Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/1018740. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Rape/Non-Con, Underage Category: F/M, M/M, F/F, Multi Fandom: Now_You_See_Me_(2013) Relationship: J._Daniel_Atlas/Jack_Wilder, Henley_Reeves/Merritt_McKinney, Henley Reeves/Alma_Dray, Henley_Reeves/Jack_Wilder, Henley_Reeves/J._Daniel Atlas, Henley_Reeves/Dylan_Rhodes Character: Henley_Reeves, Merritt_McKinney, Alma_Dray, Dylan_Rhodes, Jack_Wilder, J Daniel_Atlas Additional Tags: Child_Abuse, Swearing, Cheating, Dubious_Consent, Light_Bondage, Dubious Morality Stats: Published: 2013-10-26 Words: 2400 ****** manipulation ****** by atlantisairlock Summary She'll make them do whatever she wants. Make them talk, beg, cry, smile, scream... break their hearts.  manipulation It's been years and Henley still doesn't understand why her parents didn't just commit infanticide if they were going to put her through hell for most of her early life. Her childhood memories consist of nothing but broken beer bottles and stinging slaps and cigarette burns, shouts and threats and her tears. A facade of a normal, happy family life in school, hiding bruises and scars under a warm, fuzzy jacket she stole from a neighbour's cupboard. She remembers the agony of being eight and accidentally tripping over the carton of beer in the kitchen, which culminated in her father picking her up by the collar and flinging her against the wall, young bones breaking and the blood dripping from her temple. She remembers her mother's slaps and punches and the occasional kick across a room when she was being too noisy, too quiet, too anything. She remembers her older brother stealing her father's alcohol and then pinning her to the floor and leaving her broken and bleeding, helpless, when he was done fucking his little sister before she'd even left middle school.  High school's where Henley learned that she was pretty, by societal standards, and that lustful teenagers were willing to look past the faded blemishes on her skin to get a taste of her slim figure and the feeling of her head between their legs and their fingers plunged deep inside her. It's there she learned how to manipulate people, to get them to do what she wanted in exchange for a night in the backseat of a car or on the sheets of the bed. It's there she learned that there was a bit of a sadistic streak in her. She likes it. She likes manipulation to get what she wants. It's a skill that becomes second nature. One night on the way to a senior's house to have a good night's fuck she sees a street magician performing his tricks. She stops, watches in fascination, gets his number, and turns up an hour late at the boy's home knowing what she wants to do for the rest of her life. Once Henley saves up enough she runs away. She rents a small, dingy place and pays for her accommodation in the only way she knows how. She joins forces with the street magician she saw that night, Daniel Atlas. By day they work together, putting up a pretty damn good show.  She doesn't ask about his shady past or why he speaks so quickly and his eyes dart this way and that, always looking over his shoulder. He doesn't ask about hers, or why she insists on wearing long sleeves and her trademark gloves. It works perfectly, until he becomes a bit of an asshole and reminds her of her past, with his cutting words, his inflated ego, his sharp tongue, his ignorance. Henley runs away again. She makes a bit of a name for herself, the girl with the piranhas. She responds to the tarot card's invitation because maybe, finally, someone really wants her around. Pretty shitty seeing Danny again - the fucker hasn't changed a bit - but at least Merritt seems to be witty and amusing, and Jack looks like a nice boy. She settles in, and makes a promise to herself. She'll make them do whatever she wants. Every last one of them.  --- made him beg In the year between the first time the Four Horsemen meet and their first show, Henley and Daniel fight. A lot. Merritt and Jack don't even bat an eyelash anymore when it starts. Merritt just puts on a pair of earphones and the younger boy heads downstairs to a nearby park to have a run and a smoke. They both know how it'll end. Henley gets Daniel to shut up the same way, every time. She spends more nights on the floor of his room than the bed in hers. Sex with Danny is when she learns that the soft skin under his ear is incredibly sensitive, that the more she kisses his throat the higher his pitch goes, that he bites his lip when she moans into his ear. She learns that he's partial to husky voices and bites on his shoulder and to his cock down her throat. She loves it when his fingers twist in her shock of auburn waves while she's perched between his thighs, loves how he seems so far from his usual arrogant persona when she's sucking his dick - his eyes are closed, he moans, his muscles relaxed and she could knock him over with a feather. Vulnerable, weak, open to attack. For all of Daniel's control-freak ways, he doesn't say a word when she moves against him erratically, goes against everything he expects her to do next. Henley rides his face and his cock and he comes over her hand, her lips, her stomach.  Her jaw aches a lot, but it's worth it knowing that he begs, he wants her, he's helpless, he needs her tongue sliding against his shaft and her mouth on his dick and he needs himself buried within her, crying out as he comes before she does. He's putty in her hands. He's hers. Check one off the list. --- made him talk The first time they have sex, it's right after the first show where Jack and Daniel go out to the bar and get drunk and Henley sees that Danny's found someone else who's even more eager to suck him off than she is. They're tired and horny and when Merritt outright asks her if she wants to fuck she says yes. She finds all his weak spots that night. He likes to bury his face between her legs and lick her and finger her until she comes, which she has to admit is a nice change from Danny never bothering to use his hands during sex. He likes kissing her and tasting her more than he likes having her on top of him riding him to orgasm. He likes the feel of her fingers stroking his cock and working him till he comes, white on her palm. He likes pillow talk and she uses that to her advantage - Henley learns his secrets about his past, his brother, his first love, the wife that cheated on him, the daughter another man is raising.  They have sex in her room and they sleep on her bed and they talk on the sofa while another inane midnight movie flickers on the television screen, tuning out the sound of headboards slamming repetitively against the wall, tuning out the sound of Danny's moans and drawn-out cries when Jack's mouth is around his shaft and he's plunging deep inside the younger boy. She makes him talk, makes him expose the man beneath the lazy drawl and the sarcastic sass. She makes him talk the way she made Danny beg. This, she likes. This is power. --- made him cry It was supposed to be a one-time thing especially after Daniel and Jack become an official 'couple' of sorts. She understands, because no matter how much someone loves Danny sometimes enough is enough, having to deal with him.  