Fic: Did You Expect Me to Dodge?
Title: Did You Expect Me to Dodge?
Rating: PG
Pairings: Hardison/Eliot/Parker, Sophie/Nate
Summary: The ability to render oneself intangible at will occasionally turns up as a superpower. These questions you have? Don't ask them.
Notes: Takes place before The Empath and We Can Rebuild Him, but after Entropy and Chaos Magic.
Also, this series has at least two more installments and they're both already written.
Sometimes Parker wasn’t real.
The first time she disappeared she was eight years old. It was her birthday and Mom and Dad had just died and she decided she didn’t need anyone except her and Bunny. So Bunny disappeared with her.
When she was sixteen, she tried to show Archie. Archie was amazing, even if she wasn’t a real girl and she knew he had a family, with a wife and daughters, back home. They were in the Museum of Modern Art and she grabbed his hand and pushed, the same way she did when she needed Bunny to disappear. Archie stayed solid and real, though, and got really mad at her.
She didn’t try again. She stopped using it when working a case because it suddenly felt like cheating. If Archie couldn’t disappear with the loot and slip through walls and he was the best in the world, then Parker would learn to be the best, even if it meant never vanishing into nothingness again. On the job, at least.
Her vow was hard to keep. There was a time in Barcelona when her line broke and she free fell toward the sidewalk. She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and become part of the air and never see the blood and broken bones. Instead, she waited until she fell and then disappeared while the guards looked for her. She waited, awake and in pain, until the tourists came to the museum in the morning and appeared on the sidewalk. She deliberately left her shirt behind.
When she stayed in New York, scoping out the museums and a couple of banks, she learned that she didn’t need to disappear on a job. She could just disappear from life when she wasn’t working. One stiflingly hot day, she sat down on the subway and vanished. It felt so good, like there was air to breath and space to move. No one noticed or cared, even when they sat in her.
She found she wasn’t hungry when she wasn’t there at all. Archie assumed she was on the other side of the world being a burglar and there was no one else to care. She discovered she could ride the wind and jump train cars and all kinds of things she thought only happened in cartoons. So, between heists and burglaries, she would disappear. Once, she vanished in Berlin and didn’t come back until she was in Beijing. That was the longest and probably the scariest.
When she joined the team, she had to learn to be there again, but even Parker knew that habits are hard to break. She could be there through Nate’s meetings and during the job. It was easy to be seen when she was teaching Sophie to rappel and holding her close, so she could feel both of their hearts beating. It was easy to be whole when Nate was watching, because Nate was everything she had wanted Archie to be. Sometimes she wondered if she could bring Nate into her world of wind and air and nothingness if she grabbed his hand and wished. Maybe Nate was like Bunny and diamonds and money.
Four months in, she learned that she didn’t have a choice to be there or not when Eliot was around. Most of the time, when Parker played games of vanishing and reappearing, being there and not there, Eliot grumbled to Nate. Parker thought it was cute and so much better than Hardison who didn’t seem to notice at all. It was like playing and it brought back some good memories and she thought it did for Eliot, too, because he would scowl less and smile more.
But one night in Los Angeles, Parker disappeared and wafted through Hardison’s apartment. She liked passing through his computers and watching him pretend to be an elf. The loft was safe and happy and full of light and air even when she was really there. When she wasn’t real, it was even better. But she hadn’t expected to find Eliot there. He’d taken out a lot of men in the heist that afternoon and even Parker knew those bruises would hurt. She thought he’d be at his place, recovering, or Sophie and Nate would be watching him.
Eliot was kneeling between Hardison’s legs and making the sex noises Parker heard when she drifted to the wrong place when she wasn’t there. But he was bleeding, from his lip and eyebrow, and his eyes were shiny and the pupils were blown. “Hardison,” he said, sounding like maybe he wasn’t there either and Parker was just watching his body. “You gotta. You gotta, man.”
“Hey, hey,” Hardison said in a soft voice, running a hand through Eliot’s hair. “You’re gonna be okay. We’ll get through this.”
Eliot smiled and, for once, Parker was scared of it for all the wrong reasons. She was sure he wasn’t there at all. “So good,” he moaned. “I like it when it feels so good.”
“We are having a talk about drugs when you get better,” Hardison said, his voice rising. “I don’t care if you didn’t have a Nana to teach you to say no. You are going to fuck yourself up and someday, I won’t be here to fix it.”
“Don’t go!” Eliot cried, sitting up suddenly and grabbing at Hardison, pulling him into a hold designed to keep the hacker pinned. “Don’t.”
Hardison gave into it and let Eliot hold him tight as Parker drifted closer. He leaned down, pressing his forehead against Eliot’s. “I’m not leaving. I’m worried.”
“Feels good. You care,” Eliot told him, blissed out again. And suddenly he was moving, his hands out and inside Parker. “Parker feels good, too.”
