Chapter Text
There were three things obvious to Eliot, as he lay on the cold concrete floor of an abandoned warehouse; one: this was a set up, two: he had three broken ribs, possibly a concussion, and a sprained-maybe-broken ankle, and three: he needed to get up.
This became Eliot‘s mantra: he needed to get up. As he twisted to his hands and knees, a sharp pain shot up through his limbs from a few well placed hits and a worse fall. He had to get up. Somewhere in the fog, Eliot recognized the distinctive sound of blood hitting the ground, but it was muted by his own heartbeat. It could have been from any of the six bodies that lay around him, disarmed and unconscious, but Eliot knew it was his own; blood flowed freely from a gash on his nose and Eliot’s head was pounding. He had to move; staying still was a death sentence as his vision blurred and his ankle throbbed. People were counting on him.
He had to move.
Parker and Hardison were counting on him.
Everything was a bit of a daze as Eliot ran across the warehouse, pushing through the fog and pain. The low sun was blinding, and, for just a moment, Eliot was disoriented. Abandoned warehouses near the docks looked the same in Boston, LA or Cape Town. He had seen too many to count and, when it came down to it, the location was simply a backdrop, scenery to what really mattered. Right now, what really mattered was that Eliot was an asset waiting to be used for the mission- rescue and extraction.
“It’s a trap. Hardison, where are you?”
Eliot waited expectantly. Only silence answered. It was not the normal silence that Eliot had come to expect, the loud silence full of four other sets of breaths, but true silence. He hadn’t heard true silence like that in a while. As long as the team was in the same city, Eliot wore his ear bud, so silence of any kind was abnormal- this was worrying.
“Parker? Where are you?” Eliot tried again and was still greeted with silence. Before he had even finished the question, Eliot started moving. His ankle protested with each hobbling step that became a hobbling run. The pain didn’t matter, couldn’t matter, as he ran to where the meeting was supposed to be before he left for recon.
The final warehouse stood precariously on the edge of the docks where one bad storm could bring it into the sea. It had been abandoned decades ago. In ten years, maybe it would be sold to make a high-rise apartment complex, but for now, it lived its life quietly as the backdrop for unsavory activities. Every part of it spoke to a recent history of being used as a drop point by one group or another and the Leverage team would simply be one more in a long line of criminals adding to the building's colorful and secret story. As Eliot pushed through the side entrance with a creak, he had walked into the middle of a tense scene. It was one that perhaps had played out here before, but it was one Eliot never wanted to see.
As adrenaline took over, the pain in his leg disappeared. Hardison and Parker were nowhere to be seen, hopefully still in Lucille and safe. Instead, the center of the room was occupied by Sophie standing between Nate and a group of five armed men as she tried to talk them down from something. All of the men had their weapons drawn. None of them had their fingers on the trigger… yet.
Eliot stopped thinking. He had been a fighter for so long that often his mind simply got in the way. He knew that he was not hired for his brain, he was not trained for his thoughts, he was hired and trained for his ability to give as good as he got. So, give he did.
There was no pain as Eliot bull rushed the first man, knocking him squarely into the second. A shot went off but it was aimed up to the ceiling and not at the now fleeing Nate and Sophie. With no bystanders, Eliot could work without needing to be careful. These men were trained but not well; they were simply local hired muscle and a part of Eliot felt bad for what he had to do. Then he remembered that he still had not seen or heard from Parker or Hardison and he no longer cared; Eliot simply needed the fight to be over quickly.
There were times when he played with the fights, allowed his opponents a few hits, gave them pointers or nudged them to fight better. Today, Eliot’s vision was swimming and even through the adrenaline, he thought he might have stepped wrong again. So his hits landed squarely and with force. He did not hit to play, he hit to incapacitate. He fought dirty and fast, with only the need for survival on his knuckles. With the kind of speed that could only be achieved by years in the field, the muscle’s were disarmed and dealt with before another shot could go off. But, sadly, not before another few hits made contact with Eliot’s stomach and face. He barely felt them and the fight was over before it really began.
Surrounded by a few more unconscious bodies, Eliot was not even sure which way was north. He definitely had a concussion. Yet, even as the fog became all consuming, he simply stumbled towards the door that Nate and Sophie fled through with one pair of names on his lips, “Hardison? Parker? I swear if I have to fight one more set of goons-“
The threat was empty, even to the silence. He would fight armies until he couldn’t fight anymore if it meant they would be safe. He would do almost anything to make sure they would be safe.
None of it mattered as Eliot’s hand landed on the doorknob and he was two seconds away from the outside. Hopefully Nate was able to call Hardison. Hopefully everyone was safe and the van would be right there. Hopefully the con wasn’t dead in the water.
