Retrieval
Written for March Madness 2022, Prompt: skeleton key. Established OT3. Haven't seen any of Redemption yet. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!
Eliot and Parker are out grocery shopping when the text message comes in. It's from Hardison, Eliot knows without looking, recognizes the pattern of vibrations as his. "Whoa, Parker," he says, his attention less on the phone and more on reigning in Parker's most recent additions to the shopping cart. "We only need one bag of marshmallows, not seventeen."
She huffs, but returns fifteen of the superfluous bags to the shelves.
Crisis averted, he glances at the text message, fully expecting it to be a last minute addition to the shopping list from the man they left at home, working on research for their latest case.
But it is not.
It is a photo.
"Parker."
She's beside him in a second, knows his tone well enough to know it's serious. She looks at the photo, too, and they promptly abandon the cart in the middle of an aisle, bolting for the door, for the car. They've got to get back home.
It's worse on the big screen, the photo blown up to fill it, letting them take in every brutal detail in stunning 4K. Hardison, tied to a chair, glaring at the camera or at least the person wielding it. Bloody lip, eye swollen shut, busted knuckles like he was fighting back the way Eliot taught him.
And another man in frame, lurking in the shadows. Someone that Eliot recognizes from the shadows of his own past. Another unsavory character he'd worked with once upon a time, one that made Moreau look like a fucking ray of sunshine by comparison. That man had been willing to do far too many things Eliot hadn't (and there weren't a hell of a lot of things Eliot hadn't been willing to do in those days) and so they'd parted on… volatile terms. And now that man has Hardison.
"Friend of yours?" Parker guesses.
He mind swims with the nightmare images of the things that monster could do to Hardison, things the hacker would never survive. Every second he's there is too much. "Something like that," he answers. "He goes by DaSilva."
"We'll get him back," Parker assure him. Already, her fingers are flying over Hardison's keyboards, using the tricks that have rubbed off on them over the years to analyze the photos metadata to try to get a read on where it came from. And the guy is clearly not trying to hide, clearly wants to be found, to draw Eliot to him, so it works. As much as there'd be no evidence in the house of Hardison's abduction, there is plenty to find here.
They get an address within half an hour.
And that's all Eliot needs. Just needs someone to point him in the right direction and he'll do the rest, take down anything that stands in his way. He'll let himself slip back into that person he used to be, if that even was a person at all, and he'll get Hardison back from that monster or die trying.
But there is a catch.
Parker grabs his arm before he can take more than a step away from the console. "Don't even think about it," she warns him. Doesn't even give him the chance to suggest she stay behind and let him handle it. As much as he wants her clear, he is well aware he wouldn't be able to stop her from following and a part of him doesn't want to do this alone – he's not all that used to doing things alone these days. "I'm going with you."
"I know better than to try," he begrudgingly admits. He knows she wants Hardison back just as much as he does, "Let's go."
Together, they are unstoppable in ways he wouldn't have been on his own. Parker breaches the building with ease – it's so easy that some part of Eliot is sure it has to be a trap, that they can't possibly be this dumb, not with DaSilva behind this, that they want to take Parker from him, too, but no one tries to stop them. She gets him through the front door and then through every other door they come across. Picking, hacking, kicking, whatever means necessary, she gets them through. Eliot handles the few men left to guard the place, takes them all out without a problem as they weave their way through the building in search of Hardison.
And then there's one more door.
It opens without any of the above measures and he and Parker step into the shadowy room that matches the photo with a sense of dread. This has all been far too easy.
And Hardison is there, slumped forward in the chair either unconscious or pretending to be. He bears new bruises and Eliot spots the evidence of the beginnings of DaSilva's favorite game, the dozens of shallow, little cuts spread over Hardison's arms – the blood drops on the cement floor.
"About time you showed up, Spencer," DaSilva says. He is hovering behind Hardison, a knife pressed to the hacker's throat. "Your boyfriend here hasn't been much fun for me. Doesn't scream nearly as much as I'd like. Guess I should've grabbed the girl, instead. Remember that one in Belgrade?"
But the man has made a mistake.
Eliot had been dangerous before, had built himself one hell of a reputation, but that's nothing compared to the things he'll do for his family, for Hardison and for Parker. "I'm going to kill you," he says, his voice an eerie sort of even as he takes a brazen step forward. "But before I do, I'm gonna make you regret every mark you put on him, and you're gonna beg me for death by the time I'm done with you."
He moves too fast for DaSilva to stop him. He gets the knife away from Hardison's throat, gets the man away from the people he loves.
"Take care of him, Parker," he says, as she rushes in to do just that. "I got this."
Parker and Hardison are waiting outside for him when he's done. He stumbles out covered in blood and he feels more than a little shell-shocked, but he doesn't regret the things he did to DaSilva before he finally killed the monster.
"Hey," he says, a little afraid of how the two of them might react. He never wanted them to see the man he was before, but it had slipped out, just a little more than he'd intended.
"Hey," Hardison echoes with something that's almost a laugh, desperately relieved. Parker's patched him up as best she could with the first aid kit in the van and he's feeling well enough to pull Eliot into a fierce hug the second he's within reach, holding tight.
Parker joins, too, the three of them huddled together, no one quite willing to let go.
"Let's go home."