Curve
by Sweetprincipale
Post series. Hardison blows a con for an excellent reason- at least according to him. Hardison defends the woman he loves, and his family helps. A mostly light hearted story with a touch of revenge.
Author's Note: My very first Leverage piece was met with a few kind and enthusiastic reviews, so I posted another one. Please be similarly kind? It's still only my second Leverage piece, so I'm learning as I go.
Author's Second Note: I am not abandoning my other pieces or fandom, just taking a walk in a different one, so anyone waiting for other pieces to get updated, please don't panic. Also, real life has just thrown a surgery for my little one at me so that has cut short anything but short pieces for the moment. That's all my brain can handle.
Dedicated to: AGriffinWriter, WriterDragonfly, AdelePaker and the kind guest reviewers who gave me courage to try something new and Leverage-y.
Nothing of Leverage belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.
Nathan Ford looks mildly pissed off. Eliot Spencer looks very pissed off, but that's his default expression, and Hardison is pretty over it. He's also over the berating. He had plenty from the hitter last night, but he was too pleased with himself to really care. Nate being annoyed is another matter, something he actually does feel bad about.
"You blew your damn cover, Hardison. I can't- we agreed…" Eliot is fuming. He growls and flings his hand to Nate in controlled annoyance, clearly saying , "Your turn."
Nate obliges. "It's a good thing it's only a couple weeks before Christmas and Sophie and I were in the states, or we couldn't have made it in time to meet your mark for lunch today."
"The meeting is all set up, I've got Sophie's business cards printed up and you-" Hardison gladly jumps onto a new topic.
"I know you have everything either of us could need, and that's great, but it's not the point. We're retired-" Eliot and Hardison overcome their current irritation to share a smirk and eye roll, which Nate sees but ignores. "-and we can't always be on hand!"
"We've called you like, twice. And you've called us twice, too. We even." Hardison stands up, this foolishness, this time wasting game of "smack the hacker" is done.
"Even or not, you can't blow covers by going too big, or- what was it this time?" Nate squints. He didn't actually hear the full story of why they got a ten PM phone call last night, and had to take a red eye from LA to Seattle at a moment's notice, meaning they're here before breakfast. He assumes it's another grift gone too big.
Hardison mumbles something along the lines of "Does it really matter?"
"Hell yes, Hardison, it matters! We have to run the Vicarious Trout with seven hours notice, which is completely different from the Sympathetic Shark we were running already." Eliot frowns.
"It's a dude scamming a children's hospital with a phony Christmas fundraiser! Nate would have been all over this anyway!"
"I'm glad to help." Nate's face closes over.
That pained look is as effective of ten hours of Eliot grumbles. Nothing Nate likes better than taking down people who hurt sick kids. Also nothing he hates more than hospitals, kids at risk, and the holidays. Not to mention this is the first Christmas he and Sophie spend together as a married couple. Hardison sighs, guilt overwhelming him, even though if the situation were repeated, he'd do the same damn thing. "I punched the mark at the second rendezvous, after Parker left."
"You? Punched?" Nate turns to Eliot as if questioning this role reversal.
"Hey, I can control when I hit someone! Y'know. Now." Eliot shrugs and studies his boots for a minute.
"So, the mark thinks I was batshit crazy drunk, and Sophie will come in, tell him I don't represent the company, she fired my ass, she does her thing, all good, right?"
"Why?" Nate has his super brain face on, like he's living in a chess match.
"Well, 'cause I think the mark is going to 'trust' her more than you. She is the grifter, after all." His face darkens, losing his normal flippant or happy expression. "Think he prefers women. And he already met Parker."
Something in his voice makes Eliot tense and step in, arms uncrossed, expression losing its hostility. Nate glances at the hitter, but continues in his "mastermind leading you to divulge critical evidence" tone, addressing Hardison. "No, Hardison, I meant, why did you hit the mark?"
"He…" This isn't something he wants them to know about, really.
"Eliot?" Nate frowns and asks the other team member.
Eliot shakes his head. "Parker and I didn't hear anything, just a lot of broken glasses, shuffling, and shouting."
"Yeah- uh- my com kinda got knocked out."
"The mark kinda almost knocked him out." Eliot grins with one of his patented sarcastic smiles.
"Oh, no he didn't! I put my shoulder in it like you taught me- boom- blood everywhere. Right from the nose. Think it was kinda gross actually, don't know how you do that, all those people's bodily fluids everywhere, damn nasty."
Eliot's grin turns genuine, light in his eyes. "Did you hear a crunch? Did it spurt? If it spurted I bet you broke that sucker."
"H-hrm." Nate coughs pointedly. "Doesn't answer the question. And I think you're trying not to tell us, which means it's not really about the con… it's personal."
"Damn his mind." Hardison mutters. Eliot has to nod at that.
