The briefing went smoothly enough, or at least as smoothly as they could go with this crowd. Hardison had given a million like them before and he'd give a million more. It was the standard story: Some crusty old white guy breaking labor laws left and right, probably embezzling money and doing some other shady stuff while he was at it. He was also way too obsessed with his family's candle business. Parker was already adjusting her new rig. Sophie was practicing an outlandish russian accent. Nate said let's steal a state fair and that should've been that.

"What are we going to do with Lee?" Eliot asked. "The fair ain't exactly local."

"We should bring him along," Parker said.

Nate exchanged a look with Sophie "Do we really want to drag him into this?"

Sophie shrugged. "He'll be fine. It's the state fair, how dangerous could it be?"

Nate turned away from her and looked to Eliot, who shrugged, Nate sighed. "Fine. Hardison, can you…?"

Hardison resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Yes, I can babysit, but you guys better help."

And so it was settled: they were going to steal a fair and Lee was coming along.

—

Living with Eliot was weird, Zuko decided. Weird, but not really bad? All of the other thieves showed up and disappeared at odd times and he was pretty sure that Eliot never slept but he let Zuko help cook and he didn't ask any questions when Zuko had nightmares. So, he was starting to get used to it. At least until Eliot walked in one day and said that he needed to get packed up because they were going to the fair or something. Maybe he should just stop trying to understand the mess that his life had become.

He didn't have much he needed to pack. Just the new clothes that Sophie had insisted on bringing him shopping to get and his backpack of essentials and avatar files that there was no way he was leaving behind. Eliot apparently had nothing to pack at all so they were out the door and on the road about fifteen minutes later. Yep. Living with Eliot was weird.

—

They checked into a hotel just after lunch. And as soon as that was done, Zuko watched as everyone promptly disappeared citing various implausible excuses, and leaving Zuko along with Computer Guy — Hardison. And then, because he was the only other person standing around, he got dragged into helping him set up the unnecessarily excessive amount of computer stuff he'd packed. Zuko should've disappeared too.

He finally managed to get away and hide in a corner between a bed and the wall with his avatar files because if they weren't actually going to the fair he wanted to be doing something more useful with his time than whatever Hardison kept dragging him into. He didn't manage get very far though before he was interrupted again, just like every time he tried to get some research done, this time by Crazy Thief Lady who appeared out of nowhere and was staring at him.

Zuko didn't jump. He was getting better at that — the whole not jumping when she just suddenly appeared thing. He did glare at her though. "What do you want?"

"I need your help with something."

Zuko was very dubious of anything that she needed his help with. "Does it involve breaking into somewhere?"

"No! Well, only a little," she admitted. "Barely."

"No."

"Come on, it'll be fun!"

Zuko crossed his arms. "Fun like jumping off a building?"

"I thought it was fun," Crazy Thief Lady said because she was crazy. "But not as fun as that."

Zuko glared at her.

Crazy Thief Lady stared at him.

Zuko glared harder. He was not going on a potentially crime-filled outing with her.

—

Okay, so Zuko may have lost that argument which was why he was now in front of the stables area. It was filled with horses. Normal horses. Not water horse-buffalo, or ostrich horses. America really was filled with all sorts of strange animals. Next to him, Crazy Thief Lady was giving the horses a suspicious look and muttering something under her breath. Zuko only caught a couple of hints of what she was saying but it sounded like 'clown murderers' and he decided that he didn't want to know.

"What are we doing here?" he asked.

Crazy thief lady gave the horses one last dirty look and then turned back to him. "You see that office over there?" she asked, pointing to the opposite end of the stables.

Zuko nodded.

"I need you to break into it."

"Why can't you do it?"

"Too many horses," she said, which only added evidence to the fact that she was clearly insane.

Well, Zuko had already lost this argument. He wasn't about to have it again. "Fine. So, I break in. Then what?"

Crazy thief lady gave him a little grin and handed him a piece of plastic. "Put this in your ear."

