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Base of Operations: Gearhead's Garage at too-early o'clock
Heist Location: Upper East Side
Intercept Point: Hell's Kitchen
SitRep on Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with hot peppers and grilled onions, bacon, and toast.
JP got up early to cook for one but also to go over the map of the city that was laid out on the pool table-gone-planning board with the notes off the tip he had. An egg timer went off with the most awful GZZZHHHRRTTTTT! sound one can imagine without being attacked by a giant bug monster. Given how early they were planning on this everyone was encouraged to either crash at the garage apartment or be here on time when that timer goes off or leave your cut of the profits forfeit.
Elmo's up too, tweaking a dozen little gadgets and packing them in his satchel. He's got tools, wire, batteries (always), and these curious little toys he's put together. Each has a particular function, known only to the mad engineer himself. He's got a cigarette in his lips and his goggles perched on top of his head.
There's a cat in the garage, a familiar brown haired cat with muddy green eyes that hasn't been around for a while. It lazes high up on top of a cabinet with tail dangling and curling, making not a single sound as it watches people as they move around, make breakfast, fiddle with gadgets and the like. No one's heard a sound from Sev in a couple of weeks. No letters, no calls, nothing. Complete radio silence. It could mean any number of things. But since none of the siblings had rung up J.P. to tell him that Sev was in jail or dead, chances were that he was just doing Sev things, like making a circuitous journey back home.
Vitale has only just woke up. He sleeps so much easier now that he lives in the garage rather than with his father, better and deeper. So he arrives at the same time that the egg timer goes off, pulling leather gloves on to keep his healing ability at bay in case he needs to do some punching. He's slicked his hair back from his face as well and casually tosses a knife in circles in his hand as he makes his way to the table. "Mornin'." He says in general to anyone close enough to hear him.
Nate's also up. He came wearing his leather pants and jacket, with a simple gray t-shirt underneath. His eyes see Elmo, JP, and Vitale…and a weird cat. Whom he has never met. "…hey guys. Did we..uh, always have a cat?" Nate asks curiously, before he shrugs. Oh well.
The upstairs loft had 2 rooms framed out, a couch and 2 chairs that matched one another but not the couch that was lifted from a dry cleaners. The walls were roughed in and had drywall hung and were finished but still not painted. The outside walls were still brick. The kitchen hasn't been really redone in a good 20 years but it was serviceable and the floors weren't too bad. JP had a plate of food and coffee pointing Nate towards the kitchen.
"Chow's over there. A'ight so, when we are awake we go over the plan one more time. We got these fellas comin up outta Hell's Kitchen set to go rollin a bank on the North West Side. Now I' tell you robbin a bank is a fealony charge you DO NOT wan, oui? Also killin a cop is ''also'' a felony you really do not wan'. As a reminder some of the po-lice have not gotten the memo prolly that robbin robbers is a good thing. That ain' their fault they don' read a lot. Our goal this' mornin is to intercept em, not hurt em. They' jes doin their job. We clear so far?"
Elmo looks up when Nate mentions the cat—he hasn't so far, been hyperfocused on his gear. He blinks. "Sev! Pal!" He breaks into a brilliant grin at the cat. "Great to see ya." Going to grab coffee, which he sugars and creams the heck out of because his stomach is too tight to eat, he nods at JP. "Got it. No touchin' the bank. No hurtin' no cops."
The cat has been ratted out by the new guy. Severin yawns in his general direction as he gets up and stretches from nose to tail, then hops down from the top of the cabinets to the counter, and then finally the floor. When he reaches the floor, he saunters on over toward Nate and sniffs at him for a moment, and then makes his way over toward Elmo, rubbing up against his leg in greeting before hopping up onto the counter next to JP and then onto his shoulder. There, he perches.
"A cat?" Vitale's voice sounds more elated than someone might expect from hearing there was a cat in the garage and his eyes /light up/ in a way they haven't in a minute when he spies the familiar brown cat on tob of the cabinet. "Severin!" Radio silence from the younger Bonaventure had been a little worrying but not too much so. As long as no one called home to tell JP to return to the bayou immediately, he likely was okay. He didn't expect this. He's sure none of them had. "Hey baby!" He says a little more enthuisastically than one might expect of a pet as he comes over to JP's side to scritch behind the cat's ears lightly.
Nate crosses his arms as he looks to JP, smiling to the fellow. "Alright. I can take care of diverting the cops. Or someone can help me out. I don't really mind." he was the heavy hitter of the group in terms of raw strength, but he nods. "Don't worry. Nobody's gonna die on my watch."