In that moment before he left, Eliot’s mind supplied a phrase he remembered vaguely hearing on TV when he was a kid and his mother turned on MASH: “you never hear the bullet.” Eliot had no idea why he remembered it but he knew from experience it was true; more soldiers died surprised than not. Today would be no different. Eliot felt the pain in his side before he even heard a shot ring out.
He must have forgotten one gun.
He really did have a concussion.
Eliot stumbled forward and the door gave way. The sun hadn’t set yet and it shined off the water. The concrete swam nearly as much as the waves and, as Eliot tried to take stock of his body, he wasn’t sure he knew where the concrete ended and he began.
How could he have forgotten a gun?
He didn’t know many things, but he did know some. He was bleeding. He was concussed. His ankle was not broken but sprained, badly. Lucille was twenty feet away.
Lucille was twenty feet away.
The door opened and time slowed. The ground seemed more uneven than it had before as Eliot turned towards the van and started trying to run. There must have been too much pain because Eliot did not feel any of it, but he could feel his ankle crunch and his hand was wet. He didn’t see anyone leave the van, couldn’t see faces, but there was another set of arms around him. Normally that would be enough of a reason to swing, but even in this state, Eliot knew they were Parker’s. He always knew.
Once, not that long ago, Eliot could have forced himself to work through this. He would finish the job and the blood on his hands would be a mixture of his own and whoever was in his way. Then he would patch himself up enough to get to a safe house before checking in and collapsing on whatever counted for a bed and he would consider it a job well done. Now, in Lucille, as soon as he counted four heads, all living, breathing, and talking in far away voices, Eliot collapsed and his vision went black.
It might have been minutes. It might have been hours, but, eventually, Eliot woke up. It started slowly until he was just conscious enough to realize what was happening and then it was all at once. Eliot did not wake up with a start, in fact, to anyone who was watching, it was hard to notice he woke up at all except for a minuscule tightening of his muscles as reality sunk in.
In these few precious moments before he opened his eyes, Eliot took stock of the space around him. Somethings were hard to unlearn but when waking up in a strange place, Eliot found that it was always better to know what he was up against before letting the enemy know he was awake. There was a soft breeze coming in from an open window to his left; it was cool and smelled faintly of the water. They were still in Portland. There was the sound of a fan turning lazily over him, it was a newer building, it sounded like the fans at the brewery. There were muffled voices from behind a closed door.
No- not muffled voices. There were Parker and Hardison’s muffled voices. Eliot strained to hear if there was anyone else but could not tell. Soon there was nothing left to do but open his eyes. He was right on two counts; the fan above him that lazily moved air was not like those at the brewpub- it was the fan from the pub. On the far wall, signed Star Trek posters- even ones only- were protected with museum-grade UV-blocking glass. The gray sheets under him were high count cotton and even in the faint light of early evening, Eliot could see all the signs of a life - Hardison’s life- well-established. There were also the tell-tale signs that Parker had worked her way into the cracks: her ropes, a go-bag, and even Bunny littered the bedroom, saying far more than words could.
Soon, there was truly nothing left to do but get up, which was easier said than done. The pain in Eliot’s side was dull, almost forgettable, until he moved to sit up- then it was sharp and consuming.
Finally, at the all too present reminder, Eliot turned his attention to himself as he fought against the pain to sit on the edge of the bed. It was easy to do, his shirt seemed to be missing, likely cut off by whoever cleaned him up.
Eliot’s head was still pounding- dehydration mixed with a concussion- but he could work through it. His ankle- now swollen and purple- would be harder but doable. What was going to be a challenge was the mess of purple and yellow across his chest leading down to a large bandage that took up most his side. Pin pricks of blood had already started to work their way through the once white bandage as whatever stitches or glue already started to fail under Eliot’s movement. Still, with enough care, some planning, and new stitches… well, Eliot had done more with less.
The hushed voices of Hardison and Parker in the hall became heated and then hushed bickering. Eliot was sure it was fine, that they were fine… mostly. Habits and thoughts were hard to break and he still looked around the room for something to give him an edge if everything was not alright. A baseball bat, wooden and untouched, rested against the wall and Eliot supposed it would have to do. He spared no thought for the pain in his foot or side, only on stabilizing his breathing and his footsteps as he slinked to the door.
“We should call someone,” Hardison’s voice was soft but firm and etched slightly with panic.
Parker’s voice was only soft, “Who?”
“Nate or Sophie or- I don’t know- an actual doctor maybe?”
“He wouldn’t want that.”
