Fic: We Can Rebuild Him
Title: We Can Rebuild Him
Rating: PG-13 for sexual references
Pairing: Hardison/Parker/Eliot, implied Nate/Sophie
Summary: "We have the technology. We have the capability... Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster."
Notes: Hardison's story, companion to The Empath. Thanks to hannasus for the beta.
Alec liked watched the team work. It was like watching a well-choreographed dance. Eliot punched, Parker dove, Sophie gave the sexy smile, and Nathan knew exactly what to do. It was a dance they’d done for years now, perfected as a troupe, as wonderful as aged wine.
Hardison never thought he’d be part of something like this. When he woke up in the hospital, blind and screaming, with Nana holding his hand and his brothers around his bed, it was dumb luck that he came out alive. Dumb luck and Nana willing to work with some black market doctors.
From the safety of Lucille, Alec sat back from the laptop and screens and let his body do the work. It was just as sophisticated as anything else he had and he knew it better. The circuits that meant he could see and his heart was beating and his left arm was still attached to his body let him hack into the security system and chase Parker and Eliot through the maze of corridors and alarms.
It was nothing short of amazing that his inorganic systems fed into something as organically beautiful as Leverage, Inc. And Hardison was scared that someday soon, that might all fall apart.
*
From the safety of his apartment in Southie, Hardison admitted he was scared, all the time, and he hated it. He hated it and he couldn’t stop. The fear invaded him, on the job and at home and even when he was playing World of Warcraft or hacking the Pentagon.
He was scared of Nate’s overconfidence and Sophie’s grifting lies. He was scared of the way Parker seemed to vanish into thin air when he needed her most. He was scared of the way Eliot came to him, broken and bleeding, and he couldn’t even fix him. He was scared that Eliot and Parker weren’t even acting like themselves. He was scared that their perfect ballet was going to end in blood and pain.
He watched Parker and Eliot curled up around each other like sleeping puppies and worried about them. He knew, when he saw Eliot pick up the gun down on the dock and take out four guys like some kind of overmuscled River Tam, that tonight would be bad. He’d seen the half-eager look on Parker’s face and the bottom of his stomach had dropped out.
When Sophie and Nate were theoretically debriefing everyone and they were actually wrapping Eliot up, Hardison took the time to clear everything out of the medicine cabinets and drawers. He dumped the booze down the sink and even went through Eliot’s old clothes. He’d seen how messed up Eliot was and he’d help him through it, him and Parker and time and not whatever it was that he took.
It didn’t work out that way and it never did. He could feel it in Eliot when Eliot moaned his name and when he did wicked things with his tongue. It was in the air when he watched Eliot get so tangled up with Parker that it was like they were one person. It was like it always was, even before this turned messy and sexual and too complicated to unmake.
Hardison liked Eliot when he fought like a whirlwind, protected the team like some kind of unfeeling brick wall. He used to wonder if Eliot was like him, was maybe an earlier prototype. Nana had always said that the earlier ones, the soldiers and guards and men turned into tincans, had trouble with feeling and being human. So when Eliot first took out those men in LA, Hardison hoped, for half a breath, that he found a kindred soul.
And then a new dance started. Eliot would fight and Hardison would know he was hurt. He could see it and the metal under his skin itched to fix it, to make his teammate, his brother-in-arms whole. And then, an hour or a day later, Eliot would stumble in from somewhere and it was a whole new world of hurt. It was a different hurt than when Nana had cancer or Nate had a hangover, but it was always suddenly too big, too systemic for Hardison’s systems to cure.
Parker told him not to be stupid and that there was nothing wrong with Eliot. She seemed to thrive for the days when he’d show up, glassy eyed and needing to touch them and begging to be fucked. He begged like he fought - ruthlessly and without prisoners. Eliot’s begging was as harsh and forceful as Hardison’s rare demands. Hardison was scared that none of them seemed to see a problem with that.
