FIC: The Reunion Job - M7/Leverage - crossover100
Title: The Reunion Job
Author: Lyl (lyl_devil)
Rating: PG
Beta: (strangevisitor7
Character: Ezra Standish, Parker
Fandom: Leverage
Disclaimer: I don't claim any rights to either show. I just like to play in their sandboxes occasionally.
Prompt table -> HERE
Prompt - 024: Family
Words: ~2300
Summary: “Is this why you’ve been avoiding my calls?”
~!~
Deft fingers and a light touch are the basis for any skill in lock picking. Thirteen seconds from start to finish, and with a twist of her hand the lock slides free and the door opens. Parker slips her tools in the invisible pocket at her waist, and lets a smug smile curl her lips as she scurries across the formerly locked room.
“Is this why you’ve been avoiding my calls?”
Parker freezes where she stands, her hands almost touching the badly hidden wall safe in the art gallery’s office. Spinning slowly on the balls of her feet, she turns to face the shadowed figure sitting on the sofa.
Lounging on the sofa, really.
She’s almost positive he wasn’t there when she entered the room.
Parker narrows her eyes in suspicion. “What are you doing here?”
She hasn’t seen Ezra Standish in nearly two years, and doesn’t like that he’s popped up unexpectedly on this job.
”Parker? What’s going on? Nate’s voice in her ear barely causes her to twitch. Still, it’s enough of a movement for Ezra to notice and catalogue.
The man has only gotten sharper in the past years. Not that it surprises her. He’s been raised to the con, learning he craft from an even earlier age than her, and he’s only gotten better as the years pass. She knows this for a fact, as they’d been thrown together when she was twelve by Ezra’s grifter mom when Ezra had been too old to work the many scams she ran. They’ve been attached to each other’s lives ever since, first as friends and then as family.
He’s as close to a brother as she’s ever had before meeting up with Nate and the rest.
“I’m enjoying a showing of post-modern works by a truly mediocre artist,” he tells her with a negligent wave of his hand. “You?”
Parker looks down at the crisp black and white uniform she’s wearing, which matches the rest of the catering staff, then looks back at Ezra. “Surprise stripper.”
She hears more questions and muffled noises in her ear, but ignores them in the face of Ezra’s wide smile.
“New career?” he teases, coming to his feet. Parker keeps her face blank, just like she’s been taught - just like he’s taught her.
“That life of crime was getting boring,” she says, tilting her head. “Why are you really here?”
One thing she knows, beyond anything else, is that Ezra doesn’t do social events for any reason other than a job. That could pose a problem.
”Parker, I need you to tell me what’s going on. Do you need backup?” Nate in her ear again. She ignores him.
“I was about to ask you that very same question, my dear,” says Ezra, stepping closer. He’s close enough for his voice to carry over her earbud, and she knows the rest of her team are now hearing both sides of the conversation. “If we’re after different items, then everything is right in the world. However, if we’re after the same thing, then one of us will be sorely disappointed.”
“Or rather, you will be sorely disappointed,” he corrects with a smile.
Parker narrows her eyes again at the implication that he’s gotten to the goods first. The owner of the gallery has been using the art sales as a cover to launder the money his brother brought in with his ‘starving artist, just needs a break’ scam that he’d been running on seniors. They need information to bring the brothers down, and money to give back to the people who have been conned.
Ezra’s probably here for the money.
"Parker, explain or I'm sending Eliot."
“I’m fine,” she hisses, moving her eyes off Ezra. She realizes her mistake the instant she feels his fingers along her jaw, tilting her head to the side, exposing the earpiece she’s wearing.
“My, my,” he chides, dropping his hand. “Not working alone? Has the impossible happened?”
“I’m fine,” Parker repeats, looking at Ezra as she says it; but speaking to Nate. “He won’t hurt me.”
“I would never dare to harm a hair on your precious head.”
Parker just rolls her eyes at his over the top phrases, knowing he’s teasing her.
