Beyond the cell lay two snoozing guards. Right outside the door to the dungeon, the man who had brought Ronan his food every day was crumpled against the cobblestone. His black cap covered half of his face as if he'd put it on sideways. Ronan eyed the sledgehammer now strapped at Knuckle's waist and felt a sadistic, condescending mock pity.

"What the hell is happening?" he said with a hysterical laugh.

"Is now really the time?"

Ronan shut up. They ran through the basement halls until the stairs came into view and Knuckle raised a finger to his lips, and as one they slowed, soundless. Knuckle reached behind Ronan and drew his filthy hood low over his head. When he offered something too small to see, Ronan opened his hand without question. A small gray sphere was dropped into his palm. One of Genie's sleep grenades.

"We each get only one of these, so you better be careful."

It quivered precariously in Ronan's trembling palm. After a long second of watching it teeter toward the edge, Knuckle plucked it right back out. "Just. Stick close."

He closed his hand and held out his fist. Ronan bumped it with his own.

The basement door opened up to an unfamiliar dark-wood stretch of the first floor, with paintings dotting the walls but not much else going on. They skirted down the moonlit hall, pressed close to the wall, for what felt like forever. Ronan braced for confrontation with every step, but none came.

He understood why when they turned a corner and came across six dropped guards sleeping soundly on an indigo rug. Knuckle let out a low, impressed whistle.

Past them, the hall came to a dead end. There was nowhere to go except up a carpeted staircase or through the only door, but Knuckle aimed somewhere between the two, making for the tall grandfather clock against the wall.

He only got halfway there when the door nudged open and two ladies emerged - servants, if their plain nightclothes were anything to go by. Rubbing sleep from their eyes, they set out for the staircase, unaware of the frozen pair of men blending into the shadows a handful of steps away.

Unfortunately for everyone, one of the women turned her head just so. Her hushed chatter slowed as she did a double take, then stopped altogether. She got a vice grip on her friend's arm, and that girl froze, too.

Knuckle regarded the clock, now blocked by the sickly-looking pair, with deep weariness. The women sucked in great breaths just as he reluctantly threw their last ball, and the smoke choked off their budding screams.

Ronan whispered an apology as he picked past their sleeping forms. He couldn't see much of what happened next through the fog, but he gathered that he was stepping into the grandfather clock behind Knuckle, then through a panel of the wall into total darkness.

Light bloomed marigold orange from a torch in Knuckle's hand. "Can I ask now?" said Ronan, one pace behind. The paneled stone walls were too narrow to allow both of them at once.

"Do you need to? Shit, you didn't actually hit your head, did you?"

Maybe I did. Ronan sure felt delirious. "It's not- it's not just you...?"

Knuckle scoffed. "Who do you think cleared the path for us?"

Ronan must have hit his head.

The tunnel opened up from behind a mounted shield into a frankly terrifying room, where an armory's worth of swords and lances casted long claws across the floor. There were armor stands, too many of them, tall shadows surging from their feet. Ronan clutched Kncukle's wrist, and Knuckle didn't even laugh, just towed him a bit closer.

"What the hell is going on," Ronan murmured, this time to himself, as Knuckle counted down with an ear pressed to the door, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen...

At one, he hauled Ronan through like he didn't trust him to move. Which was fair. Ronan wasn't too confident in his agency over his own legs, either.

Down the hall, then through a doorway cut into a square wooden column. It was a straight drop into the next tunnel. A deep chime rang out, dampened by the dirt walls. For a second, Ronan thought he was hallucinating again. But then Knuckle gave an aggrieved sigh, brushing his free hand over his hammer.

"Jig is up, then." Despite the harrassed way he said it, his eyes flickered with a look Ronan knew well, a smile no doubt brimming beneath his mask. "Let's pick up the pace, yeah?"

After eleven days of alternately sitting and sleeping, Ronan's legs wobbled miserably at the thought, but Knuckle sprang into a half-jog without giving him much choice. Terrified of getting left behind, he stuck so close he nearly barreled into Knuckle's back when the tunnel came to a quick end. They stepped out of a religious fresco into a room that smelled of tobacco and might have hosted games or music. Ronan didn't look long enough to figure it out, zeroing in on a gangly frame and a line of dark skin.

Tolling alarm bells swallowed the sobbing sound that ripped from Ronan's throat. Black doe eyes welled up in an instant, and Genie moved like he'd been kicked from behind, stumbling into a run to wrench Ronan into a quick, hard hug. "Felix," Ronan whispered just for himself, granted amnesty by the bells.