Hardison knelt on the floor and grabbed Eliot’s face so he could look him in the eyes. “Parker’s not here. And you aren’t sharing your drugs with her. We’ve got enough problems just keeping this between us. If you hurt her - “
Later, Parker thought it was the sight of Eliot’s tears that made her come back. She didn’t think she’d ever seen the man cry. And this looked like something worse that the concussed confusion Eliot had in Singapore. He looked like Hardison’s threat absolutely crushed him. Eliot gasped for air and Parker remembered crying like that in her first foster home, when it hurt so bad she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
“I’m here,” she said, and she was. She grabbed Eliot from Hardison and felt his intake of breath, felt his heart sped up in his chest, felt his hands on her back, on her head, on her chest.
Hardison didn’t look happy. In fact, Parker couldn’t remember ever seeing Hardison look so unhappy, not even when the giant monsters would kill his computer elf. “I don’t think you should see this.”
Parker found it a little hard to concentrate with Eliot’s tongue on her neck, but she tried. “You made him cry.”
Eliot gave up on her neck and smelled her hair. When he seemed satisfied that she was there, he reached back for Hardison. And Parker glared at him until Hardison sat on the floor, his knees touching Parker’s, with Eliot cradled and draped between them. Eliot didn’t seem to know what to do with himself with both of them there and Parker decided that, if this was what it meant to exist, it was probably worth not drifting back to Beijing.
*
In Boston, Parker drank her beer and thought about the team. She thought about Sophie who was always pretty and smelled nice, like the expensive stores in London and Paris. And Nate who liked to watch her when no one else was looking. She liked how they made Boston cozy, made it safe to be there and alive and solid.
Hardison smiled at her from across the table and Parker looked away. Hardison was so nice, so soft and gentle. He scared her. When he touched her, when he said he’d be there for her, when he was buried in a grave or piloting a plane and needed her, Parker could feel herself disappear. It felt like the wind was calling her and the only option was hurting Hardison and she wished that she’d never ever been there at all.
Suddenly, Eliot was sitting in between them, one hand interlaced with Hardison’s and the other holding her wrist, and it was like the siren call of oblivion was gone. Eliot didn’t need her there and solid and real - not like Hardison did - and somehow that made it easier to be real. When they were both there, when Hardison’s brown eyes and Eliot’s blue eyes both watched her together and she could feel both of their skins under her hands, it was like she was solid and flying at the same time.
Rating: PG
Pairings: Hardison/Eliot/Parker, Sophie/Nate
Summary: The ability to render oneself intangible at will occasionally turns up as a superpower. These questions you have? Don't ask them.
Notes: Takes place before The Empath and We Can Rebuild Him, but after Entropy and Chaos Magic.
Also, this series has at least two more installments and they're both already written.
Sometimes Parker wasn’t real.
The first time she disappeared she was eight years old. It was her birthday and Mom and Dad had just died and she decided she didn’t need anyone except her and Bunny. So Bunny disappeared with her.
When she was sixteen, she tried to show Archie. Archie was amazing, even if she wasn’t a real girl and she knew he had a family, with a wife and daughters, back home. They were in the Museum of Modern Art and she grabbed his hand and pushed, the same way she did when she needed Bunny to disappear. Archie stayed solid and real, though, and got really mad at her.
She didn’t try again. She stopped using it when working a case because it suddenly felt like cheating. If Archie couldn’t disappear with the loot and slip through walls and he was the best in the world, then Parker would learn to be the best, even if it meant never vanishing into nothingness again. On the job, at least.
Her vow was hard to keep. There was a time in Barcelona when her line broke and she free fell toward the sidewalk. She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and become part of the air and never see the blood and broken bones. Instead, she waited until she fell and then disappeared while the guards looked for her. She waited, awake and in pain, until the tourists came to the museum in the morning and appeared on the sidewalk. She deliberately left her shirt behind.
When she stayed in New York, scoping out the museums and a couple of banks, she learned that she didn’t need to disappear on a job. She could just disappear from life when she wasn’t working. One stiflingly hot day, she sat down on the subway and vanished. It felt so good, like there was air to breath and space to move. No one noticed or cared, even when they sat in her.
She found she wasn’t hungry when she wasn’t there at all. Archie assumed she was on the other side of the world being a burglar and there was no one else to care. She discovered she could ride the wind and jump train cars and all kinds of things she thought only happened in cartoons. So, between heists and burglaries, she would disappear. Once, she vanished in Berlin and didn’t come back until she was in Beijing. That was the longest and probably the scariest.
