Fic gift for nowgold: Safety in Numbers (Hardison, Parker, Eliot, Sophie) PG-13
Title: Safety in Numbers
Author: celtic_flicka
Giftee: nowgold
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Hardison, Parker, Eliot, and Sophie
Word Count: ~3,000
Spoilers: Through the end of season 2
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: I do this for love (it sure isn’t for the money!) and none of these characters are mine. I wish, though.
Summary: Hardison takes over Nate’s role, and has to watch out for the rest of his team-including the woman he loves.
Notes: I managed to work in 4 of the 5 prompts provided by nowgold--day-to-day business, dress up, secrets, sarcasm. Thanks to fleurlb for the beta!
~*~*~*~*~
Hardison wheeled his chair back to the mini-fridge and took out another orange soda. He still missed Lucille, but he had to admit that some of these rental vans were pretty sharp. This one had the fridge and a built-in iPod dock, and that one in Chicago even had a little bathroom-with running water! If he had to be the one stuck in the van, at least the amenities made things more comfortable. He rolled back toward the laptop screens to oversee his teammates via the comms and hacked security camera feeds.
He couldn’t see the face of the brawny, ponytailed maintenance man fixing the thermostat in the lobby, but Hardison knew that was Eliot, keeping an eye on the security guards and the front door. From what he was hearing on the comms, Sophie was fine as always, chatting amiably with their mark in his office. Parker, according to her latest report, was still making her way through the vents on the eleventh floor.
The team had agreed not to take on any jobs for the time being, but when Nate called from prison and asked them to help his cousin, they couldn’t say no. Plus, it wasn’t a complicated job-distract security, steal back the stolen hard drive, and get out.
When the scheme involved computers, Hardison usually went in with Parker, but since this one was more about stealing than hacking, the team decided that she would go in alone so that Hardison could play Nate’s role, watching over the others and keeping the plan on track.
In fact, this job was so easy that Hardison’s mind was beginning to wander when Parker’s voice whispered in his ear.
“I see the door-I’m going down.”
“I’m on it,” Eliot said. Hardison watched as the hitter crossed the lobby to turn the guards’ attention away from their screens with annoying questions about the building’s HVAC systems. Hardison and Parker both chuckled at Eliot’s thick Eastern European accent that intentionally made his questions difficult to understand.
As Hardison watched the fifth-floor feed, Parker suddenly dropped into view.
“There’s my girl…” he murmured, freezing when he realized he’d said that aloud.
Parker turned to face the security camera and gave him a cutesy, un-Parker-like wave. She thought he was teasing her and Hardison exhaled quietly.
This was the part of the job he always liked best, other than the hacking. He loved watching Parker do her thing-her intense stare as she focused on a lock, shutting out everything but the keypad or dial or tumblers under her fingers until she found its weakness and prodded it to open. For this job, she was using a repurposed PDA that Hardison had designed; he remembered the impressed look on her face when he showed her how it worked, and the way her hand brushed his when she snatched it away so she could play with it.
The image of two men walking down a nearby hallway flickered onto another one of Hardison’s laptop screens.
“Parker, you got company. Eliot…”
Eliot muttered excuses to the lobby security guards and walked away from them as he replied. “I’m on my way. Who are they?”
“I don’t know, but they don’t look friendly. Parker…”
“Almost done!” she whispered. “Ssh!”
“Eliot, why don’t we know about these guys?”
“I only saw the guys working the lobby when we checked the place out! Carson must have gotten word that we were coming and hired extra muscle. I’m at the stairway…”
Hardison watched as the two men turned a corner and headed toward the hallway where Parker was working.
“Parker, they’re coming your way. Get out!”
“Just a few more seconds!”
“You won’t make it-we’ll come back later!”
“I’ve almost got it…”
They both heard Eliot breathing hard as he ran up the stairs.
“Listen to me, Parker, Eliot’s not going to be able to head them off in time!” Hardison pounded the desk in frustration as she ignored his warnings.
