Chapter Text
Failure. It’s an unpleasant feeling, the type of feeling that eats away at you for hours on end; an itch that just can’t be dealt with no matter what. No job can be done to perfection, and there will be times the best-laid plans will go off the rails; it’s something Sly knows more than anything, has experienced more than heists actually going right.
And he knows that whatever is happening on Kaine Island is well outside his control and Bentley’s but it doesn’t make it sting any less. Hell, they hadn’t even had a chance to truly investigate it, to determine what they are exactly up against, before having to retreat or die at the fins of weaponized sharks.
Weaponized sharks! Of all things Sly had expected, that wasn’t one of them.
What they had gathered painted such a grim and dark picture, it belonged in a noir detective film. High caliber state-of-the-art defenses covered all points of entry: land, sea, and air. The guards’ shifts were long and overlapped with one another, leaving basically no window of opportunity to sneak through a blind spot.
And those were the physical things that could be seen. Bentley hadn’t even been able to chip at the firewalls and had to shut down his portable computer because it was beginning to overheat. All in all, they had nothing to show from their first recon mission, other than a banged-up fishing boat that they had to pay a great deal of hush money to the owner.
Whoever had taken over the island, they had made it so that no one else could.
But as they rested in one of their larger safe houses in the French countryside, after making sure there were no bugs and they hadn’t been followed, Bentley had let it drop during a simple dinner that it was theoretically possible.
Those words were like the finest of music to Sly’s ears.
That was how he found himself sitting on the leather couch big enough for 6 – God, it felt so empty without Murray – in the dark living room, a large mug of coffee in his hands as Bentley fiddled around with the cables so that instead of using the projector, he would be using his laptop and the large flat-screen TV instead.
The thought to help Bentley had crossed his mind but after the whole Clock-La affair, Bentley had pushed to see just how far his limits were now, both of his mobility and his new physical limitations. He had made it clear once he was as healed as he could be, he could do everything he did before and more.
(Plus his ribs were still smarting from the last time Sly had tried to help and got smacked with a wrench for his troubles).
“Well, that just about does it,” Bentley said after a pause, the screen coming to life and the images from the recon appearing on the screen. The mug in Sly’s hands creaked as the images slide by, his inheritance of the Cooper name locked far away from his reach, just like the Thievius Raccoonus had once been.
“I’m not going to lie to you Sly but if we even want a chance of cracking the Cooper Vault, we will need to really plan this out. And I mean it, we would have to pull out all the stops, calling in dozens of favors and doing twice as many for our connections.” Bentley began as the images switched from the fortress to a bullet point list.
“Here is a rough draft of associates we will have to connect with in order to start out data gathering. Once we have enough, we can start forming the team.”
“Team?” Sly jolted at the word, excitement making him splash some coffee on himself. “So we are getting Murray back!”
Bentley held out his hand to stop Sly. “We will try, but only if Murray wants to come back. And what I meant was bringing in specialists, making our Gang half a dozen strong minimum. This job is more than we could ever handle. And before you even start” – Sly had his mouth open, ready to protest – “There is no other way, I have done the math and checked it thrice.”
Sly grumbled as he took a large swing from his mug. Bringing in strangers into the Gang was like letting complete and utter random people move into your beloved family home. Hell, it would be a better transition if Carmelita joined, at least they knew her!
The thought of the vixen sent a painful jolt to his heart; he hadn’t had a chance to really see Carmelita face-to-face since the helicopter ride at the end of the Clock-La disaster. He owed her an apology, a truly heartfelt one to her face that much was rather obvious. The only thing really standing in his way from actually marching to her apartment was timing, that an upgraded shock pistol and improved aim.
Taking a deep breath to steady his heart, Sly gave Bentley a smile, the same one with false bravado when they had made the plans to steal the Clockwerk parts from the museum in Cairo, Egypt. “When do we start?”