Chapter Text
BANG.
Goro’s lips curl into a triumphant sneer. “Nowhere to run this time, Joker.”
Dead to rights, he’s trapped. It really just goes to show how amateurish the so-called “Phantom Thieves” are - not even a backup plan when Goro diverted security to block Kurusu from his (too obvious) escape route. Perhaps they got away with their mark (oh, and he’s sure he’ll be hearing about that; just another reason to hate the man before him), but with their leader in custody, it should only be a matter of time before Goro’s men will have the Sayuri recovered.
Slowly, Kurusu turns. His back is to the wall - literally, pressed against a concrete wall, under a concrete ceiling, ridiculous, impractical heels clicking on a concrete floor.
There should be chandeliers, gold leaf. Carpets, at least. Goro finds himself a little disappointed in Kurusu, especially given the way he’s been strutting around all night in an outrageous costume tuxedo. It feels horrendously out of place underneath the fluorescents blithely lining the Ueno parking center’s ceiling. Still, the garage must have seemed like a convenient location for an escaping reporter-turned-thief once his first getaway was thwarted. Goro has to wonder, gleefully, if Kurusu feels slighted, if the less-than-glamorous location chafes his flamboyant sensibilities.
Goro thumbs the hammer and approaches his target. Kurusu Akira, investigative reporter under the unimpressive mentorship of Ohya Ichiko. Graduate from Tokyo University - explains why he knows the area so well. What must be a cut-rate Cummerbund Mask costume doesn’t flatter him in the slightest under the unforgiving garage lighting, but it’s honestly no better than the occasion calls for. Only a buffoon like Madarame Ichiryusai would practically invite literal masked robbers to a masquerade gallery opening and then serve the shittiest champagne Goro has ever had the displeasure of tasting.
He supposes that he almost owes the windbag artist now.
“I guess you got me, detective,” Kurusu says. Goro narrows his eyes. If it’s even possible to be held at gunpoint sarcastically, Kurusu Akira has found a way.
…Not that Goro technically has proof of his identity. Yet. He’d used another name the last time they met: Taro Tanaka, press pass and all, presenting himself as unassuming as a man with that bone structure could.
That ends tonight. Goro’s satisfaction reaches an all-time high. “I guess I did. You’re not as smooth an operator as you like to believe, thief.”
There are hundreds of people named Tanaka Taro. None of them are journalists with the Maiasa Newspaper. After his disastrous showing at the Olympic banquet, it took Goro half an hour to track down Kurusu’s byline; five more minutes to locate a picture. It is clearly, obviously, Kurusu Akira, entertainment reporter with an unimpressive regular column on page ten.
Those sharp, colorless eyes are trained on the gun barrel. He’s dangerous, part of Goro’s brain hisses.
“Pet name basis already, detective?”
He’s a great kisser, reminds another, smaller part.
Kurusu’s alibis are airtight. His DNA is nowhere to be found. Besides the concrete, there’s just no connection to him that Goro can find. No motive, his only co-conspirators shadows that go up in smoke at even the most cursory look. No circumstantial digital fingerprint, no criminal cell tower pings, not even an errant Gladiator order. Without taking him into custody and booking, Goro can’t get the go-ahead to nail him to the wall.
Goro grinds his teeth in irritation. Kurusu can say whatever he likes now - it’ll all be used in trial. “If that’s too intimate for you,” Goro says, all sickly patience, “Tanaka-san, then perhaps we could begin with given names. I believe yours was Taro.”
He watches Kurusu to the exclusion of all else. Every muscle in his face, every line of his posture. Sees the twitch at the corner of his mouth. Goro stops a few paces away, gun held right at Kurusu’s heart.
“That is what you told me at the time, wasn’t it?” Goro smiles less than pleasantly. “How disappointing to find out you’d lied. If we’re to be acquainted, I’d prefer our secrets out in the open. Do you think that’s fair, Akira? Ah, I’m getting ahead of myself. Kurusu will do - after all, we hardly know each other.”
Now he’s getting somewhere. Those sharp eyes shutter enough to lose their amusement. He’s barely twitched and yet… now he looks like the sort of man who’d be willing - able - to terrorize both Tokyo’s police force and its rich and famous elites. Now, though, Kurusu is at the other end of Goro’s gun, and Goro has him pressed against a wall in a dirty parking garage underneath the ugliest museum in Tokyo. It’s an unceremonious end to a criminal who’s been the itch beneath Goro’s skin for months, but it’s all he deserves.
Maybe it’s Goro’s fault for savoring the moment just a hair too long; maybe his thoughts waver for a second. Maybe Kurusu sees him unconsciously readjust his grip on his gun.
Whatever the chink in his armor, Kurusu spots it and lands his blow true.
Goro yelps, the sound wrenched from the back of his throat. He snatches his now-empty hand back to his chest, cradling the wrist Kurusu somehow managed to kick, and instinctively follows the arc of his gun through the air. Time slows enough that for a wild instant, he thinks he could reach out and pluck it from the sky; the sound of his heart pounding in his ears disguises the heeled click of Kurusu throwing himself full-tilt at Goro until it’s too late.
