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“You’re stealing the Hope Diamond?”
Amy bites her lip, shrugging in her bright pink rigging. She doesn’t lower her gun, which both offends the hell out of Max and makes this whole thing a little more bearable. They’d flown here at three in the goddamn morning; sticking to her guns (literally) is the least Amy can do.
“Trying to?” Amy says. “Also, where is everyone?”
Max resists the urge to scrub her eyes. After the Amy Bradshaw Incident of 2004 (as titled by Ms. Petrie, their textbooks, and a handful of very unsubtle training videos), Dominique had followed her example and run off with a hot garage door salesman. Or been recruited by the French black ops. One or the other. And Janet had formed a worker’s union and bargained for better working conditions, including health insurance and not flying to the Smithsonian at three in the morning.
Ms. Petrie had finally given up and stuck Max with a new girl, which was a cute way of saying, you’re on your own, kid.
“Forget it,” Max says. “It’s just me tonight.”
“Um,” says the new girl, a little offended.
Max glances over at her: “You’ve still got your safety on. No—don’t bother, we’re not shooting her.”
“Aw,” says Amy. She’s still hovering over the Hope Diamond’s display case like a shiny, former-D.E.B. disco ball.
“But—” New Girl splutters; she sidles closer to Max, keeping her barrel trained on Amy, “she’s Amy Bradshaw. Of the Amy Bradshaw Incident of 2004.”
“She is,” Max says calmly, “and Amy Bradshaw of the Amy Bradshaw Incident of 2004 is going to explain why she’s trying to steal the Hope Diamond. Right. Now.”
Max uses her Leader Voice, and to her satisfaction, Amy cringes; even three years of art school and Lucy Diamond can’t erase some things. Just as, apparently, three years of art school and Lucy Diamond hadn’t taught Amy what traps looked like. “Seriously, Amy, did you forget the infrared?”
“Lucy distracted me in my planning phase!” Amy says, then heaves a sigh. “Okay, fine. I...kind of...wanted to propose.”
This explanation makes simultaneously zero and so much sense for the two of them that Max’s brain threatens to break. She swallows her own sigh.
She imagines, in another world, where Amy didn’t trip the infrared sensors clearly marked in every Smithsonian security schematic worth its salt, she mght have actually pulled this off, and then when Max got her immaculately-written, hand-sketched postcard from the Galapagos or something, she would have squealed and demanded to be maid of honor immediately. And then when she finally showed up and saw Lucy carting around the Hope Diamond, she would have ignored it until at least after the first dance, threatened Lucy with a gun under the punch table, and flown home without selling them out. As a wedding present.
Max is pretty sure it’s still going to go mostly that way, except she’ll have to buy them a fancy blender instead.
She lowers the gun, and Amy tucks hers into her thigh holster. “But the Hope Diamond, Amy?” Max pleads. “You couldn’t have gotten, like, something from Kay’s?”
“On an artist’s salary?” says Amy, cocking her eyebrow. “And besides, I think Kay’s is tacky.”
“Whatever. Lucy would say yes if you proposed with a Ring Pop.”
Amy pouts, a move that would surely undo former high-end diamond thief, scourge of the D.E.B.S., current Leverage International contractor Lucy Diamond—but has absolutely no effect on a sleep-deprived, under-caffeinated Max Brewer. “My girlfriend deserves better than a Ring Pop, Max.”
“Um,” says New Girl, “is she talking about Lucy Diamond?”
She puts more sauce on the words Lucy Diamond than Mr. P. does on his burger order (a lot, and he’s very insistent about it). She sounds troubled. Max distantly remembers New Girl introducing herself, whenever that was—hadn’t she said something about independent study? And a paper?
Max hadn’t had time for it then, though, and she really doesn’t have time for it now. She sighs, and without looking, reaches over to lower New Girl’s gun with her own hand. “Yes. Keep up, New Girl.”
“But it’s just—”
“Did I say keep up? I meant shut up.”
“Oof,” says Amy, sounding faintly commiserating. And in all fairness, Max is sorry—New Girl is green, but she’s not nearly as bad as Janet during cadet training—but again, it’s three in the morning and Max is being paid below Janet’s union wage to deal with Amy doing something dramatic and stupid. Not to mention—
“Where is Lucy?” Max asks.
Amy’s faintly commiserating look suddenly melts into sheepishness, the kind that always meant I got caught up in studying, sorry or I had to ditch Bobby, can you cover for me or I accidentally fell in love with our arch-nemesis and need to escape ASAP, help! Max’s eyes widen in betrayal. She pushes New Girl low to the ground— “Oh, Amy, you b—!”
CRASH. A section of the museum’s wall caves in, smoking. In the rubble stands the silhouette of formerly-notorious, currently-pissed Lucy Diamond.
“You were doing your first heist without me?” she says.
Amy sighs, unclips her rigging, and lands crouched in front of the diamond’s display case, holding up her hands. “It’s not like that.”
“Was Scud in on this?”
“No—well, he dug up the schematics, but he didn’t know what it was for—”
“Scud’s supposed to be on my side!” Lucy’s voice has gotten louder and more dismayed, and with each exchange she continues to advance on Amy, laser gun at her side. Amy, for her part, just rolls her eyes affectionately.
“There are no sides, babe.”
“Well—” Lucy splutters, “there are if you’re heisting without me! I thought if you were ever going to heist, it would be, like—a thing! You know, I would show you the ropes. Be your first partner in crime!”
Amy reaches out and takes the laser gun from Lucy’s hand, throws it backward over her shoulder. It bounces off the display case, causing another alarm to blare.