“They’re coming around the corner in three seconds, Parker. Get out!”
She suddenly leapt straight up, grasping the vent to pull herself back into the ceiling, just as the two men spotted her and charged toward her. Her legs dangled at the top of Hardison’s viewscreen as he whispered go go go under his breath. But before she could get all the way up, one of the men grabbed her ankle and yanked. Parker fell, and Hardison gasped aloud when her head hit the tile floor with a sickening thunk.
Still, Parker jumped to her feet and tried to take a swing at one of the thugs, but he stopped her fist with one hand and punched her in the face with the other. Her head whipped around and the blonde thief collapsed in a heap. The other thug threw her limp form over his shoulder and the men went back the way they came.
“Eliot, they’ve got her,” Hardison said, panic rising.
“Shit,” Eliot growled as he came around the corner at the opposite end of the hall. “Which way?”
“Straight ahead, then two lefts. After that, I couldn’t see them anymore.” Hardison frantically looked for the keys to lock up the van. “I’m coming in.”
“No!” Eliot said, harshly but quietly. He ran down the halls as Hardison had instructed, his footfalls making almost no sound. “You need to keep watch on the feeds-let me know if anyone else is coming. And get Sophie out.”
“I’m already on my way down.” Sophie’s usually silky voice betrayed a note of worry.
“Tell me what’s goin’ on in the lobby, Hardison,” Eliot ordered.
“Um…” Hardison said, trying to focus. “Nothing. The guards are just sittin’ there.”
“OK, good. Now just keep watching and tell me if anything changes.”
“I can’t do this, man. I can’t just sit here. I need to help-I need to get her out of-”
“Hardison!” Eliot interrupted. “I know. I will not leave here without Parker. I’ll bring her back. Trust me.”
“OK…OK…”
“Now shut up so I can try and hear where they went!”
Hardison clamped his mouth shut and watched the screen-but Eliot soon moved out of view, just as the thugs had with Parker. All Hardison could do now was listen and wait. Other than faint sounds of movement from Eliot’s comm, there was no indication of what was happening. He didn’t even realize how tightly he was gripping the van keys until they dug into his palm.
“Hardison, what news?”
He nearly jumped out of his skin when Sophie appeared in the passenger seat.
“Nothin’ yet,” he whispered, covering his comm with his hand. “Eliot said he needs quiet to hear the guys who took Parker.”
“Oh!” Sophie whispered. “Sorry.”
They sat quietly for a few moments, as Hardison drummed his fingers impatiently while he watched the camera feeds. His knee bounced faster and faster as he grew more tense with waiting.
Sophie covered her comm to speak. “He’s going to get her out, Hardison,” she said softly. “He’s a retrieval specialist. This is what he does, and he’s the best at it. We have to-”
She stopped short when they both heard the distinct crack of fists hitting skin and bone. As their comms blasted with the sounds of punches landing, bodies crashing, and voices yelling, Hardison and Sophie looked at each other with wide eyes, hoping for some sign of what was happening. Neither of them breathed.
“Hardison! I’ve got her!” Eliot stepped into the range of the security camera, with Parker in his arms. “Where’s Sophie?”
“I’m here, Eliot. Just get Parker out here.”
“There’s no action in the lobby, Eliot, you’re clear there.”
“Good-we’ll take the elevator. I don’t think she could take the stairs,” Eliot said. Hardison swallowed hard, then clicked over to the cameras in the elevators.
As Eliot and Parker rode down to the lobby, the other two watched him coach her for their exit.
“Come on, darlin’, you’ve gotta get it together.” She swayed a bit as Eliot put her down on her feet. He plastered a smile on his face and tried to sound lighthearted. “We’ve gotta look normal to get out of here without raisin’ any eyebrows. I know normal ain’t your thing, sweetheart, but you’ve gotta try for me.”
Parker chuckled in response. “OK,” she said weakly but firmly. Hardison and Sophie breathed small sighs of relief. “Yeah, I can do that.” She pulled out her ponytail holder and ruffled her hair so it would partially cover her battered face.
