Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me
Beta: Thank you Mitchy and Diya!
Notes: WIP, not 100% if it's working or not so I'm posting to just kinda put it out there and see.

Cobb slouched at the bar, staring through the quarter inch of whiskey left in his glass to the scuffed veneer beneath. Someone took a seat at the stool next to him; he didn't bother to glance over, but when the bartender slid a bottle of beer across, Cobb clocked the expensive watch and gold cuffs attached to the hand that fielded it.

One more power suit, somewhere between here and there.

After a few seconds the man said, "Dominic Cobb, right?"

Cobb tensed and raised his head to look in the long mirror behind the rack of bottles and optics. The lounge area behind him was still empty; whoever it was didn't have back up - yet.

Still wary, he looked at the man who'd spoken. His fellow early morning drinker was in his early fifties and looked a little rumpled, but a long flight was a long flight, even in First Class. He dyed his hair subtly and wore a suit designed to flatter, but not disguise: the sum total was expensive – far too expensive for anyone who'd be looking for Cobb.

The guy did look weirdly familiar, though, and Cobb couldn't see any way that was good.

"No, sir. Wrong guy." He smiled perfunctorily and turned back to his drink.

The man smiled, so carefully friendly and non-threatening that Cobb was fairly sure he did it for a living. "Let me rephrase: You're Dominic Cobb and I have a proposition I'd like you to consider. My name is Browning. Peter Browning, of-"

Right. "Of Fischer Morrow. I know who you are, Mr. Browning. I read News Week." Cobb cast an eye over Browning and looked away again.

"Let me guess," Browning smirked. "You thought I'd be taller?"

Cobb shrugged. "I didn't think about you at all."

There were ways to talk to the most powerful men in the world and Cobb was aware this wasn't one of them, but he was floating on the soft cushion of his fourth shot of whisky and just couldn't seem to care. "What do you want, Mr. Browning?"

"To offer you a job," Browning replied simply and then smiled, a careful notch shy of a sympathetic grimace. "I know about … the unpleasantness, Mr. Cobb."

"If you know about the unpleasantness," Cobb's mouth twisted around the word, "then you know no one in their right mind would hire me."

"They would if they knew you were innocent," Browning said quietly. "If they could ensure your case were brought before a more open-minded board of enquiry."

Cobb's hand stilled on his glass; he frowned. "Get out of here."

Browning leaned forward intently. "Just hear me out."

"The answer's no." Cobb slipped off his stool and the world spun. He put a hand on the bar for support, reflexively raised the other to adjust his tie and then remembered he didn't wear a tie any more.

"I need your help, Mr. Cobb and you're the only one who can help. If clearing your name isn't enough, tell me what is." Browning waited a shrewd beat and then said, "Clearing your wife'sname, perhaps?"

Cobb reached for his glass and then drew his hand back - the last thing he needed was a palm full of broken glass. Again.

There was nothing he wanted more than to walk away. Almost nothing.

Almost.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. "You have five minutes."

"Fair enough," Browning agreed. "Let me get you another drink."

When the bartender had withdrawn, Browning leaned forward again and spoke quietly. "Corporate espionage."

Cobb frowned, puzzled. "You have your own investigators; they're good, Fischer Morrow only poaches the best."

"We know who did it – we knew who did it within hours - that's not the issue. We need the data back, and we need it done discreetly, but decisively. We must be seen as secure, but at the same time those responsible must be educated. Made an object lesson."

Cobb brought his glass to his lips and then shook his head. "So hire a few 'security consultants', fight fire with fire."

"I have fire." Browning turned to dig into his briefcase and then pushed a handful of files across the bar between them. "I've approached a number of outside specialists."

Cobb fanned the files and then looked up; arrested by the first name he caught. "Ariadne? You got Ariadne?"

Browning nodded and looked pleased, then slightly guarded. "Why, is there someone better?"

"No." Cobb smiled slightly and spoke with absolute honesty. "There's no one better. But she was out." He felt a brief pang. "What did you offer her?"

"Early release." Browning smiled thinly. "Perhaps she wasn't as out as you thought she was."

Yusuf. Eames. Arthur. Cobb shook his head; the crew Browning had put together could take down minor governments. At least one of them had, allegedly. "You have the best money can buy, what do you need me for?"

"Ariadne refused to do the job without you," Browning said, then realising he may have been overly honest, added, "but once I'd reviewed your career, I agreed. You've chased all of them at one point or another; you know how they work."

