Say What
Sophie
Sophie is still learning the team and their individual quirks and qualities. They’re new to each other and, as much as she likes to pretend otherwise, at times they can be difficult to read. So, it’s a surprise when they’re in the middle of a con and a tall, young man with pale blue eyes and perfectly styled dark hair slips his arm into Eliot’s and draws in close. It’s even more of a surprise when Eliot lets him.
The young man leans in close, intimate, and Sophie has to admire his skill when any curious onlookers slide their gaze away from the scene. Eliot angles his body toward the man, even though his face, shaded from onlookers, is lined with unease at what the young man tells him.
Then the young man ducks his head, angling it so that to onlookers it looks like they’re kissing, even though his expression is a mocking grin. Eliot rolls his eyes but keeps his position for a moment before he slowly pulls away, looking for all the world like a reluctant lover. Sophie’s quite impressed. She hadn’t thought that his ability to inhabit a role was quite that good.
Eliot meets Sophie’s eye and jerks his head toward the exit. She nods subtly and weaves her way easily through the throng of people surrounding them. Eliot meets her moments later.
“What was that?” she asks.
“FBI’s got their hand in the case,” is all Eliot says. She knows he’s a man of few words, and usually she can read what she needs from him, but sometimes he’s just intensely frustrating.
“Who was that?” she asks, even though she’s not really expecting an answer.
“Neal Caffrey,” Eliot tells her and she’s surprised twice over that Eliot answered her at all and that Eliot knows Neal Caffrey. Eliot’s not known for his elegant cons and Caffrey’s not known for his violence. She wonders how their paths crossed.
Eliot starts walking towards the elevators and she follows, knowing that he’s not going to answer anything further.
...
Tara
Tara’s just starting to become part of the team; a hard-won feat that she’s really quite proud of, no matter how much she says they need her help more than she needs theirs. She’s starting to really like them, too, as crazy as they all seem. And they all do seem utterly insane in their own ways.
They’re between cases, hanging out at the bar, to early or late for Nate depending on when he quit drinking the night before or the early hours of that morning. Hardison is upstairs playing with some or other gadget and Eliot is off doing whatever it is Eliot does in his free time.
She immediately notices the tall, good-looking man in the doorway the same way she notices any tall, good-looking man who might put a crimp in her plans, enjoyable as that may occasionally be. Parker follows her gaze and rises to her feet, immediately running and leaping at the man.
“Hey there, Magpie,” the man says with a boyish smile that Tara decides makes him look much younger than he must actually be and she thinks he’d make a good conman.
“I have a present for you,” he tells Parker and she drops down immediately and begins slipping her hands into his pockets until he squirms away, laughing. That’s when Tara notices the badge at his side. She sighs. Though it is a little surprising that he’s that friendly with Parker, who doesn’t tend to trust or like the good guys. He fishes a flash drive out of his pocket and hands it to Parker.
“All the information your boy needs to find a good target.”
Parker grabs the drive, looking a little disappointed. Tara can’t say she blames the girl. The way to a woman’s heart is not a gift someone else would get more enjoyment from.
“From a case?”
“Lawyer got him off on a procedural technicality,” the man says, frowning briefly. His dissatisfaction with the legal process might explain something about his relationship with Parker. Not much though.
“We also got you something else,” the man says, pulling out a small device, which Parker snatches from his hands, the drive already secreted on her person.
“Is that?”
“The latest in taser technology. With a few modifications thanks to Alec and Clint. I think even Sasha made a suggestion or two.”
Parker grins maniacally as the device snaps with electricity and Tara resists the urge to take a step back. The man doesn’t seem too concerned.
“What’s the rule?” he asks and Parker sighs, stopping the charge and lowering the weapon.
“Violence is difficult to conceal and should only be used as a last resort,” Parker recites dutifully and the man nods seriously before they grin at each other and add together “Unless it’s against MacLeod or Angelus.”
Tara has no idea who MacLeod and Angelus are, but she almost feels sorry for them. Though she has the feeling that by some measure they deserve it.
