Note – As all of you know, I don't do angst well. I just don't do it. I'm more inclined toward…silly. So this fic is going to be silly – how could it not, when Spinelli plays a supporting role? If you do not like silly and you do not like AU, you will not like this story and I advise you not to read further because chances are, it'll annoy you. Everything shall hopefully be explained as you go along, so I won't waste time making a list of things you need to know. Thank you to Julie/Jeweltones for providing the first line.
Hack 01
There were some things good girls just weren't supposed to do.
Carefully attaching a tiny camera mounted in a serial number sticker to the thermostat in Penthouse II was one of them.
But thankfully, Elizabeth Imogene Webber had never been a good girl – so far as she could remember, barring the time before the accident, of course.
It was a tiny camera, the smallest she had ever come across in all her years working with Stanford Johnson and his fine gang of tech wizards. Stan had made it for her, along with a bunch of other such handy gadgets, for her twenty-first birthday two months earlier. He'd included a discreet switchblade money clip with a built-in camera able to take 72 MB of pictures before running out of RAM, a flashlight-tape recorder that looked exactly like a pen, several wiretaps of assorted sizes and capabilities, and a handful of little cameras and put them all together in a fancy black case, like a miniature briefcase, and presented it to her at the party Sonny threw with a shiny pink bow on top.
Oh, he'd be pissed at her for using her first camera bug to tap the legendary Jason Morgan's penthouse!
Elizabeth smoothed the metal-backed sticker bearing a serial number and fine print instructions about thermostat operations onto the wall right above the push-button thermostat, being careful not to press on the miniscule circuitry mounted therein. Taking a step back, she studied her work. From what she heard of Jason from his best friend, he was an intelligent man with a keen, keen eye for detail.
But the sticker looked official in all its capacities and Elizabeth was satisfied that even a man with Jason Morgan's finely tuned sensibilities wouldn't be able to spot it.
She wasn't sure why she was taking such great care to infiltrate the penthouse this way – the same penthouse she was being thrown out of at moment's notice just because Sonny's stupid best friend called that morning and said he was coming home. As if that wasn't bad enough, he was bringing an associate.
Something about the situation rubbed her the wrong way, and before leaving the penthouse she had occupied for the past six years as the sole occupant, Elizabeth had taken care to install the little bug. It could very well turn out to be a bust, but more than half a decade spent as Sonny Corinthos's legal ward taught her to act preemptively. The ethics of the situation didn't really bother her – after all, she'd spent the past few years in the care of a man who kept her cell phone wiretapped just so he could rest easy knowing that she wasn't out getting herself into any danger.
If there was nothing worth seeing in regards to Jason Morgan and his associate, she would disconnect the camera from her laptop, retrieve it from the penthouse that was no longer hers, and that would be that. If there was something interesting going on…well, she'd know about it before anyone else, wouldn't she? And she'd know what to do.
Everything was coming up Corinthos, and she liked it.
"Elizabeth? You almost done, sweetheart? I'm going to get all your stuff moved upstairs, so you might want to come over and tell us where everything goes."
She glanced at the open door upon hearing her former legal guardian's voice. Even though she had recently turned 21 and was no longer legally his ward anymore, Sonny Corinthos was more her father than her biological one – the one that couldn't even stand to be in the same room with her when she woke up and couldn't remember who he was.
"Coming, Sonny! I'm almost done!"
She glanced at the camera again, this time from over by the closet, and was very pleased to see that it looked as inconspicuous as any of the other permanent fixtures in the now bare penthouse. All of her stuff had been hastily crammed into suitcases and boxes – by herself and Sonny's men, which was a trip, especially when Ritchie grabbed a box and accidentally found himself staring down into her underwear drawer – and was now across the hall in her guardian's penthouse.
Sonny was waiting for another one of his tenants to move out within the next week and after Penthouse V had been cleaned and repainted and refurnished, she would be moving in. Mr. Corinthos, mobster and racketeer extraordinaire, had insisted ever since she came into his life that a young woman her age should have her own private living quarters – it was only proper. His propriety always gave her such a kick.
"Hey, Toothpick." Max Giambetti rapped on the doorframe and grinned her way. "You ready to go? The Boss Man wants to make sure that we get your stuff squared away upstairs before dinner."
"Onward and upward, Maximillian," she shrugged, taking his offered arm and letting him escort her, fancy-style, to Sonny's penthouse across the hall. "I hope your friend Mr. Morgan enjoys Penthouse II as much as I did."
The bodyguard sneaked a sly glance at her. "You left him a few mementos, didn't you?"
He was most likely referring to the rat poison she'd left in the kitchen cupboard and all the artificial flowers she'd purposely set up on all flat surfaces in the master bedroom, and Elizabeth smiled. "Couldn't resist. We'll think of it as a little housewarming gift, won't we, Max?"