"When I get there?"

"No." She shook her head. "Now," she said like it was supposed to be obvious when she was the one changing the subject on him.

Zuko gave her a look, but slipped the thing in his ear. It fit neatly, surprisingly enough.

"Now we can talk to each other," Crazy thief lady said and started pulling more pieces of black plastic out of nowhere. "You'll need these too," she said, shoving them at Zuko.

He still had no idea what any of this stuff was, so he put it in his pockets.

"I'll tell you what to do once you get there."

"Okay," Zuko said.

"What are you waiting for?" Crazy thief lady asked. "Go!" she said, giving him a little shove down the isles of stalls.

—

The office door was locked. Zuko really shouldn't have been surprised by that.

"You don't know how to pick locks, do you?" Crazy Thief Lady's voice crackled in his ear.

"No."

"Hmmm, how about picking pockets?"

"No!" What sort of education did she think he had?

"Another thing I'll have to teach you then," she said, matter of factly. Hadn't one of them said something about him leaving? Why was Crazy Thief Lady acting like he'd be staying around long enough for him to learn all of these crazy thief skills? "How about crawling through vents? You can do that, right?"

Zuko had personally never crawled through vents, but doing that sounded a lot more tolerable than whatever else she might think up if he said he couldn't. "I guess."

"Great!"

Crawling through vents turned out to be surprisingly not that bad. Sure they were a little dusty and cramped, but he'd snuck around some of the secret passages in the palace that had been worse.

"Now what?" he asked, landing in the center of the deserted office.

"Now we steal their information."

Following Crazy Thief Lady's instructions, Zuko plugged the piece of plastic that was a flash drive into the computer. The computer did a lot of things that Zuko didn't really get, but he unplugged it when it was all done and put it back in his pocket. He was then instructed to hide what Crazy Thief Lady said was some sort of listening device, bug thingy and then he left.

Crawling through the vents was easier the second time around.

"Are we done now?" Zuko asked once he'd met back up with Crazy thief lady and handed her back the flashdrive.

"Nope!" she said way too peppily. "You did a good job though. Now we need to do it again."

—

Hardison really should've noticed that Lee was gone before he followed Parker through the front door of the hotel room that afternoon. Especially since Nate had put him in charge of babysitting. Sure, he hadn't seen the kid actually leave the hotel room he was hiding in, but if Parker wanted to leave a room, well she left a room, no question about it.

"We got your information," Parker said, dropping a flashdrive on his desk and displaying absolutely no shame at the fact that she'd just run off with Lee without telling anyone.

"We?" Hardison asked, hoping that the answer wouldn't be the obvious one.

"Lee helped. He needed the practice."

Hardison noticed that Lee looked less than happy about that statement. "Parker, baby, you can't just run off with Lee without telling us."

"He was perfectly safe," Parker said, shifting from one foot to another. "Besides there were horses there."

Hardison sighed. "Look, just tell us next time."

She nodded. "Next time, I'll tell you."

Which implied that there would be a next time, but Hardison was a reasonable guy with reasonable expectations. There was going to be a next time whether Parker agreed to let them know or not.

That was the moment when Nate walked back in. He took in the scene quickly and gave Parker a look. She looked at least a little cowed by it. "Parker," he said.

"Yes?"

"I have something else for you to do."

Parker nodded and made to leave the room. Lee also began to creep off. Nate noticed him though. "Not you. You're staying here."

—

Once again, Zuko's ability to do avatar research was thwarted, this time by the fact that he was stuck in a room with Hardison and Nate and they were going to notice if he pulled out the files and probably ask questions that he didn't want to have to answer. So instead, he was bored. They were just talking about stuff that probably had to do with computers or crime or other topics that were vastly uninteresting. And he continued to be bored until Hardison pulled up some camera feeds from somewhere and he could see Sophie walking through a hallway.

At least, he thought it was Sophie. The longer that Zuko watched her, the less she looked like it. The face looked the same, at least as clear as he could see through the camera. But the way she moved was all different. It was weird.