“I don’t know if I give a damn anymore! It’s been almost 15 hours, the man usually sleeps for 90 minutes!”
Even from here, the door barely cracked, Eliot could hear Hardison start to pace. His boots were loud against the wooden floor of the kitchen. There were no matching creaks from Parker- perhaps she was sitting on the counter? Either way, they weren’t tied up and they were safe enough to use the team’s names. They were simply safe.
Forgetting the baseball bat, Eliot opened the door and limped down the hallway, “Don’t call a doctor- I’m fine! I’m not dead yet.”
Hardison jumped nearly a foot in the air and let out a shout that, any other day, Eliot would call a scream before he hid behind Parker and pointed at Eliot accusingly, “Don’t do that man! You could have scared me!”
“Yeah. Could have,” Eliot deadpanned, his eyebrows raised.
The pointing got even more accusatory as Hardison started to sputter. It was Parker who broke through the banter, her voice quiet still, “I thought you died.”
Suddenly, a scuff on the floor seemed more important than Eliot as Parker crossed her arms, broken and ten feet in front of him. She looked small, far too small for someone like Parker. It broke Eliot’s heart even more how quickly Hardison stopped ribbing, how quickly his smile fell as well as he turned towards her, hands not touching but eyes searching.
Eliot wished he could protect them from everything, even himself, “It ain’t that easy to kill me.”
Parker’s eyes were still on the scuff, “Still.”
“The devil himself will have to be the one to collect. I’m not planning on going anytime soon…” It all suddenly felt too much so Eliot turned to what always worked with the three of them: banter. It was safe and it was something they always fell back on, “But this might be the worst stitch job I’ve ever seen. Grab the thread, some rubbing alcohol, and a whiskey, I gotta redo it or my dying day will be here sooner than you like.”
It worked. It always worked. Hardison scrunched up his nose at the exact same time Parker did and they both started talking over each other.
“I don’t know! Maybe you and Parker can do that- you know I’m not good with the blood and the guts!”
“I think I did a good job. I even put in a secret smiley face, so you’ll smile when you see the scar!”
Eliot waved them off as he turned around, even as he felt the smile force its way onto his face. Everything felt a little easier, a little lighter with the two of them, even if he would never admit it. As soon as he was four steps away, still well within earshot, the two started whispering to each other again.
“See, Hardison, I told you he would be fine.”
“You were just as worried as I was- you just don’t like hospitals.”
Eliot didn’t even turn around, “No one likes hospitals and it wasn’t needed! Get me my supplies, Hardison, or I swear.”
“Swear what? You can barely walk, old man.”
“I can still kick your ass.” There was absolutely no heat to the threat even as Eliot tried to growl. Everyone knew the threats were empty, they always were. Still, he added, “Hurry up so we can get on with the job. I don’t have all day.”
The silence that followed was not the all consuming silence, but the comfortable silence of people in another room. Hardison’s bathroom was nice but far too futuristic for Eliot’s liking; all grey walls and medicine cabinets with soft close features and auto-dimming lights. There were also too many mirrors and the face that looked back at him was not one Eliot wanted to see. Still, there was a first aid kit under the sink and it had everything else that Eliot needed while he waited for Hardison to collect the last few items.
He had given himself stitches with just a needle, thread, and a lighter before, but Eliot would prefer what little comforts he could get. So, Eliot went through the motions. He cleaned his hands, removed the bandages, and undid each and every one of Parker’s sutures, smiley face included. It was meditative and he simply fell into the muscle memory. Even the pain was a comfort; familiar and expected.
“What’s the whiskey for?” Eliot had been so focused on his task that he hadn’t heard Parker come in- or perhaps he had and his brain had simply determined her not to be a threat. Either way, Eliot startled slightly.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
There was more light to Parker’s voice as she sat on the ground next to Eliot, “I only sneak up on you because you let me.”
“You sneak up on me because you're too damn quiet.”
“You don’t complain on jobs,” Parker paused and started focusing on the ground again, “We really were worried, you know? Well, Hardison was. I knew you would be fine.”
“Hey-“ Eliot nodded at her and she looked up at the movement as his voice quieted, “you guys ain’t getting rid of me that easy. It’s a concussion, a hurt ankle, and a graze. None of that’s new. You did the right thing by stitching me up.”
“There was a lot of blood. Hardison almost fainted.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I should’ve been able to do it myself.”
Parker frowned slightly as if there was something on her mind, but they were interrupted by Hardison, all long limbs and bravado, pushing open the door, his hands full of supplies, “Now these are my good needles- stainless steel- and a high tension thread. I didn’t know how much or what color so I just brought them all. Rubbing alcohol is from a 3D printing project but it’ll work and the whiskey… well it was going to be a gift for Nate but he’ll live.”
