totalwildcard | Around the Mainland; So Late Thursday Night It's Actually Friday

Around the Mainland; So Late Thursday Night It's Actually Friday

As established, Harley now had a great big bland-looking van.

But that was not all: Harley also had an accomplice! No, not the kid this time, because Cass had begged off on the basis of having gotten her little life's worth of dusty antique shops in just scouting all of them over the past couple of weeks, and also because Harley had need of someone who actually knew how to drive and who had a smidge more experience breaking into places.

So... She'd ~~handwavily~~ roped in Remy.

And now the van, Remy, Harley, and the whispersilk cloak currently still shoved into a bag were all nearing their first target, an antique shop in a part of town that was probably relatively quiet even when it wasn't the dead of night - and when it was, well... It really was dead out there. No movement along the street outside of the van itself.

Perfect conditions for the start of a heist!

"Okay, we should be... two blocks out," Harley said from the passenger side, surveying her map - yes, a physical one with squiggles and notes all over it. "Ca-- my associate says there's an alley on the left side of the place? With a side door into the building. That's how we get the goods."

(NFB because off the island again, and for the fellow criminal modded in the post)

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Well, he also bought himself a moment of concentration with that comment, not that he could have predicted it was going to have the effect that it did. Harley found herself looking down at the two kitschy, goofy poodle lamps in her hands with a weird melancholy pang in her chest.

Except it wasn't weird because it was the same fucking thing it always was, lately.

"Dunno about that," she called, a little too late for it to sound natural. Also, her tone had lost some of the aggressive pep. "Teams split up sometimes."

That was a suspiciously long pause, yes. Remy thought about what she'd been through lately and winced as he fiddled with the safe.

"That's true. I been on . . . three or four teams so far."

Depended on how you counted quitting a team to work with their nemeses and then coming back.

Multiple times.

"Yeah, so, see? Actually pretty easy to split up a set."

Sigh.

After some hesitation, Harley put the lamps into the bag, carefully, then looked around at what else there was.

"Nothing's forever, right? Teams change and that's just how it is."

"Teams do," Remy agreed. Thinking about Rogue now. Off on the Avengers. Telling them to consider him.

Then telling them not to take him.

"But some things . . . some things are permanent."

"Like what?"

There was a pretty significant price tag on a nearby candelabra. Harley grabbed it, a little listlessly.

He knew better than to try for romantic love, here.

"Family," he suggested instead. "And not the blood kind, non? Got a best friend, Stormy, we're ride or die. Basically siblings."

She also hated it when he called her "Stormy".

Could he hear Harley snorting from this distance? Probably not.

So it probably just sounded like a whole lot of silence.

“Even when we were on different sides,” Remy mused, softer now. He wasn’t talking so much to Harley anymore, but he was loud enough to be heard. “We still loved each other.”

That was how he was going to remember it, anyway. If Storm had given up with him after his brief return to the Marauders, he didn’t want to know.

Harley stared at whatever happened to be in front of her, completely losing focus - figuratively and literally both! - on what they were actually here for.

She thought of Pam, and she thought of the kid, and Task Force X, and the fuckin' Birds, and --

Nothing was forever.

"Good," she said.

And meant it, still. Good that he had that.

Remy was quiet a moment too long after that.

Fortunately, that was when the last tumbler slid into place, and he could shove the moment under the opening of the safe.

“You want some cash?”

"There's cash?" Harley asked. "Ya found some?"

She didn't sound as excited as she would probably have liked to. She had this feeling, lately, where stuff got caught on her brain, and her thoughts were just this roiling mass that was taking its sweet time - weeks - taking a comprehensible shape.

This time, it was the thing about family that was sticking in there.

"There is and I have," Remy agreed. He pulled out a stack and flipped through it. "Kind of a ridiculous amount. I think maybe they've been playing games with their books."

In case anyone needed a "they're bad guys anyway" excuse for this heist.

Harley had no such qualms but hey, she wouldn't turn down extra money! A moment later, she poked her head in the back room --

Actually, it was more like she poked just her pale little face in there. The rest of her, bag and all, was cloaked in fabric that was hard to look at - in a way that was wholly different from the usual way her clothes could be hard to look at. In this case, it was more like the very fabric itself wasn't allowing the cloak to be looked at, blending itself to her surroundings instead, shrouding her from view.

Not that Harley herself was thinking about that at all right now, eyeing the money. "Oh they've really cooked the books."

“That they did — wow.” Remy squinted as he looked at her. “That . . . You look like a migraine aura with a face.”

. . . Somewhere in Earth-616, that was about to become someone’s mutation.

"Hmh?"

Yeah, it took a second - and a quick glance down.

"Oh! Yeah, I got this neat thing from Liliana's magic shop! Just think of all the possibilities!"

Apparently the excitement over the cloak could pull her out of the funk she'd briefly fallen into.

"It's gotta be useful," Remy agreed. "That thing work on video, as well as people's eyes?"

"Yup!"

Had she tested it? Enh, probably.

"I'm thinkin' of using it to haunt someone's house sometime!"

Remy chuckled at that. "Hopefully not mine," he said. "'Course, I know what to look for."

It would not help him.

"No, you would not," Harley retorted, "and also, I am not settin' foot in that place anytime soon, so --"

She was going to swerve away from that topic, now. At least sort of, considering the related thought it sparked, one that had her tilting her head and squinting at him in a considering fashion.

"Hey, wait, wait, how much would I have to pay ya to do my laundry for me?"

Remy snorted and held up the stack of hundreds in his hand. "More than this."

He barely wanted to do his own laundry.

Harley made a big ol' whiny face at him.

"Why? You already live where they got the good machines!"

"And I already got my own laundry to take care of. Plus six cats, right now."

He hadn't named the new cats yet. But he was getting close.

Did Harley remember the exact number of cats he'd had with him before? Nope! Neither did she have any idea whether those had been all his cats even at that time.

So she was just going to make another face, complete with an 'ugh, you're the worst and life is unfair!' sort of noise, and then she nodded back towards the store. "We should keep movin'. You wanna take your own little sweep of the place, do it now so we can get a move on."

Remy tucked the wad of cash into his coat.

"I'm good, chef. Let me know if you need help carrying anything."

Harley cast one last glance back into the store, then shook her head. "Nah, the furniture in this place is dumpy, I already got all I came for."

Yes, she was treating this like a shopping spree.

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