“Keep safe,” the man says, pressing a kiss to the top of Parker’s head which she leans into in a way Tara hasn’t seen her lean into anyone else, not even Hardison, even though it’s clear that she likes him. "And keep Eliot safe."
“You too,” she tells him accusingly. All he does is shrug sheepishly and Tara has a feeling there’s a long story there that she’s never going to hear. For a moment she wishes this was her team, not just hers in Sophie’s absence, but she never allows herself to dwell on things she can’t change.
She never does learn his name.
...
Maggie
Maggie knows better than to underestimate Eliot. At least she thinks she does. She thought she learned her lesson in Russia after being kidnapped. But the last thing she expects to see, especially when she’s monitoring the transport of a collection on loan to Cascade university, is Eliot show up.
“Eliot,” she greets before wondering if she should be using his name. Her eyes cut to his even shorter companion with equally long hair, although that seems to be where the similarities end. The other man cuts off in mid-sentence, wildly gesticulating hands falling to his side. He looks at Eliot and then back at her.
“Maggie,” Eliot greets softly, polite as always except it seems when James Sterling is involved.
“You two know each other?” the other man asks, curious, but Maggie’s hesitant about how much she can say since she doesn’t want to give him away if he and the team are involved in something. On the other hand, the man he’s with looks more like a new age hippy than a criminal.
“Maggie, this is Blair Sandburg. Blair, Nate’s ex-wife Maggie Collins,” Eliot says and Maggie can’t help but blink for a long moment. Blair Sandburg is the connection at the university who’s supposed to be taking over the collection. And he knows people like Eliot Spencer. Despite how much she might now respect him, Maggie isn’t unaware of Eliot’s inherent danger.
“Nate’s the mastermind of your operation, right?” Blair asks and Maggie’s a little relieved that his familiarity seems only passing.
“Something like that,” Eliot says.
“So he likes to think,” Maggie says at the same time. They share a look. Nate is clever and she’s never met anyone with a tactical mind like his, but he’s not without his flaws, not even this new version of him.
“How do you know each other?” Maggie can’t help but ask. Blair looks to Eliot to take the lead, but he does it without a thought, without any awkwardness, and Maggie has to re-evaluate how long she suspects they’ve known each other.
“Blair wanted my help making sure nothing happens with the collection,” Eliot says without really answering her question. Blair smiles at her, warm and friendly, and gestures inside.
“Speaking of, we should probably start to get that unloaded,” he says. Maggie lets them steer the conversation away from themselves because men like Spencer like their secrets and guard them closely. And there are things she doesn’t really need to know if she wants to sleep at night.
...
Hardison
Hardison doesn't think he'll ever stop being surprised and amazed and in awe of Parker, but there are some occasions where he's sometimes just a little more so. Hardison is working late, as he sometimes does, and Parker disappeared somewhere after their movie evening, as she sometimes does, when the door opens and he hears her talking a mile a minute to someone about their team.
"Cool," a decidedly masculine and unfamiliar voice says and Hardison turns around to see Parker standing arm-in-arm with a short but attractive man in a way she's only just starting to be comfortable with him. She's also smiling brightly.
"Hello," he says pointedly. Parker abandons the strange man and bounds over to Hardison's side
"This is Hardison," she says, like it's significant, like it has special emphasis, and he relaxes a little.
"Oz," the man says, reaching out to shake hands. He has a good handshake, firm but not intimidating. In fact, there's nothing explicitly intimidating about him even though he has this air about him that Hardison can’t quite explain.
"Nice to meet you," he says and then, barely a breath later, "how do you know each other?"
"Eliot brought him home once and we kept him," Parker says. Hardison pauses a moment, trying to translate that from Parker-ese, but nothing happens. He looks at Oz who shrugs, not disputing the statement.
"Eliot brought him home?" is what Hardison decides is the most important part of Parker's statement to unpack.