Genie held Ronan's face like he couldn't believe it. There were tallies on a corner wall of the Merry Men kitchen that tracked each of their heights; Genie was the only one of them still growing, and it dawned on Ronan that he needed a new measurement, had maybe already gotten one, and Ronan had missed it.

"They need back up out there?" Knuckle cut in. That was when Ronan heard it. Sharp steel cut between the bell chimes, slicing and colliding in traded blows. Knuckle stormed the door, and Ronan tripped after him nearly at a run, frantically shaking Genie off and ignoring his call to be careful, as if he fucking could.

Knuckle grabbed him by the back of his neck in the doorway like a goddamn cat, narrowly saving him from kissing the edge of a flying blade.

Outside was chaos, purple versus black in full swing. A three-on-three fight spanned the width of the hall, fast and unsparing, and at the center of it all- furiously brandishing dual broadswords, hidden by a mask and hood but recognizable to Ronan just in the way he moved, was- Rainer- Amir- Mercenary.

He wasn't alone. He took on one guard while a smaller figure dodged and weaved around another with a glinting knife in each hand, just out of the sword's reach. Whiplash. And at her back - Ronan felt the wind knocked out of him - Robin Hood raised a longsword, both hands around the hilt and wielding it almost like a shield. There was another guard already laid out, and four guns were scattered uselessly far from the fight like they'd been thrown. Ronan had to lean on Knuckle, it was so much to take in.

They were all dressed exactly the same, in loose back clothing and hoods and masks, indistinguishable to anybody who didn't know them like Ronan did. Unrecognizable as the Merry Men.

It was exceptionally loud. Not just the sounds of the fight, or the blaring of the alarm bell, but footsteps, voices; from above him, from each side, everywhere he couldn't see.

Whiplash and Robin weren't striking, he realized in the instant the flat of Mercenary's blade collided with his adversary's temple. They were just biding time.

The guard crumpled. Like clockwork, Whiplash slinked out of her opponent's path and Mercenary popped up in her place. She joined Robin, darting in with quick slashes and shallow jabs while the guard's sword was occupied. They couldn't contend with trained guards, but they could clear the way for Mercenary, who-

An itch flared up deep in Ronan's chest. He was gorgeous when he fought.

There was a rumble of nearby footsteps at the end of the hall. Ronan braced for more guards, but what appeared in the adjoining hallway was a group of women in little to no clothing, dripping water like they'd come from a bath and clutching tiny beaded dresses against themselves. Ronan met a pair of heavily made-up eyes brimming with tears and the girl shrieked.

There was a thud as the third guard dropped. The women ran while Whiplash, Robin, and Mercenary bore down on the last one standing. It was hardly an honorable fight, but thieves weren't known for their chivalry. He fell to the butt of Mercenary's blade.

"Move," urged Knuckle. Before he could regain his senses, Ronan was being ushered down the hall, straining to keep eyes on Mercenary. Mercenary stared back, unmoving, until Whiplash shoved him forward.

Knuckle forced Ronan into a room he only saw for a second. Framed paintings, marble busts - art gallery - then the last person filed through the door and the windowless room went black. Ronan heard Knuckle grunt, then a sound like a whole goddamn sculpture being pushed out of the way. A hand guided him across the room and down several steps. He was pulled blindly into a run, until someone lit a torch and he found himself looking at a strip of Whiplash's profile.

"Wait," he wheezed. He tried to slow down but she yanked him forward. "Wait!"

He dug his heels in.

She spun to face him, tugging insistently. "This is no time to-"

"Let him rest," said Robin Hood, and the protest died on her tongue. "He's been through a lot, and we've gone far enough. No one will follow us here."

Mercenary was slowing to a stop at the back of the group when Ronan turned, but he stilled the moment their eyes met. Ronan shook off the hold on his wrist.

"Am- Mercenary, or. Whoever you are tonight," he said.

"Amir is okay." It came quietly, with a sober attempt at a laugh. "It's not like they know any better."

Silence was oppressive here, so far underground that even the alarm bells didn't reach.

"I know I'm the last person you want to see right now," Amir blurted when Ronan started toward him. What little Ronan could see of his face held too much. It spilled over from bottomless eyes - eyes he'd thought he would never see so close again. He walked faster, and Amir's words picked up to match his pace. "This is all my fault, I swear I'll leave you be after this but I couldn't just- I'm so sorry-"

Ronan practically collapsed into him, throwing both arms around his neck.

