The Basket Job (Leverage just fluff)
The Easter Chapter Job
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Nathan Ford had resigned himself to having a family again, as loose as the definition could be used with a band of criminals. He and Sophie acted as parents to the younger trio when the time called for it, and since retirement clearly didn't work (they admitted that after the seventh con they pulled on their honeymoon) Nate and Sophie were back in Portland with their 'kids'. That meant family dinners at least twice a week. That meant movie night on Thursdays. That meant being there for important milestones and events.
(Apparently, birthdays had been an interesting topic when Nate had finally brought it up. Sophie wouldn't tell her real one, Hardison had never really celebrated, Parker had forgotten hers and just did Christmas, and Eliot had to admit lying about his when Hardison had baked a cake on the supposed day. But that's a different story, and Nate digresses.)
Being family meant holidays. That meant Easter. And, being the mastermind and pseudo-dad of the group, Nate planned everything. How he hid what he was doing from four of the world's supposedly best criminals bogled his mind, but he chose not to look a gift horse in the mouth when his family came in Easter morning. Sophie joined him on the couch, and he kissed his wife on the cheek as she settled in and the trio found their baskets.
"What is this?" Hardison had been the one to ask, but all three were looking at Nate with varying degrees of confusion.
Nate sipped his coffee, hiding a grin behind the mug and ignoring Sophie's equally questioning look. "Easter baskets."
The tiny crease deepened in Eliot's brow. "We're not kids. We don't need baskets," the man grumbled, though his eyes kept drifting back to the plain whicker basket with real green grass hiding the treasures underneath.
Nate set his coffee down and heaved a sigh, glad for Sophie's acting lessons and making to stand up. "Well if that's the case I'll just take them all back--"
"NO!" Parker practically shouted and lunged for her basket, tugging the thing close to her chest. Her's was a little smaller than Eliot's, but the basket was light blue plastic and heaping full of the fake candy grass stuff. Parker had the sugar stuff at the corner of her mouth, already sneaking the candy. "I want mine."
Hardison nodded along and grabbed his basket in a much less violent action, though his wasn't really a basket. More of a bucket, with tiny Star Wars chibis (as Nate had learned they were called) painted around the edges in an action scene. "Eliot wants his, he's just grumpy. Thanks for the baskets man. Haven't had one in years," the hacker commented, though his attention was already consumed by the shiny plastic grass and his long fingers poking through it.
Seeming like an unspoken cue, the kids all sat with their baskets and began riffling through them, Parker excitedly eating her candy grass and Eliot grumbling and Hardison just grinning. Parker was the first to find her goodies, a small sack of coins from around the world, a new lockpicking set with her initial on the case, a hairclip with a tiny blade, a purple tazer, enough variety chocolate to choke a horse, and everything to grow Venus flytrap flowers so Albert would have company. Nate barely understood the squeeling thanks she sent his way before she and all her new trinkets vanished.
Hardison was running his own steady commentary to himself and Nate smiled as the hacker got more and more excited with each gift. He'd been the hardest to get things for, but Nate wasn't just goning to get him mediocre things. So Hardison had gotten the early beta release of the wizard game he played, a fancy gamer mouse, something that looked like a phone but was really a signal jammer, all the Star Wars movies in a box set, and three tickets to the next San Diego comicon with backstage passes included. Based on the happy sounding rant coming from the man Nate figured he'd done a good job.
Unlike the others Eliot remained quiet and sorted carefully through his basket, but he was smiling in a way that translated from Eliot to 'i feel warm and soft'. At least that's what Parker had explained it as, and Parker seemed to be the best at speaking Eliot so Nate rolled with it. For the hitter he'd gone with less flashy things and gotten him a new set of knives, a dozen or so different types of farm fresh eggs (since Hardison and Parker both got chocolate eggs, but Nate didn't think Eliot would approve of the foil wrapped sweets), some hand wraps for boxing, several seed packets for herbs Nate knew the hitter didn't have already, and a note explaining there was now a nice yoga mat hiding in the closet along with a bonzi tree. Only after all the gifts were tucked away in the basket again did Eliot look up at Nate and smile his 'im sorry for being a grump' (again, that was the Parker translation) smile. "Thanks. The gifts are nice," he said, glancing out the door in the direction of the closet where his mat and tree were. Standing up, Eliot nudged Hardison's shoulder before glancing meaningfully between Nate and Sophie, and Nate couldn't help the chuckle when both men left the room in a poorly disguised hast.
At his side, Sophie finally pulled back enough to look him in the eyes. "I expect you to explain how exactly you kept this hidden from us," she said with a light smile, her teasing tone turning the 'us' into 'me'.
He kissed her in lieu of a real answer. "I'm the mastermind darling," he said, mimicking her tone perfectly only thanks to years of practice. "I don't need to explain myself." Reaching between the couch cushions he was sitting on, Nate removed a small wooden box and offered it to Sophie, cutting her protests short as she accepted. Her gasp and look of shocked awe as she opened it was worth all the discomfort and pain it cost getting her the gift.
"Is this--" Her fingers hovered over the tiny thing in the box, her eyes taking in every detail.
Nate sipped his now cold coffee, grinning. "Yup. Called in a couple favours. There's a very convincing fake in its place at the muesuem now." Sophie's eyes shot up to him in a look of disbelief and Nate shrugged. "I never did steal you the wedding ring, so-"
"So you decided to steal me one of the most famous Easter eggs in the world and one of Russia's finest pieces of art in their history?" She looked, as she would describe, like a smacked mackerel or something along that line. "You stole me a Peter Faberge Egg for a present?"
He smiled at her and leaned in for a kiss. "Happy Easter," he murmured against her lips, and smiled when she kissed him back hard.
Yeah, he could get used to the whole family thing.