There are hands on his shoulders, a coattail slapping his face, and Goro is left only a fraction of a second to come to terms with how he’s been leapfrogged over in a fucking parking garage before his chin collides with the cement and his teeth smash together hard enough to rattle his brain.
The gun lands, clatters to the pavement. Goes off. The crack-POP of a nearby tire only deafening because of how it echoes in the wide, shallow air.
“Idiot!” he hisses, scrabbling for his gun, then vaulting to his feet. A now-familiar haze of Kurusu-centric fury descends over his vision and surges through his veins. He whips around to find the escaping thief, ready to shoot the recklessness out of his pretty, stupid brain… before he sees the specific brand of humiliation that Kurusu intends to subject him to.
Kurusu is flinging open the door to a car.
Goro’s car.
Fuck. Kurusu. Fuck him, fuck his dumb gloves and his tryhard acrobatics and predictable methods and his complete and utter disregard for firearm safety, for authority, fuck his whole trashy thief existence-
Goro forgets shooting, charges into a dead sprint across the garage just as his engine sputters to life. Lowlife, garbage, scum!
Kurusu’s eyes are wide and round as Goro yanks ferociously on the door handle. “Get out!”
Locked, of course.
He doesn’t give it a second thought.
The safety glass shatters into a million tiny pieces when he slams the butt of his gun down once, twice onto his window. Kurusu is still watching him from behind that stupid, cocked mask as he throws the gear shift into reverse.
Goro has no time to think, only to try and dive into his own car through the passenger’s window before Kurusu- Joker- that trash gets away.
His face and ears burn hot with humiliation once the situation finds its way into his brain. His legs and ass are dangling out of his window as he tries to simultaneously grab ahold of anything to stay in the car and avoid crushing his already-injured face into the layer of glass on the seat. In amongst it all, his gun ends up in the seat well when he has to brace a hand there to keep himself from getting a black eye on the gear shift.
Kurusu, from the feel and jerk of it, executes a sloppy three-point turn and peels out of the garage. The gun slides under the passenger’s seat from the momentum. Fuck. What’s worse, he can feel the scrape of safety glass over his belly as gravity begins to win its war on his lower half. He’s about to fall out of the fucking window and he has absolutely no excuse for not shooting Kurusu in the gut three minutes ago when he had him, he had him-
And then, Goro feels a hand fist in the middle of his back, grabbing a handful of his jacket and shirt, and is wrenched into his car fully - so much for keeping his face off the seat. His cheek digs into the floor, his hip into something that will certainly leave a horrific bruise. The g-force of Kurusu accelerating to god-knows-how-fast makes struggling to right himself completely impossible.
He’s in no position to assail the man driving the vehicle - even if he was, he knows it’s a stupid idea. Doesn’t mean he's entirely helpless, though. He gropes for his wire before the signal leaves range, barking into it with the strain of trying to sit up in his voice: “Joker is leaving the garage in my- in a stolen vehicle. Pursue but do not shoot.”
“Glad to know your self preservation instinct isn’t completely broken,” Kurusu says, his words tight as he preoccupies himself with finding a likely escape route.
Thankfully, Kurusu’s erratic driving gives Goro the opportunity to clamber upright enough to see out the window. He takes a few seemingly random turns that Goro narrates into his radio before Kurusu fixes him with a wide, pissed off glare. His wrist is still throbbing and his position is too awkward to stop Kurusu leaning over and ripping the cable from his hand. Rips it from his shirt, in fact. Flings it out onto the street behind Goro, right out of the shattered window.
Goro stares after it. “Fuck you,” he snarls.
Kurusu looks like he’s trying very hard not to laugh when he turns his attention back to the road. “Serves you right.”
“You’re lucky I wasn’t wearing one of those last time,” he mutters. Had he said no DNA left behind? Well, none that he could turn over without costing him his job. Frankly, Goro’s lucky too. If any of the higher-ups knew exactly how Taro Tanaka distracted him that night, he’d have been out on his ass, fired and blacklisted faster than he could even make it out of the coat check with his dignity, if not his suit, intact.
That is a mistake he will not be making again.
The only thing Goro can think to do at this speed is fasten his seatbelt. He feels like an utter fucking fool when Kurusu snorts at him, gaze focused on merging erratically onto the highway.
“I don’t trust you,” he snips, “more than I trust the engineers at Bonda.” His face is hot. Goddammit.
“You’re probably right not to,” Kurusu says lightly. “I don’t even have a license.”
That is- that’s information Goro did objectively know, but it certainly wasn’t something he was thinking about up until this moment. This moment, in which he is… in a car. With Kurusu Akira. Outrunning the police.
He feels his stomach turn. “Have you never driven before?” he asks, voice wavering in his attempt to keep it indignant instead of faint with terror.
Kurusu shrugs. “I mean, who hasn’t?” he says, which is absolutely not comforting at all when followed up with, “I used to race Gorza against the top ranked elementary schooler at the Akiba Gigolo all the time.”