Fourteen racing heartbeats later - Ronan could hear them, pounding against his ear and in his own neck - tentative hands slid over his back. The feeling dragged an honestly pathetic noise from his throat that he smothered into Amir's collar, and whatever had been holding Amir back snapped. He wrapped him up fiercely, and Ronan sank, and it wasn't enough - if only he could go further, sink inside his skin and be engulfed.

"You took so long," Ronan whispered.

Amir carded a hand through his hair, and Ronan shivered. "I know, I know. I'm sorry." He leaned back, only enough to touch Ronan's jaw and inspect what he could see of his face. "You're okay?"

"I'm okay," Ronan said, and Amir sagged in relief.

"You aren't hurt?"

"I'm not hurt."

"God, I'm- I caused this-"

"I'm okay-"

"You have no place in this mess, I'm so s-"

"I don't care! I don't care, I don't care, I just need-" He clawed at the mask clinging to Amir's face with fumbling hands, frustrated tears welling up when he couldn't pry it off. Dazed, Amir prised it from his face and it settled around his neck, and Ronan laid shaking fingers against his cheeks and whispered, "I thought I would never see you again."

"Oh, love." Those arms wrapped him up once more when he started to sway. "As if I'd let them hurt you."

"No, not that." Ronan shook his head fiercely. "I thought you were going to turn yourself in and- and come back to this horrible place..."

"He tried."

Ronan startled at the reminder that they were not alone. He turned around - at least, as much as he could without letting go - and Whiplash added, "Many times."

"His face when I brought home the WANTED poster," Knuckle shuddered. "I nearly pissed myself. Then he just...disappeared."

Robin picked up from there. "Showed up at the house two hours later when we were all talking about the article and holed up in his room for the rest of the day. Figured he was just upset - we all were - but I had this feeling-"

"You always have a feeling," said Whiplash.

"And I'm usually right. So I waited up, and sure enough, he slipped away in the middle of the night. Which isn't so unusual, as I'm sure you know, except he had his bags all packed. I told him to slow down, got a knife pulled on me for my efforts."

Whiplash snorted.

"Very heroic, very try and stop me and I'll cut you down. Didn't want that, of course, so I did not try to stop him. But I wanted- everyone wanted to help, even before we knew the whole story."

"Your friend - or lover, or whatever - didn't make it easy," grumbled Whiplash, and she was so blasé about it that Ronan didn't even react at first. But then, neither did any of the others. "Kept trying to sneak away and trade his life like some knight in shining armor. We had to keep a twenty-four-seven watch on him."

"I thought it was sweet!" said Genie. "We would've come sooner, but I still hadn't perfected the mask, and we needed as many of the sleep grenades as possible."

"It took time to come up with the plan. And," Robin paused. "Well. It had to be today, but that's a topic for later."

"Thank you," Ronan choked out. "You didn't have to do all that for me."

Everyone stared. Whiplash said, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Don't be a dumbass," added Knuckle.

And that was that.

"Think you're good to keep going?" asked Amir.

Genie dug in the biggest pocket of his utility belt for a shiny red apple. "It's all we brought, sorry. We didn't know if you've been...well, we thought anything more might make you sick."

Amir slipped the mask from Ronan's face and Ronan took a bite, and it was the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted. Robin started down the tunnel with his sister at his side. Knuckle and Genie filed in behind them. Amir took up the rear with an arm around Ronan, bearing half of his weight, holding up a canteen for Ronan to drink from.

"About the last time we spoke," Ronan said quietly, but Amir hushed him with lips pressed to the top of his head.

At the end of the tunnel, beneath a door that showered Genie in dirt when he tested it, Amir pressed something into his hand. The apple nearly came right back up when Ronan looked down and saw a dagger. Not Amir's usual, but the thinner one Ronan had always used when they sparred, long and straight and light.

"I can't." Ronan did not close his hand. He looked up, pleading. "I can't- I can't use this, I can't-"

"Hey, wait-"

"I can't stab someone, Amir, please, don't make me-" he begged, trying to pull his hand away. Amir pushed his fingers closed around the hilt.

"Hey, stop, listen," Amir commanded gently, wrapping both hands around Ronan's. "I would never ask you to do that. But this is a fight, okay? You can't go in unarmed. I don't want you to stab anyone. I don't want you to even take this thing out if you don't have to." As he said it, Amir buttoned a leather sheath over a free space on Ronan's belt. "Just keep it in here for me, and defend yourself if the need arises. I'll have your back, yeah?"