"You can't send Sophie in without the whole story. He might bring it up, and if she doesn't know what happened, she can't spin it to the way we need it to go." Nate explains the obvious.
He knows it's true. But he can't bear to tell them. Because if he tells them, they'll tell Sophie, and then Parker will find out the full story. "Look, man, it's… all Sophie needs to know is the dude is a jerk. A jerk! His mama oughta be ashamed, she raised such scum."
"He's ripping off sick children with a phony Christmas charity drive! We knows he's scum. He's even more scummy than that?" Eliot challenges.
"Yup," Is all the typically loquacious hacker will say, arms heading into his defiant, "You can do what you will, I will not break" cross of silence.
Nate turns to Eliot. "When did it happen?"
"Parker just met with them at the table in the hotel where the fundraiser banquet is going down. She laid out her - uh- story." Eliot swallows, his eyes suddenly softer. "Woman who lost her kid brother. Has a lot of green, wants to give some to the charity, wanted to get personally involved before donating."
Everyone is silent for a minute. Parker played a tough role without flinching. Nate makes a noise meaning Eliot ought to go on, but also might hide some other emotions.
"Parker left. She was only gone for a minute before I lost audio. The mark ordered another round with the waitress, and then he said something. He said it really low, like he was whispering."
"Wasn't whisperin', he was - usin' some kind of little rich boy snotty voice. Mocking. Yeah, mocking's a good word."
"Okay, well he was whispering his mocking, because I couldn't hear it, and the next think I hear is a grunt and then a lot of breaking glass and shouting."
"Knocked his chair into a tray of wine glasses." Hardison rubs his bruised knuckles.
Nate takes in the gesture, the posture, the way this normally cheery member of his team- fine, former team, current family- looks deadly earnest- and angry. Not an expression he associates with the talented man, unless… "Right after Parker left." Nate turns on his heel, walks to the window of the temporary base they've set up in Seattle, and then turns back hard, looking Hardison straight in the eye. "What'd he say about Parker? Did he hit on her? Threaten her?"
Eliot, as smart as he is, somehow failed to connect the dots, but he knows Nate hit it by Hardison's sudden flinch and re-setting of his jaw. "That was it?" Now he feels like an ass. He should have known. And he should have helped. And he really shouldn't have given Hardison so much crap about it. Since he doesn't easily apologize in words, even to the man who is like his brother, he knows it means he will have to do something. "I'll make the orange sorbet for the menu when we get back." Eliot mumbles, flicking his hair back.
"Thanks, man." Hardison has to smile.
Another bit of silence. Eliot breaks it. "You should've said. You think I'd let him threaten Parker?"
"She can handle threats." Hardison's smile widens, picturing his girl with her taser and the equally electric smile. "She can even handle come ons, man, we all know that." Nods all around as images of forks impaling slimy bastards dance in their memories.
"But he didn't hit on her. He didn't threaten her. He waited until she left- so he said something about her. To you. Something you found upsetting enough to hit him for, right there, something so upsetting that you forgot you were running a con." Nate spins him along, pulling the self-proclaimed geek into a revelation as the mastermind keeps correctly guessing his way to the truth.
Hardison sighs. Nate's too damn smart, even if he can't operate the plasma web interfaces he built in the office. "Started with saying he'd never worked a sister before. Only moms and rich old grandmas who have sick little kids in the hospital." Hardison begins.
"I heard that." Eliot remembers with a scowl.
"Yeah, then this waitress came over- you'd like her El. Built the way you like." Hardison has an edge in his voice.
"I don't have a 'build' I like, Hardison." Eliot gives a sudden lecherous grin. "Red head?"
"I don't know, man, just- kinda fuller figured, if you get what I'm saying?"
"Why does the waitress matter?" Nate interjects.
"Because she was a little thicker, and the mark turned to watch her walk away- and he said he could tell Parker wasn't a mother, and probably never would be one. Girl had no curves, and no man'd - uh- tap that." Hardison swallowed angrily. "Y'know what, let me go back and run the con today, I just beat the phony checks outta him and then I'm gonna stomp on that little ascot he was wearin' until the real money pops out his sorry, shit-talking mouth."
"And that is what we call 'personal involvement'." Nate sighs heavily.
"Oh, like you never got personally involved?" Hardison tosses back.
"Dude. People killed his dad and - you-Parker isn't- this is not the same level." Eliot harshly hushes him, again lost for words. That never really happened before he started working with this team.
Nate shrugs it off. "All right, so he insulted Parker. And she is - um- slender, Hardison. Gorgeously slender." He feels compelled to add before the furious gaze lands on him.
Eliot shakes his head and snorts. "I'd tap that. I mean, the figure. A girl, with a figure like that! Not Parker! God, Hardison stop glaring at me, it doesn't really work, you just look like you're concentrating too hard on your fairy wars game."
"Orcs! Warcraft! And you watch your mouth!"
