circle7 | in which adamo and vico learn to WORK TOGETHER~

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in which adamo and vico learn to WORK TOGETHER~

Adamo was in over his head on this one.

His small group had an assignment for him, but it was impossible to do on his own. All the others were tied up with their own missions, but Adamo assured their leader he could arrange something. The infiltration itself wouldn't be difficult, but he needed a partner - and that was where Vico came to mind. He was smaller; better at not being noticed. Adamo was not so lucky, with his looks and slight fame. It wasn't as though the show was incredibly popular, but just enough people seemed to recognize him to dampen the speed of his more public assignments.

And this one was in a five star hotel, downtown, at a formal event of about three-hundred. Lucky for Adamo, it was something of a film appreciation event; the perfect way to get him and Vico inside.

"Per favore," Adamo pleaded, leaning over to Vico so he could hear him over the bar's loud crowd and music. "Help me out with this one. None of my team is available, and it is important."

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"Don't be facetious." Vico threw his wadded-up tie at Adamo's face.

He teetered on the balls of his feet, leaning away and swatting the other's offending hands from his face. "Let's just get on with this."

He couldn't help it - he was still grinning, even as the tie hit him square in the face.

"Fine, let's go," Adamo gave in, stuffing the tie in his face (it was one of his nice silk ones, after all) and headed towards the stairs. The stair well was incredibly less glorious than the hotel. It was made up of simple cement floor, metal rails and depressing blue lighting. This looked more like the urban assassin setting the two were so used to - so much easier to climb around in. Adamo supposed he was just more flexible with his surroundings than Vico.

"So, your scar," Adamo said suddenly, speaking quietly so his voice would not echo up the stairs. "Did you really get it in an accident on a set?"

Vico raised a brow, but he didn't stop walking. He didn't look or sound particularly offended by the question, just curious. "What does that have to do with the mission?"

"Nothing. It's just, knowing what we know now," he explained, noting that they were on the second flight of stairs now, "I wondered if that was the true story."

Rather than answering, Vico suddenly inquired, "Two-zero-five?"

Oh. So it wasn't. Adamo didn't ask further, as they were at the third floor door.

"Room 302. Three, four, two, two, five. You take out the zeroes," he whispered, pushing open the door slowly. It gave a soft creak, opening to a hall lined with hotel rooms. The hall was oddly dim, though; as though the lights had been cut. Which they had. They couldn't have their faces on camera now, could they? After all, Adamo could be easily recognized, and Vico's scar was very distinctive.

"Bravo, Alfonso," he mumbled, stepping out into the hallway. "That kid is good.

"We ought to hurry, though. No doubt residents are complaining about the outage. We probably have ten minutes, tops."

Giving no more than a grunt of acknowledgement, Vico began making his way down the hall, at first with a hand trailing down the wall before ultimately abandoning that grounding altogether. They had entered the hall from the high-numbers end, making their way down from Room 334. With ten minutes to spare, they could have, of course, afforded to be a little more careful in their footing, but Vico had never been particularly patient anyway.

Room 302 was unsurprisingly ordinary. Like the rest of the doors in the hall, it was a plain white-ivory, garnished only with gold-plated numbers near the top. The lock mechanism was perhaps the most complicated thing about it, a dull red line shining from the top near a black card slot, powered by an internal locking mechanism.

"You have the card?"

"No, there's a number pad, though," he said, and he hit a metal block beneath the door handle. It opened a panel, and voila - a dial pad. "Those other numbers will be useful, now."

Adamo pulled the note with the fake phone number out of his pocket, squinting in the dark to make out the numbers as he began to key them in.

While waiting for the tell-tale beep of a correctly entered override code, Vico looked around them, inspecting their surroundings with a closer, more inquisitive eye. He was keeping an eye out for the blinking light of a camera that the shortage had missed, or even a shadow on the wall by a guard coming to investigate, but his attention caught on details like the plushness of the carpet, the expensive-looking guilded frames of the flower paintings hanging on the wall. The hotel was understated but pricey in its decor. He recognized the look from some of the fake sets that Emilio Tucci would frequent in their show.

"You always get high-end assignments like this?" asked Vico, because many of his missions entailed spending hours in the streets, in more run-down apartments on the shadier side of town, in bars where alcohol flowed easily and people didn't even bother with the 'under the table' part of an under-the-table exchange.