Ronan didn't even think he could hold the knife steady.

"I need a 'yes.'"

"Okay. Okay- yes." He pushed the blade into the sheath with some difficulty.

"Trust me, okay?"

And Ronan did.

"Don't they usually say something about bringing a knife to a gunfight?"

It was a weak joke, but Amir smiled. Then he rucked up the hem of his shirt to reveal a pistol at his waist.

"Christ."

"We don't plan to use them, but- well, it's like you said."

Ronan squeaked. "'We?'"

Robin lifted his shirt, too. "Have faith in us," he said. "Have we ever failed before?"

Ronan looked over the faces of his- he didn't know if he could call them his friends anymore, but they had made it their mission to get him out of here. The Merry Men were yet to leave a job unfinished and yet to get caught. He didn't know how much he trusted Vito anymore, but there was a part of him that would always have faith in Robin Hood.

"Lead the way," he said with as much confidence as he could muster.

He almost wished the next exit was windowless. It was a trophy room of sorts (Reason #58: They devote entire walls to croquet trophies), which apparently included an entire herd's worth of taxidermied game. A horned tiger bared its maw; Ronan recoiled, reaching out at the same time as Genie, and their hands clasped between them.

The walkway beyond the door bordered the courtyard, so Ronan got a front-row view of the havoc he'd caused. Nobles and servants and half-naked whores streaked toward the castle gates as a captive, a prince, and a band of thieves crept along the wall toward the next tunnel right under their noses.

Genie stopped suddenly, jerking Ronan with him, when four purple coats appeared around the corner.

The others didn't hesitate to throw themselves forward. They bore down so fast, the guards were forced to reach for their swords rather than their guns, and shrill screams went up in the courtyard at the discordant crash. Ronan was dragged, running, back the way they'd come.

It should have been a fair fight, but when Ronan looked over his shoulder he found Amir taking on two at once. Whiplash moved strangely, bobbing between the fights. Fiercely protected by her teammates, she pounced in and back out of reach. It made no sense until Ronan saw a rifle go flying and noticed two more strewn across the floor, all the way in the courtyard. Whiplash stole the fourth from one of the guards fighting Amir and slammed it into the back of his head.

From across the courtyard - almost too far for Ronan to hear, but it cut right to him - someone shouted. "There!"

He knew the voice but glanced anyway and caught a head of blonde hair. Dropping Genie's hand, he turned back and screamed, "Run!"

Ronan couldn't see Amir's face, but he could hear the panic in his voice when he looked up and barked, "Go, go, go!"

He threw a kick that sent his guard reeling back and bolted.

"Come on!" Genie urged from up ahead.

Ronan ran with everything he had. He didn't look back to see if the guards were gaining, didn't feel like he had the time. Wherever Genie was leading them seemed impossibly far.

Finally, he threw open a pair of heavy doors to a space Ronan recognized.

"Holy horns," Genie said, pained, as he took in the royal library's towering bookshelves. Then came a grunt, equally pained, as Whiplash flew into his back. Robin Hood slid straight to the floor, crouching in front of one of the ceramic statues of the Royal Beast that framed the entrance. He pried at the door in its flank.

Ronan ran to catch one of the library doors in time for Amir to soar through with three guards on his heels. The moment they clumped at the doorway, he threw down another sleep grenade. The fog bled into the library, enveloping the statue.

Ronan felt a reaching hand and took it. A harsh grip wrenched him backward, away from the shrouded tunnel entrance, then out of the mist entirely.

"What are you-"

The boy holding him was not Amir. Ronan cataloged brown hair and a young, unfamiliar face before one arm wrapped around his front, binding his arms to his sides and putting his assailant behind him. The other arm yanked down his hood.

A cruel laugh rose ahead of him, straight from the mouth of Prince Nicholas. "Ah, so fortune truly does favor the bold."

"How...?" Ronan said breathlessly.

"One would be rather daft to run into a cloud of mysterious fog without holding his breath, don't you think?" he said to another man, slightly taller, slightly older, with a sheen of white dust in his hair. Between them stood Amir, braced for a fight. His hood had been pulled away, too. Two swords were bared at him, and he bared two in return.

