A/N: I finally remembered I had this fic! Here's an update. Thanks to everyone who reviewed- you reminded me about this, aha.

"Chief Beilschmidt?" Arthur groaned, still very hungover, admittedly, when he opened the door to find the officer standing there, stern and serious as ever. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here regarding the recent kidnapping of Feliciano Vargas," Ludwig asked, displaying his badge, and Arthur internally groaned.

"Is that anything to do with me? I'm rather hungover at the moment, not the best of times," Arthur admitted, narrow-eyed and barely tolerating the light as he slumped against the doorframe.

"I believe it is," Ludwig said, narrowing his eyes at Arthur, more out of suspicion than anything.

"And why is that?" Arthur couldn't even be bothered to keep the tiredness out of his voice. Why did this always happen on days after he had a heavy night of drinking? Why, gods above, why.

"From what I hear, you and Feliciano were seeing each other," he said bluntly. "And as you're likely aware…"

"Yes, yes, the lovers always end up the suspect, can we do this in a few hours when my head isn't trying to kill me?" Arthur was in the worst of moods, head pounding, lover kidnapped and in danger, and now the police were here thinking he was the culprit- oh, really, truly, what a wonderful morning.

Ludwig seemed rather unamused, and further declared, "You don't deny being his lover?"

"Why would I?"

"You've been keeping it rather quiet."

"To avoid publicity, of course- are you daft? You know the positions each of us hold. The last thing we need is the media reporting on a scandal between heirs of two rival corporations," Arthur groaned. He couldn't believe this was how his morning was going.

"I'd hardly call them rivals. Aside from the slight aggression roughly a month ago between the two-"

"That was Feliciano's fault, mind you, and he did it because of a petty disagreement we had."

"…right. But I'm not here to question you as a suspect," Ludwig sighed eventually, and that made Arthur pause and give Ludwig a baffled, suspicious look.

"Then why are you here, Beilschmidt?" Arthur sighed back, far too tired for this. He just wanted to get back to his tea. It was going cold sitting there on the counter.

"It's better discussed in private. May I come in?"

Arthur stared, and Ludwig stared back, and there was a long uncomfortable silence before Arthur simply sighed again and stepped aside, opening the door and gesturing vaguely for Ludwig to enter, which he did. He shut the door soon after, and went back over to sit at the bar counter in his kitchen, nursing at his tea and looking at Ludwig expectantly.

"Tea?" he offered tritely, and Ludwig declined, and honestly Arthur was just glad he didn't have to get up again.

When Ludwig sat down in the other seat, he wasted little time, and started, "I am… not as well-versed in some things as others. There are things that I struggle to believe are even possible, truly, given my understanding of the world, and yet…"

Arthur's interest was piqued, and he listened a little more intently, although it was admittedly hard to do so when your head was still pounding and fuzzy.

"Feliciano told you about his magic, didn't he."

"I- how did you-?"

Arthur sighed, again, and he really just didn't have the energy for this. "Of course he did, the moron. Too trusting for his own good," he muttered into his tea. "Yes, yes, magic is real and there are quite a number of magic users in the world, especially in this city. If there's a point, please get to it."

Ludwig looked flabbergasted and almost offended, but the chief of police swallowed his pride and continued, "I believe that, perhaps… if someone wanted to acquire such power, kidnapping would be a reasonable enough measure. If that's a possible motivation for the crime, then-"

"And how would you expect to explain that to the force? They would call you crazy. And I'll be blunt- the existence of magic is kept well-guarded for a reason. If you try to bring it to light in a high-profile case like this, you will be silenced- if not by ardent secrecy agents, then by the very people who likely took Feliciano," Arthur said, tired but stern nonetheless. "If the situation concerns magic, then mages will take care of it."

Which is to say, he would get to the bottom of this.

"Mages like you?" Ludwig asked, gaze fierce.

Arthur narrowed his eyes. "Well, I certainly don't hope you expect me to sit around and do nothing."

Ludwig shut his eyes, and for a long moment, said nothing- only to open them again with a new determination burning in their depths.

"No. In fact… if you need any assistance, please let me know."

Arthur raised an eyebrow, and set down his tea. How amusing and ironic this was, for the chief of police to be offering his assistance to the very thief he'd spent so much time chasing after.

"Now there's something surprising…" Arthur murmured, before managing to crack a smirk. "Well. There is something you can do for me, now that I think about it…"

"How did I let you talk me into this?"

"It's for Feliciano's sake," Arthur hummed back, cocky and smug. He hadn't told Ludwig why he found this all to be so amusing, and had no intention of doing so- after all, Grey still needed to keep his identity secret.

It was a new day and Arthur was free of his hangover, having Ludwig Beilschmidt himself drive him around the entire city. Arthur was in the passenger seat, fiddling with a crystal pendulum, eyes watching the device carefully as they drove about.

"You can't be serious," Ludwig protested as he continued to drive.