Cobb was two drinks beyond a critical examination of Browning's explanation; he let it go. It didn't matter anyway, only one thing did: "Tell me how you'd clear Mal's name."

Browning's expression hardened, all business. "The full weight of Fischer Morrow's resources will be brought to bear against ITA," he said crisply. "Your name – your wife's name – will be restored and I'd imagine a not inconsiderable sum would be due you in compensation. More than enough to pay college tuition."

Cobb stared down at the files again. On the topmost, Ariadne's passport photo smiled artlessly up at him; tucked behind her Eames smirked at the camera, behind him Yusuf looked almost shy in a mug shot. At the bottom, Arthur was as well presented as ever, but he seemed to be faintly annoyed. There was a sense of motion; Cobb suspected that whomever had taken the photo had been running not long afterwards.

"I believe it's been five minutes, Mr. Cobb," Browning prodded gently.

Cobb pushed the folders back and stood again, steady this time. "I'm in."

-o-

The warehouse that Browning had provided for their use was anonymously positioned in a cluster of mostly abandoned machine shops on the edge of Newark Bay. There was enough traffic that theirs wouldn't be noteworthy, but not so much that privacy would become an issue – or surveillance would be difficult to spot.

Cobb wondered vaguely how many times Browning had arranged something like this, then dismissed the question as irrelevant.

He let himself into the warehouse and drew the rusting corrugated door shut behind him. There were voices as he crossed the empty expanse of shop floor, but silence fell as he neared the office partition.

He stopped at the door and cleared his throat before raising his hand to knock. None of his new colleagues were known for their twitchy trigger fingers, but there was such a thing as heightened circumstances.

The door swung inwards before his knuckles could connect and Ariadne stood in the doorway. She was smiling warmly, but there was an anxious tightness around her eyes. "Dom."

"Hey, Ariadne." He smiled and her smile grew and the tension eased away; for them both, he realised. She hesitated and then stepped in for a light hug; he returned it just as she started to step away. Their timing never had been good.

Behind her, he could see Arthur, Eames and Yusuf had arranged themselves around the small office. It was strange, just for a moment, how much and how little had changed.

Ariadne was as he remembered; she still looked like a fresh-faced college student, maybe one who'd taken a wrong turn and ended up in the wrong neighbourhood: definitely not a criminal and certainly not one of the most successful thieves in the country.

Yusuf was poking at the coffee machine with a frown of concentration and a screwdriver, but he spared Cobb a quick nod of greeting. The last time Cobb had seen him had been three – no, four years ago. The man had put on a little weight and a goatee had appeared, most notably the jeans and violently coloured t-shirts had been replaced with a vintage corduroy look.

Lounging back in one of the plastic chairs with his feet propped up on the table, Eames was unshaved and red-eyed, his linen suit was crumpled and stained. He was clutching a mug as if his life depended on it.

It was an uninspiring sight, unless you were aware that, with a slight adjustment of expression and posture, Eames could present a very different front.

Any different front.

As if he'd followed Cobb's thoughts – and there was a pretty good chance he had – Eames shifted position and raised an eyebrow. Dissolute became relaxed, crumpled became casual.

Arthur was stood by the whiteboard, Cobb saw him roll his eyes. The man was as impeccably dressed as ever, though he'd removed his jacket and carefully hung it over the back of his chair as a concession to the heat. Arthur hadn't changed at all, not really, but the last time they'd met there'd been gunfire and now the man was handing him a mug of coffee.

Cobb took the mug with a nod of thanks and ignored the slight disorientation. "You've all met each other?" He stepped forward and put his briefcase on the table.

Eames grinned and raised his hands expansively. "We're practically family already. The suspicious looks, the silent recriminations, the venomous accusations over who made off with Great Aunt Vera's silverware after the funeral."

"Not me," said Ariadne with a crooked smile.

"The only thing missing is someone three pints in reminiscing about the time they streaked the footie," Eames finished.

"Okay," Cobb said with a faint smile, completely ignoring him. "Hitter meet hacker, hacker meet grifter, grifter meet thief." He pointed to each of them in turn and then strode toward the white board. "None of you have worked together before, but I've chased all of you, so I know your strengths and weaknesses - consider me the glue."

"Hitter, hacker, grifter, thief, glue?" Eames said after a moment. "No, sorry, that really doesn't work for me."

