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Ace isn't used to seeing other kids his age inside the police station.
But there she sits, on the wooden bench next to the chief's office, with an outfit that radiates she was found in a place no one was supposed to be. Strawberry blonde locks spill from underneath a solid black beanie, as gloved hands toss a flashlight back and forth between them, while the girl's eyes stare blankly at the shoes on her feet.
The paper bag crinkles in the crook of his arm, dinner for the Captain boxed with love from Mom, knowing he was in for a long night with Rose Turnbull being found. Ace volunteering to deliver it for her, curious to see the aftermath of the biggest case to hit town, since those poisonings a decade ago.
He doesn't spot his dad in the bullpen, and the door to his office at the end of the hall is open, but no one appears to be inside. Despite knowing he's free to wander around the station simply because of who he is, Ace decides against it for the moment, and takes a seat next to the girl.
Looking to him briefly, something in her eyes is telling in that she assumed he was another cop, with a litany of ready to be repeated questions. It quickly shifts to one of recognition, as she might have seen him in school, or around their small town at one time or another.
“So,” he begins awkwardly. “What are you in for?”
For a moment he doesn't think she's going to answer him, sitting up straight and tucking the flashlight into one of the pockets or her denim jacket, then letting those gloved hands rub down her legs and stop at the knees.
“Breaking and entering,” she admits. “Possibly interfering with a police investigation.”
The girl shrugs as if the charges are no big deal. Or that she knows the consequences of them are not actually a threat. Ace lets out a low whistle, which gets the smallest hint of a smile from her. He's about to make another joke involving a newly acquired rap sheet, when it suddenly clicks that her amateur thief outfit and the nights big event are not coincidental.
“You're the one who found her,” he states. “The kidnapped girl.”
She shrugs again. Nonchalant. Like what she did was nothing.
Before he gets the chance to say anything else, the door to the chief's office opens, and three men including his dad walk out. The girl immediately rises to her feet at the sight of them, eyes locking with the shortest of the three, and the only one Ace doesn't recognize.
“Not to sound ungrateful Miss Drew,” McGinnis resigns. “But I don't want to see you in here again.”
The girl, Miss Drew, looks like she's about spit out a rebuttal when the short man takes her by the arm and pulls them along.
“Come on, Nancy.” He says firmly. “Let's go home.”
Ace watches as they exit out of the station, before turning back to his dad, who is looking at him expectantly.
Do you know her? He signs, despite the fact that he normally tries to talk when on the job, and has hearing aid is turned on.
No, Ace returns one handed, then offers up the paper bag with the other.
/\
The next time Ace sees Nancy Drew he's in the library, playing a game on his laptop with one of the hacker friends he'd made from Austria, trying to find back doors into trusted security networks with the fewest amount of key strokes.
She's dressed normally this time around, in a skirt and sweater combo, with that strawberry blonde hair pulled neatly into a ponytail. Quickly falling out of sight as she walks among the stacks, Ace loses concentration on the game, as his neck cranes around trying to catch her again. Fingers tapping on the table, he's stuck on how to try and find her without looking like a creep, and not wanting to leave his laptop unguarded considering what he's doing on it in a public place. Turns out he doesn't even have to move, when a few minutes later, Nancy walks by again with a stack of books in hand.
“Hey,” he calls out.
She stops and looks around, wondering if it was actually directed at her, before their eyes meet. It's the same look of vague recognition she'd given him at the police station, and for a second he thinks she's just going to ignore him and move along, but then heads over to the table.
“Hey,” she echoes.
Ace is caught on how to continue, not having expected her to actually talk to him, but then blurts the next thing that pops into his head.
“Did you get community service?” he asks.
Nancy shakes her head, as Ace's eyes flick to the ponytail bobbing behind it.
“Slap on the wrist,” she answers. “My dad talked them down. He's a lawyer.”
Ace nods with this new fact.
“Mine's a cop.”
Nancy shifts the books in hand to rest inside her elbow.
“The one with the hearing aid?”
Ace is visibly shook she got that from their brief interaction.
“I'm observant,” she fills in off his look. “Besides, you look more like him than McGinnis.”
He grins shyly at that.
“New case?” He continues, pointing at the books she'd chosen.
Introduction to Criminal Psychology. A Beginner's Guide to Forensic Science. Practical Lock Picking.
“Maybe,” is all she gives.
Ace doesn't press.
“I can offer my services,” he proposes instead. “If you ever need-”
“Not really looking for a partner,” she cuts him off, then turns to leave.
“Okay,” he says to her back.
Fair enough.
