Chapter Text
"It's a star sapphire," Parker explained. "It looks like that because of a flaw, but people like them anyway. Some flaws are okay. Good. Some make you worthless."
Parker survived by always moving. She didn't feel safe when she stayed still. Too exposed. Even in a room full of friends, of family, there was a nervous energy about her that kept her ready to bolt at a moment's notice. It didn't make being hugged easy. She had to be calm, to consciously tell herself "this is safe, I won't need to run" to allow someone to wrap their arms around her. Sometimes she couldn't do it, even if she wanted to. She had never been good at physical contact or letting people in her personal space anyway. But there was one exception to that, because if there was one place that felt safer than a hard-to-access air-duct, one place where she didn't feel she would have to run if danger showed up unexpectedly, it was right in Eliot's personal space, close enough to rub shoulders.
Mornings should be a private moment you have to yourself, to wake up, prepare yourself for the day and quietly nurse a hangover. Morning should NOT involve your coworkers randomly dropping by with some "don't mind me" while you're drinking coffee in your underwear. But Nate guessed that's what made the team more of a family than coworkers. Still, he wished they hadn't taken over his apartment.
"Okay, that's it, you're coming with me," Eliot said, grabbing Hardison by the arm as he headed out and dragging the protesting hacker behind him.
"What, wait no, I'm working on this."
"You've been working on it for two days. You've been leaning increasingly close to your screen because your eyes are getting blurry. So yeah, you're getting away from it for a couple of hours. Seeing the sun again."
Seeing the sun again turned out to be a painful experience as it tried to make him blind and he did not see how a burning ball of Doom was supposed to be better for him than a computer screen. He was still squinting and being led around by the grip on his arm when Eliot manhandled him into his truck.
"Wait, where are we even going."
"The farmers market."
"Why would I want to go to the farmers marker?"
"You can stay in the car if you want. Take a nap. You need it."
"Wha–why couldn't I have taken a nap back at the brewpub?"
"Because you wouldn't have."
"Eliot?" Nate called at his bathroom door. "You're still in here?"
"Can't a man use the bathroom in peace, Nate? Something you just can't rush it. Use the upstair bathroom."
Nate might have fallen for the 'I'm constipated' excuse if there wasn't a red streak of smudged blood on the handle.
If anyone had asked Hardison as a child what he would do if he was a millionaire, he would have said "drink orange soda out of a crystal champagne glass". As it turned out, his ambitions hadn't changed much.
Parker could admire Hardison's technical genius, but really, if he wanted to make her a robot assistant, he could find a more subtle color than bright green. How was she supposed to sneak anywhere with that?
Nate never met Parker. She was long gone, disappeared without a trace, by the time he got there. So he knew her from his research, her reputation, and the baffled comments from the people she stole from.
"I got there in time to see someone dressed in black dive through a hole cut in the window. The tenth story window!"
"I didn't see anything, but I could swear I heard cackling in the vents."
"It was a ghost. That's the only explanation. No one could have gotten in and out of that vault in between the gards' rounds. This place is haunted."
"I got locked in a supply closet trying to help a guy stumbling out in his underwear and I was trying to leave through the vents when I came face-to-face with a girl. She was just... there. In a ventilation shaft! It's been an odd night."
Eliot was the one Sophie was most wary of on her new team and she could tell the feeling was mutual. She had known of him as a potential threat to people in her line of work and she considered herself lucky none of the more shady people she had liberated art from had ever hired him to get it back. She had never run into him. She was pretty sure she had never run into him. He still looked somehow familiar, but she couldn't place from where.
Eliot was the one who, on the surface, was the least invested in the idea of forming a team. But he came back to them without any prompting. And for all he acted like he couldn't care less about any of them, his own stated reason for why they should do this was Nate's wellbeing. Sophie thought he wanted this for his own sake too, but that he did care about helping Nate.
The job had been rough, but it was over. Nate was downstairs giving their client her money and Eliot was catching a post-job shower. The warm water did wonders for his bruises. He was starting to relax and unwind after days of tension when someone opened the door he knew he had locked. Parker. Any of them could pick the bathroom's simple lock, but not this quickly and silently. He sighed and parted the curtain.
"What do you want?" He saw that she had started shedding her clothes and he growled. "I'm already using the shower."
"I noticed." She finished taking her clothes off anyway.
"Then what are you doing?"
"I need to shower too. Move."
Eliot sighed and didn't bother arguing with her. He gave her space, resigned to his relaxing shower being crowded. He would have been content to ignore her, except...
"Stop staring at me!"
"You wouldn't let me poke you. How else am I supposed to know where you're hurt?"
Hardison may or may not be trying to impress her. Parker. She had a nice smile and looked like she was genuinely enjoying herself. She was also about to throw herself off a roof and that kind of fearlessness sure impressed him. The other guy, Eliot, he didn't know of. Didn't know what his job was supposed to be. But he thought impressing him might be beyond the scope of this one job. His default state seemed to be "grumpy" and he didn't seem to approve of Hardison. Now if instead of a one time thing... if this was a band of unlikely companions working together in a more permanent fashion... well, he could dream. But maybe then worming his way in the guy's heart would be in the plans.
Hardison placed a hand on each side of Eliot's face and looked him in the eyes, because this was Important and he needed to be sure Eliot was paying attention.
"You listen to me. You're important to us. You're not going to stop being important to us if you turn us down. You're ours, in whatever ways you want to be. So let me ask you again. Do you want to date us?"
Eliot was silent for a long moment, but when he did answer he met his eyes and he sounded confident. "No."
This was off to an awkward start. Parker glanced at Sophie's list of "safe subjects" she had copied in her hand. She looked back up at Peggy.
"Do you have any pets?"
Peggy's eyes lit up at that and it felt like finally getting a lock to click open. "Cats. I have so many cats."
Not many people attended the funeral of Madelaine Levesque, not many had known her and she hadn't been seen in years before her tragic car accident, but a man with a lot more grey in his hair than last time Sophie had seen him had given a heartfelt speech that might have brought tears to her eyes had she been a lesser grifter. Madelaine was dead and could not be crying in her coffin. Now Madelaine's coffin had been put in the ground, a lot lighter than it should have been, and Sophie stood by a tree and watched the mourners. She walked away when her phone rang.
"Tara. How are things going?"
"Find some alcohol. I need someone to get drunk with right now."
Sophie's lips curled into a smile. "What did they do?"
"Hey, Hardison, could you–"
"No. I can't. Do you have any idea what Parker's asking me to do? Does she have any idea what she's asking to do? No, it's just 'Hardison, do your keyboard magic' and–" His rant came to an abrupt halt when he looked up from his screen to glare at Eliot. "Ohgodwhathappened?!"
"I'm bleeding."
"I noticed! Haven't you ever heard of using a proper tone for emergencies?"
"Just get me the med-kit already!"
With Eliot, it was like having a brother again. Not like he was anything like the one Parker used to have. Hers had been sweet and fragile. Eliot growled when he spoke and didn't die if her mistakes got him hit by a car.