Eyes shift tot he cat. Wait…is that a shapeshifter or something? "…should I know a Severin?"
JP arched an eyebrow. Huh! Shop cat returns! The arch of the eyebrow was brief as pointy-brother-cat crawled up to perch on shoulder which also, turns out, came with an offering of bacon from Gearhead, "Merci d'avoir regarde Amelie, frere." The cat got a smooch on his head for that. He added, "You wan' food you can be people f'that. I don' wan' fur in my food." RUles on rules man. THey weren't too bad. "Sparkplug, you got it. Mornin, Nate, mornin V." Were there a problem with his kiddo he'd have gotten a- shit. They don't have a phone, but it stands to reason Severin would have told him by now so he wasn't sweating it.
JP pointed to the map. "So the bank is where this' green circle is. the red circle? That where they gon' head to. So! The plan is while they out doin the actual heisting, team A starts layin trap at their safehouse. Team B- keep them cops busy, not hurt. When them robbers get back to the safehouse? Team A gon' spring the trap an' make off with the loot. This' where it gets tricky" Those brown eyes scanned the room, "Now Team B gotta let the cops catch up wit' the actual robbers without gettin caught you'self. Let the cops arrest the crooks. Part of the trap? Well we got shit t'plant there that'll keep the cops busy a while." He looked around, "WE got' figure out team A and B. Nate… I trust' you. Also yes, this mon frere, Severin. Sev, This Nate. He groovy. OH!" He looked to them with a pang of sympathy, "Try t'remember insurance companies are kinda shit so careful on hurtin like, ya know, local business, and civilians if we cna help it. Unless they all say hey certain people ain' allowed in here. Fuck those guys.
Oui? "
Elmo leans over to stroke the cat's back when he rubs on him. "This's Nate Grey," he tells him, "he's a mensch." Everybody's talking to the cat, like this is normal. Okay, to be fair, in Mutant Town it's pretty normal. He props himself up against the counter, nursing his coffee, listening to JP. "Where you puttin' me?"
Severin purrs from where he perches on JP's shoulder and takes the offering of bacon to the cat gods, and nibbles it. When Vitale approaches, he also accepts the skritchings and purrs, loudly. But the rules are the rules, and he hops down to the floor with a thud. When introductions are made, the cat looks over at Nate and gives a vague sort of meow in his direction. Oh, the cat can talk. But talking would break character, and so he wanders off to follow JP's missive and disappears into the bathroom. When he comes out again, he is pulling a t-shirt on over his head and is wearing a pair of jeans — probably JP's, and is barefoot. He moves over to Vitale first to wrap his arms around him in a tight hug, and presses a kiss to his cheek before releasing him. Then he turns and offers a hand to Nate. "Severin Bonaventure." Then he nods to JP as the plan is laid out before them. "Didn't think I'd miss this, did you?"
When Severin hops down off of JP's shoulder, Vitale gives his full attention back to the job at hand. "I can help keep cops busy. The De Angelis name is enough distraction, some of them are paid off by my father, some of them /really/ don't like my name but either way, we won't need to hurt them. The ones that aren't scared by the name might be more interested in getting me into handcuffs than sniffing your trail." It's a blessing and a curse, being in the mafia and all, here it could be both which would work in their favor. "Won't hurt 'em, promise. If it scares them off, good. If it doesn't I'll just be really, really resistant to being put in handcuffs."
When Severin returns, now a man, Vitale's arms are out before Severin even reaches him, hugging back just as tightly and taking a deep, steadying breath. He smiles when Severin kisses his cheek, a hand coming up to Severin's cheek, thumb gliding over his cheek. "Missed you." He says, warmly, sincerely.
Nate nods to JP. "You can count on me." before AH! CAT TURNED INTO A PERSON?! definitely shapeshifter. Though he now notices that Severin and this Vitale is in a relationship. "Huh..many things I should know, but I'm not gonna ask any questions." he smiles then. Learning something new everyday! He extends a hand to Severin. "Nathaniel Grey. Just call me Nate." He then looks to Elmo, tilting his head before looking back to JP.
"If I see a restricted restaurant, I'll mess it up. Mutant and proud, right? Let Black and White people get along for once." curses of the times. Before he shrugs.
"Anyway, keep goin' JP."
JP chortled to Sev and said with a wry, amused, and really very proud grin, "No' with this much cash in play. I know better." He listened to the ideas and pointed to Vitale, "You got a good point. In a car chase ain' a lot of time for talkin and if we can keep you not made out, alla better. Lemme think on on that tho an' figure out where we can best use that. Remember, we still want em chasin them, not us." He pointed to Nate with a grin, "This? This why we friends. You get me, man. You got questions, we'll split beers an' I'll e'splain it to ya." JP explains it all, next on Geraldo.
