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It was supposed to be easy. They were supposed to be cracking an old, mid-1950s vault that didn’t even have motion sensors and evading a single security guard who’d never had to fire his gun before while Nate and Sophie primed a mark who wouldn’t know they were conning him if someone told him outright. It was supposed to be easy.
It was never supposed to happen like this.
“Go!” Eliot growled in her ear, and then firm hands were shoving her and Hardison away, down the hall and towards safety. Parker wanted to protest, but she couldn’t handle ex-special forces soldiers from Crete any better than Hardison could handle a grift. It was better this way, she knew. But she didn’t have to like it.
In front of her, Hardison stumbled through a roof access door and grabbed for her wrist. She let him. She could tell that he was terrified. When they emerged onto the roof, their footsteps drew the attention of an armed guard stationed at the edge of the emergency hatch that led down into the building. If Parker had to guess, she’d say that the security had expected them to escape through the hatch instead of the stairs.
“Uh, Eliot?” Hardison squeaked into his earbud as the guard began to approach them, “We need you up here!”
“Little busy, Hardison!” Eliot growled, and they could hear the sound of punches being exchanged over their comms.
Parker jerked her wrist free from Hardison’s grasp and thought fast. Eliot was preoccupied, and Nate and Sophie were halfway across town with the mark and couldn’t get to them. It was up to her and Hardison.
Parker had learned, throughout her many years of stealing from high-ranking officials with excellent security teams, that it was better to escape and risk breaking a bone than to stay and try to fight. The guard headed their way was two times her size and Hardison’s, too, not to mention that he had a gun. If they tried to fight him, they would lose. The only way off the roof was down the sides and into the alleys below. They would have to jump.
“Come on!” Parker shouted at Hardison, and began to run for the left side of the roof. There was less foot traffic on the left side; below the roof was just an old alley that wasn’t ideal for public access.
Hardison followed her, but when he realised her plan, he stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes were blown wide with fear. Parker forgot sometimes that he wasn’t used to this; he didn’t jump off of skyscrapers for fun, or defy gravity every other weekday, not like she did. This terrified him.
Parker wished she could say something to reassure him, but she had never been good with words, and they were out of time. “Come on!” she shouted, and dragged Hardison onto the ledge with her. The drop wasn’t bad; they might break an arm or a leg, but that was a small price to pay compared to the alternative - their lives. They just needed to buy themselves some time until Eliot could get to the roof.
The security guard was trained to kill. She knew Hardison knew that, too, but normal people found it difficult to bypass the part of their brains that sent up flashing danger signs at the idea of jumping off of a tall building without any equipment. Still, Parker wasn’t going to let Hardison die because he had a normal-person brain.
Just as the security guard, still mercifully a few paces behind them, drew his gun and began to shout, Parker grabbed Hardison by the shoulders and jumped.
The air rushed past her as Parker fell, her hair blowing in her face without her usual cap on, and she screamed with glee despite the circumstances. She would never be able to get enough of that feeling.
When she landed with a thump on the ground, she didn’t hear a crack or feel any of the excruciating pain that she’d come to associate with a broken bone, and she smiled with relief. She rolled over onto her side a second later and realised why; she’d landed on someone’s old mattress that they’d thrown out, and it had helped to cushion her fall. She could already feel several bruises forming, and a cut on her cheek from the mattress springs was bleeding, but she was sure she could get someone on the team - Eliot, or maybe Sophie - to patch her up and take care of her when they got home. She was okay. Now all she had to worry about was Hardison.
Wait, where’s Hardison?
“Parker!” a frantic voice shouted from above. Parker’s eyes widened when she saw where it was coming from.
Hardison hadn’t jumped with her when he was supposed to; he was clinging to the edge of the roof by his fingertips. Parker’s stomach turned over, fear filling her chest and lungs, making it difficult to breathe. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this afraid for someone else. If she ever had.
Hardison was going to die if that security guard reached him, she was sure of it; but she couldn’t help him from all the way down here! Use your words, Parker, an echo of Sophie’s voice from one of their past conversations said in her ear. Speak from the heart.
“Hardison, you have to let go!” she shouted, her voice breaking in the middle of her plea. “You have to let go!”