Sonny was waiting for her by the door, holding one of her favorite purple lamps that she'd bought when he'd taken her to India that one time. "I can't believe you brought your pornographic monkey lamp! This thing is not coming into my penthouse."
Elizabeth laughed and handed the souvenir off to Max. "Better go put this in Penthouse II, bud. Maybe Jason'll like it."
It was about ten o'clock at night, which meant that Elizabeth was out and about in Port Charles doing whatever it was that girls her age did. He'd never quite figured it out.
Sonny glanced at his watch and slowly walked over to the wet bar. Waiting was the worst. He hadn't seen Jason in about five or six years, and now that his best friend was presumably due any minute, Sonny found that he just couldn't handle the waiting very well. Without the guards or Elizabeth to keep him company, every passing second was enough to drive him crazy.
He poured himself some brandy and swirled it in the glass, finding it less appetizing than he normally would have. Still, he sipped it as he wandered his living room, taking care not to trip over the charger for Elizabeth's laptop. She had left the thing charging in his living room instead of upstairs in her temporary bedroom like he'd asked, but that was okay. He could never stay mad at the girl for anything, and certainly something as trivial as this wouldn't even register.
Carefully, he picked up his ward's most prized possession in the world and carried it over to the fireplace. Gingerly, he set it down on the carpet by the electrical socket and backed away as if he was Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom. That had been one of Elizabeth's favorite movies when she was sixteen. She had a monster crush on Harrison Ford that, frankly, he still didn't get.
He glanced at his clock and then at the neat living room and foyer. He and Elizabeth had already cleared all of her stuff out of there and set it up, so he couldn't even busy himself with that. Her arsenal of clothes had been stowed away in two separate closets and her little knick-knacks were sitting in their boxes in his other spare bedroom. All of her old textbooks were in the home office that he so rarely used, and her toiletries and personal items had taken over the bathroom on the upper floor. She'd stay here for about a week or two – he couldn't get out of that, despite the fact that he thought it inappropriate for the two of them to live together – and then she'd be moving in right next door, Penthouse V.
He'd have his best friend across the hall and he'd have his daughter right next door. And then everything would go back to normal.
"-that guy at the main desk in the lobby? Dude, Stone Cold, he totally looked like Herman Munster! I almost called him Lurch but I didn't because you hit me before I could."
Jason was about to reply, something to the order of how he'd known Damien Spinelli long enough now to know when he needed to be hit, when he saw his best friend standing in the hallway by the elevator talking to Max.
Sonny looked over, bursting into a wide grin the instant he saw who it was. "Jason!"
Spinelli hopped out of the elevator, momentarily unnerved by the matching grin that his stoic protector now wore. The boy watched carefully as his Stone Cold and this new man – a short, mildly greased Pacino-DeNiro type – gave in and hugged, following the embrace up with several loud and most likely painful claps on the back.
"It's good to see you," the Godfather was saying, still pumping Jason's hand. "You look good."
"So do you," Spinelli's Stone Cold replied, his hand on his friend's shoulder as he turned toward Spinelli. "Sonny, this is the kid I was telling you about – Damien Spinelli. This is Michael Corinthos."
"I go by Spinelli," the boy said, instantly sticking out his hand.
Sonny shook it formally. "I go by Sonny."
"Just like James Caan," the boy replied, grinning proudly. "You're, like, totally Pacino-esque right now and I'm just digging the vibe here, dude. Okay, hold on, let me jive with it for a second – this is really just too awesome. My circuits are on temporary iconographic overdrive."
Sonny tilted his head and glanced at Jason. "What's he talking about?"
The enforcer shrugged. "Been keeping an eye on him for four years now and I still don't know half the time."
Sonny shrugged. "It's good to meet you, kid. I don't really know much about you. You guys met in Italy, though, right?"
Spinelli nodded. "Yes, Sir. Stone Cold found the Jackal – or maybe the Jackal found Stone Cold – on the outskirts of Rome and if I can be arrogant for a minute, the Jackal totally saved Stone Cold's butt by dumping on the baddies right before they pumped him full of lead and Stone Cold returned the favor by rescuing the Jackal from his rustic boredom and bringing him along on his grand adventures and we've been like Mario and Luigi ever since."
Sonny regarded the boy for a minute and then pulled Jason back a step. "Excuse us for a minute."
"Yes, of course, Pacinoesque," he replied happily, giddy all over at the thought of standing in the company of the two greatest racketeering minds on the East Coast.
Sonny motioned for Jason to come closer and the younger man obliged. "First…who's Stone Cold?"
Jason tugged on his ear. "I'm pretty sure that's me."
"And the Jackal?"
"That's what he likes to call himself."