"I am completely serious, Ludwig. Just because non-magical folk have forgotten and dismissed their use, doesn't mean they're unreliable. Pendulums are perfectly accurate and acceptable dowsing tools. Now stop distracting me, it's hard enough to hold on to the connection without you interrupting."

And it truly was taxing… to focus on so faint a connection, and try to focus it through the crystal of the pendulum… well, it was going to be an endeavor, to be sure. The only thing he could be sure of was that Feliciano was far from here- or at least, a significant enough distance away that the connection was as faint and weak as it was. He hoped that by driving around the city, he could at least by sheer luck get within range to get the crystal to respond and give him a general direction to head.

And he had explained it to Ludwig, but the man was either too impatient or too disbelieving to keep from questioning him every ten minutes or so. In a way, Arthur couldn't blame him- to a man as pragmatic, rooted in science, and sensible as Ludwig, the idea of magic was probably outlandish at best and absolutely insane at worst…

…even so, the skepticism was frustrating him.

So he focused on Feliciano the best he could instead, trying to prevent his anxieties and stress from blocking his efforts, often having to take steady, slow breaths to help him find that thread and tug at it.

And just when Ludwig finally seemed to be reaching the limits of his patience, Arthur saw the pendulum twitch, then swing, then glow…

Soon, it was pointing, levitating, guiding them northeast and Arthur grinned.

"Found you."

Except, not really. What he did find was a starting point- a place he could start to search once it got dark, and once he didn't have the chief of police following him around and questioning his every move. Ludwig had been insistent on being with him to find Feliciano, but Arthur reassured him that he "knew someone" that would be better suited at breaking someone out of a possibly-magical hostage situation.

"Let the mages handle their own, Beilschmidt."

Of course, that person was his alter ego, but Ludwig clearly didn't need to know that.

So after some sleep and plenty of preparation, Phantom Thief Grey took to the skies of the city, gliding from building to building, carefully avoiding the many lights so he could fly in the shadows where none would notice him in the sky. It only worked to his advantage that this night was a cloudless one- dark and easy to slip through over the city skies.

To his surprise, the pendulum led him to a skyscraper- but it instead of pointing down into the underground floors as he would expect, it pointed up towards the top levels, which… of course only made his job harder. It was a little more tricky to navigate to the top of a building unseen than down into the lower floors.

The entire building was windowed, the glass tinted so that one could see out but not in- and it also meant there were few blind spots to enter from, aside from the very roof, or the main entrance on the ground. The roof seemed like the best bet- but the issue was how to fly up there without an updraft to help carry him there on his glider. The nearest building was shorter than this skyscraper by several floors…

And if he wasn't cautious, someone could easily spy him from the windows.

Although, this late at night, the building seemed mostly empty…

What amount of risk was he willing to take?

Feliciano was sore.

The floor was plain tile and terribly uncomfortable to sit on, not to mention cold- but he'd complained enough about it that eventually, they'd given him a cot to sit on. Not as bad, but still irritating. Apparently he could still chatter at them enough to annoy them into giving him a cot.

He'd threatened to scream, on the first day, when he awoke here, but he'd been warned very clearly not to do something like that.

"After all, if anyone hears your screaming and comes to help, we'll have to kill them, and that's just an unnecessary mess… wouldn't you agree?" one of his guards had said with a wry smile, and Feliciano felt his heart drop.

These weren't the type of people to threaten him with death- oh no. They all knew Feliciano was only worth something if he was still alive.

But they knew that Feliciano wouldn't dare scream if it meant an innocent bystander might pay the price for it.

He hated them all the more for it.

But they didn't gag him, not physically at least- the only restraints on him were the ones on his limbs, keeping him from fleeing- and more importantly, prevent him from casting his magic.

Most magic required a gestural component- so it made sense to tie him up.

The guards, however, didn't know that Feliciano was a mage that worked primarily with emotion.

His rage burned and simmered in his chest, until the heat spread down to his wrists, heating the metal and weakening it, letting him slowly but surely stretch and pull the hot metal until it was just a little more malleable, letting him stretch and pull at it, just a little more…

And then, his fear and panic turned his blood to ice in his chest, the cold surging down until it enveloped the heated metal- and the sudden shock of cold was enough to shatter the metal with a few good tugs, letting the broken and frozen links falls quietly into the cot cushions.

And then with a sigh, he remembered calm, and rubbed at his wrists until the purple, bruised skin started to fade and heal. Once the pain began to ebb away, the rings of the cuffs clicked undone, spite splitting the pieces until the cuffs were no more.

It was easy to do things when no one was in the room with him. If he kept his hands behind his back, no one would even notice the cuffs were in pieces. With his hands free, it was much easier to remove the bindings around his legs as well, and finally being able to stretch and move freely was a huge relief. He sighed softly, shutting his eyes a moment, and trying to focus on Arthur.

He could do nothing but wait: trying to escape by himself would be reckless. But if there were a distraction from the outside, well, that would be another story.

He just hoped his thief was working quickly.