A/N: Just a short little ficlet because I started thinking about thieves, con men, and gamblers and then I knew that I had to put one of the Leverage men into a dress. I dismissed Nate and Eliot and then this fic came to life.
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The Dress
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"Why do I have to wear a dress?" Hardison demanded, stifling the urge to move. The last time he had moved he had gotten poked by a pin. Who knew that it was so hard to fit a dress on a man? "I'm a hacker, not a transvestite."
"We need someone to distract Sumrow while we break into his office and you're the only person we've got," Nate answered, watching the fitting in slight amusement.
"But shouldn't one of the women be doing this? I mean, isn't this more of Sophie's kind of a job?" Hardison tried yet again. He finally shifted to his other foot and got poked in his side by a pin.
"Hold still," Sophie ordered, pausing for only a second before continuing with the fitting.
"We can't use Sophie for this; Sumrow knows her as my assistant who is secretly running my company and it would be suspicious if she just showed up at the bar out of the blue." Nate stopped watching Sophie make Hardison over to check up on the feeds they were getting from the bugs implanted in Sumrow's offices. Everything was going according to plan. Sumrow was beginning to pack up in the office, but it would still be about a half an hour before he left the office and just a bit longer before the man reached his preferred bar.
"Well, what about Parker?" Hardison barely restrained himself from gesturing at the blond thief, who was making no attempts at restraining her amusement. She was currently leaning against Eliot, recovering from her last laughing fit. "I mean, we've switched jobs before and I happen to think I make an okay thief."
"We need to get Sumrow's security card off of him, get to the office building, get in, get what we want, and then get the card back to him before he notices that it's missing," Nate listed as he turned away from nine tv screens. "We need a master thief in order to do that; which means that we needed a guy to distract Sumrow."
"Then why am I wearing a dress? Why can't I just go as myself, dressed as a guy and distracting him as a guy?" Hardison scowled at the dress that they were making him wear. It was purple, for god's sake!
"There's only one reason that Sumrow goes to that bar, and it isn't to talk with anything male," Eliot interjected. He smirked at the hacker. "Face it, Hardison, you're wearing a dress to that bar."
"Why aren't you the one to wear the dress, man? I mean, you have the hair and everything," Hardison protested, actually motioning at Eliot.
"I don't look like a girl," Eliot said in a tone that discouraged argument.
"And I look like a girl?" Hardison exclaimed. Sophie smacked at him when he tried to move to show his outrage.
"I don't have the body type; you do." Eliot shrugged as if that was that.
"Besides, we need Eliot to head with Parker to the office; make sure that she can get in and out of the office all right," Nate added, hoping to prevent an argument.
"What about you?" Hardison asked as a last ditch effort. He was pretty much resigned to the fact that he was going to be wearing the purple dress to the bar, but it was worth a shot.
"Nate's too old," Parker answered in a matter of a fact tone.
"What?" Nate looked to Parker in surprise. "No, I am not old."
"You're playing a senile old man," Parker pointed out.
"And you really wouldn't pull off the look," Sophie added, stepping away from Hardison for a moment to give Nate an appraising look.
"The keyword is playing; I'm really not senile and I am not old." Nate gave them all a stern look. "And I could play a lady if I wanted to, but I can't because Sumrow already knows me as Everett Fluet."
"Sumrow wouldn't be interested in him anyway," Parker tried to whisper to Eliot, but everyone heard her anyway.
"Anyway," Nate loudly said as he whirled around to check on the tv screens. "Sumrow is leaving his office; are you almost done with Hardison's outfit, Sophie?"
"All done," Sophie proudly said as she stepped away from the stool that Hardison was standing on. "You're going to have to be careful how you move so the pins won't get you, but it should hold up for the short amount of time that you need it to."
"Can I just say one thing before you all send me off to be a drag queen?" Hardison asked as Sophie helped him down from the stool.
"What is it?" Nate turned to face Hardison, clearly expecting another argument against his wearing the dress.
"You guys do know that I can hack into the locks at Sumrow's office, don't you? I did the same thing on the last job that we did, in fact, that job was harder because of all of those dogs that we had to distract before we could get in." Hardison gave Nate a hopeful look. "That means that I don't have to wear the dress and we could leave Sumrow alone to enjoy the drinks and the actual women."
"Actually, you wouldn't be alone in that bar," Eliot said. "Not all of those ladies are ladies, if you know what I mean."
"We need someone to distract Sumrow at the bar; he's known to take people back with him to the office instead of a hotel or home to his wife," Nate shot Hardison down.
"Besides, I didn't do all of this for nothing." Sophie motioned at Hardison in his full drag queen glory. She gave the purple dress another look of pride. "I knew helping out backstage would be useful at some point."
"Look on the bright side," Parker said, clapping her hand on Hardison's shoulders. "With the fake boobs you look kind of like a woman."
"Really?" Sophie gave Parker an ecstatic look, even though the comment had been directed at Hardison.
"You look kind of pretty," Parker added.
"Really?" Hardison gave Parker a happy look before clearing his throat and trying to look serious. "I guess I am the only person who could pull this off."
"Now let's go steal a bar," Nate ordered, heading towards the door. Sophie followed right after him and Eliot grabbed his set of car keys before following them. Parker gave Hardison another smile before skipping out of the room. Hardison could hear laughter the second she left the apartment and he winced as a pin pricked him. He would never be able to live this down.