Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The shower is running when Eliot steps into his apartment and his first reaction is confusion. Because who breaks into someone’s home and takes a shower? His second thought is: no one. But. Someone who’s looking to take out Eliot Spencer might break in, start the shower, then lay in wait somewhere else for his guard to drop.

He clears the apartment in minutes and then the confusion is back. Because the apartment is empty; no one's waiting to jump out, no messages left. He heads, finally, to the bathroom. Outside the door he pauses because, really, he should have known.

She’s left the door cracked slightly and through the foggy mirror and glass door of his shower he can see the blonde hair, the shape of her.

“Parker,” he says, pushing the door open. “Why are you in my shower?”

He does his best to angle himself so he’s not looking at her naked. It’s harder to make himself look away than he thinks it should be.

“I was dirty?” She stops for a moment to let the water wash over her face. “You have a really nice shower.”

Eliot almost asks how she found him, but stops himself because it’s Parker. Instead, he growls, “Get out of my shower.”

Eliot’s waiting for her in the kitchen and she slides onto a barstool dressed in a pair of his boxers and a t-shirt, her hair still damp. He shakes his head but he isn’t as mad as he feels like he should be. It’s been three weeks since Blackpoole and LA and the airport goodbye that he hadn’t really wanted to say. Three weeks since the team scattered for self-preservation and Eliot hopped a plane to Ireland.

“Why are you wearing my clothes?” He pointedly doesn’t look at her legs and ignores the idea that he likes the way she looks in his shirt.

She looks at him and raises one shoulder. He knows that look. It says she has an answer but she isn’t willing to share.

“Ok then,” he sighs and rolls his eyes. “How?”

She shrugs. “Does it matter?”

“So, what, you followed me and broke into my shower?”

“It’s a really nice shower,” Parker makes that face that makes Eliot’s head hurt.

He leans back against the counter and watches her for a minute. She tones down the crazy grin to something like the soft smile he knows is real and he feels himself relax. He turns to the fridge and gestures at her with a beer. She nods so he pops the top off two and hands one to her.

“How’d you really end up here?”

Parker shrugs again. “I went to Cairo first.”

Eliot lets out a huff of a laugh because he knows the Cairo Museum is one of her favorites.

“I just walked around. Didn't even try to steal anything. It felt weird. So I left and I took the next flight there was. Ended up here.” She sips her beer and rolls her eyes. “I really wasn’t looking. I swear. I don’t even know where anyone went. Two days ago, I saw you at that grocer around the corner. I waited to make sure you were alone.”

Eliot’s nods. He believes her. It’s so like Parker; floating aimlessly until something catches her attention.

“Did you come straight here?” She asks.

“Nah,” he says. “Rode around for a couple days, but then, I don’t know… Had to go somewhere. Ended up here.”

She takes another sip. “It’s weird.”

He starts to ask her what she means but what comes out instead is, “Wanna stick around?”

Parker’s face lights up and Eliot doesn’t know when he decided he likes seeing her smile, but he does.

“Definitely.”

The first night, Eliot lays in bed wondering if he’s lost his mind. He can’t quite hear her as she sleeps in the spare room, but he can feel her presence. There’s something wrong with you, he tells himself. But he doesn’t change his mind or tell her to go.

They manage to drive each other nuts on day one. She pokes his latest bruise during breakfast and he scowls at the amount of cereal she brings back from her trip to the grocer. They don’t really stop irritating each other, but they also don’t irritate each other at all.

They fall into something like ease.

Eliot cooks dinner and Parker watches, using her fast hands to sneak pieces of food off the cutting board while he preps.

“If you’re gonna be in the way then help.” he growls.

Parker grins, but she gets up and comes around the counter into the kitchen. “What do I do?”

He hands her an onion and shows her how to dice it. She likes knives and that should make him slightly nervous, but it doesn’t. She has no clue how to put together flavors and little interest in following a recipe, but she takes to slicing and chopping like a natural. He watches for a while as she hums something under her breath and slides the onions into a pan. When she meets his eyes they hold for just a moment longer than they ever have before.

Three days into whatever this is Parker’s watching him wrap his hands to take on the heavy bag. He looks up and makes a decision. “Want to learn some things?”

She’s on her feet before he finishes asking and her head nods with excitement. Eliot shows her how to square up, where to put her feet. For all her energy and oddities, she can focus when she wants to. She pays close attention to his moves, to how he positions her, where to shift her weight. He tries not to let his hands linger too long on her body. The first time she manages to drop him she just lays there for a minute, pressed against his chest and breathing heavily. Then she’s up and running a lap around the room with her hands above her head like she’s just won the lottery. He doesn’t even pretend to be annoyed.

