Title: Who Knows Somebody
Author: Vashti
Fandom: Leverage
Character(s): Nathan Ford, Alec Hardison, Oz Osbourne, Buffy Summers
Rating: FR-13/PG
Summary: "Nate, man." Hardison shook his head before catching Nate's eye. "We don't call my boy in on this, the only thing Buffy's gonna be haulin' is our dead bodies out a hole."
Length: ~1,625 words
Notes: This is the last of the 3 stories I originally wrote for the August 2018 TwistedShorts FAD. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read, comment, favorite...whatever. It is much appreciated!

"Look, Nate, man… I wouldn't say this if it wasn't serious-"

"Hardison, you need help." Nate clapped his hacker on the shoulder.

"Not help-help. Just, y'know, another pair of fingers on the keys. I can't be boots on the ground and eyes in the sky at the same time."

Nate frowned. "It's not like this will be the first time you've been an active participant in a con with us."

"Yeah, I know but..." Hardison shook his head, turning his attention back to the screen. His fingers danced over commands, popping up and dropping screens within seconds of each other. "Nate, man, this is in another level."

Pushing away from his keyboard, he turned his chair fully towards Nate. "Look, either you need another body on the team so I can concentrate on the screens full-time, or we gotta get somebody to cover for me. This just... We gonna be in it so deep not even Sophie will be able to talk us out of it."

Smirking, Nate said, "And Buffy?"

They'd only done two jobs with her so far, but Eliot's replacement hitter would have impressed them if she's been 6'4" and 200 lbs of pure muscle. But at 5'4" and 130 lbs they'd almost wrecked their first con with her from the shock. (Except Parker. Parker had been muttering about Hellmouths since that first phone call so technically she's hadn't done anything new or strange.)

"Nate, man." Hardison shook his head before catching Nate's eye. "We don't call my boy in on this, the only thing Buffy's gonna be haulin' is our dead bodies out a hole."

Well.

Nate didn't bother hiding his frown. Hardison, sitting next to him in front of the big screen, was all but vibrating with excitement next to him. "So you're the 'Wolf Man'."

"He's a beast!" Hardison blurted before his contact, looking at them from across a screen, could respond. He glanced up at Nate. "But the name was taken already, so we had to settle on Wolf Man."

"Not my first choice," the contact said with good humor.

"That's important. What's important is that Hardison says you're the best."

He shrugged. "Hardison is selling himself short if I'm the best. I can name a few better than me, but I'm not bad."

Grinning, Hardison turned to Nate. "See. An' he's humble."

It took all of Nate's willpower not to hush his teammate. "You've clearly won the heart of my hacker, but why should I trust you? Why would I put myself and my team at risk?"

Beside him Hardison went stiff with tension. They'd discussed why Nate needed to ask the question, but talking about it hadn't made Hardison any happier that it had to be asked. If they were going to be putting their lives in this man's hands as Hardison had claimed, Nate had to be convinced. Currently, none of his backup plans included a largely unknown hacker coming to their rescue. Obviously he'd have to fix that. And add a backup plan for if this "Wolf Man" double-crossed them.

"You didn't go through this when Eliot pushed Buffy at you," Hardison had argued.

"As you pointed out," Nate had reminded him, "Eliot IS the vetting process." And the double-cross backup plan, but he hadn't said that the Hardison. He hadn't wanted the younger man to dwell on the darkness that they all knew existed in Eliot, but mostly shielded from them.

In the here and now, the Wolf Man seemed completely unruffled by Nate's question. "You don't have a reason to trust me, other than Hardison's faith in me."

"Which is a lot!" Hardison tossed to the room at large.

"Even though he's never seen me in a team situation or under pressure."

At that, Hardison sat up and dropped his arms. "Hey! I have played many, many hours of World of Warcraft by your side. I know a team player when I'm the man not left behind by him, an' everybody else done already bailed."

"That is admirable," Nate said, and he supposed it was, but, "but it's different when you know the threats and the bullets and the crying and the desperate double-talk on the other side of the receiver are very real and very live."

Wolf Man nodded. "You're right," he said as conversationally as if Nate had told him that they needed were low on milk. "What kind of information do you need?"

"How about we start with a real name. Perhaps the one your mother calls you by," Nate said. Beside him, Hardison spluttered.

"Oz!"

Surprised, Nate and Hardison turned. "Where'd you come from?" Hardison said as the newly christened Oz said, "Buffy?"

Nate looked between the unassuming man on the monitor and the unassuming woman crashing his teleconference in workout gear. "You two know each other?"

