Heisters (RWBY modern AU fanfiction)

10: Rebuilding Pieces

As soon as the three men were dropped off to their penthouse, Ironwood went straight to his room.

"You tired already, bud?" Qrow laughed. "You barely did anything today!"

"I can say the same for you", Ironwood shot back.

"Ouch, that really hurt."

Ironwood had changed out of his heist suit and into his casual clothes. A sky blue button down rolled up sleeve shirt with a pair of slim grey jeans and dark brown dress shoes. Not only he dressed for himself, but he remembered how much Glynda loved a man who knew how to choose the right outfits on the right day.

He stepped out of his room and was about to walk towards the front door until he was stopped by Qrow.

"Whoa, are we having a barbecue later?" he joked.

"I just need to go out", Ironwood answered as he reached for the door.

"Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"Usually you don't go outside very much", Qrow curiously scratched his head.

"I'm just gonna go check out what we need for the heist in the hardware store", Ironwood lied. The leader had lied again...

"Alright, then I guess that means I'll have to go over what we need from the blueprint."

Before Ironwood could say anything, Ozpin had opened the door to leave.

"Where are you going?" Ironwood asked.

Ozpin looked at his two friends as he felt his stomach turning to knots.

"I'm... I'm just getting some air", Ozpin answered as he just stared down at his trembling hands. "You know, after what happened today and the whole pressure from seeing my father's face in his history log. I just need to straighten my mind right now. I may be out for a while so you don't need to wait up."

He then walked out as he closed the door from behind, leaving both Ironwood and Qrow standing there in the living room feeling sorry for him.

"Poor Ozzy", Qrow mumbled. "Must be hard seeing your dead dad's face after a long time."

"Yeah..." Ironwood sighed. There was a moment of silence from their guilt until Qrow clapped his hands to forget the depressing feeling.

"Alright, we need to go over of what we need for the job before you run off to the hardware store."

He lead Ironwood to the kitchen as he showed the large blueprint of the main vault.

"Now from studying this blueprint of the newly renovated vault, it has three locks."

"Three locks?" Ironwood chuckled in surprise.

"Yep, three locks", Qrow repeated. "Now this is me being a smartass, but the first lock has a four-digit number. Obviously, we don't know what the numbers are so we'll have to leave that with Mercury. The second lock is a biometric system."

"That's not good."

"Well, if you think about it, Mercury is allowed to open that second lock now that he's working there. The third lock.... you're not gonna like this one."

"What?" Ironwood asked in a perplexed tone.

Qrow sighed knowing that Ironwood would not be too happy hearing this one.

"The third lock is a time lock", he answered.

Ironwood's jaw almost dropped as his eyes filled with a mix of fear and anger.