So he sat back and plugged in. It was all remote, but he made sure he never did it when Eliot wasn’t out of his head. He didn’t think the hitter could cope with his eyes going blank and code running over them. Nana had told him it was part of the package of getting eyes and Hardison never thought it was a raw deal until he got tied up with Eliot and Parker, who were both suspicious motherfuckers.
Frustrated and not finding any new information, Hardison beefed up the BPD’s look out for drug dealers in both Nate and Eliot’s neighborhoods. Hardison hadn’t found anything - he suspected ecstasy, given how suddenly touchy Eliot got, but he wasn’t ruling anything out - in anyone’s apartments yet, but getting the dealers away was a good first step. Then maybe he could drag the three of them to couple’s therapy.
When he turned off the remote connection, just staying logged into his home system so he’d be aware of any alarms and red flags, Eliot was alone in the bed. He took a long moment to enjoy the play of skin and muscle and sweat-shine while his system catalogued the repairs he could do. He didn’t even wonder where Parker was. As soon as Eliot woke up, she’d be back. Sometimes he thought the girl was psychic and he wasn’t the only one who qualified for X-Men.
Instead he knelt on the bed and ran his left hand along Eliot’s spine. He smiled as his fingernails lit up, red and green and white. He’d redone them that way for Parker, even if he never showed her. Then he flexed his hand, turning on the scanning system with a thought, and checked Eliot over for injuries. Jesus Christ. Only knowing that Eliot needed sleep to get the drugs out his system kept Hardison from crying out. It felt like Eliot was suffering bullet damage. That was way beyond him.
God. Nana would come down from Heaven and kick his ass six ways to Sunday if he let his boyfriend die in bed just so that he wouldn’t have to deal with his stoned out ass. And he’d deserve it, oh man, would he deserve it. He had the power to save and he wasn’t doing his job.
Eliot cracked open a glassy eye when Hardison shook him. His pupils weren’t quite as blown out as they had been, but he clearly wasn’t firing on all cylinders yet. “You’re… shiny,” Eliot slurred, still mostly asleep. “All glowy. Parker, did you give him Christmas lights?”
“Nope,” Parker said, impossibly close to Hardison’s back. He hadn’t even felt the bed dip. When he had a chance, he would need to check his systems. “He just likes you that much.”
“Kay.” Eliot stretched out languidly, moving like a cat. He spread his legs provacatively and pulled a mostly-clothed Hardison down on top of him. “You’re wearing too much.”
“You were shot.” Hardison made sure he put all of his anger and fear into his voice. Usually, that was the only thing that got through to Eliot. And, like, a charm, Eliot froze and Hardison could have sworn he saw his pupils retreat to normal size. He was definitely overdue for a tuneup.
“No. I shot Charlie. And Mary Ann.”
Suddenly Eliot’s back arched and his eyes rolled. Parker dove for the trash bin they kept by the bed for nights like this and glared at Hardison. Hardison pulled Eliot into a sitting position so he wouldn’t choke on his own vomit and took the distraction as a chance to get a little healing in. He only did minor things - the bruising on Eliot’s face, the cuts along his back - not trusting his system entirely.
“Shot them, shot them, shot them,” Eliot repeated. “Maria. Agni. Mark. Lindon. Codie. Andrea. Tin. Jorrit. Navin. Bo.”
Parker grabbed his face and kissed him thoroughly. It was the only proven way to cut off Eliot’s list of the dead - something Hardison could have done not having in his hard drive. He regreted Parker’s flexibility briefly when she managed to kick him in the face twice while groping Eliot.
“You’re here,” Eliot said when Parker finally let him go. She tucked herself up tight against his body, still glaring at Hardison on the other side of the bed. Eliot looked at him and something snapped in Hardison’s chest, like a broken fuse or torn gear belt when he saw the agony in his face. “You’re mad. You don’t want me here.” He paused and took a shaky breath. “The dead are going to come back, be mad I’m here.”