"Not really," Adamo admitted, the low beep sounding from the door. A small green light blinked, and the handle loosened, allowing them to open the door. "I mean, now and then. They are a rather wealthy company, after all. Makes sense that they'd have a few higher-ups that are harder to access."

Adamo pushed the door inward, glancing around the dark office. It was easier to see, with his eyes already adjusted to the lack of light. Something occurred to him, though, and he looked at Vico. Not that missions were supposed to be fun, but Vico's boredom and discomfort in the whole situation probably wouldn't be bettered if Adamo was playing spotter.

"Want me to spot?"

Vico looked up, confused. "Why?"

It hadn't occurred to him that a mission could be bettered. A mission was a mission, and that was all.

"Thought you might be bored out here," he said with a shrug, looking down the hallway.

Vico's face stayed stuck on his look of mild perplexity, making it hard to say whether he would jump into an indignant response or take explosive offense at the offer, as seemed to be his normal modes of reaction.

Then a beat passed and he did neither. Vico scoffed a low laugh, muffled and barely an expulsion of breath as he kept his voice down. The hallway might have been abandoned, but it never did an assassin any good to draw needless attention to himself. He thumped Adamo on the shoulder with the back of his hand, rolling his toward the ceiling. "This is a mission, amico. It's not supposed to be fun. Now hurry up."

That's right, Vico was the hardest person to convince of fun.

With a roll of his eyes, Adamo disappeared into the room. Everything was neat, and looked just as expensive as the rest of the hotel - a marble desk, leather chair, shining wooden floors... Not even Adamo's home had things this cushy. Instead of admiring, he carefully navigated his way to a file cabinet stashed underneath the desk. How careless to leave this unlocked.

He slid it open, sifting through carefully. They were organized neatly, except one unlabeled section in the very back... That must be it. He pulled the papers out, and sure enough, they were labeled to a 'confidential medical company.' Not a hard guess.

Folding them with care, Adamo tucked the papers into his blazer. He wiped the file cabinet's handle clean of his prints (you never knew), and made his way out, closing the door behind him - cleaning that, too.

"Let's get out of here."

"Good," said Vico, already heading back towards the door, slightly ajar, and pulling it back open . "Let's get g-"

An explosive sound shook through the halls. Instinctively, Vico's knees folded and he dropped. The bullet was off-center anyway - it glanced off the edge of the doorway and embedded itself into the partly-open white door. Wood splintered, a particularly sharp shard catching Vico across the cheek, but considering the sudden chaos outside in the hall, he didn't even notice. Kicking a leg out, Vico slammed the door shut and immediately locked it, bolting the metal latch above the knob for good measure.

"Change of plans!" he snapped at Adamo, pulling back towards the windows.

Considering the smoothness of things thus far, the bullet shocked Adamo far out of his 'fun' mindset. He jerked back into the room, close behind Vico.

"Merda," he mumbled under his breath, feeling his pulse jump. Whoever the shooter was most likely didn't get a good look of their faces - he was shooting in the dark. If he had some sort of night vision equipment, one of them would certainly be dead by now. As it was, their identities were safe.

Adamo yanked back the curtains of the window, searching for the latch. The light from outside barely helped. Judging by the footsteps outside (running from the sounds of it), they didn't have much time. Finally, his fingers caught on a handle, and he pushed the window open.

"Go!"

He didn't need to be told twice.

The shooters had clearly moved. The door was being shaken shaken on its hinges and it was only a matter of time before their pursuers came to the end of their patience and simply shot the lock out of commission. By then, however, Vico had already slipped through the window opening almost as immediately after the gap was wide enough to fit his torso through. As if he were climbing mere set platforms and lighting rails, Vico maneuvered himself around the outside of the hotel's architecture.

"Only way to go is down," he muttered, glancing between his feet. The drop was at least a couple stories too tall for a safe drop - they would have to climb. "Up for some exercise?"

Adamo followed shortly behind Vico, sliding out the window. Luckily, the building was made of brick, providing some ledges and a rough surface for footing. He made his way down closer to Vico, glancing below them. Three stories was just a little too high for comfort.

"Always," he responded. From above them, through the window, the slamming was only getting louder. There was another shot - most likely shooting at the handle - but one wouldn't be enough to get through it. Of course, Adamo wasn't about to wait until they did.

The closest ledge (a smoking balcony) was to Adamo's left, a couple feet down. He pushed off the wall, grabbing the railing once he fell within reach. The last time he leaped around like this, he realized, was when he was chasing Vico - who'd have thought they'd be jumping around together like this? In suits no less.

