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1.
Nate sunk down on to the hard office chair. He reaches under the granite counter and brought out his favorite bottle of whiskey and a glass. He lays them out in front of him as a sacrifice, not searching for forgiveness just for answers. The spacious meeting room becomes even larger as Sophie - only Sophie - walks through the doors.
The team waited outside. They always lingered after jobs, a fledgling attempt to communicate a desire to be around each other. Usually, they'd sit around until someone came in to turn on a movie or plopped on the couch to argue con techniques. Now, Parker, Hardison, and Elliot wondered around the Office like they were looking for something. Children waiting for mom and dad to stop fighting. Or adults looking for a small part of themselves, they believe they had left behind. Nate couldn't tell.
The Los Angeles traffic outside filled the silence of the apartment. Sophie moved closer to Nate, but he ignored her, looking at the altar he had made.
2.
Whenever Nate looked at Hardison, he only thought of the differences between them. He had spent years looking into mirrors trying to find that pure belief in other people, the innocence Hardison was covered in. He wanted to bottle it, carry it around on his neck so that the world could never steal it from Hardison.
They had turned off most of the lights in the Office, relying on one over headlight and the monitors. Hardison had blacked out the screens, leaving Hardison under a single spotlight. Nate sat watching in darkness, only given shape by the light of Los Angeles outside. Hardison fidgeted with his hands, his thumb connecting in a pattern. Pinky. Middle. Ring. Pointer. Repeat.
If Nate had thought about it, this was an inevitable circumstance. The type of men they chased. Of course, one of them would have something like this on their computers. And of course, it was Hardison, he was intel. Better they find it now, set norms.
"Nate…" Hardison's voice was small, slipping through the cracks of Nate's moving thoughts. Nate reached under the desk and brought out some whiskey.
"We're going to take him down."
Hardison breathed a sigh of relief. Instead of thinking about what kind of man he was that the people closest to him thought he was capable of letting go of a child predator. Nate began to look for a glass.
"Okay, yeah, of course," Hardison said.
Nate realized there would be no cup under the desk. "Don't tell the others." Having no one to talk to, especially not telling Parker, would kill Hardison a bit. Nate avoided thinking about other reasons this could be a difficult thing to ask someone. "They'll be distracted. Everyone needs to be on their best if we want a chance to take this guy down."
Hardison's face went blank. A moment of silence, then Hardison nodded. He turned the monitors back on, the images that had stained the screen were gone, and only the financials remain. Nate wanted to catch Hardison's eyes, just to check, but Hardison had dived back into his work.
Nate grabbed the whiskey. He didn't think about Hardison's reaction. Not that he took orders to keep secrets a bit too well. Nor that he doesn't know why Hardison was in foster care, or what happened while he was in it. Instead, he took a drink directly from his bottle.
1.
Nate wasn't sure when they had become the kind of people who stick. Maybe it was Hardison, or perhaps it was Parker, but a houseplant and a silly painting didn't cover it. No, Nate wanted to understand when Elliot felt he could leave his jacket on a chair, or Hardison started leaving some of his comic books, or Parker first forgot her favorite harness at the Office. When did they first start wanting to come back?
The last job had been difficult, but the silence on the plane was disproportionate. Sophie's look was an exaggeration. Sometimes the mark was more prepared then the intel suggested, and Nate had made, not a mistake, but a miscalculation. He didn't ask them to do anything, he wouldn't have done himself.
Sophie looked at Nate to start, but Nate took comfort in the silence. Sophie sighed and moved to the back of the room. She slowly slid the door closed.
"Will it always be like this?" Sophie asked.
"Sometimes, we'll have to push ourselves, yes."
"There's no system we can't hack, no fight we can't win, no safe we can't crack, and no painting we can't steal. That's not what I'm asking."
Of course, she wasn't. Parker hadn't refused to look at anyone on the plane because the building had been too high to jump off. Nate took another sip of his drink directly from the bottle.
"Nate, there are some things you shouldn't ask people."
3.
The Boston sun fell out of the sky in the window behind Nate. Sophie lounged on his couch, sipped something from one of his glasses, and stared at him like he didn't belong there. Nate hated when Sophie made him feel like a stranger in his own home.
The silence was overwhelming. "You know I wouldn't ask if it wasn't absolutely necessary."
"We don't do this," Sophie said. She didn't do this. It wasn't her responsibility.
"Teams do what needs to be done," Nate replied.
There it was. That look, Sophie got when she was disappointed, an almost disgusted face that made him flinch. Nate relished that there was a group of people who hated him. Yet, whenever Sophie gets close to looking at him the way. The rest of the world does, he feels a bit of himself slip away.
"Do you still not get what we are?" Sophie asked.
Nate couldn't give her what she was looking for. "Sophie, I wouldn't press you unless it was absolutely necessary."