But Lucy and Amy, as per usual, only have eyes for each other. “You are my first partner in crime,” says Amy. “My first and only.”
Lucy’s eyes soften, and she curls an arm around the back of Amy’s neck, pulling her close. They touch foreheads so delicately it leaves even Max breathless. (Though that might be the dust from the broken wall.) “Promise?” Lucy murmurs.
“Promise,” says Amy, and kisses her.
Max averts her eyes to give them some semblance of privacy—the things Max does for these girls, honestly—though the ragged breath beside her tells her New Girl wasn’t so fast on the uptake. She ignores her and looks down at her D.E.B.-issued watch instead. It flashes with a warning from Phipps: POLICE RESPONSE INCOMING. EJECT.
Max curses under her breath and taps out a response: STALL. LUCY.
NEGATIVE.
AND AMY.
Her watch screen goes blank for a few seconds. Then—Max can imagine Mr. Phipp’s grudging frown in the pause—a third message comes through.
2 MINUTES.
Max can work with that. She pops up, cocking her gun and smirking at Lucy and Amy when they leap apart. “Okay, ladies!” she says. “The cops will be here in T-minus two minutes, so Amy, get your shit together and ask her.”
Amy’s post-kiss glow evaporates instantly into an embarrassed glare. “Max!”
“You made me fly to Washington, D.C. at three in the morning. You owe me.”
Lucy’s brow furrows, and her gaze bounces back and forth from Amy to Max. “Ask me what?”
“Nothing,” Amy insists, lying so badly that Max wonders how she ever got a perfect score in deception. Lucy clearly doesn’t believe her, either, because her eyebrow arches.
Amy takes one look at it and crumbles. “Okay, I just—I know that crime was a big part of your life, and I was asking you to give up on a lot when you went on the straight and narrow for me—”
“Babe,” Lucy scoffs, “neither of us went straight—”
“--so I thought if I was ever going to, you know, propose,” continues Amy, completely steamrolling ahead and starting to do that thing she does where she waves her hands over her head for no explicable reason, “I would do it with a crime, like the best crime, because even if I don’t like it, I love everything about you, and also, you’re right, the diamond industry is just a gross bed of injustice and exploitative labor—”
If Amy had bothered to take a breath and look, she would have seen that Lucy needed no explanation, that she had in fact clocked the fuck out as soon as Amy had said propose. She’d spent the rest of the speech staring at Amy like she’d invented the truest kind of love, or held two dozen adorable puppy dogs, or maybe zapped Australia off the face of the Earth for her.
Despite herself, Max feels warmth welling up in her chest. Perfect Amy. She’d gone from being the perfect D.E.B. to netting herself a perfect love.
“--so if you think about it, I was kind of doing the right thing, which I guess maybe defeats the purpose of proposing with crime, but I promise you, I came at this with the worst intentions—mmph!”
Lucy kisses the rest of the rant out of her, grinning. Then she pulls back, brushes a lock of hair off of Amy’s face, and says, “You were proposing?”
Amy stares at her. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes shining. “Trying to?” she says sheepishly.
“Then yes,” says Lucy, like there’s no other answer on Earth. There probably isn’t. “And on our honeymoon, I’ll teach you how to get past infrared sensors.”
Max snickers (she can’t help herself) at the same time that Amy groans and rolls her eyes. “Ugh, both of you,” Amy says. “I know how to get past infrared, I was distracted!”
“Sure you were,” says Lucy breezily. She winks, and Amy squawks; both of them fall into their regular bickering, seemingly oblivious to the squad cars skidding up outside. Or New Girl getting shakily to her feet and muttering something about my thesis statement. “Now come on, Parker’s waiting in the van outside.”
Max’s brain kicks back into gear when she hears That Name; New Girl swears, which is the first time they’ve been on the same page all night. Maybe she isn’t so bad. “Wait, did you say—”
“--you brought Parker into this?” Amy finishes. Even after three years of art school and Lucy Diamond, Amy is the best squad mate Max has ever had. And everyone—everyone—has the same reaction to Parker. “How?”
“I was breaking into the Smithsonian in the middle of an active response! Of course she said yes!” Lucy lifts another harness over Amy’s head, buckles it efficiently, and shoots a thumbs-up to one of the security cameras. They begin to rise, literally twined around each other. “Also, I told her she could have the Hope Diamond.”
Max’s eyes widen. “Motherfu—”
They disappear through the hole in the ceiling three seconds before the state cops crash through another, fully-intact section of the wall, finding dust, an abandoned set of bright pink rigging, and the Hope Diamond display case, miraculously empty.
(Later, Max will receive an immaculately-written, hand-sketched postcard from the Caymans, with a date and maid of honor? written on the back. As soon as she receives it, she whips out her burner phone.
“Hell yeah. You still owe me for the Smithsonian.”
Amy splutters for a moment, and Max hears Lucy in the background: you good, babe? “Fine!” Amy tells her. Then, to Max: “Yeah, that’s fair.”
“And I’m not paying six hundred dollars for a blender.”
Amy considers. “What if Parker promises to give you the Hope Diamond back?”
“...Seriously?”
“Lucy really likes her smoothies,” Amy says. “Come on. For love?”
Max sighs, looks down at the little drawings of turtles along the border of her invitation, and promises herself that she’ll pick up one of Janet’s stupid union pamphlets on her way back from Singapore. This is just ridiculous.
But: “Fine, Amy.” Max’s voice softens; nobody ever said she was the perfect D.E.B. “For you.”)