This was so not what she was expecting when Noel set out to get a job. She was thinking law enforcement, private investigation, EMT tech, or maybe even going as soft as being a nurse or a doctor or something, but... barista?

"Uh, you're outta those little cream cups?"

"We have an actual pouring thing full of cream. Over next to the– yeah. That's it."

Noel was manning a coffee cart in Crown Heights. The store that the cart belonged to was swanky, a patisserie and coffee joint where police could often be found making their rounds rounder. The cart tried to be equally upscale with things like sugar cubes instead of packets and actual cream in an actual pouring thing, but it was still a coffee cart. She still sold paper cups of coffee alongside those sweating sfogliatelle.

Now that the morning rush was through and her shift was winding down there was little to do but watch the nearby fountain and swat kids away from the sugar cubes. Birds chirped. Despite the heat, a man walked by in a trench coat with bare legs and running shoes.

The memorymancer fanned herself with the sports section of a newspaper that had been orphaned at her stand this morning. "There has got to be a better use of my talents than this."

Even when it was supposed to be easy, finding someone in New York City never is. After leaving Mischief in the bathroom with food and water, he set off to find Noel at her new job. Thing was, when he got to the coffee shop, he was informed that she was manning a cart somewhere. So...he took a cab to the general area, then began walking.

Finally, he found her on the side of the street selling coffee. "Hey," the redhead said lightly as he walked up to her. "How're ya likin' the job so far? I'd have brought Mischief with me to see you, but I left her at home what with the heat and all."

His blue eyes looked around as he spoke, almost paranoid as he handed her a brown paper sack. "It's not much, but I brought ya a little something to eat. Grilled cheese, figured you had dessert and the drink covered." He flashed her a grin, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Fanning herself with a leaflet from the nearby Church of Humanity distributor just wasn't keeping Noel cool enough. Surely seeing Ty was a hallucination.

A delicious smelling, teeth flashing, speaking hallucination.

"Angel of cheese, you did hear my prayers!" Okay, so once the morning crowd was done it got seriously boring. Noel practically danced around the coffee cart to claim her grilled cheese.

>"Get out of here, scum!"
>>"No way! Free speech, man."

Already with her mouth full and a cheese string dangling (that's how you know it's good!), Noel fully expected to see the Church of Humanity guy to be the transgressor.

>>"Help! I'm being repressed! Mutant attack! See how bold they are? They even attack by daylight!"

Noel looked at Ty and shrugged. Well, when he was acting like that it made Noel not want to help. "Is this staged?" If so, the attack was really rather pitiful. The "mutant" didn't even look weird, not that Ty and Noel were obvious mutants. He was just sort of shaking the other man by his collar and trying to push the guy down... unsuccessfully.

>"Shut up, dude! You'll scare 'em away!"

Ty had to chuckle a little as she danced for her sandwich.It was honestly kind of adorable. "You're welcome~" he replied, watching as she ate. Yep, truly adorable.

What wasn't adorable was this freaking heat, or those idiots somewhere behind him. Ty's eyes met the memory-mancer's,and eh shrugged back, slightly shaking his head. "Gotta be," he answered dryly. "Neither of them even seem to be trying. It's pathetic," the redhead murmured. "But I'm half tempted to go show them what a mutant attack really looks like...."

There was no chain connecting Noel's leg to the cart, but considering that this was New York the memorymancer didn't dare leave anything out in the open. Especially if it had wheels. As such, she could not intervene in the pathetic wet slap fight the tussle was quickly devolving into.

"You should go grab the guy with the binoculars." It wasn't as if the 'fight' wasn't amusing, but neither of the combatants seemed to be mutants and their whole subspecies was still getting verbally drug around in the mud much to binocular guy's horror. "Or just the binoculars." Considering their talents, either would work.

Noel shrugged and leaned her weight against her cart as she savored her sandwich. Heck, this was the most exciting thing to happen all day.

"Guy with--?" Oh, that guy. Not too far from them, but far enough away that he needed binoculars to see the whole fiasco. Ty wasn't sure what exactly taking binoculars would do aside from possibly start trouble with the owner, but...hey he had no plan, so he was just going to follow Noel.

Walking over to the guy, he noticed the expression on his face was less than amused. In fact it was more or less disgusted. When close enough, Ty snatched the binoculars from the man. "I'll give them back, I promise," Ty reassured the poor sap before heading back to Noel, hoping he'd take it okay.

