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Sophie says, “Something’s different.”
And Parker says, “It’s probably the sex.”
But actually, a lot of things are different.
(One of them is the sex.)
-
They have to recruit people now.
Archie is brought in for a job (which isn’t usual because they’re down a grifter not a thief, but Parker can’t do everything at once and when they’d asked her who she’d like to help her, they had only gotten one name). Hardison is still in his weirdly respectful mode and they are even seen (shudder) bonding. Parker seems happy with it. Eliot spends the entire time he is in the same room as him glaring at him. And everyone notices, because you have to notice when Eliot is glaring.
They’re walking down an empty corridor; Eliot is there for muscle in case of guards, but Archie strolls like he doesn’t have a care in the world. It’s nothing like working with Parker. He says, as if discussing the job, “You don’t like me, do you?”
And, because Eliot is becoming worse and worse at keeping his damn mouth shut, he answers, “I don’t like what you did to her.”
Neither of them have muted their comms.
“Ah,” says Archie. He swings his cane. “And do you not think that people deserve forgiveness for things they have done in the past, Mr Spencer?”
The tone is studiously respectful, but Eliot knows the question was meant to sting. It doesn’t.
“No,” he replies. “I don’t.”
They get the job done.
-
When Archie leaves this time, he says to Parker, “For the record, I greatly approve of your other young man as well.”
And Parker doesn’t say, ‘But we’re not together.’ Or ‘Even though he hates you?’ She just says, “Good. Because I need both of them.”
Archie tips his hat, “Then I’m glad you have them.”
It doesn’t sting so much when he walks away anymore. She thinks that’s because she’s got other people who she knows will come back.
-
With Nate and Sophie gone, when Parker says, “I want to kill them,” and Eliot says, “I can do that,” it is now up to Hardison to say, ‘No’ or, when he can’t quite manage it, to have the presence of mind to call Nate.
Or, on one memorable occasion, to say nothing at all.
-
The first time Parker and Eliot kiss, it’s for a job.
There’s really no way around it. It’s very similar to how she first kissed Hardison which he, listening in with growing bewilderment from the van, is not unaware of. Only it’s sort of a forced hand, because someone walks in when they’re both halfway through changing into uniforms for the event after having come in as guests, and there’s clearly only one (semi) legal reason they would be half clothed in a supply closet. It also distracts the guy long enough for Parker to shove the bag with the rappel wire in it out of the way.
There’s nothing odd about it, really. Nothing at all.
Except.
Well, see now, Hardison’s no expert, but even though it had been on a job, even though they had… well, at least very little choice, he thinks he should probably be feeling a little angry.
No. The kiss wasn’t odd. What’s odd is that Hardison isn’t even a little jealous. He feels… if anything, he realises, whilst lying awake at night, he feels kind of happy about it, like he might want them to do it again – maybe in front of him… in some kind of horizontal position…
He then gets a little sidetracked.
When he wakes up the next morning he knows that he is royally screwed in every sense.
-
Parker generally works out the plans on her own. But often in the briefings, Eliot will simply complete her thought or Hardison will point out an easier way to do something using a keyboard rather than a bungee jump (she hates it when that happens) so it feels a lot more collaborative than it did. And there are no pointed overtures from Sophie or Nate about what argument they were having that week. There are sometimes pointed overtures from Eliot and Hardison about what argument they are having that week.
Sometimes, she likes to take a step back as well. Let one of them lead the planning.
She can be a mastermind, but sometimes it’s nice to be a thief.
-
Eliot cooks for them.
He grumbles about it, but once Hardison had taken him seriously and tried to cook a meal.
He doesn’t care what Hardison says. Lasers cannot be used in the kitchen.
Parker occasionally pretends to be a food critic. They all sit round the table or on the couch. It’s nice. They do it a lot more than they used to.
-
If you asked Parker what she was doing with Amy (and once, Hardison did), she would reply: “Seducing her into a life of crime.”
Judging by the fact they have added an occasional forger to their team, she has been successful.
-
Parker has taken it upon herself to train Amy in grifting. Hardison had not thought it possible that someone could be worse at grifting than Parker had been... but Amy might well be - although admittedly with less stabbing.
"OK. So Sophie told me that you have to think about your character's motivation-"
"Parker... I'm really not sure about this, ok. I mean, I do the paintings but I really do pretend to not know where they go and this seems a bit..."
"What? Illegal? Illegal's fine if you do it right. Anyway, your life's dangerous anyway because people keep trying to kidnap you. Pretending to be someone else might actually be a lot safer-"
They end up in a skype call with Sophie, but Amy looks no happier when they come out of it.
-
The thing was, Parker had figured it out around about DC time.
She thought it was probably the moment when she and Eliot had nodded at each other and she had kissed Hardison and after the whole imminent death thing was over she had kind of thought: huh.
She was pretty sure the boys weren't caught up with her yet, though. Although Eliot's words when Nate and Sophie left them made her wonder.
Still, she often had to wait for people to catch up.
-
She had started with some subtle hints to Hardison such as: "Have you noticed how our relationship discussions seem to go a lot better when Eliot's involved?"
But that had apparently got him all offended. She hadn't meant it as a bad thing.
Then she started kissing Eliot in cons.
-
They do occasionally hear from Nate and Sophie. Well. They say occasionally. The truth is they lasted two days before Sophie called back from a hotel room in Prague. Only the line was engaged and Nate had locked himself in a bathroom.
