A/N: Full summary:

They're all thieves. However, they all have their different skills before they come together to make up the team. Blaine is the mastermind, the coordinator—he comes up with the ideas, works them down and digests them to make sure they create the perfect con. But even when he does, they don't always turn out right. Puck is their muscle. Strong, courageous, once a professional hit man, he doesn't let anybody get near them. Not if he can help it. Quinn is their resident safecracker. She's renowned worldwide for her thievery, most famously with the largest pink diamond known to man. Artie, although confined to his wheelchair, is no less badass than the rest of them. Give him a computer and he can find out anything anyone wants to know. The internet is his best weapon. Hacker, liar, idea-planter—he can do it all.

But there's an anomaly. Kurt. Or Elijah or David or Tall, Bright, and Gorgeous—he goes by more names than Blaine can count. He's a grifter. He's scammed more people out of their money from right under their noses than the American government. And he very rarely stays still. But when he does, it's one hell of a ride.

The rich and powerful take what they want. Blaine and his team steal it back for you. They provide…leverage.

(The first two parts are short, but from the third one on, they're significantly longer. I hope you enjoy!)

It was just another job. He was going to get in, mingle, flirt, maybe drink a glass of champagne, and then break into the vault and steal the rarest sculpture of the Greek goddess Aphrodite known to man. He wasn't the most competent safecracker in the world—no, that position was reserved for a very pretty blonde with charming social skills and no last name—but he did all right. He could practically hear the sculpture calling his name.

There was no real motive behind the theft. He was little out of practice, needed to keep his skills fresh and honed. At least, that was what he kept telling himself. He wouldn't let himself acknowledge the truth.

It was two years to the day since Andrew's death. In the end, when the cancer had been too much and the little boy had been too weak, the only thing that ever managed to calm him down was listening to his daddy read him stories. He loved the fairytales, the bright, outlandish, utterly romantic stories about princesses and princes and "happily ever after"s. He would only sleep when Dad sang to him or when Papa read him a happy story. As it all got closer and closer to the end, Papa would tell him stories about love.

Aphrodite, Cupid, Fairy Godmothers—Andrew loved them all. Andrew was so perfect in his fathers' eyes because he was so full of love. The product of love, the piece in their lives that held them together when things were going wrong, to the men, he was the reason they were alive. So that they could take care of him.

It was only six months after his death that his parents broke up. They weren't legally allowed to be married—it was Illinois, not New York—so they couldn't get a divorce, but they gave each other back their rings and even though they tried to make it, tried everything they could think of, they weren't going to be able to stay together. Not with the death of their son hanging over them.

Blaine had been a criminal before that. That was how he and Daniel had met. The successful attorney had gotten caught up in a con and Blaine had fallen head over heels for him. But once they'd gotten together, settled down—rather hastily, he might add, as they were only together for about a year before they decided to have a kid—and found a surrogate, he'd given it up. But at end of the seven year relationship, it had only taken another three months for him to try his hand at it again.

And he was a little rusty. But he was still one of the best.

He wanted that Aphrodite sculpture more than he'd ever wanted another material object. After Andrew had died, he'd had nothing. He'd moved to New York, traveled, left Danny in Chicago with the memories. But it was his turn. He was going to get that piece and it might not work, it might not sooth the aches and the pains and it definitely wouldn't bring his son back, but he was going to do it anyway.

The estate was owned by Cyril Hollingsworth, an unmarried man in his late 60s with more than 3.5 billion dollars to his name. Most of it was inheritance from his long line of wealthy family, but some of it had been earned on his own. Besides the billions, he had over 20 million dollars worth of gems, artwork, and historical artifacts he refused to sell to museums in his private vault. During social events that he had in order to keep his name in the papers, the pieces of interest were displayed in his personal gallery with the highest security imaginable. Blaine had never tried to tackle anything like it.

But he had a plan.

He'd already secured an invite to the party, thanks to an alias as a well-known art collector, and had been researching Hollingsworth's vault for months. The sculpture, as his most expensive possession, was going to be kept in the vault all night unless he spotted someone worthy enough to show it off to.

Blaine just had to be that person.

Of course, he always had a Plan B. Normally, that was the one that ended up working.

The vault wasn't simple by anyone's standards. At best, it would take him a solid ten minutes to crack. There was the matter of getting past the security as well but Blaine thought he could manage that with nothing more than a charming grin and a stun gun.

As it turned out, he was correct.

Hollingsworth was mingling when he arrived and Blaine stuck around in the main room for a while, exuding a confident air—or what he hoped was one—as he chatted with dozens of different people while sneaking occasional glances back at corner that eventually led to the entrance to the vault. Reporters, collectors, politicians—he talked to anyone who would listen in order to establish some kind of credibility for his attendance. Be seen as a loner and you're automatically assumed dangerous. Make friends, be sure to be noticed by somebody, and no one suspects a thing from you.

The hallway that led to the vault from the main hall where the party was taking place was some thirty yards long. At its entrance stood two guards, complete with bulging muscles and firearms. They were easy enough. Blaine wasn't very tall but he was strong and charming and not too bad of an actor.

Playing drunk was easy enough. His breath probably smelled like champagne and as he fidgeted in his fake stupor, it was as simple as one, two, three to disarm the men without them noticing before reaching into his own jacket for his stun gun.

They went down immediately.

The code to get into the hall was another story all together. But, of course, Blaine had done his research.

People like Hollingsworth were more often cocky rather than preventative. Their passwords were birthdays or important dates or things easily accessed through Wikipedia.