She drags him out to explore before the end of the week. Eliot likes the peaceful little seaside town outside Dublin, even though he’s never spent much time there. He usually views it as a stopover on the way to somewhere else. He thinks maybe that’s why he picked it this time. After a year with a team he wasn’t ready or willing to jump back into the life he’d had before.

Parker finds every jewelry store and antiques boutique in a forty-five minute radius of the apartment and pulls Eliot through all of them talking the whole time about how she could break in and what she would take. He takes her to the beach and they spend an afternoon walking along the water’s edge and picking up shells. Parker laughs every time a wave catches her ankles and she kicks water at Eliot. He growls back at her, “Don’t,” but it’s half-hearted and she knows it.

On Sunday, they go back to the beach and he brings a fishing rod. Parker ends up naming every fish he catches and holds a full-on conversation with his bait worms while he casts. She tells them about Los Angeles and Leverage, but she doesn’t mention Nate or Sophie or Hardison by name. She does, however, give him a genuine smile when he hands her the fishing rod and helps her reel in another one.

She finds an art gallery that’s opening a new show and convinces Eliot to attend. He knows she has every intention of stealing something, but when they get there and meet the old woman who runs the place she just can’t bring herself to do it. They do create a hilariously inappropriate cover story and Parker lifts the tickets to get in so they both count it a successful job.

Two weeks, he thinks lying in bed a few nights after their gallery heist that wasn’t. When he invited her to stay he hadn’t a clue what two weeks with Parker would be like. Hadn’t put an end date on the invite either. Eliot isn’t sure he wants an end date, but now he has one whether he likes it or not. He’d gotten a call from an old military contact the day before and he knew before he was asked that he’d take the job. He has no plans to back out, but he’s not looking forward to it either.

The following morning is a typical gray Irish day and she can tell something’s up as soon as she wanders into the kitchen from the guest room.

“You have to go, don’t you?” Eliot tries to decide if she sounds disappointed or if he just wants her to.

He sighs, “Got a job.”

Parker nods, pours herself some cereal and then looks straight into his eyes. “I know you won’t tell me. That’s ok. Just, be okay?”

He huffs out a little laugh. “What are you gonna do?”

She shrugs. “There’s a new museum that just opened up in Prague a few weeks ago.”

“You can stay here. If you want.”

Through a mouthful of Rocket-Os she shakes her head. “Not the same.”

“Yeah,” he says. He gets that. He’s not sure what it might feel like the next time he comes back here and she’s gone. “Maybe you’ll find me again.”

She looks up with wide eyes. “Can I?”

“Yeah.” He says it softly, and he holds her gaze for a while.

She makes the face that doesn’t make his head hurt nearly as much as it used to. “Then I will.”

Chapter Text

Eight weeks after LA and three after leaving Parker in Ireland, Eliot makes his way to Madrid. He’s alone for four days when she finds him.

“You got my message.” He’s stretched out on the couch nursing a beer.

Parker grins and nods, closing the door behind her.

Eliot smiles back, “There’s beer in the fridge. Juice too.”

“It’s a nice painting.” Her voice drifts from the kitchen. He can hear her rummaging in the cabinets.

“How’d you know?”

Parker shrugs as she flops next to him on the couch, beer in one hand, box of cereal in the other. “I gave Mrs. Grisham my number before I left. She sent a picture of it a couple days ago.”

Eliot smirks. He’d send the painting of Madrid with a note from the alias they’d used together to the art gallery as a long shot.

“How long,” Parker sips a beer and watches him from the side of her eye.

“Month,” he says back. “Promised a guy I know I’d help him with… a thing.”

She hums some sort of acknowledgement, scoots closer, and pokes him hard in the shoulder.

“Don’t,” he says and shifts uncomfortably. The bruises are mostly faded, but her finger still hurts.

She laughs and pokes him again. Eliot glares at her and grabs for her hand.

“Where’ve you been?” he asks, trying to distract her.

“Prague for a bit. Then Lyon. Actually, I was in Barcelona when I got your message.” She doesn’t pull her hand away from his so he holds on loosely to her fingers.

Eliot nods. “You didn’t go back?”

Parker shakes her head. “I left the day after you. I didn’t want...”

Eliot nods, shifting his hand so his palm is pressed against hers. They’re not exactly holding hands, not exactly not holding them either. She presses her shoulder against him and leans back into the couch. He knows what she didn’t say. He doesn’t respond but he thinks she knows he gets it. They think alike a lot more often than he’s realized. He takes a sip of his beer and lets the silence turn comfortable.