Sophie won a bet and Nate had to tell her where he'd hidden one of the scores IYS had stolen from her.
('Sophie, you stole them first.'
'Semantics!')
Eventually the calls do become less frequent, but they all gather round the desk and skype them at least once a week. And Parker insists they all came back for Christmas.
-
Parker was OK with them leaving, but it took her a long time to get used to not having them around at briefings. She tried lying across a few chairs whilst Hardison was talking, but it didn't work. It's one of the reasons she had tried to recruit Amy. Who was weirdly reluctant to become a permanent member of the team.
Hardison started delivering his briefings sitting down next to Parker, with Eliot on the other side.
She was OK.
-
Eliot had known that he was in love with Hardison and Parker for way longer. But he'd known immediately that it was never going to happen, so he'd swiftly crushed it. For self-preservation reasons. This was the best thing he'd had in. Well. Ever. He wasn't going to screw it up for his goddamn heart.
This would be a hell of a lot easier to remember if Parker would stop kissing him.
-
"Hardison..."
"Yeah, baby?"
"You know when I kissed Eliot?"
"Yeah."
She nestles into his side more firmly before saying, "I liked that."
"Right. OK. What does that-?"
She pushes up so she's looking into his eyes, because he doesn't seem to be getting this. "Did you?"
Several expressions flash over Hardison's face, but they're way too quick for Parker. "Uh. Yeah."
She smiles.
-
She beams at him like it's Christmas and, with Parker, that is no small thing.
"I think we should tell him."
The thing about his relationship with Parker is that even when they're not actually jumping off buildings, he still feels like he's jumping off buildings. Because. OK. Yes, he'd known that he found Eliot attractive. And he'd known that he liked Eliot and Parker together, and that without Eliot he just didn't think they worked as well-
Oh.
The thing about his relationship with Parker is that she's always got him.
"How do we do that?"
Parker sighs and burrows into his chest, says like it's obvious, "Food."
-
Eliot has been teaching Parker and Hardison self defence. Well. Parker. Hardison categorically refuses to practice with either of them.
So they're down in the brew-pub after hours and all the tables have been pushed to the sides and he's showing her how to get a guy off her if he's got her pinned down.
And she kisses him. And
that's
right.
well then.
"Wow."
He scrambles up faster than he moved when caught trying to get that bloody monkey.
"Hardison, I-"
-
Hardison had not expected to find this when he came down.
Eliot is sputtering and Hardison has the odd thought that he would probably let Hardison beat him in a fight right now. He is almost tempted.
"Dude."
Eliot stops. Parker is standing back, watching with that stillness she gets.
Hardison can feel the smile curling. "That wasn't a bad wow."
-
Later, when they're lying in bed, Eliot asks:
"Is this why you've been leaving food around the place?"
(He'd been finding these little offerings everywhere, of cereal, of strange concoctions that he doesn't even want to try and guess at. He's pretty sure Parker's been slipping food into his pockets. When he'd asked, Hardison had just a made a derisive and slightly nervous noise and made a lot of explanations one after another, one of which was - honest to God - 'we want to see if mice will follow you like in the Pied Piper, man.'
Eliot had thought it was sort of odd. But he's pretty used to odd.)
Parker curls closer to him and says, smugly to Hardison. "I told you it would work."
"Babe, I don't think that's what did it."
Eliot closes his eyes and feels something that he hasn't felt in a long time.
-
So. There's that.
-
Vance calls them up for a case, and there is a massive discussion (not an argument) on whether they should take this up. They have plenty of clients of their own, after all, what with The List, and whilst Eliot likes Vance, he's not totally sure he completely trusts him (this isn't surprising. Eliot doesn't trust many people. He trusts him more than most people, so that's something). Parker is nervous of cops, and Hardison is mainly reluctant to get involved in terror threats again.
On the other hand, there is a terror threat. So they don't really have choice.
They do it. And it's scary, and dangerous, and involves working with some really weird people - which is saying something, because they work with each other. Parker is counting. Hardison nearly dies three times, and for Eliot it's seven. She is pretty sure that she should have died at least twice, and could have died three more. She also nearly gets sent to prison. Twice.
They do it. And they swear that they'll never try and do it again.
(They will.)
-
They go home, though. And this is one of the things that is different. It had taken a lot of stumbling and yes, we do want you around. Yes. All the time conversations, but they have finally gotten to a place where they all automatically go home to an apartment above a brew pub, and Eliot cooks and they sit down to dinner together. There's not a question anymore. This is where they belong.
They're more than a team. But they're more than what they were before too.
They just are.
And sometimes, like today, they're exhausted, and can barely scrape a conversation together. Eliot still cooks even though Hardison suggests takeout, because Eliot likes cooking. It calms him. They still sit down at the table, but they end up on the couch soon enough - battered and bruised in more ways that one - curled around each other. Parker likes to lie across the top of the two of them; Eliot will lean his forehead in to Hardison's neck and Hardison will run his hands over both of them, like he's checking they're still there, like he's glad they are.
So yes. There might be sex. But there are more things changed than that.
-
"What do you mean, Parker?" Sophie asks, not too shocked, because she's pretty used to her by now, probably just writes it off.
"Yeah," Eliot grits out. "What do you mean, Parker?"
And Parker just shrugs, because maybe that's a conversation for another day.