"Hardison, can you turn on the volume?" Nate said.

"Yeah, yeah. Give me a second." Hardison pressed one of his numerous buttons and white noise began coming out of the speakers.

Zuko was still trying to figure out whether the person on the camera was Sophie or maybe some sort of spirit creature doing a bad job of impersonating her when she stopped in front of someone else.

"Mr. Tilton," she said, sticking out her hand. "Svetlana Volkova at your service. I have a proposal I think you will be very interested in."

The voice definitely sounded like her, even though she was using a ridiculous accent. "What's going on?" he asked.

"You're seeing Sophie in action, that's what's going on," Hardison said with a smile.

"But what's she doing?" Zuko was really starting to get annoyed with all of the non answers these people kept giving him.

"She's grifting." Nate said. "You're watching the finest grifter in the world work her craft," he said, not looking away from the screen.

That answer would've been more helpful if Zuko actually knew what grifting was. Fortunately, Hardison clarified "It's what you get when you cross acting and stealing."

"Oh," Well, the stealing part made sense at least. "But she's a terrible actress."

"On stage, yes," Nate said, "but when she's stringing someone along? She's the best you'll ever meet."

Zuko looked back to the camera feed.

The other guy was talking. "And you're saying that the… individuals you represent, would be interested in investing?" he said.

"Yes. Of course, they require certain… signs of goodwill, shall we say?" Looking at her, knowing that it really was Sophie there, it almost reminded Zuko of Azula when she was wrapping the court around her little finger.

"She's good," Zuko said, deciding not to pursue that uncomfortable train of thought any further.

Nate smiled. "The best."

Sophie was scary, Zuko decided, as he watched her talk the man in circle after circle, Nate occasionally tossing out lines that she would parrot and transform into something far more powerful. She could never meet Azula. Zuko was sure that he wouldn't survive that meeting.

And then the conversation was over, Sophie walking away from a man who had no idea how completely he'd been fooled. Her voice - the one that Zuko was used to — came over the speakers. "Well that went smoothly." It was like she'd flipped a switch. Definitely scary.

—

"What are you doing?"

Hardison looked up from his computer to see that Lee was watching him intently. Which was a little embarrassing considering Hardison hadn't been aware that the kid was even paying attention to him in the first place. Eliot would probably say something about him needing more situational awareness or something, but that's what everyone else was around for.

"Nate asked me to look into a few of Tilton's colleagues so I'm poking around, finding out where they live, what makes them tick. That sort of thing." Hardison shrugged. "Why you asking?"

Lee shrugged noncommittally and kept watching the names and pictures that were scrolling by on the screen. "You can find people?"

"I can find anyone as long as they're on the internet."

"Anyone?" And Lee definitely looked interested in that.

"Anyone," Hardison said with a nod. "There anyone you want me to find?"

"…No." Hardison didn't need Sophie's help to tell that that sullen response was a lie. Which meant that there was someone he was looking for. The mom maybe? Well, pressing wouldn't help, so he shrugged and went back to his program.

Another couple minutes passed. "Could you show me how to?"

Hardison grinned. "Yeah, I can show you the ropes." Parker wasn't the only one who could take on a protege.

—

"It doesn't look like an elephant's ear," Zuko said dubiously as he poked at the fried something covered in powdered sugar, chocolate sauce, and dark brown things that Crazy Thief Lady had given him.

"That's because it's not an elephant ear, it's a funnel cake," Hardison said, holding his own elephant cake thing. He gave the one in Parker's hand a side eye. "And you're eating it all wrong."

"It tastes better this way!"

"Too many toppings, woman. Too many toppings!"

"You two do know we have an actual job we're supposed to be doing," Eliot said. He'd been getting progressively more grumpy over all of the stops at food stands that Crazy Thief lady had insisted they make.

Both Hardison and Crazy Thief Lady turned on him.

"But fair food!" Crazy Thief Lady exclaimed.