By the time the third shot rang out, the slam sounding shortly after indicating that the pursuers had finally made it through the door, Vico was touching his feet to the pavement below, all but yanking on the back of Adamo's suit the moment he landed to pull them around the corner of the building and temporarily out of sight. It was a good thing indeed that they were fast climbers - not a second later, a few men in suits and large, dark shades obscuring their eyes stuck their heads out the window, swearing under their breath in raspy Italian before pulling back in.

Forget about an errant tie - their clothes were entirely in disarray now. Wrinkles everywhere, with a tear Vico had managed to rip in his left shoulder seam from a particularly trick sharp protrusion on the second floor. They weren't at any leisure to spare any thought for that now. Still breathing hard, he glanced at the busy hotel parking lot and then back at Adamo. "Where's your car?"

If they had the time, Adamo would make it a point to give his poor, torn shirt a sad look. Later.

"Across the parking lot," Adamo said, his eyes darting from car to car, trying to identify it. When he spotted the exact row, he pointed and started to run, fumbling for the keys in his pocket. "There!"

Vico didn't need prompting to break out into a run following Adamo. The car wasn't far off, but it seemed to be leagues away when their pursuers finally made their way to the ground floor, the shouting behind them giving away the fact that they had spotted them. One or two silenced gunshots rang out - as not to alarm the high-profile guests inside, no doubt, but thankfully, their aim wasn't all that great in the darkness of night, with only far-off streetlamps and the glow from the windows indoors to provide for light.

They all but tumbled into the car, its passenger compartment open in wait for them, and Vico twisted around without even waiting for Adamo to retrieve his leg from under where Vico sat on it to pull the door shut. "Drive!" he hissed to whoever was at the wheel.

One bullet nicked one of the taillights as they ran, Adamo jerking to the side. That was too close to hitting him.

Adamo jumped inside after Vico, staying low in his seat. The driver hardly seemed alarmed, a cigarette tightened between his teeth, pulling out of their parking space and immediately slamming on the gas. Adamo all but flopped onto Vico at the sharp turn they made out of the parking lot and onto the road. He peered into the rear view mirror - no one behind him but two shrinking silhouettes. They were clear.

"Thanks, Alfonso," Adamo eventually gasped out.

"Get off of my face," Vico hissed, nose smashed against where Adamo's shoulder had fallen against it with the turn. He managed to pull one arm up from where it was squashed between the other man's larger weight and wedged it between them, using his elbow to free some space for himself, even if it was less-than-kind for the other party involved.

A quick glance at the rearview mirror confirmed that the driver was the same waiter from inside the event hall, another of Adamo's teammates. He had probably been waiting for them after the lobby chat-and-dine had ended, when all the guests had been ushered into the viewing hall. Vico had never thought he'd be so glad to see a face from that whole stuffy ordeal again, but this clearly proved him wrong.

"Who was that?" he asked, figuring one of the two would give him an answer. As guest-backup, he was less clued-in on the details and background of the mission than the actual team involved; it was a fair question to ask.

"The scary part?" Alfonso started to say, exhaling smoke - hardly the shy champagne boy they saw inside. "No idea."

Adamo straightened himself up in his seat as the car became steady, strapping in. He preened his suit, frowning at the dirt and dust all over it. He gave Vico's own attire a similarly sad look.

"Not a hard guess to say they're Abstergo agents," Adamo piped in, much less dramatic than his partner up front. "They must've caught on."

"Maybe just hotel security?" Vico offered, tapping fingers against the armrest inside the car door. "We were technically breaking into a high-profile room."

As if they would be that lucky.

He sighed, shaking out his shoulders and closing his eyes as he leaned back against the leather seat. He didn't hear any indication of a motorized chase, which meant they were in the clear for now. Whoever their pursuers were, they obviously hadn't gotten a clear enough impression of their targets to follow up on the investigation. "At least that's done with."

As exciting as Adamo's brand of missions seemed to be, at least Vico's didn't require a dress code.

"I don't think they would shoot anyone," Adamo mused. "I don't think security is even armed."

Reaching over, Adamo tugged on the tear in Vico's vest with a sigh. It was special tailored by none other than Luciano. In retrospect, inviting Luciano might have been the wiser move - but in honesty, he trusted Vico working by his side. He wanted to test the waters, see if they'd make compatible partners in missions. Of course, he didn't expect things to go so awry.

"He's gonna have a fit over this."

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in which adamo and vico learn to WORK TOGETHER~

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