Eliot made hasty, abortive movements toward the clothes strewn around the room. He stumbled and missed them, moving like he couldn’t see. Parker tucked her knees to her chin and stared at him in a way that meant Hardison needed to fix what he broke.
So Hardison did what he had to, even if a large part of him wanted to give Eliot a lecture, wanted to short circuit him so that he could see what the problem was. But when he pulled Eliot into his arms and into his bed, he felt Eliot go limp and go along with whatever he wanted, even though he thought Hardison was angry. He knew how Eliot thought about angry people; he and Parker were two peas in one dangerous pod and Hardison hadn’t successfully taught them that anger didn’t always equal violence. It scared him deep into his circuits that Eliot didn’t resist him.
When they all lay in bed and Hardison closed his eyes and pretended to sleep and Eliot twitched and whimpered in time to Parker, Hardison held them both tight. He monitored both of them, watched as Eliot came down smoothly and Parker had a nightmare at the same time Eliot did. He worried about them. He worried about the way Eliot flinched when anyone on the team got angry - even though he could take down a mark without a second thought - and about how Parker still wouldn’t share the bed for the whole night, but was always there when Eliot showed up. He worried and worried and thought about Nate and Sophie in the apartment below him.
He watched the lights of his inner circuitry light up in patterns Nana had designed to make him smile. He blinked and set up the old lullaby she’d programed into him when he was a little boy. It wasn’t really a lullaby, just an old blues song she sang when he fussed and his inner fuses blew.
Eliot turned over in his sleep and opened his eyes, but didn’t seem to see him. “I didn’t know you played guitar.”
“Go to sleep,” Hardison told him, brushing a hand over Eliot’s frighteningly open face.
*
In the morning, Hardison walked through the bar downstairs, carefully brushing each of his teammates, every member of his family. The touch of skin to skin was enough for him to catalogue if someone needed him and he was constantly updating himself, making sure he was at the cutting edge of technology. He still hadn’t forgiven himself for missing it when Nate was shot.
Nate was drunk again and Hardison pretended to stumble a bit, giving him an excuse to grab onto him. It wasn’t much, just a boost to protect the man’s liver, but it was something. Nate’s liver needed all of the help it could get. He also made a sticky note on his hard drive to meet up with some other robotics experts and work on an upgrade. Someone ought to make sure he could heal Nate before the cirrhosis set in.
Parker was fine enough, just the usual scrapes and bruises from rappelling, and a couple of others from Eliot. Even though he was tempted, Hardison let her be. They probably didn’t have a job to do yet and Hardison knew the dangers of letting people think they couldn’t get hurt. She could live with it and be fine.
Sophie was perfect, as always. Hardison had yet to catch her with so much as a cold or bumped knee. He sort of hated her for it - he did live for being useful - but, at the same time, it was nice to have a teammate he didn’t have to chase down and trick. He never did thank her for trapping Eliot when he had the flu and didn’t think he ever would.
Eliot was mostly fine, now that it was daylight and he’d been chugging coffee for several hours. He was clean, no bullet holes and less than half of the bruises he’d worn in bed. Hardison didn’t know why and maybe when he went to get the add ons and specialist boots, he would find someone else to give him a tune up. Maybe his system was misfiring and that was why he couldn’t read the team.
He slipped onto a bar stool and pulled out his laptop. The bartender eyed them all warily, but poured a round of hot coffee for everyone. Hardison shut down most of his system, giving it a rest. They were off the client’s time and he probably didn’t need to be at the top of his game, given the way Sophie and Nate were making eyes at each other.
Hardison looked around McRory’s as he typed on his laptop, hacking the old-fashioned way. He could be human, embrace the parts of himself that were flesh and blood and bone, just the way Nana taught him. And in the dark of night, he could use the steel and circuit boards that made him something more.
Nate sat in the shadows of his booth, drunk and drinking. He thought he hid it behind the coffee cup and newspaper, but they all knew. And somehow, for some reason, they let him live the lie. He never knew why that was, but every time he so much as tried to do more than scan Nate for liver damage, he realised he had something else to do.