/\
Ace didn't expect to talk to Nancy again after the library. Especially not in school, where their being two grades apart kept the possibility from occurring to him, all because of some archaic idea of social hierarchy. But she approaches him in the hall nearly two weeks later, with a notebook in hand, and a look of frustration upon her face.
“Can I talk to you?” she asks.
Ace's brow lifts.
“Yes?”
Nancy glances around them.
“Not here.” She takes off down the hall, but doesn't look back, or indicate at all that he should come along until reaching the end. “Well?”
He quickly follows, and keeps following, as she leads him to the opposite end of the school where the old shop classes used to be. Nancy only stops when it's clear no one else is around, then looks up at him in all seriousness.
“I hear you're good with computer stuff.”
Ace wonders just how she heard about that, not having the chance to tell her that day. The only other people in the know on that particular subject his fellow nerds, geeks, and outcasts. Not exactly the crowd Nancy runs with.
“I asked around,” she states as if reading his mind. “Those were the services you were offering, right? Unless you meant one of the subjects in those books I checked out. Which, sorry for assuming, I don't think you did.”
His head spins a moment, the swift and direct way she speaks, eerily reminiscent of the condescending adults in his life.
“Y-yeah,” he stutters. “I'm good. In some circles you could even say I was great.”
Nancy doesn't look at all impressed, as she slings the backpack off her shoulder, and pulls a phone out of the front pocket.
“Can you break into this?” she asks, offering it to him.
Ace takes the phone in hand, a relatively new Galaxy S4, and opens the lock screen to a picture of a snarling pit bull.
“Do I get to know why?” he asks.
Nancy thinks a moment, as if asking someone to break into another person's phone, actually warrants letting them in on the reason.
“I'm trying to find a necklace,” she states. “That belongs to Old Lady Karlsson up on Langley Drive. All signs point to her cretin of a grandson, but I don't have anything solid to accuse him with.”
So she stole his phone to try and get some substantial evidence? Right. Makes sense, actually. He taps a few buttons, but the lapse in silence makes her antsy.
“Can you do it or not?”
He hands the phone back.
“Already done.”
Nancy's jaw drops just a little, and Ace can't help but feel a bit smug.
“You can save your applause,” he teases.
She ignores the comment, scrolling through the phone until finding whatever it is she hoped would be there, face lighting up like a firework.
“Idiot took a picture of where he hid it!” she exclaims. “This is perfect, thanks!”
She takes off running after that, leaving him standing there.
“You're welcome!” he calls out. “Partner!”
“Not your partner!” she shouts, not looking back.
/\
The first time Nancy asks for help, that isn't entirely focused on his technological skill, is through a text message at three o'clock in the morning. Ace wasn't asleep, poking around a large corporation (that shall remain nameless) mainframe. Vague enough in its two simple words, that he doesn't quite understand the severity of it right away.
Find me.
The first thought that crosses his mind, is that it's a game. Except the Nancy he knows doesn't really play games. She could. That is entirely possible. But why would she suddenly confess to this enjoyment at such a time of night? Why would she pull him into it now when... Oh, she's in trouble.
A jolt of adrenaline sharpens his concentration, as he instantly pings the GPS in her phone, upon realizing that is exactly what she meant in her message. The coordinates come up on the waterfront, where various warehouses from a dying fishing industry, are still standing but left to rot away.
Ace slips out of the bedroom window before he has a chance to talk himself out of it, retrieves his bike from the shed as quietly as he can, and rides off toward the waterfront. It's rather stupid, he realizes. Halfway there with no idea what kind of danger she's in. No plan other than to find her. (No plan on how to find her.)
He gets to the warehouse where the signal pings the strongest, hitting the brakes and ditching the bike behind some crates, that have probably been in the same spot since the seventies. There's a big black SUV parked in front, and several gruff voices shouting at each other, with flashlight beams slashing through the darkness. They're still looking for her, which is good. Means he gets a chance to find her before they do.
There's a small hole gouged into the wall, where a plucky girl detective could easily slip through, and a full grown adult could not. Ace can barely squeeze in, but manages, then freezes at the sound of voices from above.
“I got nothing!”
Ace holds his breath.
“Well, keep looking! I doubt the little bitch jumped in the water!”
He scowls instantly at the name calling, glancing again at his phone, the telltale dot shining in the southwest corner of the building. There's a labyrinth of crates and boxes go through, but the people looking for her all seem to be on the northern end, so he navigates it as quick and quiet as he can.
When it appears he's on top of the red dot, Nancy herself does not appear to be there, and the dread that she'd left her phone behind washes over him.
“Nancy?” he whispers. “Nancy. It's me. Uh, it's Ace.”
Something shuffles to his right, and she appears out from under a dusty looking tarp wearing the exact same getup from that night in the police station, not at all happy to see him.