Ten minutes later Parker pokes his shoulder for a third time, ignores his glare, and says, “So, what are we doing tomorrow?”

**

They treat Madrid much the same way they treated Ireland.

Parker’s up early their first morning together and itching to spar before he’s even had coffee. He’s pleased to see she’s getting better. She dodges a punch and swings around with a right hook and he grins, “You’ve been practicing.”

She nods, “A little.” Then she lunges, trips him, and pounces.

He’s laughing when she lands on him and pins his arms at his sides. There’s a glint of something in her eye that he can’t quite place. Instead of trying to figure out what it means he slides one arm up and hooks his leg around hers. He flips them while she’s still trying to memorize his arm placement. He stops laughing when he settles over her and that look in her eyes changes just a little. Her pupils widen and her tongue flashes out to wet her lips. He’s not sure what he’s doing as he lets himself lean down just a little.

And then his phone starts ringing. Eliot shakes his head clear, pushes up and pulls her to her feet. He ignores whoever is calling without looking, but the moment’s over.

“So,” Parker says, voice hitched just a bit. “What’s for breakfast?”

They spend the next week exploring: art galleries, museums, parks. He makes her try three new restaurants even though she says she likes his cooking better. They spend a whole afternoon in the historic city center where Parker flits around lifting and replacing the wallets of everyone who looks like a tourist. Eliot doesn’t question why she leaves the locals alone, just tells himself it’s Parker. After dinner on their third night she dumps a box of locks in his lap and tells him that he needs to practice too. In the dim light of the floor lamp she takes his hand and positions it around her pick, guiding him until the latch clicks and the lock springs open. Then she sits back and watches until he can do it himself.

By the end of the first week Eliot thinks he likes Spain even more than Ireland. He and Parker have found a kind of peace. There’s a calm between them that he hadn’t seen coming when they were working jobs in LA. He’s always trusted her to be a thief; he’s got no doubts about her skills. He hadn’t been quite sure she knew how to be a person before. She’s still so much the same as she was when he met her; bold and energized and more than a little crazy. But she’s more too. He doesn’t know how he hadn’t seen it sooner.

Two days into their second week Parker’s itching to steal something. She’s never been to the Museo del Prado before so they life two tickets and spend Tuesday pretending to be tourists. Her eyes light up as they case the museum, noting security guards and exits, pressure plates and alarms.

Eliot’s paying attention to the employees and letting Parker do her thing so he almost jumps when she sidles up next to him, slips her hand in his, and tugs. She pulls him into an alcove and presses him into the wall.

“What--?”

“Shhh,” Parker. “Wait.”

So he waits, his chest tight against hers, her hand still gripping his. Her eyes are dancing and she’s close enough that he can feel her breath on his cheek. Three guards jog past arguing in Spanish, but don’t pay them any attention. A few minutes later Parker steps slightly away and pulls him back into the gallery.

“Come on,” she says, tugging him again.

“Wait. What is--?”

She grins, but doesn’t answer. It’s only when they’re outside, walking hand in hand down the sidewalk and away from the museum like any tourist couple might, does she explain. “Look.”

Eliot looks. In her hand is a small coin, old, but in good shape. “When did you?”

Parker laughs. “When you were checking the exits.”

Eliot rolls his eyes. “So I was your hiding place, huh?”

She nods, “Yep. Good job.” She turns and skips ahead of him heading back to the apartment.

He laughs again and shoves his hands in his pockets as he follows her. He finds the coin immediately although he doesn’t know how she got it in there without him noticing. He lets it slide between his fingers as they walk home.

It becomes something of a game.

He waits until she’s distracted because he knows his hands aren’t as sneaky as hers. When she’s out or busy he hides the coin somewhere in her things. It usually takes her less than an hour to realize he’s done it. Once she found it in 27 seconds, although he thinks that one was by accident.

Parker likes to hide the coin in his clothes, specifically the ones he’s wearing. At least three times, he’s put a hand in his pocket and pulled it out. At no point had she seemed to be anywhere near his pockets, but he’s stopped trying to figure out how she does it. Once she got it in his shoe while he was wearing it, and another time he found it in his wallet when he tried to pay the delivery guy.