Eliot perched on the the bar stool by the door, stone cold sober and as emotionally available as a rock. The scowl was back on his face and Hardison thought he knew why Parker loved him when he was out of his head. Eliot never would have found his way into Hardison’s heart if he hadn’t stumbled into his LA apartment, begging for help and weeping.
Parker wasn’t there. That was typical. And Sophie was making big soft eyes at Nate, talking to Eliot about Paris or Belgrade or some other European city. Hardison couldn’t really hear. He always had trouble with his senses when he shut down his system for a rest, but the family seemed to think he just got lost in his computers.
*
Hardison knew how to work when he was scared. When he was built, piece by piece, on an operating table away from Mom and Nana and any familiar face, he’d been scared. When he’d been on the run in Iceland and the icy cold water had fried his circuits and he had to find a way to an underground mechanic, he’d been frightened. And Alec Hardison, cyborg, son, and supervillain, always made it through.
But when his heart was in his throat while he watched his team, it was different.
Eliot moved smoothly, with impossible violence and grace, while Hardison watched, the security cameras becoming his eyes. His hair whipped and his muscles flexed and he provided the perfect counterpoint to Parker’s catlike movements through the ceiling. Her clothes and caps hid her from Hardison’s surveillance, but he knew she was there, could hear her breathing in his ears. Sophie was just as smooth as Parker and as wily as Nate, with her hand on the mark’s shoulder, walking him past the carnage Eliot inevitably left in his wake. And only Nate remained, the puppetmaster pulling the strings, talking endlessly on technology Hardison never told them was based on his own cochlear implants.
He could live with this fear, the fear of the dance and grace and power and love ending. Hardison had lived his whole life with the bottom of his stomach falling out; he knew enough to grab a hold of something better and never let go. He just hoped that five broken, sad, sick people could make it together. He knew that they would need flesh and blood and trust more than steel and wire and machines to be a strong family and Hardison knew he had it in him to give it. And, in his mechanically driven heart, he knew they did, too.
Rating: PG-13 for sexual references
Pairing: Hardison/Parker/Eliot, implied Nate/Sophie
Summary: "We have the technology. We have the capability... Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster."
Notes: Hardison's story, companion to The Empath. Thanks to hannasus for the beta.
Alec liked watched the team work. It was like watching a well-choreographed dance. Eliot punched, Parker dove, Sophie gave the sexy smile, and Nathan knew exactly what to do. It was a dance they’d done for years now, perfected as a troupe, as wonderful as aged wine.
Hardison never thought he’d be part of something like this. When he woke up in the hospital, blind and screaming, with Nana holding his hand and his brothers around his bed, it was dumb luck that he came out alive. Dumb luck and Nana willing to work with some black market doctors.
From the safety of Lucille, Alec sat back from the laptop and screens and let his body do the work. It was just as sophisticated as anything else he had and he knew it better. The circuits that meant he could see and his heart was beating and his left arm was still attached to his body let him hack into the security system and chase Parker and Eliot through the maze of corridors and alarms.
It was nothing short of amazing that his inorganic systems fed into something as organically beautiful as Leverage, Inc. And Hardison was scared that someday soon, that might all fall apart.
*
From the safety of his apartment in Southie, Hardison admitted he was scared, all the time, and he hated it. He hated it and he couldn’t stop. The fear invaded him, on the job and at home and even when he was playing World of Warcraft or hacking the Pentagon.
He was scared of Nate’s overconfidence and Sophie’s grifting lies. He was scared of the way Parker seemed to vanish into thin air when he needed her most. He was scared of the way Eliot came to him, broken and bleeding, and he couldn’t even fix him. He was scared that Eliot and Parker weren’t even acting like themselves. He was scared that their perfect ballet was going to end in blood and pain.
He watched Parker and Eliot curled up around each other like sleeping puppies and worried about them. He knew, when he saw Eliot pick up the gun down on the dock and take out four guys like some kind of overmuscled River Tam, that tonight would be bad. He’d seen the half-eager look on Parker’s face and the bottom of his stomach had dropped out.