“And I don’t always work alone,” she reminds him, leaning against the desk behind her.
“I’m well aware of that, my dear,” he says agreeably, his voice full of innuendo as he smiles the smile that always turns sensible people into marks. She’s never been able to resist it either, but for completely different reasons.
He’s teasing her again, because as much as Ezra makes a point to imply a past romantic relationship, they both know the truth. Their relationship has always been affectionate, but platonic. Always.
“And you still haven’t told me what you were looking for,” Ezra reminds her. He moves to rest a hip against the same desk, his body turned into hers. More than close enough for his voice to be heard by Nate and the others. Great.
“You haven’t told me what you’re here for either.” Parker tilts her chin up and crosses her arms. She sets a fake stern expression on her face and looks at him.
Two can play at this game.
“I’m simply here to view some potential new talent in the art world, and to help relieve the pressure on the owner’s overburdened safe. And his bank accounts,” Ezra adds conversationally.
In the dim light, Parker takes a good look at him for the first time, and can’t help but smirk at him. The ill-fitting beige suit, hideous sandals and off-colour blondish wig gave the impression of a young man with little money, trying too hard to fit in.
“The Swede? You’re cover is the Swede?” Parker’s more than a little amused by this, but keeps it out of her voice. Mostly.
Ezra has a set of personalities to go with each accent and wardrobe, and each is pulled out and polished up when needed.
“It’s a classic for a reason, darling,” he tells her, his smile turning fond. He’s probably remembering the day the two of them came up with the Swedish persona, and Parker has to purse her lips to keep from smiling too. Still, it’s nice to see that his first character is still his favourite. It means something to her.
“Uh huh,” is all she’ll give him, not wanting Ezra to realize how it makes her chest ache. The two of them used to have entire conversations without ever speaking a word, and Parker remembers how that used to drive Maude crazy. Probably still does, as it’s a constant reminder that while Maude may be Ezra’s mother, Parker knows him better.
Which brings up another concern. “Don’t tell me she’s here?” she hisses as she straightens, unable to contain the venom hiss behind the words.
“Never fear. Mother is currently sunning herself in Melbourne as she tracks down husband number six.” Parker breathes a little easier at this.
"Who is this guy?" asks Hardison’s voice in her ear. Parker barely blinks at the intrusion.
"That’s a good question. Parker? Care to fill the rest of us in?" Uh-oh. Nate sounds kind of upset, like when a job is starting to go bad and he’s considering bailing on the spot. "If you can drag yourself away from your boyfriend, that is."
Yep. Definitely upset.
“So. What are we going to do?” she asks, turning back to the job at hand. Nate and his questions can wait.
“Well, I was here first,” replies Ezra. Parker just narrows her eyes. He’s not leaving this room with her score, no matter who got here ‘first’. They’d put too much work into this case to let it slip away.
Her eyes sweep his form, and then the room at large, taking in everything. Something doesn’t feel right, and it takes her a few seconds to realize what it is. “You haven’t even gotten in to the safe, yet!” she accuses.
Parker would swear he flushed, if she weren’t positive that he’d trained himself out of that particular tell years before.
“I didn’t want to deprive you of the opportunity,” he says. “I remember how much you enjoy the challenge.”
Snorting in disgust, Parker turns to the ‘hidden’ safe, hiding her smile. She always was better at cracking safes and picking locks. Looking at the current safe, Parker knows that Ezra wouldn’t have had any trouble getting in, and had instead deliberately waited and left the task to her.
She can’t say she’s not touched.
It’s a matter of minutes until they’re staring at the contents in mild surprise.
“Well, this is an unexpected turn of events,” comments Ezra.
"Parker? What’s going on?" Nate’s insistent voice jolts her out of her mild shock.
“Really? I mean, really?” She realizes she’s not giving Nate anything to work with, but it’s not everyday that she finds herself this unprepared in the middle of a job.
"Parker?"
“Who has gold bars as their emergency stash?” she asks the world at large, but only Ezra answers.