He catches her with her hand in his pocket four days after the museum. He’s never caught her lifting anything before and he’s pretty sure the only reason he does this time is because she lets him. His hand closes around her wrist and she smirks as she opens her fingers to show him the coin she’d been trying to leave on him. He holds her eyes, his grip loosening slightly. She steps closer to him, into his space and he can feel his pulse jump. She leans closer still and he can feel her heartbeat in her wrist, fast to match his own. Then she spins, tucks her foot around his ankle and pushes. He lands on the floor and growls something rude. But then she looks so proud of herself that all he can do is laugh.

When he changes his clothes before he goes to bed he finds the damn coin in his pocket again.

**

Three days into the third week she tells him she wants to take him somewhere. They sneak into a nearby hotel and make their way to the roof. He’s surprised to see it’s empty when they get there.

“What are we doing?” Eliot raises an eyebrow.

“I want to go swimming,” she grins. She’s out of her clothes and into the water before he knows it's coming. “Come on.”

He shakes his head, but he’s pulling off his shirt and pants and sliding into the water with her without thinking about it. She floats, naked on her back, looking up at the stars. Eliot doesn’t look at her at first, then he does.

He thinks he probably should have seen this coming, maybe he did. They argue, almost constantly, but never seriously. She knows exactly how to push his buttons, but she also knows how to soothe him after she winds him up. They touch more than they ever did before, and not just when sparring. She still pokes him all the time, but there’s a gentleness now that wasn’t there before. His hand lingers on her waist when he moves her out of his way in the kitchen. She brushes her hand against his when they walk; grips his fingers when she wants his attention. Every time they make eye contact it lasts just a moment longer than necessary. They don’t talk much, neither of them has ever been great at words, but their silences seem charged now. They can hold whole conversations with just a look. He can read her and he should have seen this coming.

He rests against the wall of the pool and watches her float. Her eyes are wide open taking in the stars. She’s got a hint of a sunburn on her shoulders and her nose, but the rest of her is pale and smooth. She’s never been modest so he’s not sure, at first, if her nudity is a signal or just convenient.

He’s still not sure when she swims over to him and rests her hands on his shoulders. She smiles and he lets his hands come up to grip her waist. She pulls herself closer and wraps her legs around his waist and then he’s sure.

He remembers the first time they met. When he thought she was insane. When he thought Hardison was insane for being intrigued by her. Now she’s looking at him with the same glint in her eye that she had opening a cargo container full of money, and he’s fully accepted the fact that there’s something wrong with both of them. He decides, when she kisses him, that he doesn’t care.

**

The night before he leaves for Pakistan Parker rolls over in bed and kicks him in the shin.

“What the fuck, Parker?” He growls.

“Where are you going?” It’s the third time she’s asked.

He glares at her, and she pouts. “Fine,” he sighs. “Middle east.”

She grins, rolls on top of him. “That wasn’t that hard.”

After, when she’s laying flat on her back next to him breathing heavily, she reaches a hand out and just barely twists her fingers with his. “When you come back, I’ll be..somewhere...else.”

“Yeah.” He tugs her a little closer, thinks about asking where.

“Yeah.” She says and curls into his side.

Parker falls asleep quickly, and Eliot lays awake for a while watching her breathe. She doesn't often sleep this close to him and he wants to savor it. She fits in his arms in a way he hadn’t expected, but probably should have known. He remembers back to LA, picking her up from the hospital and the way she’d launched herself at him. She fit in his arms there too, but he hadn’t been thinking of her that way then.

He’s still not sure what to make of it. It’s Parker, for one. Parker who taught him to pick locks, and snuck him up to a roof to go skinny dipping. Parker, who still steals anything she can get her hands on and pokes his bruises sometimes before he even realizes he has them. Parker, who stabs people when they get too close, who makes him question his sanity along with her own on an almost daily basis. Parker, who has never stabbed him, who is currently mumbling something about diamonds in her sleep with her face against his chest and her hand over his heart.

Chapter Text

Eliot spends the flight from Madrid to Germany running the coin over his fingers and thinking about his last week with Parker.

They’d spent less of it in bed than he would have with anyone else, but he’s strangely happy about that. She’d taken him out to the middle of nowhere and made him spot her while she free climbed the morning after their night in the pool. Neither of them had mentioned it until they were back at the apartment for dinner.

“So,” he’d said.

“Yep.”

And that had pretty much been that. She slept in his bed for the rest of the week, and he’d very much enjoyed his nights. Parker, as a rule, isn’t much into snuggling and most mornings he’d wake up with a foot of space between them and just the tip of her finger or a toe pressing somewhere against his body.

They’d sparred everyday and she’d kept her laser focus until the very end. Showers were different, in that he hadn’t taken them alone after.