"Come on, Eliot, lighten up!" Hardison said,

Zuko tuned out the rest of their argument and tried a bite of his own elephant ear funnel cake thing. It tasted like sweet and not much else, like most of the foods Crazy Thief Lady had shoved at him on this outing. He took another bite. He still had no idea what they were supposed to be doing since no one had bothered to explain it to him before dragging him along to 'keep him out of trouble'.

"Look, let's just pass out the stupid flyers!" Eliot said.

"Hey, don't look down on my flyers. I made those; they're my babies!" Hardison said.

"And we're passing them out."

Zuko found himself holding a stack of brightly colored fliers that seemed to be going on about the cruelties inherent in clowns, or something. Well, he'd given up on anything making sense by this point. At least he knew what he was supposed to be doing now.

—

"Everything ready?" Nate asked as he stood just outside of the fairgrounds.

"In position," Parker's voice crackled over the comms. Nate could hear the faint voice of Lee asking Parker something before the comm shut back off. Part of him was very dubious about the fact that he was involving the kid in their crimes but Parker was going to drag him along with or without permission. At least Eliot was supposed to be in shouting distance.

"Same here." Speaking of, there was Eliot now.

"I'm always ready," Haridson said.

Nate turned to Sophie. "And you?"

She made one last adjustment to the tiara in her hair. "Do you even have to ask?" she said, offering him an arm.

Nate took. "Let's go then."

—

Once again, Zuko found himself dragged along on some strange business with Crazy Thief Lady. It didn't seem to involve breaking into places this time, but it did involve releasing a bunch of balloons and stealing people's phones before returning them for some reason.

"Okay, now stare at that guy."

"What?" Out of all the strange instructions Crazy Thief Lady had given him, this had to be one of the strangest.

"We're gloating!" she said, which clarified absolutely nothing. And then, to demonstrate, she started staring at the guy that he was pretty sure Sophie had been talking to earlier.

Zuko glanced around. The others had showed up at some point and they were also all staring at the guy so apparently this was actually a thing and not just a Crazy Thief Lady thing. He glared at the guy. He was good at glaring. He wasn't glaring very long when a bunch of guys showed up and started arresting the guy they were staring at. There was a whole bunch of shouting and stuff. Zuko still didn't see the point.

—

"Lee, do you want to help me take care of something?"

Zuko looked up from the frankly excessive amount of computer stuff that he had gotten dragged into helping Hardison packed up at the sound of Sophie's voice. "With what?" he asked dubiously. "Does it involve stealing anything?"

Sophie shook her head. "No stealing. I'm meeting with someone I think you might like to meet."

Well, if it didn't involve crime (and Lee was a little dubious about that considering that everything these people did seemed to come down to stealing one way or another), it had to be better than helping Hardison pack. He shrugged. "Sure."

The place Sophie brought him to was a rundown apartment. She knocked on the door and a nervous looking hispanic woman answered.

"Hello?" she said. "Oh, Ms. Pierson, it's you. And you brought someone with you."

Sophie smiled a warm smile that Zuko could tell was different somehow than the one she usually gave him. "It's good to see you again, Lucia. This is my nephew, Lee." She lied as smoothly as Azula did.

Zuko nodded once in greeting when the woman — Lucia — smiled at him.

"It's nice to meet you, Lee." And then she stepped aside from the door, "Why don't you come in?"

Zuko followed Sophie into the apartment. He was beginning to think that he'd been lied to about the whole not stealing thing. Why was Sohpie lying to this woman?

"I saw the news," Lucia said. "About Tilton. You did that?"

Sophie gave an elegant little shrug that said yes but I'm not going to admit it. "We simply made sure that the truth came out."

"Thank you, so much. That's more than I ever hoped for."

Well, if she was thanking them, maybe they weren't stealing after all. Though what they were doing was still a mystery to Zuko.