The elevator doors opened and Eliot said, “We’re on our way out. Pull up right in front, Hardison.”
“Got it.” Hardison vaulted into the driver’s seat and started the engine. After waiting anxiously at the doors for a few moments, he and Sophie were surprised to see Eliot running out of the building, nearly dragging Parker behind him. The back doors of the van flew open and the two clambered inside.
“We’ve been made, Hardison-go!” Eliot yelled as he reached back to pull the doors closed.
Hardison didn’t ask questions but immediately hit the gas pedal. As the van jumped away from the curb, he heard the sounds of police sirens approaching the area.
“Eliot-the computer on the right has a police scanner. Hit the volume!”
The team listened intently as building security continued to communicate with law enforcement. It soon became clear that while they had vague descriptions of Eliot and Parker, no one seemed to have seen their getaway vehicle. Eliot exhaled loudly.
“Let’s not congratulate ourselves yet,” Sophie warned. “We need to get back to the hotel.”
Hardison drove as quickly as he could without drawing attention to them, taking side streets when possible, just to be safe.
In the hotel parking garage, he found a spot in a secluded, dark corner and hurried everyone out of the van. Later, he would recruit Eliot to help carry all the equipment back up to the room, but at the moment, he just wanted to get everyone behind the locked door of their suite.
The mood was somber as the group took the stairs to ensure that no one would recognize Parker or Eliot. Parker claimed she could walk up on her own, but the two men each put an arm around her waist to help her up the seven flights while Sophie hurried ahead to hold doors and make sure they were alone.
When they were all safely in the room and Sophie had clicked the deadbolt, Hardison finally let out the breath he’d been holding. The others headed off to various rooms of the suite while Hardison ducked into the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face.
“Well, that sucked.” Parker’s voice startled him and he fumbled the towel he’d been using to dry off.
Parker was inspecting her bruises in the mirror, wincing as she poked at the large, darkening purple mark on her cheekbone. “I can’t believe they caught up to me-I was so close!”
“They wouldn’t have caught you if you’d listened to me,” Hardison said tersely. “I told you they were coming!”
“I thought I could beat them,” she said with a shrug.
“But you didn’t, and you almost got killed,” Hardison said, his voice rising.
“It wasn’t that bad-” she began, rolling her eyes.
“It was that bad, Parker! I saw the whole thing!” Hardison flung the towel to the floor. “Do you have any idea what that was like, watching you get hurt when I was supposed to be keeping you safe?”
Her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms defensively. “I can take care of myself. I was on my own for a long time before this.”
“But you are not a solo act anymore!” He slammed his fist into the bathroom door and it slammed shut. “You have to think about the rest of the team! Do you know what it would do to me-us-if something happened to you? Goddamnit, Parker!”
He leaned his hands on the bathroom counter and hung his head in frustration.
“Don’t be mad at me.” Parker’s voice suddenly sounded very small and he looked up at her reflection in the mirror. Her body curled up as she folded her arms more tightly around herself. “I can’t have you mad at me.”
Hardison’s expression softened. “Parker…”
She looked down at her shoes as she continued. “It’s just that…I was alone for such a long time that sometimes it’s hard to remember…other people.”
Without another thought, Hardison turned to put his arms around her and she leaned her forehead against his chest.
“Hey, hey, hey-I didn’t mean to yell at you,” he murmured into her hair. “It was just really scary watching those guys carry you away. If anything happened to you-“ He sighed, willing himself not to think about that. “I can’t let anything happen to you, Parker.”
As he ran his hands soothingly down her back, Hardison thought he felt her pull away slightly. He remembered that she wasn’t a big fan of hugging, or physical closeness of any kind really, unless it was for a con. His arms dropped awkwardly to his sides.