She’d disappeared , two days before he left, for six hours. When she’d come back she was flushed and excited and wouldn’t tell him why. He hadn’t pressed, figured if it was important she’d share. If it wasn’t, well it’s Parker, and he’s still not sure he wants to know what she’d been up to.

He’d tried to leave the coin with her. He’d told himself it was some sort of twisted goodbye or reminder of him he could leave with her. He’d found it in his pocket when he’d gone through airport security and had smiled. It is a reminder, just not for her.

Now, he’s sitting in business class trying to figure out how it all happened in the first place. It’s Parker, he keeps trying to tell himself, but he’s not even sure what that means anymore. He wonders if the fact that it was finite makes it easier or harder to wrap his head around. He’s not one for relationships, hasn’t been since Aimee when he was a whole other person. He doesn’t think Parker is either. She comes and goes too frequently, and is far too removed from typical society to form attachments. But...

But it doesn’t matter because the plane is touching down and there’s a car waiting to take him to USAG Stuttgart and Vance. He puts the coin in his pocket and puts Parker in the box in his head where he keeps things he can’t think about right now, and he goes.

He stays in Pakistan for nine weeks. Vance has a team and a plan and it goes mostly as it should. When it’s over he thinks about going back to Madrid or to Ireland, but he doesn’t. Instead he boards an army cargo plane for Fort Sill.

He hasn’t been in Oklahoma in years. He thinks briefly about going home, but it’s not a serious thought. He buys a truck and spends a week driving aimlessly. He thinks about finding Parker, but he doesn’t know where to start. He’s just about to call Vance back when his phone pings.

It’s from an unknown number, and it’s details for a musical in Boston. He knows that no one in their right mind would invite him to a musical, so that leaves Sophie. It’s not even a fully conscious thought when he turns the truck onto the highway toward Massachusetts.

He sees Hardison across the theater lobby first but before he can think of something to say Nate’s there too. And then Parker. He meets her eyes for a moment and there’s something like a conversation between them in the silence of a second. Then they’re all talking, stilted and awkward, but familiar.

It feels like Ireland and Madrid were different people in different lives. He’s not sure whether he wants to be those people forever or never again.

Sitting at the bar, after, listening to Sophie’s misery he has time to think. He chimes in to the conversation when he needs to, but his mind is somewhere else. Every time he shifts position he can feel that coin slide in his pocket. It was easy, he thinks, when it was just them. It felt normal, in a way that he knows neither he nor Parker are.

**

Two days later he’s listening in through their comms while Parker and Hardison break into a safety deposit box. Eliot tunes out most of the conversation because despite everything there are some things he just doesn’t care about. It’s only when Hardison says he looked for Parker that Eliot pays attention.

“I think people are like locks,” Parker says. “Most of the time you can just pick them. Some are easier than others, but usually if you’re patient and you move the right way you can get them open. But… sometimes, your lock picks aren’t great, or the lock is broken somehow, and you just need the right key.”

Eliot can almost feel Hardison digesting that. “So, sometimes you need a key?”

Well, not me,” Parker says. “But other people.”

“And if you don’t have the key?” Hardison sounds resigned.

Parker sighs, “Then it won’t open.”

Eliot spends the next two days trying to figure out if Parker’s words in the bank were more for Hardison or for him. He doesn’t know if she means he’s the key, or she is, or just that Hardison isn’t.

He catches her watching him sometimes and he knows she catches him too. When their eyes meet they hold on for a moment. It reminds him of Madrid, before the pool. He doesn’t try to sneak the coin to her; he isn’t ready to stop feeling its weight in his pocket.

The job ends with bullets and arrests and a new apartment in Boston. This one has space on the roof for a garden and an extra room for working out. It’s bigger than Madrid and has a nicer shower than Ireland.

He’s the one in the shower this time when Parker sneaks in. He doesn’t actually hear her until she opens the bathroom door and perches on the counter.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi.”

“You didn’t tell.” Her voice sounds curious, but not upset.

Eliot turns under the water and shrugs. He can see her through the glass door of the shower watching him. “Neither did you.”

“I…” She pauses and shifts on the counter. “I wasn’t sure what I was telling.”

He turns the water off and wraps a towel around his waist before stepping out to stand in front of her. “Yeah,” he says.

They stare at each other for a while and Eliot wants to lean forward and close the space between them. He doesn’t.

“It felt like an ending,” he says. “But..” The words, I’m not sure I wanted it to be, go unsaid.

Parker nods, “But.”