When she joined the team, she had to learn to be there again, but even Parker knew that habits are hard to break. She could be there through Nate’s meetings and during the job. It was easy to be seen when she was teaching Sophie to rappel and holding her close, so she could feel both of their hearts beating. It was easy to be whole when Nate was watching, because Nate was everything she had wanted Archie to be. Sometimes she wondered if she could bring Nate into her world of wind and air and nothingness if she grabbed his hand and wished. Maybe Nate was like Bunny and diamonds and money.
Four months in, she learned that she didn’t have a choice to be there or not when Eliot was around. Most of the time, when Parker played games of vanishing and reappearing, being there and not there, Eliot grumbled to Nate. Parker thought it was cute and so much better than Hardison who didn’t seem to notice at all. It was like playing and it brought back some good memories and she thought it did for Eliot, too, because he would scowl less and smile more.
But one night in Los Angeles, Parker disappeared and wafted through Hardison’s apartment. She liked passing through his computers and watching him pretend to be an elf. The loft was safe and happy and full of light and air even when she was really there. When she wasn’t real, it was even better. But she hadn’t expected to find Eliot there. He’d taken out a lot of men in the heist that afternoon and even Parker knew those bruises would hurt. She thought he’d be at his place, recovering, or Sophie and Nate would be watching him.
Eliot was kneeling between Hardison’s legs and making the sex noises Parker heard when she drifted to the wrong place when she wasn’t there. But he was bleeding, from his lip and eyebrow, and his eyes were shiny and the pupils were blown. “Hardison,” he said, sounding like maybe he wasn’t there either and Parker was just watching his body. “You gotta. You gotta, man.”
“Hey, hey,” Hardison said in a soft voice, running a hand through Eliot’s hair. “You’re gonna be okay. We’ll get through this.”
Eliot smiled and, for once, Parker was scared of it for all the wrong reasons. She was sure he wasn’t there at all. “So good,” he moaned. “I like it when it feels so good.”
“We are having a talk about drugs when you get better,” Hardison said, his voice rising. “I don’t care if you didn’t have a Nana to teach you to say no. You are going to fuck yourself up and someday, I won’t be here to fix it.”
“Don’t go!” Eliot cried, sitting up suddenly and grabbing at Hardison, pulling him into a hold designed to keep the hacker pinned. “Don’t.”
Hardison gave into it and let Eliot hold him tight as Parker drifted closer. He leaned down, pressing his forehead against Eliot’s. “I’m not leaving. I’m worried.”
“Feels good. You care,” Eliot told him, blissed out again. And suddenly he was moving, his hands out and inside Parker. “Parker feels good, too.”
Hardison knelt on the floor and grabbed Eliot’s face so he could look him in the eyes. “Parker’s not here. And you aren’t sharing your drugs with her. We’ve got enough problems just keeping this between us. If you hurt her - “
Later, Parker thought it was the sight of Eliot’s tears that made her come back. She didn’t think she’d ever seen the man cry. And this looked like something worse that the concussed confusion Eliot had in Singapore. He looked like Hardison’s threat absolutely crushed him. Eliot gasped for air and Parker remembered crying like that in her first foster home, when it hurt so bad she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
“I’m here,” she said, and she was. She grabbed Eliot from Hardison and felt his intake of breath, felt his heart sped up in his chest, felt his hands on her back, on her head, on her chest.
Hardison didn’t look happy. In fact, Parker couldn’t remember ever seeing Hardison look so unhappy, not even when the giant monsters would kill his computer elf. “I don’t think you should see this.”
Parker found it a little hard to concentrate with Eliot’s tongue on her neck, but she tried. “You made him cry.”
Eliot gave up on her neck and smelled her hair. When he seemed satisfied that she was there, he reached back for Hardison. And Parker glared at him until Hardison sat on the floor, his knees touching Parker’s, with Eliot cradled and draped between them. Eliot didn’t seem to know what to do with himself with both of them there and Parker decided that, if this was what it meant to exist, it was probably worth not drifting back to Beijing.
*
In Boston, Parker drank her beer and thought about the team. She thought about Sophie who was always pretty and smelled nice, like the expensive stores in London and Paris. And Nate who liked to watch her when no one else was looking. She liked how they made Boston cozy, made it safe to be there and alive and solid.
Hardison smiled at her from across the table and Parker looked away. Hardison was so nice, so soft and gentle. He scared her. When he touched her, when he said he’d be there for her, when he was buried in a grave or piloting a plane and needed her, Parker could feel herself disappear. It felt like the wind was calling her and the only option was hurting Hardison and she wished that she’d never ever been there at all.
Suddenly, Eliot was sitting in between them, one hand interlaced with Hardison’s and the other holding her wrist, and it was like the siren call of oblivion was gone. Eliot didn’t need her there and solid and real - not like Hardison did - and somehow that made it easier to be real. When they were both there, when Hardison’s brown eyes and Eliot’s blue eyes both watched her together and she could feel both of their skins under her hands, it was like she was solid and flying at the same time.