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Hardison wasn't looking for it when he found it. He wasn't trying to find it. Hell, he went out of his way not to find this sort of thing. But ever since he'd missed that Russell Pan was involved in the Triad (and seriously? How had he missed that?) he'd been extra-thorough on the research end. Really extra-thorough. He was skimming screen after screen of information about their mark's ties in the antiquities black market, and something about a photo, of a group of armed guards, caught his eye. There was a familiarity-- the tilt of a head, the line of a jaw, nothing more; he clicked without thinking about it, and suddenly he was staring at five pages about... Eliot Spencer. Who had taken charge of this particular job back in 2005, and oh shit, he did not need to know those details, Eliot was going to kill him-- he shut his laptop, and scrubbed at his face.
He went to the fridge and got a fresh bottle of Squeeze. His mind was racing as he downed it in large gulps. He'd looked up Eliot during that first job, of course-- looked up Parker, too, and Nate. He'd gotten the cliff notes version of their respective careers, and that had been enough for him right then, at least to make sure they weren't liable to kill him or double cross him. Then Nate had dropped a new player on them, and Alec's attention had been diverted tracking down Sophie's aliases. By the time he was done with that, Eliot had caught him looking up Parker's records, and had made a very graphic and specific threat about what he would if he ever caught Hardison prying into the details of his past for reasons that weren't directly related to a case. Not that Hardison was afraid of him. He knew Eliot wouldn't hurt any of them... but, well, the point remained that he could. Besides, the man walked around with negative energy like a cloud, some days. It wasn't hard to put the pieces together. So when he'd looked into Eliot's past again, he hadn't looked too hard.
Was this the worst thing, the one he wouldn't tell them about? If Hardison poked hard enough, he could probably trace the money back to Damien Moreau. But did it even matter? What was far more important was that if Eliot ever knew that he knew, Eliot would kill him . And then bury his body in about twenty separate pieces. With his bare hands. All of it, with his bare hands. He needed to pretend he didn't know. He needed to con Eliot-- and the rest of them. Shouldn't be too hard, right? He was a professional criminal, and even if he hadn't done the things Eliot had, he wasn't going to lose sleep over what he'd read about his friend. As Sophie had said... they all had a past. Hardison only cared about what it had done to Eliot. And, y'know... if it meant someone was going to try to drown him again.
It wasn't a hard con, pretending ignorance. Two days later someone nearly shot Nate in a seamstress's office, and then they were all running for their lives for two days after that, which effectively pushed what he'd discovered out of his head. Finally Sophie managed to con the mark into signing a check, and they all cleared out just in time for Detective Captain Bonnano to swoop in, take the mark off to custody, standard procedure. Nate and Sophie disappeared afterwards... they'd been doing that a lot lately, as if they thought they were fooling anyone. Hardison ended up back at the office, slouched in one of the chairs with his main laptop, while Parker and Eliot sprawled on the sofa.
“Hardison, where's the remote? Game is on. Parker, stop that.” Eliot shoved Parker's hand away as the scissors she was holding got too close to his hair. “You stole those from our client?”
Parker gave him a pouty look. “I stole from her competitor.” She made another jab at Eliot's head with the scissors.
“Damn it, Parker!” He shoved her hand away again and switched seats. “There's something wrong with you.”
Parker grinned, and then sat bolt upright. “Hardison! What time is it!”
“Uhhh...” he glanced at the screen. “It's 4:13...”
“I'm late, I'm late.” She shot out of her seat and ran for the door, muttering something about the queen under her breath.
“There's something wrong with her,” Eliot said as he rooted in the cushions for the remote.
“Man, it's Parker.”
“She was trying to cut my hair, man.”
“I think you look good with short hair,” he mumbled as he hacked past the NSA's first firewall. It was only when his mind registered the silence, a moment later, that he realized his mistake. “Would look good,” he clarified hastily. “You know, with the...” he gestured vaguely at his face, and tried to look innocent when he glanced at Eliot-- oh shit.
“I haven't had short hair in years, Hardison,” Eliot growled. “Since before I met you. What did you do?”
“Man, I didn't do anything--”
“ Dammit, Hardison! ”
“It was an ACCIDENT!” Hardison shouted back. “I was just doing my damn job, all right? I turned it off as soon as I realized what I'd found.”
“And what the hell did you find, Hardison?”
Shit. He'd seen Eliot that angry before-- and angrier-- just... never directed at him. “... Lebanon. 2005. The... yeah.”
Eliot was on his feet now. “I don't want you digging up my past, Hardison,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “Thought I made that clear before.”