It was only a few weeks but he’d gotten good at reading her. He’s still good at reading her and he knows she isn’t saying the same thing he’s not saying. They’ve never been great at words.

He shifts, pushes his still wet hair back. He wants to say something profound or important. She gets there first.

“I have something,” she smirks. “Well, I stole something.”

Eliot snorts because, of course. He lifts his eyebrows in question and Parker reaches into her left pocket and pulls out the coin. She holds it up for him to see but doesn’t let him take it.

He tilts his head, “That’s cheating.”

She grins wider and reaches her right hand into her other pocket and pulls out another coin. It’s similar, but not exact. This one she lays in his palm.

“I wanted both of us to have something to keep.”

Eliot remembers that day. She’d been gone for hours and come back flushed and secretive. He studies the new coin and then looks back into her eyes. He doesn’t have any words, but he’s never needed many with her anyway.

Now, he lets himself close the distance between them and it’s like kissing her for the first time all over again.

**

They’ve always been good at falling into easy. He makes breakfast in the morning while she disappears for a while. When she comes back she’s got a single bag with some spare clothes, her practice locks, and a bunny. He raises an eyebrow at the bunny and flips a pancake onto a plate.

“Bunny’s been around longer than you,” she says.

Eliot shakes his head, but doesn’t comment. She pours too much syrup on her pancakes and shoves a massive bite into her mouth, grinning while she chews.

“What’s with the locks?”

“I bet you haven’t practiced.”

He takes it as a challenge and puts his fork down. It takes longer than he’d like to crack it, but it’s not his worst time so he silently calls it a win. She nods, “Not bad. Could be better.”

After breakfast he shows her his gym. “Since we’re talking about practicing…”

Parker makes that face and this time his head hurts a little. He squares up and motions for her to do the same. They spar for an hour and she remembers more than he expects. When he pins her for the third time he slows long enough to kiss her gently. “Not bad,” he says. “Could be better.”

She laughs and hooks his leg to flip them over. It’s always been her best move.

When they’ve showered and dressed he takes her up to the roof to show her the spot he’s picked out for a garden.

“I like it,” she says. And he knows she means more than the roof. She means Boston and the team and the fact that she still fits in his space.

They sit side by side against his storage shed and tell stories of the past. He talks about Oklahoma and watching sunsets over a field from the bed of a pickup truck. She tells him about her greatest steals. They keep their secrets, but Eliot still thinks it’s the most he’s shared with anyone in years.

As the sun begins to set Parker cuts her eyes toward him. “Do we tell them?”

He shrugs, “Guess that depends on what we’re telling.”

She nods. “I’m not good at this.” For the first time there’s no end date and neither of them know what to do with that.

He snorts. “I know. I’m not either. Not for a long time.” He reaches down and takes her hand. “Maybe we...just...see what happens. They’re smart. They’ll probably figure it out before we do.”

She muses on that for a moment then nods again. “I like it.”

It, he hears, means the team and him and them and this.

Parker rests her head against his shoulder and they sit silently, fingertips lightly entwined, as the sky goes dark and the stars begin to shine.

Chapter Text

No one notices. Not at first anyway.

If they do notice the way Parker sits a little closer to him now or the way she still pokes and prods his bruises but also gentles her hand over them as if to soothe they don’t say anything. No one comments when Eliot lets her sit on the counter while he cooks and only smirks when she tries to snatch bits of food off the cutting board. No one blinks when they leave together, Eliot’s hand on her back guiding her out the door.

At home, because even if Parker has her own place somewhere Eliot’s never been, his apartment is home, they talk about it.

“They know,” Parker says.

Eliot shrugs and tosses his shirt in the corner. “Probably.” He digs his wallet out of his pocket before shedding his pants. The coin he pulls out with it is not the one he put in this morning. He raises an eyebrow at her as he drops it on the nightstand.

Parker grins. “Why haven’t they said anything?” She flashes another coin at him and he shakes his head. They have a new game now. Parker’s taken it as a challenge to switch whichever coin he picks up in the morning with the one he leaves behind. He always keeps one on him and he’s never caught her in the act.

“Dunno. Maybe they’re waitin’ on us.”

It’s been three months since the team's reunion and Eliot thinks Nate at least should have caught on by now.

“Huh,” Parker says. “Should we say something?”

Eliot turns to her and slowly pulls her shirt over head. “You want to?”

“I don’t know.” She kicks off her jeans as he turns to the bathroom. “I don’t not want to.”

He smirks and juts his head toward the shower. “Yeah.”

Parker slides into the shower ahead of him. “Maybe tomorrow.”