When Sophie and Nate were theoretically debriefing everyone and they were actually wrapping Eliot up, Hardison took the time to clear everything out of the medicine cabinets and drawers. He dumped the booze down the sink and even went through Eliot’s old clothes. He’d seen how messed up Eliot was and he’d help him through it, him and Parker and time and not whatever it was that he took.
It didn’t work out that way and it never did. He could feel it in Eliot when Eliot moaned his name and when he did wicked things with his tongue. It was in the air when he watched Eliot get so tangled up with Parker that it was like they were one person. It was like it always was, even before this turned messy and sexual and too complicated to unmake.
Hardison liked Eliot when he fought like a whirlwind, protected the team like some kind of unfeeling brick wall. He used to wonder if Eliot was like him, was maybe an earlier prototype. Nana had always said that the earlier ones, the soldiers and guards and men turned into tincans, had trouble with feeling and being human. So when Eliot first took out those men in LA, Hardison hoped, for half a breath, that he found a kindred soul.
And then a new dance started. Eliot would fight and Hardison would know he was hurt. He could see it and the metal under his skin itched to fix it, to make his teammate, his brother-in-arms whole. And then, an hour or a day later, Eliot would stumble in from somewhere and it was a whole new world of hurt. It was a different hurt than when Nana had cancer or Nate had a hangover, but it was always suddenly too big, too systemic for Hardison’s systems to cure.
Parker told him not to be stupid and that there was nothing wrong with Eliot. She seemed to thrive for the days when he’d show up, glassy eyed and needing to touch them and begging to be fucked. He begged like he fought - ruthlessly and without prisoners. Eliot’s begging was as harsh and forceful as Hardison’s rare demands. Hardison was scared that none of them seemed to see a problem with that.
So he sat back and plugged in. It was all remote, but he made sure he never did it when Eliot wasn’t out of his head. He didn’t think the hitter could cope with his eyes going blank and code running over them. Nana had told him it was part of the package of getting eyes and Hardison never thought it was a raw deal until he got tied up with Eliot and Parker, who were both suspicious motherfuckers.
Frustrated and not finding any new information, Hardison beefed up the BPD’s look out for drug dealers in both Nate and Eliot’s neighborhoods. Hardison hadn’t found anything - he suspected ecstasy, given how suddenly touchy Eliot got, but he wasn’t ruling anything out - in anyone’s apartments yet, but getting the dealers away was a good first step. Then maybe he could drag the three of them to couple’s therapy.
When he turned off the remote connection, just staying logged into his home system so he’d be aware of any alarms and red flags, Eliot was alone in the bed. He took a long moment to enjoy the play of skin and muscle and sweat-shine while his system catalogued the repairs he could do. He didn’t even wonder where Parker was. As soon as Eliot woke up, she’d be back. Sometimes he thought the girl was psychic and he wasn’t the only one who qualified for X-Men.
Instead he knelt on the bed and ran his left hand along Eliot’s spine. He smiled as his fingernails lit up, red and green and white. He’d redone them that way for Parker, even if he never showed her. Then he flexed his hand, turning on the scanning system with a thought, and checked Eliot over for injuries. Jesus Christ. Only knowing that Eliot needed sleep to get the drugs out his system kept Hardison from crying out. It felt like Eliot was suffering bullet damage. That was way beyond him.
God. Nana would come down from Heaven and kick his ass six ways to Sunday if he let his boyfriend die in bed just so that he wouldn’t have to deal with his stoned out ass. And he’d deserve it, oh man, would he deserve it. He had the power to save and he wasn’t doing his job.
Eliot cracked open a glassy eye when Hardison shook him. His pupils weren’t quite as blown out as they had been, but he clearly wasn’t firing on all cylinders yet. “You’re… shiny,” Eliot slurred, still mostly asleep. “All glowy. Parker, did you give him Christmas lights?”