Sonny shook his head briskly but continued anyway. "Okay, so who are the baddies?"
"They turned out to be Cera's men, but he uses that word to mean any enemy."
"Hm. Mario and Luigi?"
"I'm guessing some type of computer game."
"Ah. Rustic boredom?"
"He's an orphan and he lived in one of the rural villages surrounding Rome. He'd just run away from home to the city when we found each other, so when he says rustic boredom, he means most of his life."
Sonny smoothed a hand over his face. "Okay, okay, makes sense. But what's a Pacino-esque?"
His best friend tugged on his ears once more, this time apologetically. "I think that's what he wants to call you."
Sonny gawked, then shook his head, drawing Spinelli's attention. "No, no, no, you're not calling me that."
"Not calling you what, Pacino-esque?" Spinelli wanted to know.
"That – that Pacino-esque thing," Sonny replied, wagging a finger in the boy's face. "That's not my name and I don't like it."
Spinelli appeared flustered. "…The Jackal meant no disrespect, Pacin- I mean, Sir-"
"My name is Michael Corinthos Junior," Sonny continued, giving him a stern look. "Sonny for my friends, and I don't like being called anything else. You will call me…"
"Mister Corinthos?" the boy guessed hopefully.
"-Sir," the mobster emphasized. "Got it?"
"Got it, Mister Corinthos-Sir," Spinelli nodded. "You're the boss."
Jason had been doing his best not to smirk this little exchange and was relieved when Sonny turned back to him with a more official air.
"So Spinelli's your associate, right?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Been with me for four years, saved my life on occasion."
"-But not as often as Stone Cold rescued the Jackal," the boy was kind enough to point out.
Sonny acknowledged him with a nod and looked at Jason for confirmation. Jason shrugged. "He calls himself my tech support – good with a computer, helps me out all the time."
"Good to hear it, good," Sonny nodded. "So your associate is rooming with you, right? We got the penthouse all cleared out for you two, and if you need anything, the guys only need to hear you say the word-"
"What do you mean, you got it all cleared out?" Jason wanted to know. "When I was leaving, you said you wouldn't be renting it out."
"I didn't," Sonny answered slowly. "But-"
"Iced coffees for all! Max, I got extra caramel on yours so – oh." Elizabeth Webber, two shopping bags on her arm and four iced coffees balanced in a paper tray in her hand, stopped and stared at the two newcomers in the hallway. "The Messiah has arrived."
"Elizabeth…" Sonny warned, doing his best not to smile at her sharp tongue. "Be nice."
"What?" she asked innocently, handing the three coffees off to Max after grabbing her own. "What did I say? I'm just rejoicing in the Second Coming."
She let the handles of her bags slip down into her hand and moved over to Sonny's side, appearing to take her rightful place at his right hand. For some reason, that irked Jason as he raked his eyes over the girl. She was young – very young, it seemed – with pale, pale skin and dark hair that she had currently styled into fat curls. She wore a denim miniskirt that came down to her knees with a soft pink tee that spelled out pretty in pink, and a pair of ballerina flats completed the look. Dressed in flat shoes, she only barely came up to Sonny's shoulder and his best friend was short.
And now, as she stood possessively behind Sonny's right arm, she appeared to be studying him with the same critical eye as she sipped her ridiculous drink, and Jason didn't appreciate it. Behind him, Spinelli was tittering.
"Dude, Stone Cold, it's a girl," he chortled, lightly punching Jason's shoulder from the back.
The girl rolled her eyes. "I take it you've never seen one of us up close before. Watch out – we bite."
"Elizabeth."
The little waif actually had the sense to look chagrined. "Sorry." But as soon as Sonny looked away satisfied, all remorse left those sapphire eyes and she looked at the two new men again, tilting her head in silent challenge.
"So this is the BFF and the 'associate,' I take it."
Sonny nodded and placed a hand on her back. "Guys, this is Elizabeth Webber. Elizabeth, this is Jason – remember, I told you about him?"
"How could I forget?" the girl muttered, whisking her bangs out of her face.
"And this is Damien Spinelli. He goes by his last name."
Jason watched Elizabeth wrinkle her nose. "Spamoni?"
"Spinelli," the boy corrected politely.
She tipped her head to the side. "Spaghetti?"
"Spinelli," he repeated patiently.
Elizabeth's lips tightened, a sign of conviction. "Spinoodly."
"Spin-elli," Jason replied hotly, knowing she was doing it on purpose.
The girl beamed. "Oh, Spinelli. Why didn't you say so?"
Jason's eyes narrowed as he stared incredulously at her. "Who are you, again?"
"My name's Elizabeth," she replied, leaning closer to conspiratorially add, "I go by Elizabeth."
Jason wasn't amused, and Spinelli wasn't without curiosity. "So, you live on this floor, too?"