He slips in next to her and nods. “Tomorrow.”

“This is a really really nice shower,” Parker says and pulls him closer.

**

Nate, it turns out, does have it figured out. But Sophie, naturally, is the one who asks. Eliot is down at McRory’s sitting at the bar and avoiding Hardison’s attempts to drag him into a Doctor Who marathon.

“She’s cute,” Sophie starts sliding onto the barstool next to him.

“Huh?” Eliot glances at her out of the corner of his eye. “What?”

Sophie inclines her head to the left. Two seats down is an attractive brunette who’s been smiling at Eliot since he walked in. He’s been ignoring her.

“Yeah,” Eliot shrugs. “I guess.”

“Wow,” Sophie says. “So there is something. Huh? I suppose it makes a kind of sense.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You and Parker.” Sophie’s grinning like the Cheshire cat.

Eliot thinks about playing dumb for a minute, but decides it’s not worth the effort. And they’d talked about this. “How’d you know,” he asks instead.

She smiles her grifter smile, but uses her real voice when she answers. “For one, you’re not hitting on the very pretty woman over there who clearly has eyes for you. Two, you let Parker in the kitchen the other night and it looked like she was actually helping. I could go on, but mostly, well...you’re not exactly hiding it well are you?”

He laughs a little and shrugs, “She was helping. Besides...we’re not trying to.”

Sophie’s eyebrows go up at this. “Really,” Eliot says. “Wasn’t broadcasting, but there’s nothin’ to hide.”

She makes a noise like agreement and confusion. “How? When?”

The when is easy, the how not so much. “Just sorta happened. We...she stumbled on me after we left LA. We..uh...spent some time together.”

“Huh,” Sophie says. “Is it serious?”

Eliot’s hand strays to his pocket and he pulls out his coin. Not the one he picked up this morning and he chuckles. He runs it across his knuckles “It’s...something.”

Sophie watches as he plays with the coin. Eliot thinks she can tell it means something, but isn’t sure how to ask. “You look happy,” she finally says.

“Yeah,” he says. “I guess I am.”

**

Two days later Eliot’s back at McRory’s. He’s in a booth in the corner, two beers in front of him. The conversation with Sophie was easy, this one, he knows, will be harder. He’s been putting off talking to Hardison, but now that Sophie knows, he doesn’t think he can avoid it much longer.

Eliot thinks if there was one reason he and Parker didn’t go shouting about this thing between them from the rooftops it is Hardison. Parker only kind of gets it because she only kind of gets that Hardison has a crush on her. Eliot wholly gets it, and despite all his outward growls and insults, he likes Hardison, and doesn't want to hurt him.

As the door jingles and Hardison enters, Eliot hopes he doesn’t.

“Hey, man,” Hardison slides into the seat across from Eliot and accepts the beer Eliot slides over. “Your text was weird. Are we breaking up?”

Eliot grumbles something unintelligible, but thinks it’s his own fault for sending ‘we need to talk.’ He takes a deep breath and figures he’s always been a 'to the point' kind of person, so there’s no need to change now.

“I ain’t gonna apologize,” he says slowly, “because I ain’t sorry.” Eliot pauses and swallows. “But you deserve an explanation, if you want it.”

Hardison takes a moment to look him over. Eliot doesn’t look away, let’s Hardison lead the conversation.

“Was it a thing back in LA?”

“No. Not even a little.”

Hardison nods, accepting. “Did you think you’d ever see me again?”

“When we left?”

Hardison nods again.

Eliot shakes his head, “Honestly? No. I...it sucked leaving, but I really thought that was it.”

“Yeah,” Hardison says. “How…?”

It takes a moment before Eliot answers and he takes a swallow of his beer to stretch out the pause. “I got a safe house in this little town outside Dublin. She found me.” He stops to make eye contact. “She wasn’t lookin’. Anyway, she stuck around for a while. I took a job and we split. Wasn’t sure I was gonna see her again either.”

“So it started there?” Hardison takes a swig of his own beer, but he keeps his eyes on Eliot.

“Nah. I, uh, I sent her a message of where I was going next. Didn’t know if she’d get it, or if she'd show, but she did. Madrid, a couple weeks later.” He pauses. He wants to be honest, but he’s not even sure what changed and when. “It wasn’t right away. It...just sorta happened.” He looks down and realizes he’s pulled his coin from his pocket again. “I left for Pakistan and when I got back we were here before I knew what I was gonna do.”