Cobb rubbed his eyes as Yusuf made a sound of agreement. "Mastermind? No, too super-villain. I realise we are technically villains, but that seems excessive."

"Oh! The Brain! He could have a cape." Ariadne's eyes shone and Cobb felt the corner of his mouth twitch into a smile despite himself.

"Architect," Arthur said with a touch of acid. "Can we move on?"

"Thank you," Cobb muttered. Some papers had already been stuck to the whiteboard; he added some more.

"We have, you know," Ariadne said, after everyone had found a chair. "Worked together before. Some of us, anyway."

Cobb paused mid-pinning and looked back over his shoulder, strangely intrigued. "Who's worked with who?"

"I worked with Eames." Ariadne smiled over at the man.

"And it was a pleasure," said Eames with a nod. "I've worked with Yusuf too," he added. "I get around. Never worked with Arthur, though." He shot a look to the other man. "My loss, I'm sure."

"You've gotten in my way before," Arthur said, but without any particular trace of annoyance. "Eversley."

Eames' smile widened into a delighted grin. "That was you? Oh, lovely."

"For you, maybe." Arthur frowned and Eames' grin died.

"Is this going to be an issue?" Cobb looked between the two men warily; both shot him almost identically affronted looks.

"Not when we're on the job," Arthur said shortly.

Eames nodded his agreement. "We're professionals, remember?"

Cobb stared at them both for a moment longer and then turned back to the board. "Fischer Morrow. They made their billions in weapons tech, but they've got fingers in infrastructure too – and lately they've been moving into domestic utilities. They're working on a clean energy technology and that's what they suspect a company called Vaultech of stealing."

"Only suspect?" Ariadne was leaning forward, elbow on the table and chin propped on the palm of her hand.

"Vaultech left some pretty big footprints in the system," Arthur said, and made a note on his pad. Cobb wasn't sure why – he had no doubt Arthur already knew as much, maybe more than Cobb himself did.

He supposed it was possible his notes were a grocery list, or the top ten ways to kill Eames with a paperclip.

"They did leave footprints," Yusuf agreed, but with more than a hint of reservation.

"But?" Cobb nudged.

Yusuf leaned comfortably back in his chair and crossed his arms with a smile. "Very big foot prints. Vaultech is far better than that."

Cobb paused and then lowered his hand from the board. "You've been in their systems." He didn't make it a question – of course Yusuf had been in their systems. Possibly even legally; hackers of Yusuf's ability tended to be in demand, regardless of their rap sheet.

"Oh yes," Yusuf said cheerfully. "Both systems, many times. I can promise you, if Vaultech had actually infiltrated Fischer Morrow's network in the manner Browning suggested, the evidence would have been significantly harder to find."

There was contemplative silence for a long moment and then Arthur spoke slowly, as if feeling out an idea. "You could have mentioned that earlier?"

"Why?" Yusuf looked genuinely confused. "Nothing changes, except perhaps things are more interesting now."

"He has a point," Eames said after another beat. "I mean, we don't care if Vaultech's innocent, do we? We get paid anyway." He glanced at Cobb and then studiously down at his nails.

"We care," Cobb answered levelly. "I'm not a thief."

"Right," Ariadne agreed, and went on in a clear, loud voice. "We care. Because we're law-abiding citizens with only the best interests of our great nation at heart."

"I already checked for listening devices," Yusuf assured Ariadne in a low murmur. "It's clean."

She brightened again. "Oh, in that case-"

"We still care," Cobb said flatly.

"And your great nation is not my great nation," Eames pointed out. "Although I do concede your pancakes are better. Tea's vile though, I completely understand why you lot rioted."

Arthur stared at him, apparently at a loss for words or possibly just unable to decide which ones he should start with.

Eames grinned. "Put the colonial outrage away, darling. I took history, I promise."

Arthur's expression did something complicated and slightly appalled as he tried not to smile and failed. He ripped a page out of his notepad, crumpled it into a ball and threw it at the trashcan across the room. "Moving on. How does caring change things?"

"You weren't even looking," Eames said. "Jammy git."

Once, many years ago, Cobb had considered following his mentor and father-in-law into teaching. He'd decided against it and never regretted the decision less than now. "Focus, Eames. Maybe a third party's trying to set them both up, maybe Fischer Morrow's setting Vaultech up. We still investigate all avenues, nothing's changed."

"This is exciting." Yusuf grinned. "Maybe Vaultech's setting themselves up!"