"A while after Moreau, Eliot showed up with Oz," Parker tells him again, moving to pat Oz on the head, which Oz takes with remarkably little impatience or annoyance. Hardison isn’t sure if the guy actually has emotions. And there's even more to that statement than Hardison even knows how to deal with.
"About 10 years ago, I met Eliot while traveling through Asia," Oz says.
"10 years?" Hardison says faintly, turning to look at Parker who seems confused by his confusion. "You've known Eliot 10 years?"
At least ten years, because that’s when Eliot brought Oz with him, to a place Parker already considered home. But it makes a weird kind of sense. They had been a little awkward on that first job, but they'd quickly fallen into a sibling-like relationship that Hardison realises isn't so much 'like' as he’d originally thought.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asks, but he realises the answer to that too. None of them talk about the past, not unless it's recent and related to the job, usually not even then, and it’s a little difficult to fault Parker for that, Eliot even less so since he doesn’t really do the talking thing at all. "So you're all siblings? How many siblings do you have?" he asks because he's not turning down an opportunity to learn more about Parker.
Parker and Oz look at each other and start listing off names, more names than Hardison can keep track of, before they finally trail off and shrug. Hardison is unaccountably reminded of his Nana and her foster home. There were kids in and out of the home all the time, but somehow they were all counted as family.
"Is that the latest upgrade?" Oz asks, already sitting down at the computer. Hardison cringes and goes to rescue his precious before he realises Oz actually knows what he’s doing. Then he catches a line of code Oz is adding to one of his programs.
"You're Badwolf, aren’t you?"
Oz just hums noncommittally and Hardison drops into a seat beside him, adding his own code. Parker grins at them both.
....
Nate
Nate’s been pushing the team for days on their latest con. He knows the guy’s guilty, they all do, but Parker and Eliot are growing more and more reluctant as they go on. Their bad guy has connections that make even Nate hesitate, but it’s nothing they haven’t gone up against before. No worse than the mob, or Moreau, or Interpol itself.
So, he’s not exactly surprised to return to their office at the pub to find two men there. It’s not something he’s prepared for exactly, but he knows how to run with a situation. He takes his time hanging up his coat and pouring himself a drink. The two men wait patiently, though the man with the nose waits a little more so than the one with some of the most ridiculous eyelashes Nate’s ever seen on a man. Neither looks particularly threatening, but Nate knows better than to trust appearances.
Sophie and Hardison follow his lead, but Parker and Eliot look relaxed for the first time since this con began. Eliot nods in their direction and Parker smiles at them. That seems to be all Hardison needs to join the other two. Nate is caught between the sting of betrayal he feels and knowing that the three youngest members of their team have drawn together and will be just fine without him and Sophie.
“Your man has been dealt with,” the one with the nose and the sharp eyes says. He’s definitely the one in charge from the way everyone in the room but Sophie looks to him. The other one might be carrying a gun, obvious from the bulge in his jacket, but this man is the more dangerous.
"He has?" Nate asks, because he hasn't heard anything in line with that.
"In a few days he will likely disappear. He might show up the victim of some kind of accident, but more than likely there won't be any trail at all," the man tells him. There is something about him that makes Nate believe him.
"That's convenient," Nate says.
"It really wasn't," the man tells him with an ironic quirk of his mouth. "In future, do try to avoid shady global syndicates or consortiums."
The other man shoots the first a sidelong glance as though he can't quite believe what he had said. The first man's smirk only widens. They, the whole case really, are a puzzle Nate is itching to solve though he's sure it wouldn't be healthy for him if he did. The only thing that keeps him from being willing to pursue it regardless is that he'd only drag the team down with him.
The two men stand then, their message delivered and go to leave, stopping only long enough pass a note to Parker and share a look with Eliot. The note disappears before Nate's eye can follow it.
"Eliot and I are going to dinner," Parker announces before any of them could ask any questions.
"Don't try to track us," Eliot adds, warning evident in his tone, and then they too were gone.
"Family," Hardison scoffs and he disappears with his computer, leaving Sophie and Nate to stare at each other.