Chapter Text
Bilbo Baggins, burglar extraordinaire, always delighted in stealing.
He’d grown up quite a respectable character, but after the brutal death of his parents he was left on his own, the rest of the family refusing to take him in due to his mother having been disowned for marrying Bungo, their gardener, many years ago.
After that, respectability hadn’t come into it, and Bilbo learnt to move without being seen, to take what he needed and take care of himself.
Most of all, he learnt that you could never rely on anyone else. Placing your trust in another person only ever resulted in that person breaking your trust, and Bilbo didn’t like it when things were broken.
As he grew older he gained quite the reputation and decided to expand his business.
So he started taking requests. People would come to him with the right amount of money and a task and he’d perform it, stealing everything from someone’s ex-girlfriend’s dog to a £20,000 necklace.
Whatever the task, though, he always found entertainment in it. In not only the actual act of thieving but also the preparation. Deciding the best way to go in, the best way to be unseen: the best way to escape.
He was fastidious in his planning, ensuring that if something did go wrong (which it inevitably would, occasionally) he was ready for it.
But he had to say, out of everything he’d been asked to steal, the Arkenstone was going to be the biggest most impractical heist he’d ever been asked to do.
The probability that he would walk out of this one alive was slim to none, but the money was good, too good. And Bilbo had to admit, he was curious what the million-dollar stone looked like.
Just imagining holding it in his hands made Bilbo’s heart race with excitement and his adrenaline levels shoot up, rushing through his veins. He visibly shook with anticipation.
He knew he had to do this, whether it was deathly dangerous or not.
He was also very curious as to what a man like Smaug would want with it. At first he’d assumed Smaug was a member of a rivalling family to the Durin’s, though that idea had gone out the window pretty quick.
He just didn’t seem like the mobster type, Smaug. Maybe he was a high end politician; many were known to delve into the underworld due to certain illegal vices. Or perhaps he was just a greedy, rich man, wanting the Arkenstone simply for the fact that it was the Arkenstone.
He pushed it out of his mind for now, knowing he’d have to return to the subject of his patron for this heist later. Right now, he needed to plan.
The Durin’s were one of the biggest, baddest Mafia families in the country. Everyone knew the name. Not only because of the mobster link, but also because the Durin’s owned almost half of everything. Cafe’s and bars and shopping centres and even art galleries, their hands were everywhere.
Lots of metaphorical fingers in lots of metaphorical pies.
If Bilbo was caught on camera, he’d be screwed, unable to go anywhere for months, possibly years. They’d hunt him like a dog; he’d have to go into hiding, disappear. That was if he even got that far. The more likely ending for this was that he would be shot or caught and dragged down into some damp, smelly basement and beaten until he told them who hired him. He’d like to avoid that, if at all possible.
But even if he somehow got into the house, past not only the entire Durin family (which was over twenty people by the way) but also the multiple guards and staff, and managed to sneak past the forty-or-so security cameras and into the main office of Thorin Oakenshield, head of the Durin family. Even if he achieved all that, he'd then have to somehow magically find, get into the safe where the Arkenstone was kept, and still get out of the house afterwards, passing back through all those cameras and staff and guards again. And he had to do it quickly, too.
Never mind that if he even wanted to get into the house he had to pass four cameras, a large gate, and two security guards. And never mind that the gate that surrounded the Durin family home was nearly ten feet high with spikes on the top, so attempting to climb over was out of the question. This left only one option: he had to waltz in through the front gates and in through the front door.
He was screwed.