A/N: Sometimes I wonder what did my plot bunnies drink and if they could possibly get me some of that... A small plot bunny who had been bugging me for months now and I wrote last night. Will be a series of one-shots whenever I have the muse for it or whenever you'll give me ideas.
Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage or Criminal Minds.
Story 1: Let's Go Steal A Bank Robbery.
The kids in the secluded end of the park were kicking the young boy, around three or four years younger than them. They were all screaming at him and laughing until one of them, who seemed to be in charge, marked them to stop.
"So," he told the younger boy. "Will you do our homework?"
"It's not my job to do your homework," coughed out the boy. "Do it yourself, McMillan."
"Now, now, Spencer," McMillan said. "This could be a lot easier for all of us if you just said 'yes'. Do you think we really enjoy doing this?"
"Actually, I do," Spencer bit out, only to receive another kick to the stomach.
The beating was about to be resumed when a new voice called out, "Why don't you go pick on someone your own size?"
"Eliot!" McMillan said with a big smile. "Here to join the fun?"
"Leave him alone," Eliot replied. "It's not his fault you're too lazy to do your homework."
"Come on," McMillan said. "Don't kill the fun."
"I'll do a lot more than that if you won't walk away right now," Eliot threatened.
The two teenagers looked at each other for a moment before McMillan gave up.
"Let's go, guys," he told the group. "He isn't worth our time anyway."
He walked away and they followed, but Eliot made sure none of them was coming back before leaning next to the younger kid.
"Are you okay?" he asked, reaching out a hand and helping Spencer stand up.
"I'm fine," Spencer said. "Been through worse."
"You shouldn't be," Eliot told him. "I'm Eliot Spencer."
"Spencer Reid," Spencer introduced himself.
"You're the genius one, right?" Eliot asked with a smile. "I think you were in my Math class last year."
"I don't like being called genius," Spencer muttered.
"You should," Eliot replied. "You got brains, kid."
"Brains don't stop them from kicking me."
"Well, now there's me to do that," Eliot said, allowing the younger boy to lean on him for support. "And guess what? I do my own homework."
From that moment on, Spencer Reid and Eliot Spencer were almost inseparable. Both of them weren't very popular due to the families they came from, but nobody actually dared to do anything that might piss off Eliot, so the two were left to their own.
They were each other's best friends, and swore it would remain that way. Soon enough, though, the two of them finished high school and they each turned to their own paths – Spencer being offered a scholarship in CalTech and Eliot joining the US Army. They remained pen pals for a while until one night when Eliot showed up scared and on the run.
"I gotta disappear," he said, "But I wanted to say goodbye before I do."
"Why do you have to leave?" Spencer, now sixteen years old, asked. "You're my only friend."
"You'll make more," Eliot promised him. "You just need to stop being so scared of them."
"Please don't go," Spencer said, holding on to his friend as he begged him to stay.
In the morning, Eliot was gone and Spencer was left with nothing more than a note saying he was sorry and the memory. He finished his PHDs and went to the FBI. He was accepted to the BAU and became a profiler. He made new friends, all the while keeping track of Eliot Spencer, whenever he could.
Little did he know, Eliot Spencer kept an eye on him, as well.
"Nate, I gotta go," the hitter said, running out of the kitchen and towards him room to grab his coat. "I'll probably be back tomorrow."
"Whoa, whoa!" Nathan Ford walked towards him, a glass of scotch in his hand. "We're starting a new case in a couple of hours, you can't just go."
"Sorry," Eliot said. "Gotta go. A friend needs me."
"A friend from the 'Scull smashing, head banging' gang?"
Eliot glared at Hardison. "A childhood friend," he said, heading towards the door.
"Eliot, wait, where are you going?" Sophie called after him.
"Virginia," he replied shortly before disappearing.
"Do you want me to follow him?" Parker asked from where she was laying on the sofa.
"I could always track his phone," Hardison offered.