“An individual who has seen far too many movies, apparently.”
"Is there anything else in the safe?" asks Nate wearily, sounding unbearably tired. The man really needs a vacation.
A deeper look, past all the gleaming bars, is what looks like a notebook, but is more likely a ledger.
“Bingo!”
Their current scumbag apparently doesn’t trust computers because everything about his business is written down in neat columns, complete with bank accounts and passwords.
“Age of the geek, my butt,” mutters Parker.
"What was that?" asks Hardison in her ear. "Did I hear someone malign the hard work I put i-wait a minute. What the hell-we aren’t the only ones tapped into the security cameras."
Parker tunes out his techno mumblings, confident in his abilities to confound even the best computer systems.
Turning back to Ezra, she holds the ledger aloft, waving it slightly as she bargains, “Fifty-fifty?”
Ezra contemplates that for a minute, and Parker can see his mind cycling through everything he knows about the gallery owner, including how much the man is worth. Or rather, how much he’s swindled out of people.
“Deal,” he says, a slow grin spreading across his lips.
Flipping through the ledger, Parker quickly determines how the information is separated. At around the halfway mark, she grips both sides of the book and rips down the spine.
“Here you go,” she announces cheerfully, presenting one half to Ezra. She’s gratified that he doesn’t bother with more than a quick flip through the pages. More to familiarize himself with how the pages are laid out, than to determine if she’s cheated him. He trusts her to be fair about the deal, which she has, even with Nate protesting in her ear.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” he says, saluting her with the papers before hiding them beneath his jacket. Once her half of the papers are similarly hidden, she closes the safe with a wishful look at the gold bars left behind. There’s no way to transport them out of the gallery, there are too many of them.
"Parker, you’ve got security coming up the stairwell at the end of the hall. I’m sending Eliot up. Get out of there now."
Before she can pass on Nate’s warning, Ezra cocks his head to the side. “A security team appears to be performing their rounds earlier than anticipated,” he tells her. “We should depart.”
It takes Parker less than a moment to put the pieces together - including the unknown person who’d hacked into the security cameras.
“So when do I get to meet them?” she asks, moving up behind Ezra at the door.
“To whom are you referring?” he asks, smooth as silk as he peers down the hallway.
“I’m not the only one not working solo anymore,” she tells him. Parker knows that they’ve both worked with other people a few times, but this feels different. Ezra has never been this at ease on a job with strangers, meaning that he’s worked with this person or people more than once. Ezra doesn’t trust easily, especially on the job, and is always wary of a double cross - a lesson she finally learned the first time she worked with Nate and the others. She knows that up until now, she’s been the only person in the category of ‘people Ezra trusts’.
She really wants to meet these friends of his, and says so.
“Perhaps when you introduce me to your fine companions,” he hedges, but she can tell he’s pleased with her conclusions.
“Are you staying in town long?” she asks as they easily make their way down the hall and away from the security guards.
“Lunch tomorrow?” he shoots back, dodging around a corner and pulling her with him.
“Where? And when?”
“One o’clock. And remember that time in Montpiet?” he hints, bringing to mind the last time they’d met. She knows what type of place to look for, in what area, and possibly what alias he'll make the reservation under. With that, he leaves her with a smile, slipping back into his cover persona with ease.
Parker grins widely at his back, having caught the unintentional wave towards his ear, where he mostly likely had his own earpiece and someone on the other end. Ezra was probably ignoring the same comments from his team as she was from hers, and didn’t want to risk anyone showing up to ruin their reunion.
She really couldn’t blame him, and knew she was going to have to ditch a tail or two to make it to lunch. And check her shoes.
“You ok?” asks a voice from behind her, causing her to whirl.
“Peachy,” she tells Eliot, and means it. Her big grin is causing Eliot watch her carefully, like a grenade that’s about to explode and shower him in purple spaghetti.
She knows she won’t be able to wipe the smile from her face for the rest of the night.