Ty seemed cnfused. In fact, so was Noel when Ty went off toward the dmall patch of greenery instead of toward the fight. Had Ty not spotted the binoculars on the guy who s trying to take down the Church of Humanity pamphlet passer-outer? He was trying now to disentangle himself from the altercation, but the passer-outer had him by the binocular strap.

On the other hand, Ty seemed to have spotted his... accomplice? He wasn't so subtle now that Ty was speaking with him. And whatever he said shocked the guy so completely that he just let Ty walk off with his binoculars. He sputtered and gestured after him, but otherwise sat tight.

"You didnt, like, threaten to kill him or anying did you?" Noel accepted the binoculars with one hand while shoving the last bit of that half of her grilled cheese into her mouth. "Care to join me in seeing what this nonsense is all abount?" She wiped her lips with one of the napkins at the booth and then took a lick of the binoculars.

Initiation wasn't as intense as gang initiation, but they liked to haze the newbies a bit. It was a close-knit community, after-all. One had to have a certain amount of pluck and more than a little luck in order to go mutant spotting. It was practically an extreme sport at times.

Infamous ones like Isabel, the bone mistress, were worth the most points since they were dangerous. Worth the next most amount of points, psychics and other non-appearance-altering mutations. Finally, the obvious mutants were only worth one point each since you could spot them without seeing them actively use their powers.

Making contact with the mutants wasn't disallowed, but usually discouraged... for health reasons.

She would have looked more deeply into it, but something had jostled Noel out of her investigation.

The owner of the binoculars.

In fact, the other guy had disentangled himself from the pamphlet guy (only a little worse for wear) and was headed to the coffee cart.

She hadn't licked the binoculars for long. Now Noel held them up to her face to test them out because... uhm... excuse time?

Yep. They made Ty's nose look bigger. "Do you guys have a guide book?" Wouldn't it be awesome to join this little club? They could totally rock the point system just with people they'd met through Sanctuary.

Ty had missed the binoculars the guy in the fight had. The kid may have been great at spotting things in the past, but surveillance of the present was apparently beyond him.

"Heh...actually no," Ty said with a smirk. "Would you believe me if I told you all I did was promise to give 'em back?" With a nod, Ty removed his glove, touching the part of the binoculars Noel didn't lick, though he was sure he felt one of his fingertips brush her tongue. Before meeting her, things like that would have grossed him out. But now...it didn't really matter much.

Ty shook his head, releasing them. "They're fairly new. All I know is our friend's connected to the two knuckleheads...I'm out of my league on this one."

When the 'victim' of the 'attack' approached, Ty stayed quiet, subtly shooting Noel one of those 'What the hell are you up to?' looks. Then he realized....oh. Those binoculars...

"But wouldn't it be fun to see what their league is like?" Noel peeked at Ty over the binoculars before passing them back to him.

Well, it seemed she had two customers now: the one that had beat up the Church of Humanity guy and the guy that Ty had taken these binoculars from. "Can I interest you in a pastry or coffee?" Her smile was the dazzling i-didn't-do-anything-wrong brand of smile.

"So that's it? You're sending your monkey to steal people's stuff just to pedal more crap?" The binocular-less guy was dark-skinned, tall, slender, and fabulously mustached in a salt and pepper kind of way. He would have been right at home conducting an orchestra or playing an instrument or some other job where he would never have to see the light of day or lift anything over 20 pounds. The word debonair came to mind. At least, it would have if he didn't have that surly look on his face.

"I thought you handed them over?" She shot a displeased look at Ty.

"Geez, Luigi, lighten up. He coulda been halfway to 10th Street by now. Just be glad your peepers are in one piece." The Church of Humanity scrapper flashed perfectly white, capped teeth at Noel. Where the first guy was long and lean like a limousine, this man was short and stout and round about. His skin was tanned in a way that spoke of money which was... weird considering what they'd just witnessed him doing. "We'll take two coffees."

"We'll do no such thing."

"Two coffees." Shortie repeated himself more forcefully. "And notta bit of trouble from yous two."

"Nothing special? Just black? Small?" While Noel ironed out their orders, Mr. Grumpy Pants, who the other guy had called Luigi, held out his hand for his binoculars.

Noel accepted shortie's credit card and sputtered. Mario. "You... your name is Mario?"

"Yea? So what?"

"And your name is Luigi?"

"What? What's so funny?"

