[HP AU]

[mnt_raph]

"An' you're sure this is the right address?" Raph asks again, for what Mike thinks might be the millionth time.

"Yes, I'm sure Raph. For like the millionth times. I told you," the smaller boy says sighing. "I read the map. I followed Donnie's instructions to the letter. Just...be still, look tough, and try not talk so much. Your accent kind of a dead give away that we're tourists, okay?"

"Bite me, Mikey."

"You'd probably like that too much," he says with a waggle of his eyebrows as he presses the doorbell of the Montoya's East London home.

Comments

[interrogoiterum]

They have to wait about two minutes - at least twice as long as it should take to get from one end of this house to another - before the door is flung open by a dark-skinned woman with a wooden spoon in her hand.

She stands in the doorway, and looks them up and down.

"Yes?"

[mnt_mike]

"Good afternoon," says Mike bringing out his most charming smile. The one that has been known to disarm mothers from fifty paces, and set fathers at ease from seventy-five. He's all harmless and small and no where near threatening all in one go.

"Is Renee at home today?"

He's been working on his local accent for quite literally months. Ever since the Summer when these plans were in their infancy.

[interrogoiterum]

She narrows her eyes at both of them.

"Who are you?"

The woman's holding the door to just wider than then width of her own body. Behind her -

- well, nothing can be seen behind her.

[mnt_mike]

"Friends," Raph drawls, his arms folding across his chest.

Mike's smile doesn't falter, though it does look like he'd really like to roll his eyes right now.

[interrogoiterum]

"Renee doesn't have any friends," her mother says shortly. "She certainly doesn't have any American friends. Goodbye."

And with that, the door is closing.

[mnt_mike]

"Everyone has friends," Mike says quickly. "Ma'am, we just want to say hello. We're just in town for the day and then we're leaving. We promise we're not going to be any trouble."

Right Raph? says his expression.

Raph sighs.

"Promise."

[interrogoiterum]

Holding the door half closed with her spoon hand, she narrows her eyes at them and crosses herself with her other hand.

"I know what you are," she hisses. "You are not welcome here."

[mnt_raph]

"Ain't the first time we've heard that, Ma'am," Raph says easily. "Ain't likely to be the last neither."

"What my brother's trying to say here, in the rudest and most inflammatory way possible, is that we understand your reservations and have no intention what so ever of putting you out anymore than we already have."

[interrogoiterum]

"Get out of here," she repeats. "Before I call the police. And the priest!"

In a raised voice that's nearly a screech: "Get out!"

And the door slams hard.

[mnt_mike]

Mike's head droops forward, and his shoulders slump as he sighs.

Raph, seems rather unphased by the reaction, turns and plops himself down on the stoop. He reaches into his pocket and retrieves a package of cigarettes and prepares to smoke.

"Well...that could have gone...worse I guess. I mean, she didn't light us on fire. SO that's a positive thing, right?"

"Oh yeah, real positive. We're scalin' the side of the house, ain't we?"

"It's an option," Mike says turning towards the street. "You really have no shame, do you Raph?"

"Heh, like you're one to talk."

"I'm not the one lighting up on the front steps of the house of a woman who just threatened to sick a priest on us."

"I've had priests set on me before. Gets old real quick." Once his cigarette is lit Raph stands and walks towards the sidewalk. "Shall we?"

Mike gives the front door one final look, and sighs again.
"Yeah. I really thought the front door approach would work," he can be heard saying as he follows his brother away from the house.

[interrogoiterum]

Even with the door closed, the shout can be heard from outside.

"RENEE!"

The first floor window - the only one facing the street - opens and Renee's head appears.

She holds two fingers up at them both, then disappears again.

[mnt_raph]

"Well that's 'cause you're a..." but Raph's remark is cut short by the yelling from inside the house. He turns on a time, because if it even so much as sounds like someone's getting a hand raised at them, he'll be in that house so quickly everyone's heads will spin.

He's surprised to see Renee poke her head out the window.

"Did she just flip us off?"

"I think that means wait a couple, not go fuck yourselves. Though...I've been wrong in the past," Mike says with a smirk. "Not often, but I have been wrong."

[interrogoiterum]

One second later, And it's not just her head that appears. Renee throws herself out of the window broomstick first, leaving more screams behind her.

There are tears in her eyes.

"This better be good," she says, jumping off beside them, into a run down the street.

[mnt_mike]

"So now would not be the time to tell you we're just in town for the weekend and were stopping by to say hello? Good to know."

Mike gets smacked up the side of his head for good measure.

"Ya'right kid?" he asks, keeping his eyes trained on the house even as they move further away from it.

[interrogoiterum]

"No."

But she's talking about it, so that's probably better than if she'd said yes.

Around the corner, she leans her broomstick against a wall and stops to tighten the laces of the shoes that she'd just thrown on.

"I'm not alright. I'm in for another screed about how I'm going to Hell, assuming they even let me back in after that."

She shakes her head as she stands, pushes her hair out of her eyes and looks from Raph to Mike and back.

"Tell me you weren't 'just in town?'"

[mnt_mike]

Mike looks to Raph, who nods slowly...all the while not taking his eyes off Renee's house.

"We're not just in town," says Mikes reaching into an internal pocket of his coat and retrieving a set of travel credentials. Travel credential, it's important to note, that are brilliantly forged.

Everything about this screams practice run.

[interrogoiterum]

Renee glances at the papers, and shakes her head.

"I am going to curse the crap out of you if I get back to school."

If.

She turns to walk further down the street, and stops. Looks at Raph.

"Hey, Spleen-Weasel."

[mnt_raph]

He smirks, but keeps watching the house. Whether that smirk is caused by her angry tone, or choice of insult, is unclear.

"Yeah, what?"

[interrogoiterum]

"What the hell are you looking at? The door's not going to open again, you know. Let's go."

She doesn't really want to be hanging around here when she has the whole East End to get lost in.

[mnt_mike]

"Oh I'm not expectin' it to open," he says with a grin that is positively evil.

"He's planning on the best way to kick it down," Mike chimes in as he slips his arm around Renee's waist, in an attempt to pull her down the street.

[interrogoiterum]

Renee is pretty damn hard to budge when she doesn't want to be. She carefully uncurls Mike's arm from around her waist.

"Here, hold this." Her broomstick.

"Alright, biscuit brain," to Raph, while pushing her right sleeve back. "Look over here."

[mnt_raph]

"...oh boy," Mike sighs taking the broom.

Grudgingly, Raph obliges her.
"What?"

[interrogoiterum]

The second he's facing her, Renee lets loos with a right hook to his cheek.

It's one of her many ways of getting Raph to pay attention to her.

[mnt_mike]

When Mike later tells the story, he'll remark about how it sounded almost as if someone had thrown an apple at a brick wall.

The force of the punch, which he takes by the way, is enough to make him take a step back.

"What the fuck was that for?" he manages after a second to regroup.

[interrogoiterum]

"Saves time, doesn't it?" She says, rubbing her knuckles. "Now you don't need to go over there and get me into any more trouble, because I've already hit you and we can have this out now if you want."

She's up for that. She is not up for him making it worse with her mother.

Of course, that's when a group of kids turn the corner up the road.

"...Renee?"

One of them is a boy a couple of years younger than them, and is striding towards them right now.