Disclaimer: I do not own the Hardy Boys or any of the book characters.

Thank you: Wendylouwho10 who read over the story for me and made content suggestions, helped with the flow, and provided some spelling/grammar corrections. Typos are mine and I discover them all the time. :-)

Rating/Setting: Rating is T. Setting is blue spine-ish and AU. Timeline: Taken; Recovery; Retribution; Wild Pitch; and now this story. While you don't NEED to read the previous stories, things will be referenced and perhaps even some from my younger Hardys stories.

Author's Notes: IluvJoe: "Okay so if Vanessa is here then what about Iola?" She's not forgotten, but she's not in this chapter and while she might help with some sleuthing in general, I'm not writing her to be an ORT agent. But she'll crop up... in a minor way in either the next chapter or the one after. I can't remember. ;-) Also, this is a short chapter, especially after the last one. Sorry for that, but the story told me to put a break here. :-) Just know the next chapter is over 3,000 words.


Chapter Five

Vanessa and Joe spent the rest of the time until dinner going over the information in the HURT folder. It was a lot to take in as well as their cover.

As they sat on the bed eating delivery pizza provided by ORT hours later, they continued to review their story. The operation was taking place in a suburb of Detroit and they were two teenage dropouts looking for work. Joe was from upstate NY, and Vanessa was from a suburb of New York City. Both felt comfortable enough with their supposed home location to satisfy someone who wasn't from the area. The two had only been dating a few months as Vanessa had begun traveling west to get away from her family. This would help their cover as they wouldn't be expected to know a lot about each other if they had just met. In addition, Joe was to be rough and overbearing around her, boardering on abusive. Joe knew he would have some problems with this as it just wasn't his nature, but Vanessa assured him that nothing would be taken personally and tears would only be part of the act. His abusive nature was going to be the reason she could go to Frank or not be seen in Joe's company but so much.

Finally, it was time for bed and the uncomfortable atmosphere returned.

"So, do you usually shower in the morning or night?" Joe asked.

"I like to shower at night as I'm just not a morning person," Vanessa said sheepishly. "How about you?"

"I usually shower in the mornings as it helps to wake me up. But I'm not a morning person either. However, tonight I'd like to take one 'cause I'm feeling a little itchy from all the work I had done today," Joe said as he scratched his side through his tee shirt.

"Oh, yeah," Vanessa replied. "That makes sense. Why don't you go ahead and get your shower. I'm going to look at the 'tattoo eyeliner pen' they gave me. Tao suggested I try it out to make sure I can operate it and to ask any questions before we leave if I have them."

Joe nodded. It was another layer of awkwardness. The tattoo pen. His arm tattoo was on his dominant arm so he couldn't do that well by himself. The eagle with the skull he could do a small part of, but not very well. This meant that Vanessa would have to do this for him. Yep, awkward would hardly describe it as the eagle with the skull went low on his torso. He grabbed his toiletry bag from his suitcase along with a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. He hadn't thought about sleeping with a girl when he had packed.

When he came out, Vanessa hurried in. When she exited twenty minutes later, her hair was up in a towel and she was wearing a t-shirt that came mid-thigh.

"Um, I didn't think I'd be sleeping with you tonight-" She smacked her forehead with her hand. "Um, I didn't think I'd be in bed with-" Grrrr! Vanessa looked at him with pleading eyes.

Joe laughed. "I understand completely, and yeah, I didn't plan for this either."

"Okay. Then I'll just dry my hair and then we'll work on your tattoos." She paused as she picked up her hair dryer. "You know I think that is going to be even more embarrassing than the conversation we just had."

Joe let out a loud breath. "I think if we go ahead and admit that it's uncomfortable, maybe that will make it easier. I know that you're doing it because you have to and I'm doing because I have to." He looked her in the eye. "It's part of the assignment. You're not coming on to me and I'm not coming on to you."

Vanessa looked incredibly relieved. "Sounds good. Now, let me get my hair dried and we'll see how well I wield that eyeliner brush. Hopefully, Tao won't have to redo the ink tomorrow."

"I sure hope not, that was over two hours!"

Vanessa laughed. "Then I'll try to be really careful."

Joe smiled at her back as she went back into the bathroom to do her hair. This could work if they just laid things out on the table.

.**********.

A short while later, Joe stood in front of the mirror near the bathroom. He still felt self-conscious. The fact that the person looking at him in the mirror didn't look like him, didn't help any. Vanessa finished putting away the hair dryer and her brush and came to stand behind him. "I might need some help getting my hair to spike the right way tomorrow. Maybe you can help me?" Johnson had told him that there would be styling products in his new luggage to help with his look. Having never had to do much more than run a brush through his hair before, he was a little uncertain.

"Ah, hair products, now there's something I AM an expert at." Vanessa smiled at him in the mirror. Her smile faltered a little as she said, "Okay. So let's start on 'Awkwardness 301.' I'm saying 301 because I think we've already had 101 and 201 in awkwardness already."

"I'll agree to that," Joe said as he went to his side of the bed. Before he sat down, he asked, "So how do you want to do this?" He winced as she giggled. "Not the best word choice, but I'll stick with it."

Vanessa looked at the pen that she now had in her hand and then at the lighting around the bed. "I think you should sit here on my side of the bed so that your right arm will be right here by the light. I think I'd like to start with the arm instead of jumping right to the more embarrassing part of inking your chest."

Joe chuckled as he came back around the bed to her side and sat propped up against the headboard. He made sure to leave enough room for her to sit. It felt a little odd to have her touching his arm in this way. He'd had plenty of nurses touching his arm but it never felt like this. It didn't feel like when Iola touched him, but it still felt intimate. Callie didn't even touch him like this. It made him very self-conscious.

Finally, they were both okay with how the pen worked on inking his arm. "Well, it wasn't too difficult," Vanessa said. "The pen is pretty easy to use and the details on your arm aren't too bad for me to follow." Standing up nervously, Vanessa said, "I guess it's time for you to take off your shirt." Her fingers played with the cap to the inking pen.

Joe sat up on the bed and grabbed the hem of his t-shirt. "It's okay, Vanessa. It feels weird to me too." He then pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it to his side of the bed. He sighed as he said, "This only going to make things sound even more inappropriate… I think I should be on my back on my side of the bed."

"You're right," Vanessa laughed. "It does sound worse. But you're correct. I'll need your left side to be closest to the light so I can see well." Before they moved, she moved back closer to the bed.

"What is it?" Joe asked and then he saw that her eyes had gone to the two scars on his right side. "Yeah, they're the ones you read about. The top scar came from Laird and the lower one was where I fell on my hatchet in March." He looked at them and frowned slightly. "Between these scars and the one on my head, I sure look a lot tougher than I am." Dropping the conversation, he moved over to the other side of the bed and laid flat. Putting his hands behind his head, he smiled at her. "Do you think it will help if I close my eyes?"

Vanessa laughed nervously as she came around the side of the bed. "Yeah, I think it will. You watching me as I draw on your body… yeah, that will make me even more self-conscious."

Joe would have been surprised to learn that Vanessa felt a little more than awkward as she thought that her partner was hotter than should be allowed in a mission. She closed off those thoughts and put her mind to the more detailed eagle tattoo.