“Nope,” Parker said, impossibly close to Hardison’s back. He hadn’t even felt the bed dip. When he had a chance, he would need to check his systems. “He just likes you that much.”
“Kay.” Eliot stretched out languidly, moving like a cat. He spread his legs provacatively and pulled a mostly-clothed Hardison down on top of him. “You’re wearing too much.”
“You were shot.” Hardison made sure he put all of his anger and fear into his voice. Usually, that was the only thing that got through to Eliot. And, like, a charm, Eliot froze and Hardison could have sworn he saw his pupils retreat to normal size. He was definitely overdue for a tuneup.
“No. I shot Charlie. And Mary Ann.”
Suddenly Eliot’s back arched and his eyes rolled. Parker dove for the trash bin they kept by the bed for nights like this and glared at Hardison. Hardison pulled Eliot into a sitting position so he wouldn’t choke on his own vomit and took the distraction as a chance to get a little healing in. He only did minor things - the bruising on Eliot’s face, the cuts along his back - not trusting his system entirely.
“Shot them, shot them, shot them,” Eliot repeated. “Maria. Agni. Mark. Lindon. Codie. Andrea. Tin. Jorrit. Navin. Bo.”
Parker grabbed his face and kissed him thoroughly. It was the only proven way to cut off Eliot’s list of the dead - something Hardison could have done not having in his hard drive. He regreted Parker’s flexibility briefly when she managed to kick him in the face twice while groping Eliot.
“You’re here,” Eliot said when Parker finally let him go. She tucked herself up tight against his body, still glaring at Hardison on the other side of the bed. Eliot looked at him and something snapped in Hardison’s chest, like a broken fuse or torn gear belt when he saw the agony in his face. “You’re mad. You don’t want me here.” He paused and took a shaky breath. “The dead are going to come back, be mad I’m here.”
Eliot made hasty, abortive movements toward the clothes strewn around the room. He stumbled and missed them, moving like he couldn’t see. Parker tucked her knees to her chin and stared at him in a way that meant Hardison needed to fix what he broke.
So Hardison did what he had to, even if a large part of him wanted to give Eliot a lecture, wanted to short circuit him so that he could see what the problem was. But when he pulled Eliot into his arms and into his bed, he felt Eliot go limp and go along with whatever he wanted, even though he thought Hardison was angry. He knew how Eliot thought about angry people; he and Parker were two peas in one dangerous pod and Hardison hadn’t successfully taught them that anger didn’t always equal violence. It scared him deep into his circuits that Eliot didn’t resist him.
When they all lay in bed and Hardison closed his eyes and pretended to sleep and Eliot twitched and whimpered in time to Parker, Hardison held them both tight. He monitored both of them, watched as Eliot came down smoothly and Parker had a nightmare at the same time Eliot did. He worried about them. He worried about the way Eliot flinched when anyone on the team got angry - even though he could take down a mark without a second thought - and about how Parker still wouldn’t share the bed for the whole night, but was always there when Eliot showed up. He worried and worried and thought about Nate and Sophie in the apartment below him.
He watched the lights of his inner circuitry light up in patterns Nana had designed to make him smile. He blinked and set up the old lullaby she’d programed into him when he was a little boy. It wasn’t really a lullaby, just an old blues song she sang when he fussed and his inner fuses blew.
Eliot turned over in his sleep and opened his eyes, but didn’t seem to see him. “I didn’t know you played guitar.”
“Go to sleep,” Hardison told him, brushing a hand over Eliot’s frighteningly open face.
*
In the morning, Hardison walked through the bar downstairs, carefully brushing each of his teammates, every member of his family. The touch of skin to skin was enough for him to catalogue if someone needed him and he was constantly updating himself, making sure he was at the cutting edge of technology. He still hadn’t forgiven himself for missing it when Nate was shot.