Hardison was trembling violently, stone crumbling beneath his fingertips. Parker thought she could understand how scared he was; she was scared, too. They weren’t scared of the same things, but she thought maybe that didn’t matter. Fear was fear, and she was terrified.
“Hardison!” she screamed, and there were tears in her eyes now. “I’m going to catch you, I promise! Just let go!”
“I can’t!” Hardison shouted back, his voice shaky. She could barely hear him with their distance from each other and the persistent ringing sound in her ears.
“Yes, you can!” Parker cried. “I promise I’ll catch you, Alec, but you have to trust me!”
She wasn’t sure where the first name had come from, but she was desperate to get him to listen to her. They hadn’t known each other for very long, but already she couldn’t imagine her life without him in it.
There was a clatter on the roof, and Parker saw the security guard, who had knocked over a metal bucket in his haste, sprinting towards Hardison. “ALEC!” she screamed, and then he was falling, dropping from the building and hurtling towards her at breakneck speed. Parker darted forward and kept her eyes trained on him, her arms outstretched; she was not going to break her promise.
Hardison’s body collided with hers a second later, sending them both crashing onto the mattress Parker had landed on before. Parker felt all the breath in her lungs leave her for a second, and Hardison exhaled hard on top of her. He wasn’t screaming, and Parker couldn’t feel anything wrong with him beyond his obvious racing heart and the struggle it was for him to catch his breath. Tears of relief poured from her eyes, and she rolled out from underneath Hardison, bending over the side of the mattress and feeling something buried in her heart break. She hadn’t known she could feel like this.
The sounds of a fight on the roof drew her attention, and she looked up to see Eliot trading punches with the security guard, eventually knocking him unconscious. He was sporting a black eye and a bloody cut on his side, but he was there. She could break; she knew he would protect her while she did.
Hardison laid a hand on her shoulder from behind, and Parker couldn’t help it; she flinched.
“Don’t,” she said urgently, and Hardison withdrew his hand as if he’d burned her. Parker sucked in a deep breath, trying to figure out the right words to explain. It wasn’t Hardison; she wanted him there with her, she just didn’t want his hands on her while she was breaking down. She felt too vulnerable, split open, and she couldn’t handle his hands, gentle as they were, adding more fire to the storm raging where he couldn’t see.
“Just sit with me?” she asked, her voice small. She desperately hoped Hardison got the message: It’s not you, it’s me.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hardison nod, and then he was moving, situating himself beside her, leaving just enough space between them so he wouldn’t be touching her. He didn’t look angry, or even upset. His eyes held all the kindness and understanding in the world. They hurt to look into, so Parker looked away. She could tell, even if she couldn’t see his face, that Hardison didn’t mind. Parker took a deep breath and began to rock, finally letting her emotions and the stress of the day roll over her.
In time, Eliot appeared, crouching on his knees in front of them the way he always did when he wanted to check them for injuries. When he noticed Parker crying, he reached a hand out to touch her, to soothe her, but Hardison stopped him before his hand could reach her with a slight shake of his head. Eliot - better than even Hardison, better than anybody - understood hating to be touched, and he didn’t need to be told twice.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice low. His drawl was even more pronounced than usual, and Parker found it comforting, a soothing alternative to the thick, heavy sound of fear and Hardison’s screaming in her ears. She rocked faster.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” Parker said, and she knew she sounded pathetic, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. “Our plan changed. I hate it when the plan has to change.”
“I know you do, darlin’,” Eliot said, and his voice was the same as it had always been, soft and soothing. She liked it. “But you did really good. You saved Hardison.” He threw a quick glance at Hardison behind her, and in her peripheral vision, Parker saw Eliot slip his hand into Hardison’s, giving his fingers a firm squeeze. She wished she could find the same easy comfort in touch that Hardison did. She wished her skin didn’t feel like it was on fire still. She wished she wasn’t different.
But Eliot and Hardison were still there regardless, and they didn’t seem bothered by the fact that she couldn’t accept comfort the same way they did, the same way most people would. Just like always, they were there for her anyway.
Parker turned towards them and said, “Thank you.” She didn’t have to specify what she was thanking them for; they both already knew. Eliot traded a look with Hardison, and she knew what they were going to say before they said it.
“Always.”
Always. She repeated it back to herself in her mind. She liked that word, she decided; it was a forever word. Just like Eliot and Hardison were her forever people.