“Um, sorry, I was just-”
His sentence was cut off when Parker’s lips pressed against his. He was surprised at how warm and soft they were. It’s not like she’d never kissed him before, but this time it was different: This time, Parker was kissing him, not Drunk Girl at Party or some other character she was playing. Afraid to break the spell, he gently put his hands on her waist.
At that, she threw her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss. Before he knew what was happening, she spun them both around and shoved him up against the door, which rattled in the frame.
Hardison’s mind reeled. He’d waited so long for this-he couldn’t even remember when he’d gone from just thinking she was hot to falling head over heels in love with her. She’d asked him to wait for the lock to click open, and he’d been trying so hard to be patient… but was this it? Was this just an adrenaline thing? Or was this the “click”?
He tried to push those thoughts out of his mind and focus on the fact that Parker’s tongue was in his mouth and she was moaning so softly that only he could hear. Careful to avoid her shiner, he cupped her face tenderly in his big hands and breathed in the scent of her soft skin as he kissed her back.
Eliot’s fist pounded against the other side of the door, and it felt like it was hitting Hardison directly in the back of the head.
“Ow-what the hell, man?” he yelled, angry at being interrupted as much as the pounding.
“If you two are done trying to kill each other, Sophie and I are ready to do the recap,” Eliot said sternly.
“A’ight, we’re comin’,” Hardison groused. He looked down to see Parker grinning up at him.
“Um, thank you for trying to keep me safe,” she said, “even when I’m not that good at doing that myself.”
“Anytime,” Hardison said, trying to regain his composure.
Parker reached behind him to grab the doorknob, and turned it with a click. She smiled up at him again, and he stepped aside to let her pull the door open. Parker exited first, and he followed a few seconds later, shaking his head and wondering what had just happened.
In the main living area of the hotel suite, Sophie was curled up elegantly on the couch, having divested herself of the business suit and glasses she often wore when playing an executive role. Parker sprawled next to her with her feet up on Sophie’s briefcase, which rested on the coffee table, while Eliot dug around in the mini-bar.
“Is everything OK?” Sophie asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah, we’re OK,” Parker responded with an unreadable glance in Hardison’s direction.
Eliot took out a bottle of beer and put it on the floor with a thud, which reminded Hardison of the horrific sound Parker’s skull made when it hit the floor earlier.
“Hey, do we need to take Parker to the hospital?” he asked the group. Sophie looked at Parker with concern.
Parker scoffed. “I’m fine.”
“Oh, I’m sure the person with the head injury is a good judge of that,” Hardison scolded.
Eliot whirled about and lobbed an ice pack at Parker, who reached up and snatched it out of the air without even looking directly at it. “She’s fine,” he said. He took out another pack and put it on his knuckles as Parker rested hers against her cheek.
“Actually,” Sophie said, gesturing toward her injured teammates, “this is what I wanted to talk about. Sometimes I feel a bit guilty, because Parker and Eliot are always getting hurt during our cons and I rarely even break a nail.”
“But you-” Parker began.
Sophie put a hand on her shoulder to quiet her. “Look-you almost got your head bashed in today, and I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t for nothing.” She nudged Parker’s feet off her briefcase, flipped it open, and slid out a small, black, plastic rectangle. “This is the memory card, isn’t it?”
Hardison’s face broke into a huge grin. “Aw, Soph…”
“I made a stop on my way down,” she replied. “Parker already unlocked the door, so I just had to slip in and slip out.”
Sophie handed the card over and Hardison hurried to insert it in the reader attached to his laptop. Parker squealed with delight as the code for their client’s stolen software began scrolling across the screen, and Eliot and Hardison exchanged a high-five.
Amidst the celebrating, Sophie waved her arms to get everyone’s attention. “Listen, everyone, when we talk to Nate, I think it’s best if we just tell him it all went off without a hitch,” she said. “He’s got enough to worry about now without worrying about us.”
The members of the team all nodded emphatically.
“So we’re agreed? We won’t say anything?” Sophie asked.