"Do that," Nate said thoughtfully. "But first, find me what happened in Virginia in the past couple of minutes.
"Not much," Hardison replied, searching away on his computer. "A couple of small break-ins, a bank robbery with hostages –"
"That," Nate said. "What have you got there?"
"I don't think this is where Eliot went," Hardison said, reading in what he could about the robbery. "At least, I hope so. The FBI's all over the place."
"Why?" Sophie asked.
"One of the hostages is their agent."
Earlier that day, and with no awareness of what was about to happen between the members of the Leverage group, Spencer Reid accidently got himself into a hostage situation at the bank.
He wasn't on a case there – no, that would at least have some resemblance of making sense. He just went to the bank to activate his new credit card. And the bank got robbed.
'It could have been worse,' he thought to himself, looking at the thirty-something people around him. 'At least I don't have my badge, so they don't know I'm FBI. I'm just like any other hostage here.'
"Step any closer and I'll shoot the nerd kid!" one of the robbers called into the phone, pointing his gun at Spencer who sighed to himself. Of course it would be him they're going to shoot. "I want half a million and a way out of the country in the next hour or I'll start shooting people," he told whoever it was on the other end of the line. "No, this is where you're wrong, Agent Hotchner. This is not a negotiation."
Hotchner. That means the team was out there – Hotch, Rossi, Morgan, Prentiss. Maybe even JJ and Garcia. Spencer let a small feeling of relief creep into his mind. His team is out there. They will fix this.
They have to fix this.
"Now isn't really a good time, Hardison!" Eliot muttered into his phone as he was looking at the Federal Agents who were trying to find a way to get all of the hostages out of the bank without letting the robbers get what they wanted. "I'm kinda in the middle of something."
"And I suppose your plan to deal with that something was to walk straight into a group of world-class profilers?" Nate's voice asked from the other hand of the line. "How do you think that would help any of the hostages?"
"How did you find out about that?" he asked.
"Searched for news in Virginia and crossed it with your current location," Hardison replied. "Piece of cake."
"Well, this is my business, not any of yours," Eliot snapped. "So just leave me alone and let me deal with it."
"No," Sophie replied. "We're a team now. We help each other. Deal with it."
"This isn't any of your business," Eliot repeated.
"It became our business the moment it became your business," Nate said. "Now give me the details."
Eliot sighed. There was no way he was going to win this argument, was there?
"The robbers entered the building about two hours ago," he said. "It was most likely a planned robbery gone wrong when one of the cashiers set up the silent alarm. As soon as they heard sirens, they took out their guns and things got bad."
"How many hostages?"
"Thirty three, including the bank manger, four cashiers and the security guards."
"What about the FBI agent trapped in there?" Sophie asked. "Do you think the robbers knew he was there?"
"I really hope not," Eliot muttered. "It probably won't end well if they did."
"One last question," said Nate. "Are you there to help the robbers or do you know one of the hostages?"
"Hostages," Eliot said, not even paying attention to the fact that they honestly thought he was there to help people rob a bank after they threatened civilians. "An old friend."
"And…" Sophie's hesitation could be heard from across the line. "How close, exactly, were the two of you?"
"Does it matter?" Eliot all but growled.
"Considering the fact you almost handed yourself over to the FBI for them, yes, it matters," Nate retorted.
"We were close, alright?" Eliot said "Very close."
"Okay," Nate said. "We've got the building's layout here, and I'm gonna talk you through it. Are you ready?"
"Always," he replied.
"Alright," Nate said. "Let's go steal a bank robbery."
The Leverage team was in the middle of the room. Parker talking Eliot through getting in without the robbers seeing him as Sophie read everything they knew about the hostages, trying to guess which one was Eliot's friend. In the meanwhile, Nate went through the files Hardison retrieved about the FBI team that was standing outside and Hardison was trying to hack into the security system to hide whatever was going inside from the Feds.
"Damn, the FBI hacker is good," Hardison muttered to himself. "I don't know who they got, but they managed to notice I'm hacking them."