She really can’t feel bad about that.
END
Author: Lyl (lyl_devil)
Rating: PG
Beta: (strangevisitor7
Character: Ezra Standish, Parker
Fandom: Leverage
Disclaimer: I don't claim any rights to either show. I just like to play in their sandboxes occasionally.
Prompt table -> HERE
Prompt - 024: Family
Words: ~2300
Summary: “Is this why you’ve been avoiding my calls?”
~!~
Deft fingers and a light touch are the basis for any skill in lock picking. Thirteen seconds from start to finish, and with a twist of her hand the lock slides free and the door opens. Parker slips her tools in the invisible pocket at her waist, and lets a smug smile curl her lips as she scurries across the formerly locked room.
“Is this why you’ve been avoiding my calls?”
Parker freezes where she stands, her hands almost touching the badly hidden wall safe in the art gallery’s office. Spinning slowly on the balls of her feet, she turns to face the shadowed figure sitting on the sofa.
Lounging on the sofa, really.
She’s almost positive he wasn’t there when she entered the room.
Parker narrows her eyes in suspicion. “What are you doing here?”
She hasn’t seen Ezra Standish in nearly two years, and doesn’t like that he’s popped up unexpectedly on this job.
”Parker? What’s going on? Nate’s voice in her ear barely causes her to twitch. Still, it’s enough of a movement for Ezra to notice and catalogue.
The man has only gotten sharper in the past years. Not that it surprises her. He’s been raised to the con, learning he craft from an even earlier age than her, and he’s only gotten better as the years pass. She knows this for a fact, as they’d been thrown together when she was twelve by Ezra’s grifter mom when Ezra had been too old to work the many scams she ran. They’ve been attached to each other’s lives ever since, first as friends and then as family.
He’s as close to a brother as she’s ever had before meeting up with Nate and the rest.
“I’m enjoying a showing of post-modern works by a truly mediocre artist,” he tells her with a negligent wave of his hand. “You?”
Parker looks down at the crisp black and white uniform she’s wearing, which matches the rest of the catering staff, then looks back at Ezra. “Surprise stripper.”
She hears more questions and muffled noises in her ear, but ignores them in the face of Ezra’s wide smile.
“New career?” he teases, coming to his feet. Parker keeps her face blank, just like she’s been taught - just like he’s taught her.
“That life of crime was getting boring,” she says, tilting her head. “Why are you really here?”
One thing she knows, beyond anything else, is that Ezra doesn’t do social events for any reason other than a job. That could pose a problem.
”Parker, I need you to tell me what’s going on. Do you need backup?” Nate in her ear again. She ignores him.
“I was about to ask you that very same question, my dear,” says Ezra, stepping closer. He’s close enough for his voice to carry over her earbud, and she knows the rest of her team are now hearing both sides of the conversation. “If we’re after different items, then everything is right in the world. However, if we’re after the same thing, then one of us will be sorely disappointed.”
“Or rather, you will be sorely disappointed,” he corrects with a smile.
Parker narrows her eyes again at the implication that he’s gotten to the goods first. The owner of the gallery has been using the art sales as a cover to launder the money his brother brought in with his ‘starving artist, just needs a break’ scam that he’d been running on seniors. They need information to bring the brothers down, and money to give back to the people who have been conned.
Ezra’s probably here for the money.
"Parker, explain or I'm sending Eliot."
“I’m fine,” she hisses, moving her eyes off Ezra. She realizes her mistake the instant she feels his fingers along her jaw, tilting her head to the side, exposing the earpiece she’s wearing.
“My, my,” he chides, dropping his hand. “Not working alone? Has the impossible happened?”
“I’m fine,” Parker repeats, looking at Ezra as she says it; but speaking to Nate. “He won’t hurt me.”
“I would never dare to harm a hair on your precious head.”
Parker just rolls her eyes at his over the top phrases, knowing he’s teasing her.
“And I don’t always work alone,” she reminds him, leaning against the desk behind her.