“What are you doing here?” she seethes.
Ace is confused.
“You said, find me.”
“I meant ping my phone, which you obviously did, and tell your dad. Tell the cops.”
Again, confused.
“That's a lot of information to gather from a two word text.”
She huffs.
“This is serious. These guys, are way serious.”
Ace looks back to the series of flashlight beams still combing through the warehouse.
“I get that. So what do you say we get out of here?”
He takes her hand, halfway thinking she'll object, and pulls her along the route he'd used to find her. One of the men has wandered closer in the elapsed time since he'd entered, and they have to stop more than once to hold their breath and not make a sound, but manage to make it back to the hole Ace found in the wall.
Once outside Nancy instantly pulls her hand away, as the sound of police sirens howl from down the road.
“You did call the cops,” Nancy comments, surprised.
“Of course I did,” he replies. “But I don't think it's wise for us to stick around and greet them, do you?”
Nancy shakes her head. They backtrack to where Ace left his bike leaning against a crate, just as the first patrol car comes screaming down the lane, and watch as a few of the men chasing her attempt to escape in the black SUV.
“What were you doing down here anyway?” Ace asks, as another patrol car comes swooping in as back up, cutting off what little space there was for the SUV to squeeze through.
“Some sleazebag was dealing drugs out of his parents lobster business,” she answers. “I managed to track down where he kept his supplies.”
Ace's looks at her in astonishment.
“You went after a drug dealer all by yourself?”
Nancy glares at him.
“No,” she rebukes. “I went after the drugs. Fully intending to just take pictures of the evidence, and send them to Horseshoe Bay P.D. But then the guy-”
She lifts an open palm to the scene before them.
“Just showed up.”
They're quiet a moment.
“Like you did,” she says softly. “Thanks for that.”
Ace smiles.
“That's what partners do.”
He expects her to say, not your partner automatically, as she's wont to do every time he suggests they are. But she only looks at him with amused resignation.
“Partners?” she echoes.
His smile grows bigger.
“Yeah,” he assures. “Smart Girl Detective and her plucky sidekick, Techno Boy.”
Nancy bursts out laughing.
“Those are terrible names.”
Ace shrugs.
“A work in progress.”
/\
They manage to solve over a dozen cases together. She leads, he follows. Some bring brief moments of small town fame. Some question the legality of their work. All bring the ire of both their parents.
The Captain is sick and tired of coming into work to find his son making statements to subordinate officers, for being in situations he had no business, and possibility interfering with actual police work. Carson Drew appears to be more sick, and more tired. While the Captain has chosen silent resignation with his son, no longer wishing to engage and let him fall onto his own daggers, Carson goes the opposite way. Pulling both Nancy and Ace into his office, ranting and raving with his arms thrown toward the ceiling, that they can't keep doing this.
“It's not cute anymore,” he seethes. “This boyfriend/girlfriend detective duo.”
Nancy and Ace share a look.
“He's not my-”
“I'm not her-”
Carson glares intently, and they both fall silent.
“Not my point,” he corrects, taking a breath to calm himself. “Ace, I know your father is done getting you out of trouble with the department, and Nancy? I'm afraid I have to agree. Should the two of you ignore me, and continue on with your little investigations, the next time you get into a predicament with law enforcement you'll have to deal with the consequences yourselves.”
Nancy and Ace share another look. She doesn't appear deterred by the warning at all, not that he expected it, and the same goes for him.
“Understood,” he states, as Nancy nods in agreement.
Carson dismisses them, and once outside Nancy immediately starts discussing a case involving perfume.
“You know,” he broaches cautiously. “Your dad isn't the only one who thinks that.”
Nancy stops talking, eyebrow arched curiously.
“Thinks what?”
Ace clears his throat.
“That we... I mean, that you and I are...”
A blush quickly colors Nancy's cheeks.
“Oh,” she gives. “Right.”
“I mean,” Ace goes on. “It's just that, my parents do. All my friends do. I think all of yours-”
“Where are you going with this?” Nancy interrupts. “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”
Ace opens his mouth. Shuts it. Then opens it again, only to shut it once more.
“We're partners,” she states clearly, then corrects herself. “No, friends.”
He can't help to smile at that.
“Really, Ace.” Her hand reaches up to cup his cheek. “I think you're my very best-”
Suddenly, she kisses him. Without really meaning to.
“I'd be lying,” she clarifies, eyes focusing against his. “If I said I never thought about it.”
Ace grins.
“You do hate lying.”
Nancy beams at him.
“Come on,” she detracts, grabbing his hand to pull him along. “We have a case.”
He follows willingly.
“Lead the way, Nancy Drew.”