Man, that was the outside of enough, for Eliot to be trying to loom over him like that. He suddenly forgot to be frightened. “Well, then maybe you shouldn't have ties to the people I'm researching, huh?” He stood, and now it was his turn to loom. “Last time you didn't tell us something about your past, I ended up handcuffed at the bottom of a damn pool.”
Eliot looked like he was about ready to kill someone... and while Hardison wasn't actually frightened, he really would have preferred there to be another candidate in the room. “Whatever you saw, you forget.” He made an emphatic hand gesture. “I don't want anyone knowing--”
“Seriously?” Hardison demanded. “How stupid do you think we are? We've seen you in action, man, you don't pick up skills like that at a daycare. You had the Butcher of Kiev after your ass. Whatever you did, we may not know the specifics, but we got the general gist! We all filled in the blanks in our own heads, and guess what? We're still here!”
Eliot just stared at him, like he was working something out in his head... or like he was waiting to see which way something was going to go. So Hardison took a breath and went on. “Sophie figured you were an assassin.”
Eliot snorted. “She's not far wrong.”
“Parker, you know she doesn't care. What?” Hardison asked, as Eliot made a face.
“Nothing.”
“No, it was something. Something about Parker, what is it?”
“Hardison, it's nothing.”
“Nothing about Parker is nothing!”
“Hardison!”
“Fine,” he bit out, “we'll talk about that later. So: Parker doesn't care. And I figure Nate knows everything anyway.”
Eliot folded his arms across his chest. “And what about you?”
He really was upset, if he was even hinting at admitting that Hardison's opinion might, in some way, matter to him... not that Hardison had ever been fooled. “Eliot, I've known what kind of man you were from the beginning.”
Eliot snorted.
“Remember the warehouse? The one that blew up, the very first job? Remember running out of there? I tripped. You helped me up.”
“So?”
“So we were running for our lives, man, and I'd just stuck a gun in your face. I've seen what you do to people who do that to you, and it usually ain't saving their lives.”
“I didn't save your life. We had a common enemy.”
“Yeah, whatever. Seriously? You think we don't notice how you're so pissed off all the time, and you're only nice when you think no one's looking? Eliot: we get it. You did some really bad stuff. We get it.”
Eliot went from looking somewhat calm, to being pissed again. “No, Hardison, you don't get it! You have no idea--”
Damn , but the man had a thick skull. “All right, fine! I have no idea! And you know why?” Hardison demanded. “Because I'm not making a habit of poking around in your old jobs, that's why!”
Eliot stared at him for a long moment. “Whatever. Look, whatever you found--”
“Already deleted it,” Hardison promised, knowing it was the closest thing to an apology he was going to get. “Now: what's this you don't want to tell me about Parker?”
“What part of I don't want to tell you don't you understand?”
“Look, I know she's been through some rough stuff...”
“It was something she said to me in confidence. You think she needs another person betraying her trust? And to hell with you if you do, because I sure as hell am not going to do it. You have a problem with her not telling you, don't you take it out on her by trying to find out what it is.”
“I just...” he turned away. “I don't want anything to happen to her. Anything bad.”
“I'm not going to let anything bad happen to Parker,” Eliot said quietly behind him.
“Man, with all due respect, you're very good at your job but it's Parker. Remember when she got herself stuck in the--”
“Hardison. Listen to me, all right? This thing, it's not going to put her in any danger. You have to trust me on that, because if you start asking her questions, I will hurt you.”
Hardison shrugged. “If you say it's not gonna hurt her... I believe you.”
“Right.” Eliot turned away, rummaged in the sofa, came up with the remote, and turned the screens on with an air of finality.
Hardison opened his laptop again and settled back into the chair, tackling the second firewall while he kept one eye on Eliot... like you would watch a volcano that had just erupted, to make sure all the smoke and ash was dissipating. But Eliot seemed engrossed in the game. After the whoever won by one touchdown in double overtime, or whatever, he got up and walked out. Just at the door, though, he stopped. “Hey, Hardison.”
“Yeah?”
Eliot was doing that forehead-furrowing thing that made him look like a Klingon, not that Hardison would ever be sharing that opinion, thank you very much, he wasn't that stupid. “I won't let you get handcuffed at the bottom of any more pools,” he said.
Coming from Eliot, that was downright sentimental. “Okay,” Hardison said. “That's cool. Hey,” he called as Eliot started to turn.
“What?”
“You know... some of that stuff out there, if you want me to... to take care of it, I could,” he offered tentatively, half-expecting Eliot to blow up at him again.
But Eliot just shook his head. “No. Whether it's out there or not... I still did it. But thanks, man.” And then he was gone.