Prince Claudius, heir to the Diverran throne, didn't humor the rhetorical question. "Look for the others," he ordered a fifth brother, no older than Genie. Aeneus. So the one with both arms around Ronan was Emmanuel. They were all in their nightshirts, hastily tucked into trousers and boots. "They must be in here."

Claudius bore down on Amir without preamble.

Ronan struggled but couldn't break free. From the first clash of swords, he could see it was a losing battle - Claudius was even better than Nicholas, and they barraged Amir from both sides. Amir, who hadn't gotten a chance to catch his breath, who had taken the brunt of the fighting all night, was starting to lose his footing.

One of his swords fell at Nicholas' feet.

"What have I done?" Amir shouted. He staggered backward with one arm raised like a peace offering, but he didn't lower his sword. "When have I ever wronged any of you? Just- let me go! Let me go and you will never hear from me again, and you can get what you want and have the satisfaction of knowing I am living dirt poor somewhere-"

"Stop talking," said Claudius, and Ronan hated him.

Reason #11 I can't stand the rich: They are flesh and blood and bones like the rest of us, but they look down their noses when they see where we are like they didn't put us here.

Amir hastened back as his brother stalked closer. "Please!" he cried. "If any of you have ever pitied me for one miserable second, just let me go."

Nicholas cackled. But Ronan felt the slightest loosening of the arms around him.

He wriggled a tiny space between their bodies and drove his heel up into Emmanuel's kneecap.

Emmanuel shouted, curling forward, and Ronan lurched from his grip. He crouched low to snatch up Amir's sword mid-run, then dropped onto his ass and narrowly avoided Nicholas' sword coming furiously for his neck. Throwing himself onto his side, he skidded around the prince's feet. And sure, Ronan was a bit of a pacifist, sure, he didn't want to hurt anyone, but he could make an exception for this princely pile of shit.

His knife sank into Nicholas' calf. Nicholas dropped onto one knee with a venomous yell, and Ronan rolled out of the way of his wildly swinging blade.

"You must really want to be hanged!"

Amir seized the hilt of his sword from Ronan's extended hand and lunged viciously at his oldest brother. Ronan felt that itch again, watching him. It burned. Amir was condensed strength moving with deadly grace, a high pressure seal bursting open, like-

Ronan barely caught a downward swing from Emmanuel. Even with both hands, it felt like his arms were going to snap off. Amir fought an arm's length away, and he fought with a vengeance. Maybe even started to win.

"The library is empty! The rest are gone!"

Aeneus re-entered the scene. Nicholas rose on unsteady feet.

Well, Ronan thought despondently, we put up a good fight.

Amir stomped his foot. Smoke flooded the library, and this time, his brothers didn't see it coming.

They dove for the tunnel entrance as the four heirs dropped like stones, and they hit the ground running.

"Thanks for the assist," Amir panted.

"Anytime," said Genie, holding out his hand. Amir slapped it as he ran past.

They came out in the drawing room but skipped right over the chapel - that tunnel, Ronan remembered, opened up in the middle of a hallway, and they were every sort of screwed if someone saw them leave. That meant booking it all the way from the drawing room to the Great Hall and picking up another handful of pursuers along the way. With three guns pointed at their backs, too far away to double down and fight, Whiplash had no choice but to send them to sleep.

Pain flared up in Ronan's wounded calf during the final stretch. The doors were in sight when he staggered, gasping out. Hands on his back, a touch he knew by heart, at once held him up and urged him forward.

"Another one!" Whiplash called out. Ronan looked back and recognized his prison guard - cap on the right way now - and three of the men Amir had knocked out in the first fight. All gunless, disheveled, and furious.

"We don't have another one!" shouted Robin from the rear.

Knuckle spoke for the whole group: "Well fuck me."

They hurtled into the Great Hall, toward the tragic portrait of King Kirei. Ronan hung back behind the rest. Amir joined him, and together, they pushed the huge doors shut. Amir pitched his whole body against them as Ronan hastily jammed pins into the locks. The alarms were deafening here.

By the time they took off, the tunnel entrance was open and Robin was ushering his team inside. The doors to the hall rattled as Genie climbed through, then again, harder, as Ronan careened in. He turned back for Amir, only to watch him shove Robin inside and slam the painting in his face a fraction of a second before a thunderous crash; the unmistakable bellow of the doors being forced open.

There was a clatter like metal hitting the floor - like swords hitting the floor - and that, too, was unmistakable. It was the sound of surrender.

𓃢𓃢𓃢

Song for this chapter: The Good, the Bad and the Dirty by Panic! At the Disco