"We've all gotten insulted on this job." Nate is the voice of reason, trying to bring them back on track.
Hardison is not feeling reasonable. "He's just so- wrong, Nate. Parker has plenty of curves." Unexpectedly, a slow smile, a private faraway smile, spreads across his face.
All he ever saw at first was the curve of a spine. But never had a curve looked so magnificent. All pale and muscled, usually taut as it is halfway through a stretch of taking something off or putting something on. He fell in love with the curve of pale shoulder under white-honey hair, and the tiny notches of bone running down to slim hips that spun like magic through a field of lasers.
Then, the curve of lips. A smile. Crazy, evil, maniacal, self-satisfied. And yet somehow, that caught his eye. He couldn't wait until the smile was at him. Until they smiled together, at each other, until they laughed together, and he saw layers and layers under that smile, smiles for a million reasons.
The curve of her cheek. Under his hand. Comforting her. The curve of her shoulder under his head. Comforting him. The small, soft curve of her breast under his head, letting him hear her heartbeat, letting him know that he was allowed in there, the one security system Parker had that no one had ever managed to gain entry into, not for decades.
"She's so beautiful. You- you don't know it, 'cause you can't see…" His voice was all thick suddenly. "She's got curves. In all the right places. All the places for me, and - and if I ever had a kid, I wouldn't want no other mama for that baby but her. And you don't- you don't judge my girl based on her body, like she's some thing, not some person." He felt his teeth gritting hard enough to crack the fillings, his nostrils strained at controlling the enraged breath. Why his girl had to learn, had to learn in her twenties, that she's a real person, with real feelings, not just a noun. More than "Thief". She hated the way she turned out, because she- she couldn't see herself as anything more than skills and money. And it broke all his self-control to have some bastard hear her pour out a story, even with fake details, but based on the real thing that broke her heart and started breaking the rest of her- and all the scumbag could see was the amount of flesh on her bones.
Eliot's hand came down hard on his shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts. "Once the money's back to families- want me to show you how to break a jaw? To match the nose?" He gives a little, evil smirk. "It'll keep the jackass quiet if his mouth's wired shut."
Hardison is about to eagerly accept, but darts a look at Nate, sure he won't approve.
Nate is musing, his deep thinking face on, but a twinkle deep in his eye. "Uh- Eliot…I don't know if that's a good idea."
"Nate- Parker doesn't need to-"
"No, Eliot, I mean, if you show Hardison how to break his jaw, what does that leave for me? I'm thinking… fingers. So there's something for everyone."
"That's what I'm talkin' about!" Hardison crows. And it doesn't matter if they ever carry it out. It matters that his family defends his girl. Their girl. That they know she's beautiful, and maybe one day she'll realize it too.
Of course, they have to make it look accidental. And of course, Hardison would be recognized. But he's content, after simmering down and getting a good night's sleep, head nestled on the snowy shoulder he so loves, to make it a family affair.
The mark is seething, completely sucker punched, figuratively, that his charity scam got rumbled, and his fat faux account is suddenly empty. Empty! His mysterious new donor vanished, and so did the sexy Brit who replaced the angry guy who broke his nose. It's been a very surreal two days.
He's more than a little drunk and extremely exhausted when he flees out of the hotel's grand lobby into its spacious, ornate landscaping. He staggers, hand half over his eyes, dragging down his forehead, when he realizes he's also a bit confused. It's a maze of hedges and littles trees, fountains and water features, and it's dark. He's now also a little lost.
He turns sharply and immediately lets out a howl of pain. He's slammed into a stocky, muscular jogger and his older companion who looks as if he's out for a walk with his evening paper.
There's a series of exclamations and apologies as the short guy somehow manages to head butt him or something, hard, in his jaw, and he falls, tearing the pants of his expensive suit. As the jogger attempts to help him up- crack! A head or elbow forcefully meets his jaw in the same spot. He's reeling but this time the older man prevents him from hitting the pavement. Now both men are endeavoring to assist him, pulling him to his feet, but it's not exactly helpful as the second man's grip and tug manages to snap a finger! The two facial assaults, one on the way down, the other as he's being yanked to his feet, topped with the hand incident, leave him cursing in pain, trying to figure out what's broken and what pat of his anatomy he should clutch.
"Oh man!" Eliot says with his perfect, easy charm, appearing oblivious to the severity of the injuries. "Sorry about that! You just came out of nowhere! Didn't mean to bump into ya'. " He pats him hard enough on the back that there will be bruises tomorrow.
"Yes. So sorry." Nate pats his arm with the paper and gives him a strangely satisfied smile as they walk away, leaving the man dazed. They're listening to Hardison cheering in their ears over the coms. Nate conceals his gloating grin long enough to call back over his shoulder, "You know- you really have to watch out for those blind curves. They sneak up on you."