Eliot barely heard any of it. There was a bruise on Hardison’s cheek that had not been there two days ago. It was a faint purple just on his cheek bone and Eliot was not sure how he didn’t notice it sooner, “What’s that? Who did that to you?”
Hardison looked confused for a second, his eyes darting to his handful of items as he laid them out on the counter within arm’s reach of Eliot. Then his eyes widened, “Oh, this? It’s nothing. You should see the other guy.”
“Hardison.”
He deflated slightly, “Okay, so one guy yesterday found the van and I was trying to hack into the mark’s phone. I might not have been paying attention until he opened the door. It’s nothing.”
Parker piped up, “I tased him.”
Eliot felt himself sitting straighter as he gritted his teeth, “That shouldn’t have happened. I should have been there.”
“Dude, what are you talking about? I’m fine. You are literally stitching yourself up because you were shot and you're worried about my face? I know it’s a good one but man-“
“You shouldn’t be taking any hits. That’s what I’m here for.”
Hardison tried to laugh but even to Eliot’s ears it sounded hollow, “Yeah well, let’s just say you owe me a beer and Chinese food for the month. Now hurry and stitch yourself up before you bleed all over my bathroom.”
Eliot obeyed. There was nothing else he could do but ruminate and worry. The needles were sharp and the whiskey burned. Each pass of the cold and sanitized needle was one more clarifying jab at the fact that yesterday was a failure.
Haridson turned away as soon as Eliot started threading the needle but Parker sat straight, legs crossed as she watched. Eliot felt like he was on display, like he was an object that Parker was planning to steal. He never did do well being watched and the combination of her eyes and the reminder of failure was getting to him more than the whiskey.
Then her hand started to raise and Eliot knew what was coming before she even moved, “Parker, do not touch. I am literally mid-stitch.”
“I won’t… now.” Her eyes still never left his hands.
At some point the silence, only broken by breathing, was becoming too much and Eliot turned them back to what was important, “This won’t take much longer. What is the plan? Where did the mark run off to and how long do we need?”
That made Hardison turn around, his face a mixture of shock and confusion, “What? Dude you were literally shot, you are not going back out there- don’t look at me like that- plus the job’s done.”
“Done? How?”
“Turns out those guys he hired were the local mob and they did not take too kindly to not being paid. The dude really shouldn’t have saved all his passwords to his phone but there’s no accounting for smarts,” Hardison simply shrugged like it was no big deal. Eliot supposed in their line of work it was, but there was something nagging at him that he couldn’t quite place. One more taste of failure.
But Eliot simply nodded, his brows knit together and his side now stitched neatly. One more swig of whiskey took the final edges off the physical pain but his mind still replayed each hit and how Hardison’s face fell when he discussed the bruise… and the fact that they were able to finish the job without him.
Eliot moved in silence and was followed by two wordless ghosts. A clean shirt and new jeans were waiting for him and Eliot did not ask where they came from. He drank water and relaced his boots. Then he simply stood there in Hardison’s kitchen, lost for the first time in a long time.
“Stay,” Hardison broke Eliot out of his thoughts.
Eliot simply shook his head, “I don’t need you two mother hen-ing me.”
“It’s not for you though, it’s for us. If you leave I’m just going to spend the whole night hacking CCTV footage of the corner store across from your apartment and your neighbor’s baby monitor anyway, and Parker will end up in your vents.”
Eliot did not want to think about the fact that Hardison knew him well enough that he knew the exact thing that would make him surrender. After- well simply after everything- Eliot did not like being known. It created weapons and weakness that could be used against him. Yet, for once, being known did not cause pricks of fear, of his mind telling him to run, rather it seemed to offer sanctuary.
Parker perked up slightly, but her eyes never left Eliot’s face, “They’re good vents.”
It was probably a joke… probably. But, Eliot was still willing to call it out, “You don’t know what my vents are like.”
“Yeah I do. They are kind of a tight fit but nice. Pre-war building but recently modified.”
“Don’t be in my vents, Parker!” Eliot raised his voice but no one would consider it yelling.
Hardison interjected, “So you’ll stay here?”
Fuck if he was never good at saying no, especially to these two. He still gave himself a few moments to pretend to mull it over, “If it means you won’t be in my vents… you get one night!”
“Yay!” Parker swept in to give him a blitzkrieg of a hug, fast in and out, and Eliot’s body lit up like the Fourth of July.
“Fuck! The sutures, Parker! The sutures!”