“I’m well aware of that, my dear,” he says agreeably, his voice full of innuendo as he smiles the smile that always turns sensible people into marks. She’s never been able to resist it either, but for completely different reasons.
He’s teasing her again, because as much as Ezra makes a point to imply a past romantic relationship, they both know the truth. Their relationship has always been affectionate, but platonic. Always.
“And you still haven’t told me what you were looking for,” Ezra reminds her. He moves to rest a hip against the same desk, his body turned into hers. More than close enough for his voice to be heard by Nate and the others. Great.
“You haven’t told me what you’re here for either.” Parker tilts her chin up and crosses her arms. She sets a fake stern expression on her face and looks at him.
Two can play at this game.
“I’m simply here to view some potential new talent in the art world, and to help relieve the pressure on the owner’s overburdened safe. And his bank accounts,” Ezra adds conversationally.
In the dim light, Parker takes a good look at him for the first time, and can’t help but smirk at him. The ill-fitting beige suit, hideous sandals and off-colour blondish wig gave the impression of a young man with little money, trying too hard to fit in.
“The Swede? You’re cover is the Swede?” Parker’s more than a little amused by this, but keeps it out of her voice. Mostly.
Ezra has a set of personalities to go with each accent and wardrobe, and each is pulled out and polished up when needed.
“It’s a classic for a reason, darling,” he tells her, his smile turning fond. He’s probably remembering the day the two of them came up with the Swedish persona, and Parker has to purse her lips to keep from smiling too. Still, it’s nice to see that his first character is still his favourite. It means something to her.
“Uh huh,” is all she’ll give him, not wanting Ezra to realize how it makes her chest ache. The two of them used to have entire conversations without ever speaking a word, and Parker remembers how that used to drive Maude crazy. Probably still does, as it’s a constant reminder that while Maude may be Ezra’s mother, Parker knows him better.
Which brings up another concern. “Don’t tell me she’s here?” she hisses as she straightens, unable to contain the venom hiss behind the words.
“Never fear. Mother is currently sunning herself in Melbourne as she tracks down husband number six.” Parker breathes a little easier at this.
"Who is this guy?" asks Hardison’s voice in her ear. Parker barely blinks at the intrusion.
"That’s a good question. Parker? Care to fill the rest of us in?" Uh-oh. Nate sounds kind of upset, like when a job is starting to go bad and he’s considering bailing on the spot. "If you can drag yourself away from your boyfriend, that is."
Yep. Definitely upset.
“So. What are we going to do?” she asks, turning back to the job at hand. Nate and his questions can wait.
“Well, I was here first,” replies Ezra. Parker just narrows her eyes. He’s not leaving this room with her score, no matter who got here ‘first’. They’d put too much work into this case to let it slip away.
Her eyes sweep his form, and then the room at large, taking in everything. Something doesn’t feel right, and it takes her a few seconds to realize what it is. “You haven’t even gotten in to the safe, yet!” she accuses.
Parker would swear he flushed, if she weren’t positive that he’d trained himself out of that particular tell years before.
“I didn’t want to deprive you of the opportunity,” he says. “I remember how much you enjoy the challenge.”
Snorting in disgust, Parker turns to the ‘hidden’ safe, hiding her smile. She always was better at cracking safes and picking locks. Looking at the current safe, Parker knows that Ezra wouldn’t have had any trouble getting in, and had instead deliberately waited and left the task to her.
She can’t say she’s not touched.
It’s a matter of minutes until they’re staring at the contents in mild surprise.
“Well, this is an unexpected turn of events,” comments Ezra.
"Parker? What’s going on?" Nate’s insistent voice jolts her out of her mild shock.
“Really? I mean, really?” She realizes she’s not giving Nate anything to work with, but it’s not everyday that she finds herself this unprepared in the middle of a job.
"Parker?"
“Who has gold bars as their emergency stash?” she asks the world at large, but only Ezra answers.