“Sure,” Parker said. She bit her lower lip and gave Hardison a sly smile. “I like secrets.”
~ FIN ~
Author: celtic_flicka
Giftee: nowgold
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Hardison, Parker, Eliot, and Sophie
Word Count: ~3,000
Spoilers: Through the end of season 2
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: I do this for love (it sure isn’t for the money!) and none of these characters are mine. I wish, though.
Summary: Hardison takes over Nate’s role, and has to watch out for the rest of his team-including the woman he loves.
Notes: I managed to work in 4 of the 5 prompts provided by nowgold--day-to-day business, dress up, secrets, sarcasm. Thanks to fleurlb for the beta!
~*~*~*~*~
Hardison wheeled his chair back to the mini-fridge and took out another orange soda. He still missed Lucille, but he had to admit that some of these rental vans were pretty sharp. This one had the fridge and a built-in iPod dock, and that one in Chicago even had a little bathroom-with running water! If he had to be the one stuck in the van, at least the amenities made things more comfortable. He rolled back toward the laptop screens to oversee his teammates via the comms and hacked security camera feeds.
He couldn’t see the face of the brawny, ponytailed maintenance man fixing the thermostat in the lobby, but Hardison knew that was Eliot, keeping an eye on the security guards and the front door. From what he was hearing on the comms, Sophie was fine as always, chatting amiably with their mark in his office. Parker, according to her latest report, was still making her way through the vents on the eleventh floor.
The team had agreed not to take on any jobs for the time being, but when Nate called from prison and asked them to help his cousin, they couldn’t say no. Plus, it wasn’t a complicated job-distract security, steal back the stolen hard drive, and get out.
When the scheme involved computers, Hardison usually went in with Parker, but since this one was more about stealing than hacking, the team decided that she would go in alone so that Hardison could play Nate’s role, watching over the others and keeping the plan on track.
In fact, this job was so easy that Hardison’s mind was beginning to wander when Parker’s voice whispered in his ear.
“I see the door-I’m going down.”
“I’m on it,” Eliot said. Hardison watched as the hitter crossed the lobby to turn the guards’ attention away from their screens with annoying questions about the building’s HVAC systems. Hardison and Parker both chuckled at Eliot’s thick Eastern European accent that intentionally made his questions difficult to understand.
As Hardison watched the fifth-floor feed, Parker suddenly dropped into view.
“There’s my girl…” he murmured, freezing when he realized he’d said that aloud.
Parker turned to face the security camera and gave him a cutesy, un-Parker-like wave. She thought he was teasing her and Hardison exhaled quietly.
This was the part of the job he always liked best, other than the hacking. He loved watching Parker do her thing-her intense stare as she focused on a lock, shutting out everything but the keypad or dial or tumblers under her fingers until she found its weakness and prodded it to open. For this job, she was using a repurposed PDA that Hardison had designed; he remembered the impressed look on her face when he showed her how it worked, and the way her hand brushed his when she snatched it away so she could play with it.
The image of two men walking down a nearby hallway flickered onto another one of Hardison’s laptop screens.
“Parker, you got company. Eliot…”
Eliot muttered excuses to the lobby security guards and walked away from them as he replied. “I’m on my way. Who are they?”
“I don’t know, but they don’t look friendly. Parker…”
“Almost done!” she whispered. “Ssh!”
“Eliot, why don’t we know about these guys?”
“I only saw the guys working the lobby when we checked the place out! Carson must have gotten word that we were coming and hired extra muscle. I’m at the stairway…”
Hardison watched as the two men turned a corner and headed toward the hallway where Parker was working.
“Parker, they’re coming your way. Get out!”
“Just a few more seconds!”
“You won’t make it-we’ll come back later!”
“I’ve almost got it…”
They both heard Eliot breathing hard as he ran up the stairs.
“Listen to me, Parker, Eliot’s not going to be able to head them off in time!” Hardison pounded the desk in frustration as she ignored his warnings.
“They’re coming around the corner in three seconds, Parker. Get out!”