"Sure," Cobb glanced at him and tried to look encouraging. "Maybe that too. When we know what the score is, we take it to the highest bidder."

"The highest bidder or most connected?" Arthur asked bluntly.

Cobb looked at Arthur silently, until the other man nodded a fraction, and then he turned back to the board. He raised the marker and drew a third box, beside Fischer Morrow's and Vaultech's, and added a question mark to its centre

When he was done, he turned back. "Game plan: Yusuf – find out who or what left those footprints."

Yusuf drew his laptop closer and patted the case affectionately. "It will be our pleasure."

Cobb moved on. "Ariadne, we may need to get inside either of those buildings – get me blue prints, access points, fastest exits, security and so on. Ask Yusuf for help if it will be quicker than breaking in or diving off a building."

Ariadne's face fell.

Eames patted her shoulder sympathetically and then waved a hand between himself and Arthur. "And us, fearless leader?"

"Eames, get yourself hired on at both companies. Something faceless, but-"

Eames sniffed and held a hand up for silence. "Please don't go on, it insults us both."

Cobb laughed shortly under his breath. "Fine, you know what you're doing." He turned back to Arthur, who looked back with a pleasantly blank. Cobb shrugged. "You're the retrieval specialist, you tell me."

There was a flicker of surprise and then Arthur nodded. "If Vaultech doesn't have the information, someone else may – if we can find buyers, we have a better chance of finding the source."

"Good. We'll meet back here Monday, we should probably get some burner phones."

Yusuf shook his head vehemently. "No. Do you have any idea how insecure those are? Certainly not. Here."

He dug into his laptop case and extracted a soft cloth pouch, which he emptied into his palm.

Cobb picked up the ear bud offered to him carefully, if dubiously. "What's the range on these?"

"I don't recommend space travel. Not without some warning, anyway – I'd need a few minutes to re-task a satellite. Then you could go. If you wanted."

Yusuf looked around the ring of faces staring at him. "What?"

-o-

Ariadne was waiting outside the warehouse when Cobb finally tore himself away from the whiteboard long after the others had left. Hands jammed deep in the pockets of her felt coat and hair tucked haphazardly under her beret, she looked even more like the student she'd been when they'd met.

The student she'd been pretending to be when they'd met.

She hooked her arm through his, but didn't press close. "It's been a while."

"Three years," Cobb said, then, "You were out, what happened?"

"You know what it's like." Ariadne paused and then smiled wryly. "No, of course you don't. I love what I do, that's hard to let go. I lasted a year, but I fell back in."

"You could have called me."

"And said what? Would you have baked a lock pick into a cake?" She shook her head. "No. Mal had just … and you'd left the country. You didn't need my drama."

"I'm sorry," he said, because he was.

"I was breaking the law, Dom," she pointed out. "You don't have to be sorry – you put me in jail once too, remember?"

"Yeah, well." The silence was just shy of uncomfortable between them; he changed the subject. "So you've worked with Eames before?"

Ariadne's smile turned blinding. "On my last job, actually. The cops missed him, though. Jammy bastard," she said, mangling Eames' accent with almost bloodthirsty enthusiasm.

Cobb frowned. "He didn't-"

"Oh, no." She shook her head quickly. "It wasn't his fault. He tipped me off, actually. I was on my way out to New York when they picked me up. Should have taken the bus."

Cobb made a non-committal sound; Ariadne, despite her undisputed genius in her chosen career, remained almost wilfully naïve in some ways. And Eames - Cobb liked Eames, he genuinely did, but that didn't stop him from recognising that the man lied for a living and had the loyalty of a weasel.

"Do you really think Fischer Morrow can clear your name? And Mal's?" Her tone was subdued.

"I don't know." He honestly didn't, the hell of it was he had to try anyway. For Mal, yes, but mostly for Philippa and James and the life they were living without either of their parents.

"We'll do our best, you know." Ariadne glanced up at him. "We really will. And if Browning doesn't keep his side of the deal, we'll do something … dramatic."

"I know you will," he said, and wasn't surprised when she poked him in the ribs.

"We'll all do our best. It's good money, but Eames and Arthur weren't going to come in until they heard you were involved. Yusuf was already in," she admitted, "but only because Browning's people bribed him with encryption algorithms."

"Why?" Cobb stopped next to his car and paused, key half way to the lock. "Why are you doing this?"

Ariadne turned to face him; her fingers gently squeezed his, then she let go and stepped back with an impish smile and no answer at all.