The team elements have divergent opinions on how to deal with bumps on the road and fight about it.
"Let me get this straight" Emily said as she pinched the bridge of her nose in a gesture of impatience, "You can hack into the Pentagon in record time, leaving clues behind that led the FBI to Chaos, avenging our mother and at least two Lucilles, but you can't hack your father's computer?"
They were at the Headquarters in front of the six screens TV, in the middle of the electronic chaos Hardison tended to create around him whenever he was onto to something. The idea was that Izzie would hack into the Headquarters' computer tracking down any information her father might have on Collin's mother; the only problem was the girl didn't want to do it.
Jake was trying to find something to do with some of electronic pieces scattered on the work table, the twins were both facing the hacker as Collin watched from behind, he had a feeling things were starting to get serious.
"I am sorry, I just can't" She shrugged, hugging her own body to shield herself from any discomfort.
"It's because you're adopted isn't it?" Emily asked violently. Her sister' eyes widened not believing what her twin had just said yet she smiled wickedly, ready to play the game.
Jake jumped from the table he was sitting on, playing with some kind of robot, ready to defend his sister.
"Hey!" He was shoved back by Collin's arm that hit him on the chest making him stumble back; the twins were still bombarding his sister with very inconvenient questions.
Autumn watched the girl carefully as she tried to make sense of her sister's words. "That doesn't make sense; she knows they love her and that she is as much of her daughter as Jake is their son..."
"Oh yeah? Take a look at her face." Emily insisted. Autumn approached the red-haired girl, her hands on the chair's arms trapping the hacker in.
"She's scared; Em, you're right... But why? Why would you be sacred after twelve years of living with us? Why now?"
"Maybe it's not her adoption that scares her, maybe is the fact Collin is going to find his real family, maybe she's scared he will leave..." Emily suggested
"I am not ever going to live you!" Collin shouted as he kept a struggling Jake against the wall he had pushed him onto. Yes, he knew the twins were messing with Izzie's head and that was a little bit cruel, he knew Jake wanted to protect his sister, however, he really needed them to do that, all of them.
"No I don't think that's it, she was so enthusiastic about this just a minute ago" Autumn reflected. "She only got scared after you told her she'd have to hack into Hardison's computer, even more after you mentioned adoption..." Autumn's face enlightened.
"It's a question of honour!" Emily cocked her eyebrows.
"I am sorry, Autumn, a question of what?"
"A question of honour! It is, isn't it?" She asked staring into Izzie's eyes.
"Oh, she still has conscience. That's adorable!" Emily said and wrote something on her ever-present notepad, as if she didn't have a conscience anymore.
"It's really inconvenient though!" Autumn added as if she thought a conscience was a bad thing.
"Still adorable, besides I am sure you can work you can work your magic around it.", Emily said with a shrug as she sat on the floor, even though she was astonishingly clever she wasn't half as good dealing with people as her sister was.
"You feel like you're betraying the man that saved your life by hacking into his computer, searching through his private things!" Izzie shifted in her chair uncomfortably, giving herself away.
"Look, you don't owe them anything, they adopted you not only to save your life, but because they loved you ever since they first saw you. Besides even though you're doing wrong, going through your father's computer and all, you're doing it for a greater good." Jake's face showed contempt at the "greater good" sentence, she was starting to sound like a brain washing politician. "Our parents break the for the sake of what's right... They won't judge you by staying at your cousin's side... I promise!" Izzie shifted again, avoiding Autumn's gaze.
Emily and Collin smiled knowing Autumn had just won Izzie's conscience, Jake was just disgusted that his own family was trapping his sister, manipulating her for profit. Her conscience was a good thing, the thing he admired the most about her.
He lost his the day he stole his first toy at Kindergarden, not caring the parents of the robbed child had worked hard to buy that toy, stealing it just because he could. Her sister though, kept her sense of honour and it sounded awful that the twins were trying to take it away.
Izzie started the computer.
"Autumn, give me my glasses please..."
"So we're doing this?" Autumn asked with a big smile on her face.
"Yeah, we're definitely doing this!" The red-haired said as she put her glasses on, Collin finally allowed himself to breathe. Emily sat next to Izzie on the left arm of the chair as Autumn occupied the other and they both kissed the girl on the face at the same time, hugging her so hard she had to struggle for air.
Jake abruptly got on his feet, he was mad the twins had entered his sister's head, reading her fears, crossing her privacy, using it to make her do what they wanted her to do...
"You two ever do that to my sister again and I swear I will rob you of everything you ever loved!" Jake was not a fighter type and he loved those girls, but no one messed with his beloved sister and best friend, not even the twins.
"You do that and I tell my dad who broke his model ship two months ago!" Autumn threatened casually, they were fighting like that all the time.
"Oh yeah?" He gulped. "Then I tell your mother I think she sings great and I'll encourage her to sing every time you are around!" Collin chuckled at the threat and decided to intervene before someone declared war.
"Whoa, nobody is encouraging aunt Sophie to sing, you hear me? Nobody!" Izzie twirled on her chair.
"Yeah, Jake, it's sweet you're defending me and all... Aunt Sophie singing? We would all suffer from that..."
"You are evil, you know that? Evil!" Jake shouted at the twins as he stumped on the floor.
"That's right; we are!" Autmun said happily.
"That's why you shouldn't get on the wrong side of us Jaky, boy!" Emily affirmed as she left the room pulling him with her, mischievously smiling.
"Where are we going?" Jake asked pushing her way, not wanting to be touched by the person he was mad at.
"Oh you know, just checking with Amy, telling her that we are not dead and nothing blew up yet..."
"Ohh, do you think she'll give us cookies?" He said all jumpy; excited with that idea. He didn't hold any resemblance with the boy that was so furious at her, just a few moments before.
"I don't know... I think uncle Eliot told her not to give us sugary things..." Jake abruptly stopped in front of her grabbing her by the shoulders with a very serious face.
"Can you get her to give us cookies, Em?" She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Two minutes ago you were seriously threatening me of making my mother sing and now you want cookies?" Jake brushed the back of his neck; that had been a little over the top.
"You see, there's a part of me that's mad at you two for what you did, there's a part me that actually understands why you did it and then there's a part of me that wants cookies, badly. Can you get us some cookies or not?" The girl responded by pulling him to her, surrounding his waist with one arm and squeezing him lightly as they walked.
They got back to the headquarters with a box full of Vanillas cookies; nobody ever ate the chocolate ones around Izzie; it made her sad she couldn't eat something she loved so much and the others didn't like to shove that on her face.
"There isn't any recent research on your mother on this computer..."
"Try starting your research twelve years ago when Collin was born and advance from there.", Emily said as she stuck a cookie in her mouth; Jake had three in his and couldn't currently chew with his mouth closed.
"You're gross, you know that?" Autumn threw a pillow at him.
"Do you think he still has records from twelve years ago?" Collin asked Emily, ignoring the current scenario of Autumn and Jake throwing things at each other behind his back.
"Hardison has records of everything" Em stated simply as she wrote something more on her notepad. A few minutes later the computer made a beeping sound and several pictures of Eliot's mother starting showing up on the screen, as well as pictures of different men.
As Izzie advanced on her father's research, men started disappearing from the screen until there was only one left.
"Well, I guess these are your parents!" Autumn and Emily said at the same time looking at the two only pictures on the screen.
Are the twins really evil? What do you think?
Please review, your opinion on this story makes me very happy.