She nodded and waved her hand back at the open door to Penthouse IV, pausing to slurp her almost depleted drink. "Yeah. I live here."
Jason's eyes widened and he looked straight at Sonny, who shuffled his feet awkwardly. Spinelli, on the other hand, didn't have a filter between his brain and his mouth, prompting him to ask, "Oh, cool, so are you Mister Corinthos Sir's girlfriend? Or the Missus Mister Corinthos Sir? I don't see a ring."
"Oh, we're definitely a pair, all right," Elizabeth replied, leaning coyly into Sonny's side. "He's my guy, my fella. There's nothing about this fine specimen of a man that I don't know. We've been together for years, you know. We're definitely red-hot lovers."
This last part she said while running a finger down Sonny's cheek as the older man practically wrestled to free himself from her iron grip.
Jason stared at his best friend, wondering why he was red and sputtering furious nonsense, while Spinelli looked at Elizabeth with wide eyes. "Wow. Really?"
Elizabeth pulled a face. "What are you, sick? No, of course not! Gross."
"Oh," Spinelli nodded, pulling back. "Sure. I knew it all along."
"So who are you?" Jason pressed. The name Webber was uncomfortably familiar. "I know I've heard-"
"She's my ward," Sonny interrupted, surprising the two newcomers. "Elizabeth became my legal ward at the age of fifteen and she's lived in Penthouse II for about as long. She's staying with me for the week before Penthouse V is cleaned up and then she'll be taking that one."
Jason's eyes darted over to the bored brunette. Sonny had mentioned a young girl about six years ago that had run into some trouble, but he'd never told him that he'd taken her on as a ward. This was unbelievable – bordering on ridiculous.
"So you lived in this penthouse?" Spinelli asked aloud. "How is it? Nice? Lots of rooms?"
"Better ask Jason," she replied sweetly. "It's his, after all. So, Spin-elli, what's your story? We've heard your name but we don't know anything about you. What's your deal?"
The boy puffed out his chest. "I am Damien Spinelli, also known as the Jackal, O Vivacious One. I'm a boy genius extraordinaire with the computer – there's nothing I can't do. I grew up in Toscanagna, a hick-town outside of Rome and then fell in with Stone Cold completely by accident, and he beneficently took me under his wing. Stone Cold and I have been traversing Eurasia, all the way from the moors of Scotland to the bomb shelters in Sarajevo; wherever he goes, I go. And now his hometown calls him home, and here I am."
"You grew up in Italy, huh?" Elizabeth asked, trying not to show too much interest. Italy was only her most favorite country in the world in the history of ever.
He nodded proudly. "That's the country where I've spent the most time. The least time I spent in…Spain. We were there for about three months and then we got the heck on out because the baddies were after us. Good food, though."
Elizabeth tilted her head and studied him. She absolutely loved to travel and thanks to Sonny, she had been able to visit just about every country on her wish list. And it looked like this Spinoodly character had built up an impressive travel log as well.
"Three months, huh? Did you speak the language already? Or learn it while you were there?"
"What language?"
"Pig Latin," she fired back automatically before Sonny poked her in the ribs. "Spanish, Spanish."
Spinelli blinked, trying to look innocent. "Do I speak Spanish?"
Elizabeth scowled. "Like, do you have good vocabulary? Can you conjugate?"
"I will if you'll conjugate with me," he leered, wriggling his eyebrows and thrilled that he had gotten her to fall into the joke.
Jason, too, was smirking but Elizabeth wasn't pleased.
She smacked her coffee to Sonny's chest and reached out, fisting Spinelli's lapels and dragging him close to her face. "Listen, nerd-"
"Hey!" Immediately, Jason was between them, trying to separate the two. "Let him go."
"Jason, watch it," Sonny growled, pushing him away from Elizabeth. "Be careful – watch what you're doing."
"She was beating up on my nerd," he replied defensively. "I mean – Spinelli."
"I will punt your face into next week if you get in mine again," she promised, picking up her shopping bags and snatching her coffee from Sonny. "Got me, nerd?"
"Got it, Dragon," Spinelli saluted as the brunette stormed into the penthouse she temporarily occupied.
"She's not usually like this," Sonny offered lamely by way of apology. "So…you guys wanna come in for drinks? You old enough to drink, kid?"
Spinelli shook his head. "No, Mister Corinthos Sir. I'm nineteen…but that doesn't stop me."
"Nice try," Jason scowled, turning the young man around and shoving him toward the door of the newly vacated Penthouse II. "Put your stuff away and go to sleep. No music, no Gameboy, no Zork Zero – bed. Go."
Sonny had to smirk as he watched the boy shuffle off. "You've got him trained pretty well."
Jason nodded. "I can get you a muzzle for yours if you want."
"Watch it, Morgan."