[center][h2]Tony Nicholson[/h2]
[@Sickle-cell][/center]

The pair were waiting for five minutes after Tony spoke, when a man in a suit entered through the door of the cafe. Normally, Tony would not even notice him, but considering he was one of the only people dressed formally, he was pretty distracting. The man searched around the room for a little bit, before quickly making his way to their booth. He slid in, back to the window, and Tony was relieved to finally have someone to accept this damn letter.

This relief immediately became fear as the cold metal pressed against his knee. Tony had woken up countless knights in the Wonderland to this same cold touch - the touch of metal, and judging from the shape, it was a fairly large pistol. The man spoke in a quiet, deep voice.

“So, I hear you have something for me. Here’s how this is gonna work. Place it on the desk and sliiiiiide it over, nice and slow. Don’t try to make skin contact with me, or I pull the trigger. Don’t even think about pulling something funny, or I pull the trigger.”

“This isn’t my first rodeo, so Master-Stranger protocols are in effect. If I don’t check in with my partner once this is done without any change in my usual speech patterns, code phrase or otherwise, then a 50. cal bullet will make one of you about a foot shorter. And since I take you for the leader, that’ll make your friend the one holding the short straw.” 

Robby opened his dumb face hole.

"Actually, I'm the leader."

Tony had barely managed to restrain the intense urge to strangle his companion, before grabbing the crimson red envelope in his hands. Tony immediately began to slide it over, not daring to open his mouth out of fear. He made absolutely sure he had his fingers on the very edge of the envelope and pushed it very slowly, minimizing the chance of skin contact. The thought of convincing the man to put down the gun was extremely tempting, but logic took control of Tony - these protocols most likely guarded against a parahuman simply convincing a man to stop threatening them, and Tony really didn't want to risk losing a leg, or worse, his life. It wasn't until the letter was most of the way across the table that Tony began to retract his hands. Finally he opened his mouth.

[color=00a651]"This is an invite, though you most likely already know this. If that is all you need, our business is taken care of."[/color]

Tony was doing his best to remain discreet about the nature of the invite, as they were still in a public location. Thankfully, the years of being in shady bars and card games had conditioned Tony to have a fantastic poker face, which he prayed was enough to hide the fact he was nearly shitting his pants. Tony learned a long time ago that showing weakness made others more eager to demonstrate their strength. Tony just prayed that these weren't the kind of guys that killed their enemies as soon as they were done with them.