A/N I had such fun writing this that I had to share. The idea came after watching 'The real hustle' when I started musing on how different characters would react to being stolen from.


After this last week Dan decided he had better go into an honest profession. Until now the packed streets of Brussels had always been an excellent place to work. The commuters were rich and self important, and he could easily lift six different wallets in an hour during the busy periods. Monday had been a good day and he decided to hit one last mark before returning home when the Asian teenager caught his eye. He was dressed in white with his hair tied tightly giving him a stern expression mixed with arrogance. He had thought the lift went well, he brushed past him taking his wallet with him, until his arm was grabbed and twisted, the mark blurred into some fancy looking martial art moves kicking him in the stomach. When Dan finished retching he was taken to the local police office by the mark who introduced himself to the desk sergeant as Preventer agent Chang.

His current girlfriend Julie bailed him out the next day and he went back to work careful to avoid anyone who looked like they might ever possibly have taken a martial arts class in their life. The day hadn't been going badly and he thought he'd hit the jackpot when he spotted the blonde haired kid in the expensive business suit, he might as well be carrying a sign that said 'rob me', the kid looked harmless rich and had no bodyguards. This guy was worse than the Chinese kid, he didn't do anything but he caught Dan's eye before he came within 10 feet of him, and then he smiled and suddenly the harmless blonde kid was the scariest thing Dan had ever seen in his life. When Dan stopped running he was out of breath and a good mile away.

He had nightmares that night about Chinese teenagers and blonde kids who were really ruthless killers. He was out again the next day though hoping to make the best of a bad week, this time he stayed well away from blondes, just in case. He was working the lunch crowd and decided to go for a less obvious mark this time as the clueless looking ones were turning out to be so unlucky. This guy had the strangest hair covering half his face and moved like a wary cat hands jammed firmly in his pockets which would have ruled him out except the guy took out his hand to answer a phone call from some guy called Quatre. Dan actually managed to walk away with the guy's wallet and slid happily into an alleyway only to find the mark in front of him. When he woke he had been hidden behind a garbage disposal unit and every valuable on him was missing.

Dan was many things but particularly slow wasn't one of them, he would have cut his losses then and moved on but he had nothing to pay for a ticket out of Brussels. So the next day he took a few aspirin for the headache and went back to work. The day was drawing to a close and it had been a really profitable one, he hit his last mark a thin looking boy with a long braid and went home satisfied. Only to find when he got home that the entire place had been stripped bare. It was then that he realised every wallet he had taken had been lifted, the boy with the long hair had taken his hard won stolen property and then broken into his house and cleared everything out, to the last piece of furniture.

Friday came and Dan was desperate for a break, after all what were the chances of a run of luck like that? He must have pissed off some deity in a past life or something, it was the only explanation. The boy had looked normal enough, Japanese, in a school uniform and wearing a scowl in no way did he resemble anything lethal, until he pulled the gun. After Dan finished handing over everything he had taken and promising to never ever do it again the police arrived and seemed rather unsure as to who they were supposed to be arresting. The 'boy' pulled out some sort of identification stating he was working as a bodyguard for one of the students and informed the police that the gun only contained tranquilizers because he didn't kill anymore. After this Dan happily turned himself over, police custody surely had to be safer than this.