It took Blaine two tries. The code was Hollingsworth's mother's birthday.

The vault itself, which could actually just be considered a safe because it really wasn't too large—should have been easy after that. But of course, nothing was ever easy for Blaine Anderson. He'd just settled on his knees, tools in hand—it was a classic model, one that would purr under his hands and open for him in seconds, his favorite kind—when he heard it.

"Don't bother trying."

Blaine shot up like a bullet out of a barrel, pressing his back against the vault door. Before him was a man in a very well-fitted suit. Silver with a matching tie, it was hardly subtle, but it hugged everything perfectly, showed off his broad shoulders and perfect chest, and…damn. He was gorgeous.

The man arched an eyebrow when Blaine stayed silent. "Well, Mr. Short, Dark, and Handsome, I suppose you could try to break in and steal the sculpture but you wouldn't like what you found."

"Why's that?"

"Because I already took it."

Blaine's nostrils flared.

The man was tall, taller than Blaine, and lithe. His skin was practically porcelain and his eyes were an indescribable mix of blue and grey and a million other colors. His hair, perfectly coiffed, was light brown. For all intense and purposes, he should have been rather easily forgettable, another pretty face in a crowd. But there was something special about him. Blaine could tell.

"Why?"

"Because I wanted it." The man's jaw clenched just barely after the words were out. Blaine wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't been looking for it. A tell.

"Liar."

"Why do you want it?" he countered.

"None of your business," Blaine snapped. "How'd you get it anyway?"

With a great big smirk on his face, Tall, Bright, and Gorgeous—as Blaine had decided to call him in his head for the lack of any better name—said, "Cyril is unmarried for a reason. Once I flirted with him for a bit, he decided to give me a private showing of his more valuable pieces. I made sure the alarm was off when he was distracted and then snuck back in there after he'd gone off to mingle. Replaced it with a fake, reset the alarm, and I was going to leave when I remembered that I promised a friend I'd nab some wine from his collection too. I was going to head downstairs when I saw the security guard passed out and the door open and…here we are."

Blaine couldn't think of anything to say to that. He was too late. Someone else had gotten there first.

"Don't look so sad—I'm sure you're a very competent thief. When, you know, you're not beaten to the punch."

"Shut up," Blaine muttered, tucking his tools back into his inside jacket pocket and avoiding eye contact with the stranger. He felt like his last bit of hope had just been snatched away. Any last bit of connection he still had to Andrew was being picked apart and torn as each day went on. How long would it be before he forgot what he looked like? What he sounded like? His grin when Blaine showed him a new storybook?

Blaine didn't want to forget. He didn't want to forget the way Andrew refused to be sad even though he was in and out of the hospital, his strength, his courage even when Blaine would break down and sob his eyes out, and his sweet, precious little voice when he said, I'm a prince, Daddy. Just like you and Papa always say. And princes always get happy endings.

"Jeez, you look like a kicked puppy. You could use a drink."

Blaine shook his head as he stormed past the man. "Not with you."

"What is your problem? It was just one piece—he's got hundreds! Hell, I'll steal one for you if you really don't want to leave empty-handed."

Blaine kept walking.

And the stranger didn't follow him.

-0-

It was a headline two days later.

"Rare Aphrodite sculpture held in Hollingsworth vault replaced with forgery."

It was a long-winded article about the Hollingsworth estate, the security, and how the investigation was going to proceed. But Blaine knew the guy would never be caught. He could feel in his gut, an ugly knot of hatred and resentment. He was gone from Blaine's life forever. And he'd taken the sculpture with him.

Blaine lived in an apartment complex over a bar owned by an old friend. His name was Harvey, he was nearing the ripe, old age of 73, and his daughter, Sylvia, was a girl only a few years younger than Blaine. She was gorgeous and smart and, unbeknownst to everyone except for Blaine, one hell of a thief. They liked Blaine. And Blaine liked them.

His apartment was actually more of a loft. It wasn't on the top floor but close, and had two stories. Downstairs, a kitchen, a main room with couch and TV, and then a study. Upstairs, bathroom and bedroom. It was modern-looking, comfortable, and had been home for the past two years. Blaine hadn't wanted it at first because it was so freaking expensive—it was New York after all—but it wasn't like Blaine couldn't afford it. He had a steady income, no matter how unlawful the income might be.

He had just walked in the front door of his home after a morning spent with Sylvia in Central Park when his phone rang.

"That sculpture won't bring him back, Blaine."

He smiled to himself. "Hi, Dan."

"I saw it in the papers," Daniel explained before Blaine could ask. He sounded tired. "Are you really that stupid?"

"It wasn't me. I promise." Blaine was still smiling as he wandered through his loft, kicking off his shoes in front of the couch and then heading towards the spiral staircase in the middle to get to his bedroom. "I might have been there that evening, sure, but I didn't steal the sculpture."

"You thought about it though. Hell, as soon as I heard that it was in the states, I thought about it."

He reached his bed at sat down at the foot of it just as he sighed, "I'm not doing that stuff anymore, Danny."

"B…"

"Okay, so I might have done a few jobs a couple of months ago but I'm fine. Honestly. I wouldn't try anything that stupid. I'm not gonna risk getting locked up."

Daniel sighed deeply. "Promise me you'll leave the sculpture alone. Even if you find out who took it."

Crossing his fingers behind his back, Blaine put on a huge grin—even though his ex couldn't see him—and said, "I swear."

A/N: I really hope you guys enjoy this. I've had so much fun writing it. So let me know what you think in a review!

All of my love,

E. M. Zeray