She suddenly leapt straight up, grasping the vent to pull herself back into the ceiling, just as the two men spotted her and charged toward her. Her legs dangled at the top of Hardison’s viewscreen as he whispered go go go under his breath. But before she could get all the way up, one of the men grabbed her ankle and yanked. Parker fell, and Hardison gasped aloud when her head hit the tile floor with a sickening thunk.
Still, Parker jumped to her feet and tried to take a swing at one of the thugs, but he stopped her fist with one hand and punched her in the face with the other. Her head whipped around and the blonde thief collapsed in a heap. The other thug threw her limp form over his shoulder and the men went back the way they came.
“Eliot, they’ve got her,” Hardison said, panic rising.
“Shit,” Eliot growled as he came around the corner at the opposite end of the hall. “Which way?”
“Straight ahead, then two lefts. After that, I couldn’t see them anymore.” Hardison frantically looked for the keys to lock up the van. “I’m coming in.”
“No!” Eliot said, harshly but quietly. He ran down the halls as Hardison had instructed, his footfalls making almost no sound. “You need to keep watch on the feeds-let me know if anyone else is coming. And get Sophie out.”
“I’m already on my way down.” Sophie’s usually silky voice betrayed a note of worry.
“Tell me what’s goin’ on in the lobby, Hardison,” Eliot ordered.
“Um…” Hardison said, trying to focus. “Nothing. The guards are just sittin’ there.”
“OK, good. Now just keep watching and tell me if anything changes.”
“I can’t do this, man. I can’t just sit here. I need to help-I need to get her out of-”
“Hardison!” Eliot interrupted. “I know. I will not leave here without Parker. I’ll bring her back. Trust me.”
“OK…OK…”
“Now shut up so I can try and hear where they went!”
Hardison clamped his mouth shut and watched the screen-but Eliot soon moved out of view, just as the thugs had with Parker. All Hardison could do now was listen and wait. Other than faint sounds of movement from Eliot’s comm, there was no indication of what was happening. He didn’t even realize how tightly he was gripping the van keys until they dug into his palm.
“Hardison, what news?”
He nearly jumped out of his skin when Sophie appeared in the passenger seat.
“Nothin’ yet,” he whispered, covering his comm with his hand. “Eliot said he needs quiet to hear the guys who took Parker.”
“Oh!” Sophie whispered. “Sorry.”
They sat quietly for a few moments, as Hardison drummed his fingers impatiently while he watched the camera feeds. His knee bounced faster and faster as he grew more tense with waiting.
Sophie covered her comm to speak. “He’s going to get her out, Hardison,” she said softly. “He’s a retrieval specialist. This is what he does, and he’s the best at it. We have to-”
She stopped short when they both heard the distinct crack of fists hitting skin and bone. As their comms blasted with the sounds of punches landing, bodies crashing, and voices yelling, Hardison and Sophie looked at each other with wide eyes, hoping for some sign of what was happening. Neither of them breathed.
“Hardison! I’ve got her!” Eliot stepped into the range of the security camera, with Parker in his arms. “Where’s Sophie?”
“I’m here, Eliot. Just get Parker out here.”
“There’s no action in the lobby, Eliot, you’re clear there.”
“Good-we’ll take the elevator. I don’t think she could take the stairs,” Eliot said. Hardison swallowed hard, then clicked over to the cameras in the elevators.
As Eliot and Parker rode down to the lobby, the other two watched him coach her for their exit.
“Come on, darlin’, you’ve gotta get it together.” She swayed a bit as Eliot put her down on her feet. He plastered a smile on his face and tried to sound lighthearted. “We’ve gotta look normal to get out of here without raisin’ any eyebrows. I know normal ain’t your thing, sweetheart, but you’ve gotta try for me.”
Parker chuckled in response. “OK,” she said weakly but firmly. Hardison and Sophie breathed small sighs of relief. “Yeah, I can do that.” She pulled out her ponytail holder and ruffled her hair so it would partially cover her battered face.
