"This is a terrible idea." Hardison stared at his laptop, rubbing the bridge of his nose. The job had been stressful from the very beginning, and Nate's pacing behind him did nothing to keep him focused.

"What part of it?" Sophie asked through the com. Her speech stumbled a bit, as she was also talking to one of the mark's many henchmen.

"All of it."

"I hate to agree with Hardison," Eliot said, "but this is a terrible idea, Nate." The sounds of clinking glasses made their way through the coms. Eliot was pulling off the part of high-end waiter very well. It was about the only part of the plan that was going well.

"As if you haven't all done things that were terrible ideas." Nate took another swig of his drink and slammed the empty glass on the table.

"It's okay," Parker shouted to them through the coms. "I've done this plenty of times before." The sound of the roaring wind drowned out most of her voice.

"Not in this type of weather you haven't." Hardison's eyes hadn't left his laptop, and his anxiety grew as the radar showed increasing storms.

"How do you know that?"

"Uh, because you're not an idiot."

She considered this. Decided it was probably a compliment. "Thank you," she huffed.

Parker was about three and a half stories from the ground, held up by a relatively new rig. She knew it was a bad idea for her to be up here in the middle of a storm, but Nate's orders were Nate's orders.

Nate's orders, as it happened, were to repel down the side of the Uberose building, gain access to the mark's office, and retrieve a file. A file stuffed with proof of Abraham Warren's crimes against humanity.

It was the type of job that grated on all of their nerves. Nate was a wreck, a day-drunk, a man on a mission. His scotch and him had become inseparable. He couldn't see anything but the goal.

It was the kind of job where Nate sometimes wished for blood on his hands.

This tension was entirely understandable. Abraham Warren was personally responsible for seventeen deaths, all eerily similar to what happened to Sam. He stood at the top of the company, playing god, deciding who should live and who should die. And he made all of these decisions with a checkbook in one hand and knockoff treatments in the other.

Abraham Warren wasn't a murderer, but he might as well have been. At least, that's what Nate told himself when he made the decision to send Parker in despite the storm.

"I'm right outside Warren's office," she shouted.

"Good. Now get us the file." Nate was pacing his apartment, the gears turning round and round in his head. They were so close. That son of a bitch was going down.

"Okay."

Parker got to work picking through the window's lock. It was a simple lock, and in prime circumstances would have taken her only a few seconds. But these were not prime circumstances.

Rain pelted her from the side, making it almost impossible to see anything. She tried to shift her concentration to her fingertips, to focus on manipulating the lock picks, but the wind stole her focus. It pushed her back and forth, further and further away from the window lock, and she had to spend most of her strength keeping herself within reach of it. Lightening flashed, dangerously close.

"Guys," Hardison said. "The storm's getting worse. Nate, look at the radar." He swung the laptop around so Nate could see the yellow and red splotches that covered their area of the map. It was only growing.

"She's almost in," Nate said, barely glancing at the computer screen. He paused in his pacing to refill his drink.

Parker, however, was not almost in. She had lost the battle with hanging onto the window, and instead was trying to keep her head from being smashed into the really hard side of the building.

"Nate!" she cried out. Disappointment burned in her throat. She wasn't going to be able to do it.

"Keep trying," he muttered between drinks. "We're almost there."

The wind took hold of Parker, tossing her away from the building. She was too small to keep herself in place. A moment later, a strong gust of wind slammed her back into the wall. She managed to keep her face from slamming into it, but she caught herself palms first, and she felt something snap in her wrist. She cursed. Loudly.

"Parker!" Eliot hissed into the coms. He smiled briefly at a passer-by that heard his outburst and turned away. "What's going on?"

"I can't get ahold of the window," she said. Storm sirens wailed, drowning out most of what she said.

Eliot growled, and turned swiftly from the party. He deposited his tray of food on a nearby server's cart, ignored the judgmental looks he got from some of the other servers, and booked it up the stairs.

The storm sirens died off with a pathetic whine, and Parker could hear the team through the coms again. Eliot was heading somewhere in quite a hurry, she thought.

"Eliot?"

"I'm coming to grab you," he grunted. He was nearly to the third floor. Blind rage filled his mind, and he tried his best to control it. In this line of work, anger never got you anything but very, very dead.

"I've got it." Parker tried again to maneuver herself to where she could hold onto the window, but the wind was just too strong, and the rain had made everything slippery. Instead, she focused on keeping her face from being hit each time she was thrown into the wall.

Eliot kicked open the door to Warren's office. "Why couldn't they have just done that to begin with?" he wondered. He didn't bother flipping on the light, but went straight to the window. A bolt of lightning illuminated Parker struggling against the wind.

He quickly undid the lock and tried to pull the window open. It was stuck. He tried again, and it gave into the struggle abruptly, depositing Eliot on his rear.

He had no time to be embarrassed, though, because at that exact moment he looked up and watched as Parker's rig failed horrifically, and she fell through the air.

"Parker!" He didn't realize he had screamed until he heard Hardison in his head.

"What happened, man? Where's Parker? Is she okay?"

Eliot didn't respond. He was too busy rocketing down the stairs.

"Eliot, can you grab the file on your way down?" Nate asked. He sat down heavily. This job just was not going well.

"Are you serious, man?" Hardison asked. He looked at Nate over the top of his computer. He sat in a kitchen chair, staring out the window, a glass of scotch in his hand.

Hardison stood from the counter and gathered his things. He didn't bother to say goodbye as he slammed the door behind him.