"Penelope Garcia," Nate supplied, reviewing her file.
"Penelope – are you saying Penelope Garcia's working with the Feds now?" Hardison questioned. "Man, that's just wasted talent!"
"You know her?"
"You can say that," Hardison replied. "I don't think there's a hacker who doesn't know her. It could be a problem, though."
"How big of a problem?" Eliot asked from the other end of the line.
"Pretty big seeing as she taught me everything I know," Hardison told him. "The bright side here is that she also taught me everything she knows."
A minute later left the FBI computers running the same ten seconds in which one of the robbers was pacing back and forth around the bank and the Leverage team with footage of what was actually going on.
"Earpiece in, Eliot," Nate ordered, leaning in to get a closer look of what was happening. "You've got five minutes before they realize what we just did."
"Copied that," Eliot said, putting his earpiece and walking inside.
During the first minute, it looked like nothing was going on. The hostages looked scared as always, the robbers were talking to each other nervously. Then, Eliot came in.
With three quick movements, he disarmed the robbers of their guns, tossing them to the other side of the room and out of anybody's reach. Not long after, all robbers were knocked out cold and on the floor, and Eliot opened the bank doors for all of them to come out before heading towards the FBI agent.
"You okay, genius?" they heard him say with unmistakable fondness. "They didn't heart you, did they?"
"Im fine," the agent said. "Been through worse."
"You shouldn't be," Eliot told him, pulling him into a tight hug. "Gave me the creeps there, Spencer. You should be more careful."
"I didn't want to be held hostage," Spencer replied. "It just happened."
"It always just happens to you," Eliot replied with a small laugh, pulling back.
"You got a minute until the Feds are there," Nate said through the earpiece, not taking his eyes off the screen.
"I gotta go," Eliot said.
"Please don't go," Spencer said, reaching out and gripping Eliot's arm. "Don't leave again."
"If I'm still here when your team arrives…" Eliot trailed off.
"I know," Spencer said. "But I just have to do this first."
And with that, he pulled Eliot into a short, yet passionate kiss.
"I honestly didn't see that one coming," Sophie muttered, looking at the scene.
"You and me both, sister," Hardison replied, mouth slightly open with shock.
The footsteps became closer and Eliot pulled back.
"I'll call you," he told the younger man before running out the back and disappearing.
This was not what Derek Morgan would call a good day.
They were given time off to get some rest after their last case and he was just lying on his couch, doing practically nothing while he was waiting for Reid to come back, when the phone rang. Wonder-boy got himself into a hostage situation.
On their day off.
Then, were little over two hours of fruitless negotiation that led them nowhere, a hacker trying to overrun Garcia's computer and the realization that something was definitely wrong just before the hostages ran out.
One, two, three, he was counting to himself, making sure they were all safe while looking for the distinctive haircut that belonged to their kid genius. Thirty one, thirty two… where's Reid?
That was the point he completely lost it, running into the building gun-first with Hotch and Prentiss only to find Reid standing in the middle of the bank, safe and unharmed as the robbers laid unconscious at his feet.
"Did you…" It seemed like Prentiss didn't even know how to complete this sentence.
"No," Reid said quickly. "There was this guy… he came in, knocked them out and disappeared. I didn't even see his face."
"Did they hurt you?" Hotch asked.
"No," Reid replied again. "I'm fine."
Morgan was walking around the bank, looking at the scene that was displayed in front of him. Whoever it was, they managed to over-hack Garcia, break into a bank surrounded with Federal Agents, succumb four armed men without a single shot fired and then get out without being noticed. Whoever they were, they were good.
Any other day, it would have probably bugged him. He would want to know who they were and why didn't they reveal themselves – he would consider them possible enemies without sparing a thought.
But today, they saved Reid.
He looked up to one of the cameras, through which he knew whoever did it was watching, and mouthed 'Thank you', before turning back to Reid.
After all, they still had half a day off.
