"What's steampunk?: Nate asked as he looked up from the book he was reading.

Hardison glanced up from his computer and started sending pictures of women in tight clothes with gears on it spinning onto the screen. A metal weiner dog, that was a purse. Top hats with welding goggles on them. Corsets with gearing as decoration. The pictures kept getting odder.

"Huh." Parker chirped as she cocked her head at a tandem bicycle. "Bronze? That's not practical."

"I was watching the game." Eliot growled, jabbing a flour cover finger into the air. "Put it back."

The implied threat of not getting the yumminess from the hitter's kitchen was enough to have the hacker put back Eliot's sportsball onto half the screen.

Sophie looked up from her phone and her cup of tea. "Steampunk is the love child between that mall store Hot Topic and a BBC costume drama."

"I've heard that somewhere." Alec said, impressed that the grifter know about steampunk.

Sophie arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow at him, "I met a lady in San Francisco and we enjoyed a cup of tea together. I believe she is a writer. We had quite a nice discussion on the impacts of Cosplay on modern fashions."

"You know Cosplay?"

Nate's head was spinning, he cleared his throat. "What is Cosplay?"

Eliot looked up from the butcher block. "It's the practice of dressing up as a character from a movie, book, or video game, especially one from the Japanese genres of manga and anime." He grinned at Hardison, "I dated Sailor Moon."

"Right on." The hacker mimed a thumbs up. Eliot nodded and turned his head toward Nate and Parker who were looking a little confused.

Hardison pulled up a picture for the mastermind. "huh." And he resumed sipping his whiskey and reading.

"I like blue." Parker chimed in from the ceiling. "Costumes are cool."

Images of Parker started flowing through Hardison's mind: Rogue, the Doctor, Storm, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, River Tam, River Song, … the images sped up. So many strong smart women. Sexy women are smart women.

Eliot kept working the pasta dough; he was going to make a carbonara with crab for dinner. A simple tossed salad on the side. It was tomato season, so the tomatoes were fresh out of his garden. Same with the salad greens. He watched Alec's face, they'd worked together long enough – that he was pretty sure he knew exactly what the hacker was thinking. "Harley Quinn."

"Huh?"

"Twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag."

"Do I get a taser?" Parker asked from her ceiling perch, she could see the pictures on the computer monitor.

"Baseball bat."

The hacker's mind started wandering. If Parker went as Harley Quinn, he could go as the Joker; but, the Jack Nicholson Joker? The Joaquin Phoenix version? Jared Leto? Nah, Jack Nicholson was the man; keep it classic.

She tossed it around in her head for a couple of seconds. "No, I like her better."

"Captain Marvel?"

"No. Her."

"Rogue?"

Parker was getting irritated. "No her. The one in the top hat. She does cool stuff!"

"Ahhh…" The hacker finally got it, and popped the picture up on the screen, reading the name at the bottom. "Genevieve Lafoux."

"Yes!"

"Oh, from the Parasol Protectorate." Sophie added in. "She's a member of The Order of the Brass Octopus."

Alec cocked his head. "How…"

"Gail, the lady I had tea with in San Francisco. She writes the books. They're quite good. You should read The Finishing School series. And Romancing the Inventor. That one is quite delightful." And with that figurative mic drop she swept out of the room.

Alec was a little floored, he know that Sophie was well read; but, figured she mostly read scripts and things like Austen novels, Shakespeare and the such. Coming back to the moment, his thoughts screeched to a halt. "Parker, how do you know about these books?"

"The comic book. Sophie got me the comic book."

"Graphic novel." Alec corrected automatically. He stared at the cover of the book that the thief was waving around. It had a mysterious woman dressed all in black. How did he not know about this!?

Nate looked up from his reading and chuckled. Ducking back down behind it when the hacker gave him a dirty look, his mind went between bronze dogs, top hats, welding goggles, and armed parasols… It didn't add up to anything, so he kept listening.

"The outfits aren't practical. Too much skirt." Parker informed her boyfriend as she handed the book to him. "But, Lafoux's hats are cool. And she invents cool things. What are we eating tonight? Cephalopods rock!"

Alec's head was spinning; not that Parking rapid firing on multiple topics was new. But, usually he could keep up. He knew steampunk, well to a point. But, this whole Parasol Protectorate thing was new.

"So, what exactly is steampunk?" Nate asked again; they'd never answered his question.

It didn't really surprise him when the hitter looked up from the pasta machine and responded "It's science fiction; but, with a twist."

"HOT AIR BALLOONS" Parker yelled as she swooped from up high.

Eliot rolled his eyes and wondered how much chocolate she'd eaten that morning. "Mostly Victorian, cool hats." He waved a noodle at the screen where a corset decorated with flowers, and gears was showing. "And a lot of steam technology."

"Dirigibles." The hacker nodded as he pulled up a fan's rendition of something called 'The Spotted Custard.' "Can we have that yumminess for dinner? You made it last week."

Eliot wondered if he'd lost his mind. "Flan." He remembered when the leaps across topics, and the their inability to stay on task drove him nuts; now he could deal with it. Still drove him nuts; but, he mostly understood.

"Mmm… caramel tastiness."

In his head Eliot changed the menu to antipasti; kept the pasta and salad; and added flan for dessert. He glanced at his watch, he had just enough time to make flan.