“An individual who has seen far too many movies, apparently.”
"Is there anything else in the safe?" asks Nate wearily, sounding unbearably tired. The man really needs a vacation.
A deeper look, past all the gleaming bars, is what looks like a notebook, but is more likely a ledger.
“Bingo!”
Their current scumbag apparently doesn’t trust computers because everything about his business is written down in neat columns, complete with bank accounts and passwords.
“Age of the geek, my butt,” mutters Parker.
"What was that?" asks Hardison in her ear. "Did I hear someone malign the hard work I put i-wait a minute. What the hell-we aren’t the only ones tapped into the security cameras."
Parker tunes out his techno mumblings, confident in his abilities to confound even the best computer systems.
Turning back to Ezra, she holds the ledger aloft, waving it slightly as she bargains, “Fifty-fifty?”
Ezra contemplates that for a minute, and Parker can see his mind cycling through everything he knows about the gallery owner, including how much the man is worth. Or rather, how much he’s swindled out of people.
“Deal,” he says, a slow grin spreading across his lips.
Flipping through the ledger, Parker quickly determines how the information is separated. At around the halfway mark, she grips both sides of the book and rips down the spine.
“Here you go,” she announces cheerfully, presenting one half to Ezra. She’s gratified that he doesn’t bother with more than a quick flip through the pages. More to familiarize himself with how the pages are laid out, than to determine if she’s cheated him. He trusts her to be fair about the deal, which she has, even with Nate protesting in her ear.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” he says, saluting her with the papers before hiding them beneath his jacket. Once her half of the papers are similarly hidden, she closes the safe with a wishful look at the gold bars left behind. There’s no way to transport them out of the gallery, there are too many of them.
"Parker, you’ve got security coming up the stairwell at the end of the hall. I’m sending Eliot up. Get out of there now."
Before she can pass on Nate’s warning, Ezra cocks his head to the side. “A security team appears to be performing their rounds earlier than anticipated,” he tells her. “We should depart.”
It takes Parker less than a moment to put the pieces together - including the unknown person who’d hacked into the security cameras.
“So when do I get to meet them?” she asks, moving up behind Ezra at the door.
“To whom are you referring?” he asks, smooth as silk as he peers down the hallway.
“I’m not the only one not working solo anymore,” she tells him. Parker knows that they’ve both worked with other people a few times, but this feels different. Ezra has never been this at ease on a job with strangers, meaning that he’s worked with this person or people more than once. Ezra doesn’t trust easily, especially on the job, and is always wary of a double cross - a lesson she finally learned the first time she worked with Nate and the others. She knows that up until now, she’s been the only person in the category of ‘people Ezra trusts’.
She really wants to meet these friends of his, and says so.
“Perhaps when you introduce me to your fine companions,” he hedges, but she can tell he’s pleased with her conclusions.
“Are you staying in town long?” she asks as they easily make their way down the hall and away from the security guards.
“Lunch tomorrow?” he shoots back, dodging around a corner and pulling her with him.
“Where? And when?”
“One o’clock. And remember that time in Montpiet?” he hints, bringing to mind the last time they’d met. She knows what type of place to look for, in what area, and possibly what alias he'll make the reservation under. With that, he leaves her with a smile, slipping back into his cover persona with ease.
Parker grins widely at his back, having caught the unintentional wave towards his ear, where he mostly likely had his own earpiece and someone on the other end. Ezra was probably ignoring the same comments from his team as she was from hers, and didn’t want to risk anyone showing up to ruin their reunion.
She really couldn’t blame him, and knew she was going to have to ditch a tail or two to make it to lunch. And check her shoes.
“You ok?” asks a voice from behind her, causing her to whirl.
“Peachy,” she tells Eliot, and means it. Her big grin is causing Eliot watch her carefully, like a grenade that’s about to explode and shower him in purple spaghetti.
She knows she won’t be able to wipe the smile from her face for the rest of the night.
She really can’t feel bad about that.
END