The first time he meets a member of his future team is in a dusty bookstore in a town that he's forgotten the name of. He was leaving tomorrow, off to be a medic at the front lines, helping to heal the wounded, make sure that nobody was left behind.
He finds her hiding in a corner, watching the man at the front of the store, hand creeping almost without realizing it to the little brown rabbit sitting next to her on the floor. He loves kids, can't wait to be a father (once his duty to his country is completed), so he goes over, crouching next to her.
She glares at him, shrinking back, distrust radiating from every pore, and he thinks of the old adage about "Don't talk to strangers." He bites back a laugh, and instead asks her the name of the stuffed toy, which up close looks more threadbare then it probably should. "Bunny," she replies, and uncurls a little more.
He asks her what book she's looking for, all the way over here, far away from her (presumably) father. She looks at him, before "something about another place" pops out, biting her lip and looking down. He remembers needing books like that, but he hopes she doesn't have the same reasons he did.
He takes her hand, leading her to another shelf, one with books of magic and adventure, pirates and mystery, and, above all, escape. She smiles in thanks, already looking at the titles, toy hanging from her grasp. He asks her name, "Parker", and her age, "10."
"My name's Eliot," he tells her, smiling as he turns to leave. When he gets to the end of the row, he glances back, just in time to see her shirt rising to reveal a bruise stretching over her hip. The smile vanishes. He glances at the man laughing at a joke the teenager at the counter must have told, and considers hitting him, but decides against it.
He leaves the store without buying the book Aimee asked for, marking the first time he's missed an anniversary gift. It won't be the last.
XXX
He meets the second member undercover, trying to locate some arms dealer or another. He's in an abandoned subway tunnel, blending in with the homeless and criminals alike. He's sitting next to a teenager who falls under the second category, judging by the way he's holding his laptop and glancing around.
He senses them before they appear, men who are hired because of how well they can convince someone to see their point of view. The kid beside him tenses, moving to run. Oddly enough, he's taken a liking to the twitchy thing, Hardison, his name was, so he decides to lend a helping hand.
The dark means nothing to men like him, and the muscle are dead before they realize that this isn't the easy negotiation they thought it would be. He smiles at how easy it was, then wonders why. Hardison looks terrified, and rightly so. The smile reappears. He nods his head in the teen's direction, deciding now would be a good time to give him the answer to the question earlier asked of him. "The name's Spencer."
He turns, moving away from the bodies and the police. His superiors would sort out the mess later, what else was Uncle Sam good for but cover ups? The dealer could wait. He had unlimited patience, after all.
XXX
The next is during the time his career takes a detour to the blackest parts of the underworld, earning himself new names and rumors, working for some of the worst criminals a man of his skills can work for. He doesn't think about what he's doing, the lives he's destroying. The more his name is on wanted lists the more the government realizes how much an asset they truly lost in that prison in Croatia, and he hopes they can feel all the anger that he had when he realized they weren't coming for him.
He sees her from across the room, conning a sheik, flirting and laughing, champagne in hand. He would normally take her out, but his job is almost done, so he continues on with his act, smiling in all the right places.
He makes eye contact only once, and when he does he knows that they are same (or so she thinks), so they continue on with the dance. She turns to her partner and asks who the quiet man with the long hair is, and he replies that he doesn't know.
Five minutes later the man she is conversing with drops dead of a heart attack, and he's moving toward the exit he had picked out ahead of time, glad that the job is over and he can be paid. The death will never trace back to him, nor the man who hired the legendary man. The investigation will stall, all leads exhausted, and he will vanish back into the shadows until he is needed again.
He wonders if the other grifter managed to make it out alright. He suspects so. After all, if Sophie Deveraux can't talk herself out of this, then she doesn't deserve the admiration of so many rising criminals.
XXX
The last is when he's sloppy and gets himself caught. He wakes up after a week in the prison to see a man known to all those who do evil. Nathan Ford, insurance investigator extraordinaire, known to be able to catch any criminal with any piece of property insured by his company. Apparently he angered the wrong terrorist, because he's sitting in the cell across from him, looking like he wants a drink.
He is talked at by Ford, in between the hours when he is dragged out of his cell to a room where they attempt to pry knowledge out of his head. They fail, not seeming to realize that he's just immune to torture. He learns that Ford has a son at home, plays chess, and loves his job more than he can possibly imagine. Ford in turn learns that the bloodied man across from is the least talkative person he's ever met, and not much else.
On the day, two weeks after he first arrived, that Ford looks out the window and whispers that it's his son's birthday, he makes his move. He kills the men coming to take him out for their daily "talk" and keeps going from there. It takes him longer than he likes on account of the broken bones, but faster than most other people on the planet. When he's finished his rampage he reappears in front of Ford, holding a set of keys.
They make it to the street, Ford in shock over the sheer power of the man he's next to. When they turn to head in their opposite directions Ford pauses, asking for the man's name. "Al Mawt". There's a smile, then he's gone, turning a corner into the busy streets of Cairo.
*Al Mawt, to the best of my knowledge (in which I mean Google's) is death in Arabic. At least, how it sounds. And yes, I took slight creative liberties. A little. If you review you get a free visit from Christian Kane. Really.