Noel rolled her lips together to keep from smiling. "Nothing. Just checking."

"I did promise to return them," Ty said with a sheepish, not quite innocent smile on his face. The kid had to admit it was clever of Noel to take the opportunity to sell these two something. Oh yeah, it was a definite as to who was in charge here.

Mario...Luigi? Ty snorted, trying his best not to laugh his head off, but it came out as little squeaks. Biting his lip, he managed to choke down the laugh, letting his partner in crime handle the Mario brothers over there. Heh...

Handing the binoculars back, he stuffed his hands in his pockets, whistling a familiar tune. Well, familiar to those who played Nintendo back in the day.

> "I did promise to return them,"

"And so you have." But Luigi did not at all look pleased, even when Noel handed him his coffee. Maybe especially when she handed him her coffee? He put his binoculars into a small leather satchel which was really just a nice way of saying that the man carried a purse.

"So what's with the binoculars?" She knew. Ty knew. But they didn't know she knew so this was really the best way to break the ice.

"I'm workin' my way in with this elite club. Maybe yous heard of us?"

"Mario, honestly." Luigi looked to be getting a headache from all his exasperation.

"We're Mutant Spotters."

"Like bird watchers?"

"Just the same. Maybe yous two wanna come around some time? It's an absolute sausagefest. No offense to the sausages present, but uh," Mario waggled his eyebrows, "we could use a couple more like you, ya know?"

She laughed. Who wouldn't? The guy was like a caricature drawing, totally over the top. "You have a business card or something?"

"Yeah, yeah." He dug around in his pockets until he pulled a metallic card holder out. He grabbed two cards and elbowed Luigi until he got a pen from the other man. He scribbled something on the back of one card and then offered it to Ty before he went to work scribbling on the back of the second business card.

CITY CAKES
Mario Malestro
Master Chef, Sugar Sculptor
xxx-xxx-xxxx

On the back he'd written an address, date and time.

"Weekly meeting's tomorrow for locals if yous really are interested."

"If you think you can handle it, that is." Luigi just had to have his input.

Noel's card was much the same as Ty's except that Mario had added his cell number on the front and a little XOXO.

Cute. Not at all winning him points, but cute all the same.

"If you don't mind, we'll take our leave."

"Gotta get all the points in that we can before tomorrow."

Ty nodded, taking the card. To be honest, he could care less about this mutant spotter thing, but he found it hard to tell if Noel felt the same way or if she was really interested. If she was, he'd probably tag along for gits and shiggles, but she wasn't always as easy to read as he was. It was weird sometimes, living with someone like her. Especially because he was used to having the advantage of knowing someone's secrets. Noel was the one person whom he could hide nothing from.

Taking the card, Ty looked it over. "You mean they aren't plumbers?" he whispered to Noel, having way too much fun with the names. Ty looked at Noel's card once they left, seeing the cell number and the cute little XOXO.

"Heh...he's not getting any points that way," Ty murmured with a smirk when he was sure they were out of earshot.

Plumbers. If Noel had been drinking something, it would have erupted with her most un-womanly "PFFFFT!" Really. What were the odds? "Stop, I'm working here." Though her stop was more of a playful one than a command, Noel did busy herself with tidying up the cart.

"We should go." Noel spritzed the front glass with spray to clear teh hand prints. "To the thing." Ty still held her card and that was fine since her hands were busy.

"Unless you think that's like cheating or something." Mutant spotters. Surely Ty and Noel weren't worth much, if they were recognized as mutants at all since their powers were so subtle. But didn't it sound like a fun opportunity to see who was a known mutant? To see what normals thought of mutant society?

Somehow, Ty didn't seem totally on board. "Aw, come on. Can't I convince you somehow?" If Mr. XOXO was going to be there, going alone didn't exactly seem like a good idea.

Ty flashed his friend a cheesy grin. "That was my last one, promise. But really, it was just...too easy. Like, I couldn't not crack jokes." Ty blinked at her suggestion, but he'd known she was serious about attending from the beginning.

"I do think it's like cheating, but...hey, you know me. I don't follow rules anyway. I just...I don't see anything to gain from it, except maybe a little bit of fun." He smiled softly.

"But if you really wanna go, I'll join you. After all, something like that would be foolish to attend alone. Especially with our luck. And if lover-boy back there's trying to make you his princess." Okay, that was the last one. "That face has convinced me. It's a date." He gave her a wink, along with a small grin.