"It was the least we could do." Sophie reached into her purse and pulled a piece of paper. "I know, this won't bring back your brother, but we also got a little something for you." She handed over the paper — it was a check, Zuko noticed — with a smile. And if it was a check, that meant they were giving her money which was like, the opposite of stealing. Yeah, he had no idea what was going on.

Lucia gasped when she looked at the paper. "But this— How?"

Sophie smiled. "We have our ways."

And then there were tears and thanks and smalltalk and Zuko did his best to be polite even though it was all rather boring and he still had no idea why he was even here in the first place.

"What was that?" Zuko asked once he and Sophie were back in the car.

"Did anyone tell you what we do?" she asked.

"You steal stuff?" At least that was the impression he'd gotten. "And help people?" Which was what Crazy Thief Lady had claimed back in that alley even if he didn't see how it all added up.

Sophie nodded. "We do both. We steal from the rich and powerful, from those who have all the power and use it to hurt other people. And we do that to help people out who have been hurt."

"Oh. So who was that?"

"Lucia… her brother died because Tilton was abusing the workers at the state fair, among other things. She reached out to us and we agreed to help her out."

"By stealing?"

"A little more than just stealing. We ran a con on him to both reveal his crimes to the appropriate people and, well, also to steal a good chunk of his money to give to our client."

"Client?"

"Lucia."

Zuko nodded and thought about that for a bit. He remembered the other thing that had confused him about the visit. "Your name's not Pierson."

"But what if it is?" Sophie said cryptically.

Zuko scowled. "But it isn't. It's Sophie something-with-a-D. So why did she call you Pierson?"

"I have lots of names. Sophie Deveraux is one and Elena Pierson is another. They're all me, or I'm all them. One or the other."

That was confusing. Zuko had only ever had one name, at least until now. But that's because he was hiding. Because he was banished. "Which one's your real name?"

Sophie was quiet for a long moment. Long enough that Zuko was worried that he'd said the wrong thing. But in the end she said "That's a tricky question. I've worn so many masks that it's hard to tell which one's really me in the end. Sophie Deveraux's just another mask when it comes down to it, though it's the one I've worn the most."

It was an answer that didn't make sense. Zuko was, unfortunately, getting used to those.

Sophie was quiet for another long moment that he wasn't sure if he should try and break or not. "I could tell you my first name though. It's probably closest to my real one." She turned over to look at him. "It's a secret though, and you can't tell Nate."

"Why?"

She smiled. "Because he isn't supposed to know. He does know, but we've got to keep up appearances."

"…Okay."

"So, can you keep a secret?"

Zuko nodded. "I can."

She told him and Zuko held it close like the gift it was. "So, do you want me to call you that?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Just Sophie's fine."

—

Zuko spent the drive back to Boston thinking — thinking about names and honor and thieves. They helped people, or at least that's what they told him. They helped him, no matter how strange the whole thing was, so they probably weren't lying about that. Acting dishonorably to the dishonorable could be excused. Not that he had any honor to worry about in the first place.

He liked them which was a little surprising considering they were all insane but he liked them. He felt like he might trust them. Almost. Sophie had given him her name. She trusted him with that and that gave him an odd feeling as he turned it over in his head. She trusted him.

They all ended up back at Nate's apartment, the place where Crazy Thief Lady — Parker — had brought him that first night. Eliot cooked and Zuko helped chop things and fry things (and played with the fire a little bit when no one was watching) and all the while something was turning in the back of his brain.

They sat down to eat and in the middle of dinner that thought stopped turning and he said "My name's Zuko," while staring at his plate.

There was a second of a silence that made him just a little nervous and he looked up — at Sophie first, because she'd given him her name so she knew what he was doing — though they were all looking at him.

Sophie smiled. "Well, then, it's nice to meet you, Zuko."

And then everyone was nodding and saying similar things and Zuko found that part of him relaxed. This was… alright. It was the craziest thing that had ever happened to him, but it was alright. He went back to eating. Eventually, he'd need to find the avatar but for now he'd stay.