Nate was drunk again and Hardison pretended to stumble a bit, giving him an excuse to grab onto him. It wasn’t much, just a boost to protect the man’s liver, but it was something. Nate’s liver needed all of the help it could get. He also made a sticky note on his hard drive to meet up with some other robotics experts and work on an upgrade. Someone ought to make sure he could heal Nate before the cirrhosis set in.
Parker was fine enough, just the usual scrapes and bruises from rappelling, and a couple of others from Eliot. Even though he was tempted, Hardison let her be. They probably didn’t have a job to do yet and Hardison knew the dangers of letting people think they couldn’t get hurt. She could live with it and be fine.
Sophie was perfect, as always. Hardison had yet to catch her with so much as a cold or bumped knee. He sort of hated her for it - he did live for being useful - but, at the same time, it was nice to have a teammate he didn’t have to chase down and trick. He never did thank her for trapping Eliot when he had the flu and didn’t think he ever would.
Eliot was mostly fine, now that it was daylight and he’d been chugging coffee for several hours. He was clean, no bullet holes and less than half of the bruises he’d worn in bed. Hardison didn’t know why and maybe when he went to get the add ons and specialist boots, he would find someone else to give him a tune up. Maybe his system was misfiring and that was why he couldn’t read the team.
He slipped onto a bar stool and pulled out his laptop. The bartender eyed them all warily, but poured a round of hot coffee for everyone. Hardison shut down most of his system, giving it a rest. They were off the client’s time and he probably didn’t need to be at the top of his game, given the way Sophie and Nate were making eyes at each other.
Hardison looked around McRory’s as he typed on his laptop, hacking the old-fashioned way. He could be human, embrace the parts of himself that were flesh and blood and bone, just the way Nana taught him. And in the dark of night, he could use the steel and circuit boards that made him something more.
Nate sat in the shadows of his booth, drunk and drinking. He thought he hid it behind the coffee cup and newspaper, but they all knew. And somehow, for some reason, they let him live the lie. He never knew why that was, but every time he so much as tried to do more than scan Nate for liver damage, he realised he had something else to do.
Eliot perched on the the bar stool by the door, stone cold sober and as emotionally available as a rock. The scowl was back on his face and Hardison thought he knew why Parker loved him when he was out of his head. Eliot never would have found his way into Hardison’s heart if he hadn’t stumbled into his LA apartment, begging for help and weeping.
Parker wasn’t there. That was typical. And Sophie was making big soft eyes at Nate, talking to Eliot about Paris or Belgrade or some other European city. Hardison couldn’t really hear. He always had trouble with his senses when he shut down his system for a rest, but the family seemed to think he just got lost in his computers.
*
Hardison knew how to work when he was scared. When he was built, piece by piece, on an operating table away from Mom and Nana and any familiar face, he’d been scared. When he’d been on the run in Iceland and the icy cold water had fried his circuits and he had to find a way to an underground mechanic, he’d been frightened. And Alec Hardison, cyborg, son, and supervillain, always made it through.
But when his heart was in his throat while he watched his team, it was different.
Eliot moved smoothly, with impossible violence and grace, while Hardison watched, the security cameras becoming his eyes. His hair whipped and his muscles flexed and he provided the perfect counterpoint to Parker’s catlike movements through the ceiling. Her clothes and caps hid her from Hardison’s surveillance, but he knew she was there, could hear her breathing in his ears. Sophie was just as smooth as Parker and as wily as Nate, with her hand on the mark’s shoulder, walking him past the carnage Eliot inevitably left in his wake. And only Nate remained, the puppetmaster pulling the strings, talking endlessly on technology Hardison never told them was based on his own cochlear implants.
He could live with this fear, the fear of the dance and grace and power and love ending. Hardison had lived his whole life with the bottom of his stomach falling out; he knew enough to grab a hold of something better and never let go. He just hoped that five broken, sad, sick people could make it together. He knew that they would need flesh and blood and trust more than steel and wire and machines to be a strong family and Hardison knew he had it in him to give it. And, in his mechanically driven heart, he knew they did, too.