Too many questions to even name pop into Goro’s head, overlapping error windows complete with mechanical scolds. “The-“
A siren wails from beside them, startling them both. He watches Kurusu floor it, the paltry engine of Goro’s sedan clearly not up to the standards of the Phantom Thieves’ usual getaway cars - Goro makes a note to demand the SIU audit every last mechanic in Tokyo. With how haphazard this supposed getaway is, it’s probably some cash-only rathole. Still, Kurusu manages to pull ahead of the cop enough to outpace it by a few carlengths.
Unfortunately, that’s not all Kurusu has in store.
Goro yelps as he jerks the wheel, swerving into the oncoming lane. “What the fuck!” he shouts, grabbing Kurusu’s arm and yanking down, overcorrecting and barely missing the guard rail on the opposite side of the proper lane. Thankfully, Kurusu wrests his arm free and they screech back to some semblance of safety despite the speedometer slowly ticking up to the sedan’s upper limit of 220kph.
“Let me- drive, goddammit,” Kurusu snaps, elbowing him wildly and missing.
“You don’t know how to drive!” Goro throws back, aware this is a ludicrous argument to be having at over twice the speed limit. “I’m amazed you were worried about my sense of self preservation - why pull me into the car if you’re just going to get us both killed!”
All he gets in return is a little huff of laughter. If he were saner in this moment, he might be too intrigued by the manic edge to it or the barely-concealed irritation below; as it is, he’s just pissed off. He twists to look behind him. There’s a sea of flashing lights splitting the night in pursuit now, and he hears the crackle of their radios over his own scanner. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Kurusu smirk.
“What the fuck are you laughing at?” he demands, craning his head back. His vision is practically a haze of red at this point, unable to do a damn thing to stop his own car without killing them both and unwilling to relax his agitated nerves. He’s never exactly been a go-with-the-flow type, but- there’s nothing he can do.
“Scared, detective?” Kurusu taunts. Goro has no earthly idea how he’s still so collected or where he finds the spare brainpower to torment him.
“You’re out of your goddamn mind!” How fast can a Bonda even go? The speedometer’s needle looks like it might wrap back around to zero at this point. “Concentrate on the fucking road if you’re not going to stop - I refuse to die in an automobile accident at the hands of a deranged thief-turned-kidnapper!”
And then.
Kurusu opens his mouth, but the sound of his voice is drowned out by the sudden, deafening chop of helicopter blades. Under that stupid fucking mask that he’s still wearing, that he’s been driving in somehow, his eyes go wide again with undisguised alarm.
And then.
Kurusu’s rolling down the window again; the air sucks out in deafening stutters, not even taking the sheer volume of the helicopter above into account. Kurusu pitches forward, still driving, to stick his whole upper body out the window. Goro most certainly does not shriek as the car jerks to the side again. He grabs a handful of Joker’s coat in one hand and the steering wheel in the other and tries to keep them both steady, though God knows why even cares anymore.
And. Then.
“Joker!” The voice is tinny and loud, the distortion of a loudspeaker familiar after a moment of Goro’s brain catching up. It doesn't take long to piece together what’s happening. Is it really happening? Is this even real life?
How do the Phantom Thieves have a fucking helicopter?
Is he hallucinating from rage? Goro, disbelieving, watches a police issue ladder drop from the sky.
The Phantom Thieves managed to hijack a police helicopter. It’s impossible, wrong, just fucking stupid on top of it all. How?!
They’re driving at least three times the speed limit, and the helicopter is, presumably, keeping pace, but surely-
Kurusu can’t seriously-
There is no fucking way-
Kurusu Akira catches the ladder.
It’s tight in his bloodred glove, coattails pinned as he sits in the window now, body more than halfway out the car.
“You’re going to kill yourself!” he screams, throat ripping over his fury, but he can barely even hear himself over the wind and the engines and the adrenaline in his ears.
As if he can hear him perfectly, Kurusu looks him dead in the eye, a wild, nigh-inhuman grin on his face, and kicks out of the window. His tailcoat rips from Goro’s hands - Goro has to let him go, or be pulled out the window too.
Goro would watch him swing away, would watch him free climb a ladder at two hundred and fifty kilometers per hour ten feet and rising above the pavement, would gape as he makes it to the top - if he didn’t suddenly remember that he’s driving and there’s no one at the wheel anymore.
Not that it was any safer when there was, but that’s a whole other indignity. His heart explodes against his ribcage, face hot and red with anger, with humiliation - with failure. He’s trying so hard to stop his hands shaking under the weight of adrenaline that he doesn’t even curb his reflex to stomp the brake all the way into the floor.
Now he can add motion sickness to the list. There’s a horrible weightlessness to the car as the back wheels fly out and he spirals across the tar.
When he opens his eyes again, his car is motionless and facing the horde of sirens Kurusu was running away from.
His stomach clenches hotly and a dread chill grips the rest of his body.
Oh, fuck.
The road is mercifully solid under his feet when he spills out the door. Gravel and dirt bite into his hands and knees as he retches on all fours. “I’m going to fucking kill you myself, you stupid son of a bitch!” Goro chokes and spits like the regurgitated champagne and ceviche wasted on the ground. Over the sirens, over the helicopter, nobody hears him but the pavement.