Henley discovers that Jack's never had a woman and she's determined to change that.  She has to guide him. He's nervous, a little shy, and he gets flustered when she strips and pushes up against him and feels his erection press against her thigh. When she angles her hips against his and pushes, when her hand slips down between them and fondles him through his jeans, he hisses, and lets out a moan that sounds completely different from when she hears him and Danny having sex.  He's happy. Henley likes his smile when she wraps her fingers around his dick and presses the tip between her folds and sinks down on him, feeling him fill her to the brim. She likes how his eyes light up when she traces a trail down his entire body with her tongue. She likes that he's happy when she vocalizes her pleasure and her want with moans and gasps and gives one or two whimpers to make him feel even better than he already does.  They have sex even while Merritt eats her out on her bed most nights and Jack spends most of his swallowing and choking down Danny's cock.  Henley makes him cry when she guilts him, when she reminds him that he's still Danny's boyfriend and she's technically with Merritt and she hears him sob and drink too much and throw up into the sink because he still has a conscience where she's got nothing any longer. When she's done letting him spill out inside her she talks to him in her low, seductive voice, hits him where it hurts the most. She taunts him and tells her he can just leave and stop being unfaithful to his man, and she says I'll go and he replies please stay and she knows it's killing him. She makes him cry, and his tears give her a sick kind of glee. --- made him smile Dylan Rhodes does not smile. He frustrates Henley the most because she tries every trick she knows on him and his only reaction is to come silently, and then ignore her after she's done fucking him.  She wears the sexiest outfit money can buy. She lets him blindfold her and handcuff her to the bed and for once she has to beg instead of the people she fucks. She lets him use whips and chains and lets him make her bleed and ache reminiscent of her childhood, but better because it isn't all pain but there's pleasure too. She looks straight into his eyes when she swallows all his cum down her throat, the heat and salt sliding down her gullet, and he just stares back. She's all over him when they have sex, and he never lets up his cold aloofness. She gets the sneaking feeling she's where he wants her to be and it irritates her to no end. Then Henley sees the look in his eyes when he sees Alma Dray and she goes out and dyes her hair blonde and puts in contacts and forces him to see her as the Interpol officer, and for the first time while they're fucking with his cock pushing inside her and his hands pinning her wrists to the mattress he smiles, that bastard, and when he comes he calls Alma's name. It's an uneasy success for Henley when he smiles at her drowsily as the aftershocks of his orgasm fade and his eyes begin to close. But she counts it as a success anyway, that she's conquered Dylan, that she's managed to get some emotion out of him. He's still a piece of pretentious shit, either way. She hopes Alma Dray never falls in love with him.  --- made her scream She does not expect to want to conquer Alma Dray after she sees the Interpol officer hand-in-hand with piece-of-shit Dylan Rhodes. Henley has never had any illusions about who she is and about her sexuality - it's not about love, that part of her died long, long ago. It's not because Alma is a woman that it comes as a surprise. It's because it seems like she's the only one amongst all of them that might actually end up manipulating Henley too, and she suspects she wouldn't be able to turn the tables on the Frenchwoman as easily as she did with Rhodes. Henley's determined to succeed and it comes easier than she expects. She accosts Alma at the hotel on her last day before she returns to Paris- sneaks into her room and sits on the sofa and when the Frenchwoman returns from breakfast Henley's on her sofa in bra and panties and she's on her in a second. That second where Alma's completely disarmed and in shock is - thankfully - enough time for Henley to slide one bare, manicured hand up her shirt and the other down Alma's shorts. Long fingers thrust into Alma's centre and she actually screams, and the sound is music to Henley's ears.  "Fuck off," The Frenchwoman says when she's caught her breath and Henley's fingers are at her lips, and she's seductively licking them in front of the other woman. "I'm not... interested in you." "Are you straight?" Henley grips her waist and draws her close to her, and she hears Alma's heartbeat racing beneath her skin. "You don't want me?"  "Yes, I don't," It's insistent and the body language tells that Henley's picked up from Merritt tells her she's lying.  "Mm-hmm," It gives Henley a thrill because she's never gotten to manipulate a woman before, and it's amazing. Her nails dig into Alma's back and draw blood and the pain is the misdirection that gives her time to slip her hand back into Alma's shorts. "Sure explains how wet you are." She spends her morning watching Alma groan and twist under her ministrations in a way that reminds her a little of Danny. Her long blonde hair fans out against the carpeted floor and she whimpers Henley's name in that French accent of hers and bucks her hips when Henley licks one broad stripe against her clit. She comes once, twice, five times, six times, and each time Henley grins like a Cheshire cat with the satisfaction of making her scream.  "Does he make you come like this?" She has to ask that while her fingers scissor inside Alma. "Does he make you scream like this?" The tug on Henley's hair as Alma pulls her down to kiss her clumsily is answer enough. --- broke their hearts Henley runs away for the last time. She doesn't tell anyone where she's going. She cancels all her credit cards, destroys her identity and gets a new one. She goes off the radar completely.  Somewhere in Singapore she lounges in an apartment in Sentosa Cove and drinks champagne. She twirls a pen in her hand and idly thinks about writing a letter to one of them just to make them go crazy, or recording a little sound clip and sending it from an anonymous source. She wonders how they'll react. She knows she's left a trail of broken hearts behind. She swirls the wine in her glass and smiles with too much teeth. It's been fun.  ( to care is weakness. ) Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!