score. The score.”

Gendry just shrugged again, though he looked quite proud of himself. “Age of the geek, baby.”

Clegane just grunted. “Fuck.” He glanced quickly up at Sansa, who was standing there quietly with her hand over her open mouth. 

She glanced up at Tyrion, tears in her eyes. “So, we’re out, huh? I mean we’re out, this is retirement money. This is go-legit-for- good money. I could buy my own theatre with this kind of money.”

“Shit, Sans, you could buy a whole fleet of theatres with this money.” Arya was looking down at her phone screen again. 

Sansa smiled at the thought. Maybe she’d finally put in that mini house for Theon when he came to town. He’d been cranky the last few times he came over about having to sleep on the couch.  Her eyes flitted to Sandor.  ‘Okay, maybe a regular size guest house.’  There was plenty of money in her account now. She didn’t love the idea of having contractors on her property, but if she paid them well enough, they’d be done in a couple months.  Maybe she could take a trip to the coast...she was getting sidetracked. A thought itched at the back of her mind. 

“Wait, but what about Tarth?”

Tyrion cleared his throat. “That’s...that’s taken care of.” 

 

An Hour Ago

Brienne was waiting by the window when Tyrion walked in. He’d sent her a cryptic message this morning, explaining the circumstances they were in, and to come to this office building at this time. “I came alone, like you asked.” 

Tyrion smiled. “Yes, I know, thank you Ms. Tarth.” Tyrion knew of Brienne Tarth. She had a reputation for honor and respect. Frankly, it was a wonder he’d been duped by Baelish in the first place. Of course Brienne would never commit corporate theft. He would probably spend years regretting his stupidity, but he was here now, making it right. “I’d expect nothing less.” He stopped a few feet away from her.  “Now I understand your research was completely wiped out. I have complete copies right on these hard drives along with absolute proof that they were on Fingers Aerospace computers, that should be good for a couple of lawsuits, right?”

Brienne was silent in thought for a moment. “I drop the investigation of all parties involved with the original theft?” It felt wrong to her, the deceit, but Tyrion had a reputation. He was the most honest Lannister by a mile, and she’d known Baelish was a crook for years. That was ignoring his treatment of women, which was suspect at best. He made her skin crawl, but had never been sloppy enough to get caught. Now was her chance to get him. As far as Lannister and his team were concerned, it was clear that his team had been hoodwinked into stealing those designs, and it was Baelish who needed to be punished, not them. 

Tyrion nodded. “That seems fair. You get your property back.”

“Agreed. No charges. Nothing on you, or your people. And you sent my security team a full report of their weaknesses?” 

Tyrion chuckled.  “Here,” he said, handing her the hard drive. He turned and walked away without another word. 

Brienne frowned. “Wait, don’t you want money?”

Tyrion stopped, his back still to her. He shrugged. “This particular project has a different revenue stream.”

 

Sansa wanted more information, but decided to trust Tyrion. He hadn’t lied to her yet. 

He cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah...so...pleasure working with all of you,” and he turned to leave. 

Sandor nodded, putting his phone in his pocket. “Yeah. One show only. No encores.” He looked up briefly to make eye contact with Sansa, but then looked back down just as quickly. 

Arya laughed.  “I already forgot your names...Well, most of you.” She pushed herself gently into Sansa’s side, her shoulder making contact with the area just above Sansa’s elbow. 

Gendry took a long look at his laptop and then at Arya, then closed it and packed it back into his bag.  He took one last look around and turned, walking towards his apartment.  He saw Tyrion’s head just ahead of him, and got a better idea. 

“Hey, Tyrion!” he called, then jogged up to meet him.  “You know I never had that cool a time on a job before. I don’t like a lot of people.”

“Waters, it’s a walkaway,” Tyrion said, almost regretfully. 

“Okay, but I’ve seen you try to turn on a computer. You need the assistance, and, I don’t know, I guess I like the structure.”

“It was kind of fun,” Arya said, eliciting a genuine shriek from Gendry. One day he’d understand how she popped out of thin air in the middle of an open area. Sansa walked serenely behind her, smiling amusedly.  “Besides,” she turned to Tyrion, “You seem pretty boring without us.” 

Tyrion shook his head. “Arya.”

Clegane had joined them now. “You want to know what I think?”

“Not really,” Tyrion replied, curtly. 

“How long until you fall apart again?”

Tyrion rolled his eyes. “Oh I’m touched.”

“Well a guy like you can’t be out of the game, that’s why you were a wreck. You need the chase.”

“Yeah, somehow, I’ll manage.”

Sansa’s soft voice silenced the chatter. “You pick the jobs.”

Tyrion shrugged. “My job is helping people. I help find bad guys. I make them pay.”

Sansa smiled. “Yeah, well, me too.  Go find some bad guys. Bad guys have money. We get to avenge the innocent, they get to make their money. Come on. Didn’t you like being the Black King instead of the White Knight? Now you can be both, and I get to know where my sister is most of the time.”  

Tyrion looked around at his team.  They were all looking at him.  He looked at Sansa, her eyes wide and hopeful.  Finally, after a few moments, she smiled. 

“So, what do you say?”