The elevator doors opened and Eliot said, “We’re on our way out. Pull up right in front, Hardison.”
“Got it.” Hardison vaulted into the driver’s seat and started the engine. After waiting anxiously at the doors for a few moments, he and Sophie were surprised to see Eliot running out of the building, nearly dragging Parker behind him. The back doors of the van flew open and the two clambered inside.
“We’ve been made, Hardison-go!” Eliot yelled as he reached back to pull the doors closed.
Hardison didn’t ask questions but immediately hit the gas pedal. As the van jumped away from the curb, he heard the sounds of police sirens approaching the area.
“Eliot-the computer on the right has a police scanner. Hit the volume!”
The team listened intently as building security continued to communicate with law enforcement. It soon became clear that while they had vague descriptions of Eliot and Parker, no one seemed to have seen their getaway vehicle. Eliot exhaled loudly.
“Let’s not congratulate ourselves yet,” Sophie warned. “We need to get back to the hotel.”
Hardison drove as quickly as he could without drawing attention to them, taking side streets when possible, just to be safe.
In the hotel parking garage, he found a spot in a secluded, dark corner and hurried everyone out of the van. Later, he would recruit Eliot to help carry all the equipment back up to the room, but at the moment, he just wanted to get everyone behind the locked door of their suite.
The mood was somber as the group took the stairs to ensure that no one would recognize Parker or Eliot. Parker claimed she could walk up on her own, but the two men each put an arm around her waist to help her up the seven flights while Sophie hurried ahead to hold doors and make sure they were alone.
When they were all safely in the room and Sophie had clicked the deadbolt, Hardison finally let out the breath he’d been holding. The others headed off to various rooms of the suite while Hardison ducked into the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face.
“Well, that sucked.” Parker’s voice startled him and he fumbled the towel he’d been using to dry off.
Parker was inspecting her bruises in the mirror, wincing as she poked at the large, darkening purple mark on her cheekbone. “I can’t believe they caught up to me-I was so close!”
“They wouldn’t have caught you if you’d listened to me,” Hardison said tersely. “I told you they were coming!”
“I thought I could beat them,” she said with a shrug.
“But you didn’t, and you almost got killed,” Hardison said, his voice rising.
“It wasn’t that bad-” she began, rolling her eyes.
“It was that bad, Parker! I saw the whole thing!” Hardison flung the towel to the floor. “Do you have any idea what that was like, watching you get hurt when I was supposed to be keeping you safe?”
Her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms defensively. “I can take care of myself. I was on my own for a long time before this.”
“But you are not a solo act anymore!” He slammed his fist into the bathroom door and it slammed shut. “You have to think about the rest of the team! Do you know what it would do to me-us-if something happened to you? Goddamnit, Parker!”
He leaned his hands on the bathroom counter and hung his head in frustration.
“Don’t be mad at me.” Parker’s voice suddenly sounded very small and he looked up at her reflection in the mirror. Her body curled up as she folded her arms more tightly around herself. “I can’t have you mad at me.”
Hardison’s expression softened. “Parker…”
She looked down at her shoes as she continued. “It’s just that…I was alone for such a long time that sometimes it’s hard to remember…other people.”
Without another thought, Hardison turned to put his arms around her and she leaned her forehead against his chest.
“Hey, hey, hey-I didn’t mean to yell at you,” he murmured into her hair. “It was just really scary watching those guys carry you away. If anything happened to you-“ He sighed, willing himself not to think about that. “I can’t let anything happen to you, Parker.”
As he ran his hands soothingly down her back, Hardison thought he felt her pull away slightly. He remembered that she wasn’t a big fan of hugging, or physical closeness of any kind really, unless it was for a con. His arms dropped awkwardly to his sides.
“Um, sorry, I was just-”
His sentence was cut off when Parker’s lips pressed against his. He was surprised at how warm and soft they were. It’s not like she’d never kissed him before, but this time it was different: This time, Parker was kissing him, not Drunk Girl at Party or some other character she was playing. Afraid to break the spell, he gently put his hands on her waist.