"Okay so we got Nate on B makin detours and the not-dyin. Nate you fly yet cause if so? I'm a think you and Sev might be able to make the biggest baddest detour trip ever. Vitale, I might take your plan and thikin help us confront the actual robbers. MIGHT…keep em from shootin at us. Cause remember they armed and comin in hot, but they dunno that we'll be there so there's that. That' leave Elmo t'trap the warehouse and me t'get team A the hell out of there. UNLESS… Nate don't fly and then we can shuffle this order."
Elmo grins at the rest of the team. Nate's awesome, Sev's back, Vitale's happier than he's been in weeks, and they're about to roll some jerks for a lot of cash. This shit is awesome. "Means he's a good guy," he helpfully supplies to Nate. His eyes light up when JP says he gets to trap the warehouse.
"Missed you too," the other Cajun murmurs to Vitale before turning to focus on the plan at hand. There will be time for talking when the dealin's done. He then gives Nate's hand a shake and says, "Nice to meet you." He seems to just assume that Nate is part of the team if he's here, and doesn't question it at all. THen he looks over to JP and says "You jus' tell me what I need to do an' I'll do whatever you need."
"Tell me where you want me to be and when you want me to flash my name and at who." It's a powerful name and that's it's one benefit to Vitale. "You want me to talk to the actual robbers? Might recognize one, might be even able to get them to take the fall /willingly/ if I say the right words and I'm /very/ gifted with my tongue." He winks at JP, big wicked smile on his face, he's getting incredibly excited about this in a way he never got excited for jobs back with his father.
Nate looks to JP. "Yeah, I can fly. I worked it out. So..Severin and I could lead the cops on a wild goose chase. You, Elmo, and Vitale get the cash?" he asks curiously. "I can't fly too fast then. Don't want to leave the cops in the dust. Just a little bit." he jokes mostly, before he nods to Severin. "Likewise."
Then he looks to Vitale. Hey, good to be excited. Though he looks at Elmo. "Ah, helpful."
JP snappointed to Vitale, "Yes, now you got it." He grinned to Sev and Nate and said "A'ight, I'll catch you two up. Sev can turn into any animal without pants we need. We can do wild goose chase with actual geese. We did cow int eh road before but that harder t'pull off in New York. I trus' you. Nate can fly and can do some cool things with his brain like let me call Amelie when some jerkwaffle melts mah' pay phone." Nope. Still not over that.
That grin stretched looking to Elmo, something wry and wicked in that grin, "Hey remember tha' time you an' I fucked up that foundry?" His eyebrows waggled. "They got a storage warehouse cause… I dunno why all assholes who rob shit got a warehouse. Maybe it's in a manual somewhere but either way these assholes are up to code and have a gen-u-ine authentic warehouse up to no good. We can have some fun with that. Make Vitale look bad ass as hell an maybe convince em t'jsut hand over the cash and not piss themselves… or they start shootin at us and we try not to piss ourselves. Right. Get ready, eat up, an' when that bank opens in two an' a half hour? We will be in place. Given cross town traffic? Eh. We leave one hour. Regardless what happens get your ass back here by noon. IF you get hurt and Vitale cannot get to you? There a church in Hell's Kitchen, Sacred Heart here," he pointed on the map, "Priest there pretty cool. he help you out. Don' ask how I know this. We ain' got time for that kinda story. So… get you coffee an' eggs. We leave in 55 now."
Elmo snickers, eyeing JP back. Whatever those two got up to, they're enjoying remembering it. "Ain't likely to forget." Yeah, he knows what JP's getting at. He yanks a sketchpad out of his satchel to start drawing up what he wants to do to those poor, unsuspecting bank robbers, muttering to himself.
"Best idea would be to be somewhere I can get to you. I'm much quicker than trying to drag yourself to a church. Use that as a last resort. Oh, Sev, I can heal you in animal form now, we've discovered. It's uh.. a long story, but if you're hurt bad and shiftin' might make it worse, you don't have to now." There would be time, after this, that Sev and Vitale could sit down and talk and Vitale could regal him about his bum leg and how he healed a beast because he thought it was a shifter, and well, etc, but there was a plan in motion right now. He reaches for Severin's hand, threading his fingers with the other man's to give it a quick squeeze.
Vitale then nods to JP. "It's a plan, boss."