Vulnerability decorates Sophie's face. "I don't do this anymore, and I especially don't use it on my team." She needs confirmation. Sophie always shone the brightest when she was trying to do the right thing.
"Sophie, look at me." Finally, Sophie looked Nate in the eye. "This is a bad guy. He'll ruin those people if we don't do anything."
"There's no other way?" Sophie asked.
"Would I ask if there was." Silence.
"Hardison, if you have to do it, the best person is Hardison."
Nate nodded. "Thank you."
Sophie looked away. "I hope you know what you're doing."
Nate hoped he did, too.
Later, Nate sat directly in front of Hardison, looked him straight in the eye. Slowly, gently he began to hypnotize him. Allowed the hacker he had become to slip away, leaving only the past in its place.
1.
Nate never explicitly vowed the team he was shepherding the team on a path towards redemption. Yet every time he looked them in the eyes and asked them to follow him on another crazy job, it seemed like he promised them something. He never felt more like a con man then after a situation like this.
"You shouldn't ask them. Because we'll say yes. Every time. So please don't ask us."
"You can leave at any time, feel free to walk right out the door."
Sophie got very close to Nate. Nate looked up. Her gave pierced him to his seat. "We don't want to leave. We just want you to keep your promises. That's all."
Nate slammed his eyes close. He heard Sophie sigh and open the door letting in the sound of the air conditioner, but not the sound of Parker, Hardison, and Elliot. He reached for his whiskey and waited for Sophie to provide one final moral for him to meditate on during his drinking. Instead, Sophie closed the door behind her without incident. Leaving Nate in a room that felt too small.
4.
Nate stared into Elliot's face, and Nate knew he was going to make the wrong choice. The warehouse felt like it was about to catch fire; the Italian was clinging to him like a leech, and Nate couldn't think of a plan. He looked away from Elliot. No, he couldn't figure out an idea he could ask for. Elliot's face slowly set into place, and Nate could feel the clock counting down.
"We just have to get to that door?" Nate asked.
The boxes towered over them, a fragile wall between them and Nate's mistake. He didn't do enough checks, didn't look at all the possibilities, and he'd led them right into a trap. Nate couldn't see how many men there were, but he could hear them pull the safeties off their guns. One by one, a ticking clock Nate couldn't out think. Elliot kept staring at him, the answer visible to everyone, but Nate refused to ask. He'd already requested to much.
"It's a kill box."
Elliot had relived some of the worst moments in his life. Reminded him of a man he had been running from for years. The amount of self-loathing just to go through the motions of an assassination. Yet, here they were again.
Elliot reached down to pick up the gun, looked past Nate. "Are you sure you can take down Moreau?" Nate felt rather than saw the Italian nod.
Nate was out of time. "Elliot…"
"Get her out of here."
Elliot jumped out from behind the boxes. Nate took a moment, then sprinted out, dragging the Italian behind him. The sounds of bullets exploding behind him.
Later, Elliot asked him to keep this a secret. As if Nate was doing him a favor and wasn't saving himself from the judgment he'd surely receive. He liked to think he would have never asked. It was a hollow thought, gutted like the warehouse Nate had left Elliot in.
1.
Nate laid down on the couch, bottle in hand and alone. Hardison had bought the sofa. He noticed the occasional and pillow left around the Office and had suddenly dragged Elliot downstairs. Elliot had done most of the lifting, and Hardison had done most of the complaining as they'd pulled their new sofa in. It was old, clashed on with most of the Office, and could only fit three people if they squeezed. Yet, it had become a defining part of the Office, and Nate had spent many a night on it.
Nate finished off the bottle of whiskey and stared at the ceiling. There was no way he was going to make it home like this, so he closed his eyes. He shouldn't ask them?
The mark had been right on edge. Sophie was making her last rounds, and Nate was talking up the client. Hardison just needed one more piece of information before he could get in the client's accounts. Elliot was caught in a firefight. Parker-
Parker had been on a small side mission. Left with nothing to do, she'd stumbled across a woman in need of help. Nate told Parker to get to the client's office to forget the woman, and she had listened. They locked down the information, and they'd been out of the building. In his final moments of freedom, the client brought the building to the ground. They couldn't find the woman Parker had been with. They'd gone home.
Nate had promised to help them be better.
5.
"This one means a lot to you." They had lucked out on their roof excursion, brilliant weather. The sun shone brightly, but the occasional cloud and soft wind prevented it from being hot. A perfect Portland day. Nate chose not to respond to Parker, instead continued to work out how fast Parker needed to leave the roof.
Parker understood people better than anyone else on the team. Cracked them like locks, continually turning the dial until she found the right number.
"Minus Friction," Parker said. Nate was proud when she wasn't doing it to him.
"Minus Friction."