He looks up and sees Hardison watching the coin skim over his fingers. There’s a look on Hardison’s face that Eliot doesn’t know what to do with. It’s thoughtful, not angry, so he leaves it alone. “It wasn’t right away here either,” he continues. “But…I don’t know. It fit.”

Hardison nods, “Yeah.” He takes a breath, “What’s the deal with that?”

“This,” Eliot smiles and holds the coin out. “We. No, she stole it at some Museum in Madrid, maybe our second week. Kept sneaking it into my pocket when I wasn’t lookin’. Didn’t even realize I had it ‘til I was halfway out of Spain. Found out later she went back and stole a second one. Said she wanted us both to have one...memory or something.” His voice goes soft as he finishes and he palms the coin again, holding it tightly in his fist.

Something changes in Hardison’s face when Eliot gives him the short version of the coins. It’s the look he gets when he types the last in a long line of code, or when he wins one of those weird games Eliot doesn’t understand. Like he’s made a decision about something or come to some unchangeable understanding.

“You lo--,” He cuts himself off and looks away.

“What?” Eliot asks.

Hardison shakes his head, but he’s grinning slightly. “Nothing,” he says. “Look, man, I get it. I felt something in LA, but it’s different now. I...I’m cool. We’re cool.”

“Yeah?” Eliot feels something lighten in his chest. He hadn’t known how worried he actually was.

“Yeah.” Hardison nods. “I mean, you fuck it up, and I’ll...well I won’t beat you in a fight, but I’ll royally mess up your life.”

Eliot laughs. “Yeah, man. I’d expect you to.”

“Then, yeah. We cool.” Hardison holds his hand up, palm out and Eliot slaps it twice and bumps his closed fist.

Chapter Text

Eliot’s on the roof weeding his garden and Parker’s sitting in a lawn chair testing a new set of lock picks when the look on Hardison’s face that night at McRory’s finally clicks into place.

He looks up when Parker calls his name. “Huh?”

“Sophie thinks I love you,” she says and puts down the lock picks. “Hardison too.”

Eliot blinks but doesn’t stop weeding. “Oh,” he asks, “and what do you think?” He knows he loves her, has known for a while now. He hasn’t told her though, hasn’t been ready to say the words out loud and hasn't thought she was ready to hear it.

Parker fidgets a little in the chair, “I don’t know, maybe.”

Eliot nods and moves to the other chair. It’s been seven months since that night in his bathroom when she showed him the second coin and they started taking seriously this thing between them. They’ve developed a kind of shorthand with looks and gestures and simple touches to communicate. They’ve never worked better together on jobs, anticipating the others’ movements and barely needing words to talk. At home too, they don’t need to speak about most things.

She still keeps her own place, but he knows where it is now. Most nights she sleeps where he is, and when they do talk it's often under the covers in the safety of the dark. She knows his past now, and he knows hers. They still keep some secrets because some things are too much to say out loud, but they’ve accepted that their broken edges fit together even if they don’t always know the reason behind the break.

“Well,” Eliot says, “you don’t have to know. Wanna talk me through it?” He doesn’t try to touch her because he knows Parker needs space to say the hard things. He also knows that sometimes he has to ask the right questions or she gets bogged down in finding the right words and they both end up confused.

“Ok.” She takes a deep breath and launches in, “A while ago, Hardison saw my coin. Well, that one,” she points to Eliot’s pocket because of course she knows which one is where and he’s never quite sure. “He asked about it.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“That it made me think of you when you weren’t there.” She looks up from where she’s been absently playing with her own coin and locks her eyes on his. She doesn’t say she holds it close whenever he’s in a fight or that sometimes she just takes it out to look at. She doesn’t say that it feels like a part of him that she gets to keep with her. He hears it anyway.

He watches her and remembers Hardison asking him a similar question once and it clicks. That look in his eye. Eliot hadn’t known it then, Parker isn’t sure she knows it now, but Hardison had known four months ago.

“Is that love?” Parker looks up at him from under her eyelashes.

Instead of answering, Eliot asks a different question, “What do you see when you think about the future?” He asked her that once before and she'd stared at him like he had seven heads and said "I don't." He knows she used to avoid thinking about anything further than the moment she was in. The future was too big and too far and she spent too long not knowing if she’d have one. It’s a feeling he understands.

Now, she turns her eyes fully and meets him head on and something in them brightens. “You,” she says clearly. “I see you. Well, us.”
He touches her now, reaching a hand up to her cheek and pulling her closer. He still doesn’t say it, and she doesn’t either. But he knows and she knows and when he kisses her he knows they both feel it. They’ve never been great with words, but it’s not often they need them anyway.