At that, she threw her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss. Before he knew what was happening, she spun them both around and shoved him up against the door, which rattled in the frame.
Hardison’s mind reeled. He’d waited so long for this-he couldn’t even remember when he’d gone from just thinking she was hot to falling head over heels in love with her. She’d asked him to wait for the lock to click open, and he’d been trying so hard to be patient… but was this it? Was this just an adrenaline thing? Or was this the “click”?
He tried to push those thoughts out of his mind and focus on the fact that Parker’s tongue was in his mouth and she was moaning so softly that only he could hear. Careful to avoid her shiner, he cupped her face tenderly in his big hands and breathed in the scent of her soft skin as he kissed her back.
Eliot’s fist pounded against the other side of the door, and it felt like it was hitting Hardison directly in the back of the head.
“Ow-what the hell, man?” he yelled, angry at being interrupted as much as the pounding.
“If you two are done trying to kill each other, Sophie and I are ready to do the recap,” Eliot said sternly.
“A’ight, we’re comin’,” Hardison groused. He looked down to see Parker grinning up at him.
“Um, thank you for trying to keep me safe,” she said, “even when I’m not that good at doing that myself.”
“Anytime,” Hardison said, trying to regain his composure.
Parker reached behind him to grab the doorknob, and turned it with a click. She smiled up at him again, and he stepped aside to let her pull the door open. Parker exited first, and he followed a few seconds later, shaking his head and wondering what had just happened.
In the main living area of the hotel suite, Sophie was curled up elegantly on the couch, having divested herself of the business suit and glasses she often wore when playing an executive role. Parker sprawled next to her with her feet up on Sophie’s briefcase, which rested on the coffee table, while Eliot dug around in the mini-bar.
“Is everything OK?” Sophie asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah, we’re OK,” Parker responded with an unreadable glance in Hardison’s direction.
Eliot took out a bottle of beer and put it on the floor with a thud, which reminded Hardison of the horrific sound Parker’s skull made when it hit the floor earlier.
“Hey, do we need to take Parker to the hospital?” he asked the group. Sophie looked at Parker with concern.
Parker scoffed. “I’m fine.”
“Oh, I’m sure the person with the head injury is a good judge of that,” Hardison scolded.
Eliot whirled about and lobbed an ice pack at Parker, who reached up and snatched it out of the air without even looking directly at it. “She’s fine,” he said. He took out another pack and put it on his knuckles as Parker rested hers against her cheek.
“Actually,” Sophie said, gesturing toward her injured teammates, “this is what I wanted to talk about. Sometimes I feel a bit guilty, because Parker and Eliot are always getting hurt during our cons and I rarely even break a nail.”
“But you-” Parker began.
Sophie put a hand on her shoulder to quiet her. “Look-you almost got your head bashed in today, and I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t for nothing.” She nudged Parker’s feet off her briefcase, flipped it open, and slid out a small, black, plastic rectangle. “This is the memory card, isn’t it?”
Hardison’s face broke into a huge grin. “Aw, Soph…”
“I made a stop on my way down,” she replied. “Parker already unlocked the door, so I just had to slip in and slip out.”
Sophie handed the card over and Hardison hurried to insert it in the reader attached to his laptop. Parker squealed with delight as the code for their client’s stolen software began scrolling across the screen, and Eliot and Hardison exchanged a high-five.
Amidst the celebrating, Sophie waved her arms to get everyone’s attention. “Listen, everyone, when we talk to Nate, I think it’s best if we just tell him it all went off without a hitch,” she said. “He’s got enough to worry about now without worrying about us.”
The members of the team all nodded emphatically.
“So we’re agreed? We won’t say anything?” Sophie asked.
“Sure,” Parker said. She bit her lower lip and gave Hardison a sly smile. “I like secrets.”
~ FIN ~