"It's just this is the kind of mastermind stuff you usually do by yourself. Well, you and your bottle, but lately you've been involving me in the planning, and not just the heist, the cons, too." Parker looked at him.
The first time Nate truly understood Parker, he had been standing on a roof. She had been ripped apart by people who should have protected her, and instead of helping, Archie put her back together in his own image. Here on this roof, setting up for his last job, Nate was going to attempt to do the same thing.
"Parker, you know, you don't let feelings get in the way." Nate started. Parker stared at him, and Nate wondered briefly if she would take offense. He dismissed the idea, Parker would understand what he meant. He had given her two locks with the same code, the skills of the job, and the toll. "You rotate problems. Security, people, timelines. You spin them in three-dimensional space like puzzle pieces until they click."
Parker was still just looking at him. She wanted him to explain, tell her the conclusions she was drawing were a lie. He couldn't say that. Sometimes the only way someone fits the puzzle is if they surrender their entirety to the con. Whether it be Plan M or to push someone past their moral limits, the Mastermind has to make that call.
"It's not the way I think, but I trust your judgment. I really do." Nate concluded. Parker looked like the pieces had finally fallen together. He knew she would understand. He wouldn't have to ask.
"18 miles an hour. Is that what you got?" Parker said. Nate smiled sadly. Her voice had already changed, the weight of her responsibility resting on her every inflection. Despite what he had thought, the familiarity brought him no comfort.
1.
Nate was left with an insurmountable distance. The bodies of the people his team try to be a mountain between him and them.
Nate had promised to help them be better, and this mission to take down evil men was that. So, Nate would make the hard choice for the team every time.
There are some things you shouldn't ask people because they'll say yes every time, but Nate would still ask. That was his job, and that was his promise to them. He could at least ask himself to do that.
+1
Hardison desperately wanted to clean his apartment, but he couldn't force himself to move. It was trashed, the sign of a rough job. He heard the sink come on in the background. He tried to move to the couch and pass out, but his apartment felt too small, too dangerous.
He could feel Parker and Elliot behind him. Their thoughts echoed through the apartment with the sounds of his failure. Yet, unlike his mistake, running through his mind on repeat, he didn't know their thoughts. Every guess worse than the last.
"I'm sorry." Hardison didn't think he had the energy for a debrief, but he'd try. He owed them that, at least.
"Hardison…" Parker trailed off. She moved over to Hardison, kneeling down to the floor. When had he gotten to the ground?
"I messed up. I overplayed it." That was unclear. "The character. I mended up the con. I overplayed the character. Again." For some reason, he was forgetting to breathe. He began tapping his thumb on his other fingers. Pinky. Middle. Ring. Pointer. Repeat.
"Are you okay?" Parker said. She was acting weird. Like she does with clients. Gentle, like he was something fragile.
"Yeah, just irritated with myself." Hardison gave a shallow laugh. He looked up at Elliot, a blank face. Mad about the con, of course, he was, Hardison had nearly got them all killed. "You probably should have left me behind."
"No!" Parker looked so angry. He'd meant it as a joke - maybe not - but Parker seemed worried. Hardison capitalized on this change in dynamics.
"Hey, hey. I was just kidding, babe." Hardison pulled Parker into his arms. Finally, the sink shut off.
"No Plan M's. Ever."
"Of course, I know." Hardison looked at Elliot for help, but he still stood at an uncomfortable distance. Elliot looked at Parker and put something together.
"Parker," Elliot said. Parker turned in Hardison's lap to look at him. "Why would you think that?"
"I think Nate, when he chose me to be the Mastermind, he chose me because I would be willing to make that choice. Create a Plan M, just in case."
"Nate shouldn't have asked you to do that." Elliot looked at Parker, but he was talking to himself.
"He didn't ask-"
"Sometimes, he doesn't ask. He just expects."
Hardison pulled Parker closer. "Elliot come here," Hardison said. He wanted to sound firm, provide them with stability, but his voice still sounded hollow.
Elliot came towards them slowly. Every step a unique moment, or a different chance to turn him away. Hardison just continued to look at Elliot, expectantly. Finally, Elliot squatted down in front of Hardison. Hardison rose his hand and gently laid his hand on Elliot's face.
"You did what you had to. To protect us."
"Nate can make the wrong call," Elliot said.
Elliot wouldn't forgive himself no matter what Hardison said. It didn't help that he was sensitive to any perceived defense of Nate from Hardison. They clashed over it constantly. Hardison didn't excuse Nate's actions; he just understood him.
"I know," Hardison replied. A faint memory picked at the edge of Hardison's consciousness. "There are some things you shouldn't ask people because they'll say yes. So, you should never ask."
They were no longer talking about Nate. Instead, the three of them realized the power they held over each other. Hardison thought of small spaces, rushing water, and the past job. Yeah, there were somethings you shouldn't ask for.