Hardison's eyes bugged. "Wait, what? Y'all know each other?"

"Totally," Buffy confirmed. "We went to school together. How do you guys know-" She sucked in a breath. "Oz, are you okay? Why didn't you call one of us if you're in trouble?" She stepped closer to the screen as if that would bring her closer to the man pictured in it. "It doesn't matter how long it's been or what went down, you're still our friend, totally and for sure."

Smiling softly, Oz said, "Actually Nate and Hardison called me. To help out on a case?" The last he directed at Nate.

"Oh. Really?" Buffy turned to Nate. "So what's the what, Temp Bossman?"

Nate squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Buffy I've asked you not to call me that."

"I know, but it'll have to do until I figure out a better nickname." She turned back to Oz. "I was fond of The Head Cheese," she said, making vague circular gestures around her head as she did, "but it was voted down as too complicated with the hand movements."

Hardison snorted. "Nah, it's because whenever Parker does it, something priceless or messy goes flying around the room."

"There was that one time Parker went flying around the room."

"Priceless and messy. And it wasn't a room, it was Lucille. Nah."

Oz chuckled.

"We missed you," Buffy said. "All of us."

Oz's chuckle turned into a smile. "Yeah, me too. I noticed there was some big juju a while back."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Too long to discuss over the phone. This is like dinner and a whole bottle of wine discussion. But you heard about the 'dale, right."

"Sank into the ocean?"

"Yeah."

"I heard about it. Bay used to keep me up on news from home."

"Who's Bay?"

"Bayarmaa. My wife."

Buffy squealed. The men collectively winced.

Sensing that he was never going to regain control of the conversation naturally, Nate put a hand on Buffy's shoulder. "What do you know of Wol- er, Oz's computer skills?"

"Assuming he hasn't, like, gone backwards, Oz is my second favorite computer genius. Sorry, Hardison," she said glancing over her shoulder at him. "It's really close!" she added as he began to splutter. They'd already come to terms with him not being her first favorite, but he'd always assumed that meant he was second.

Before he could verbalize his outrage, however, Hardison visibly calmed himself. "It's cool! It's cool. My man the Wolf Man has been in the game longer and he's a real cool cat." He looked to Oz. "You're a cool cat, man."

"Thank you," Oz responded with like seriousness as Buffy's eyebrows went up and she repeated, "Wolf Man?"

"If I have to come in third behind any geek, I don't mind coming in behind the Wolf Man."

Nate leaned in close to Buffy and stage-whispered, "'He's a Beast' was already taken."

"Oookay. Not only am I sure I don't want to know, but I'm sure I don't need to know." She turned to Nate. "I really just came up to check on you. Your place is on tonight's route, so when I saw your light on I thought I'd pop in. Make sure everything's okay."

Nate sighed. "I know you can handle yourself Buffy, but I still wish you wouldn't take post-midnight runs."

"Still patrolling, Buffy?" Oz asked.

Smiling ruefully, she said, "There are literally, like, a hundred of me on this coast alone and I still can't help myself."

"You wouldn't be yourself if you could."

Buffy's smile grew warmer. "It's really good to see you, Oz."

"You, too, Buffy."

She gave him a little salute before turning to Nate and Hardison. "Since it looks like everything is five-by-five here, I think I'm gonna finish my run."

Nate narrowed his eyes at her, for the first time suspecting that running wasn't all that she was doing. He watched as she stood on tiptoe to hook an arm around Hardison's neck and gave him a hasty hug. When she turned to Nate, she offered him her hand. Usually it got an amused frown out of him. Tonight, he said, "So you recommend Oz?"

"Totally for sure."

"He's good under pressure."

A knowing smirk lit her face. "You have no idea."

Nate accepted her handshake, resisting the urge to kiss her forehead and tell her to keep safe. Parker rarely let him get close enough to be tempted.

Buffy turned to the screen. "Guess that means I'll see you around?"

"Anytime the signal's good."

Buffy frowned. "Where are you? Outer Mongolia?"

"Outer Tibet."

"Okay. I walked into that. Um, well...yeah. Okay. This is where I leave the awkward conversation so I can make an awkward exit."

Then she was gone, leaving the three men to an equally awkward silence. "So," Nate said before it got any worse, "welcome to the team."

"Thanks. Temp Boss."

Nate groaned.

Fin[ite]

Notes 2: And that's officially it. Will there be more? No clue. August is coming ;) Will there be more before August? Who knows. If something does come to me, it will end up here. :)