A/N Welcome back everybody! I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who has taken the time to leave feedback so far on this story, you guys are the best and are really what keep me writing when I'm having bad days :D And of course as always I need to once again thank Alexandra926 for being the best ever...
Eliot woke up slowly, having slept longer and deeper than he had in longer than he could remember. He stretched as carefully as he could, but groaned when he still managed to pull at his bad ribs. Lazily rolling his head to the side he cracked his eyes open and confirmed what he already knew. Parker was already awake and gone, only rumpled blankets and an indented pillow indicating that she had been there at all.
He let his eyes fall shut again, taking a moment to indulge in the silence. It didn't last long however, as he soon heard the sound of ceramic clacking against itself, heading up the hallway in his direction.
"Oh good, you're up," Parker greeted as she opened the door with her elbow, since her hands were laden with bowls, coffee mugs, and silverware. "I made breakfast."
"You could have taken two trips," he pointed out as he sat up, torn between wanting to grab something before she dropped everything, but worried that he might disrupt what was clearly a precarious balancing act. Either way he was seriously concerned that he was going to end up having to steam clean the rug next to his bed.
Parker scoffed dismissively, as she carefully started unloading her haul onto the nightstand. "Why would I do that?"
"You made oatmeal," he stated the obvious when she handed him a bowl.
"I did," she confirmed, making sure his coffee was in his easy reach before taking her own breakfast around to the other side of the bed and settling in against the pillows.
"On the stove?" he asked, knowing he didn't have any of that microwavable instant stuff in his pantry. On first inspection, the oatmeal in the bowl looked fine. It had the correct consistency and everything. Then he gave it a sniff; it smelled fine too, and there wasn't any lingering burnt smell in the air either from prior batches gone wrong.
"Why so suspicious?" she asked, grabbing the remote and turning the TV onto cartoons before digging into her own breakfast. "It's not seasoned with rat poison."
"You don't cook," he reminded her. "Anything. Ever. You once set a Cup O' Noodles on fire."
"That microwave was stupid," she defended herself, waving her spoon in his direction. "I meant to set it for three minutes. You shouldn't even be able to set the timer for three hours. Who even cooks anything in the microwave for that long anyways?"
She wasn't wrong, but that wasn't the point. "You wandered away and completely forgot about it until the sprinkler system went off!"
Parker just shrugged. She couldn't deny that it had happened, but she'd clearly moved on with her life, and didn't see why Eliot was dwelling on something that had happened back when they were still in Los Angeles.
"You really shouldn't be so surprised that I can make oatmeal."
"And why is that?" he asked dubiously, since the aforementioned microwave incident was hardly the only reason he had banned her from his kitchen.
She looked at him like he was stupid, "Because it's just hot cereal. And you know cereal is my favorite. Obviously."
"It's- it's not the- Parker- not the same-" He sighed, and let it go.
He picked up the spoon and stirred it around a bit before taking a tentative bite. It was far sweeter than he would make for himself, since he usually just tossed in some blueberries, chopped walnuts and a little bit of cinnamon, but it was definitely edible, so he would take that as a win.
"What did you put in it?" he asked curiously.
"Maple syrup and brown sugar," she told him. "Do you like it?"
He was about to tell her to maybe only use one sweetener next time, but when he looked over at her and saw she was waiting on his verdict with what was clearly hopeful anticipation, he couldn't find it in his heart to criticize.
"You did good, darlin'," he told her. The beaming grin that spread across her face made the fact that he felt like he was going to have to brush his teeth twice worth it.
The day passed as pleasantly as it could, considering the circumstances. Eliot still hated the mandatory downtime required from recovering from a major injury, but at least now it was tempered by the fact that he was recuperating in his own home and in his own bed, rather than the hospital he'd he'd been stuck in for what felt like forever, but was really only a little over a week.
He was tempted to start pushing his rehab, but he knew his body well enough to know when he could get away with that, and when he knew he had to take it easy or else delay his recovery even more. Unfortunately this time fell firmly into the latter category. He knew he probably still had a week or so of forced inactivity ahead of him. At least he'd have time to catch up on his reading and his Netflix queue. And, he thought, looking at the woman next to him, the company wasn't terrible.
As evening began to fall, Parker was occupied with watching some terrible horror movie that she was laughing along with like it was a comedy, while Eliot was absorbed in his book. When the doorbell rang, the hitter and thief both turned to look at each other to see if the other knew who could be at the door.
"Are we expecting someone?" Parker asked, genuinely wondering if she'd forgotten something.
"No," Eliot replied. "Did you order food for dinner?"
She shook her head. "Not yet."
They'd casually discussed it a bit earlier in the afternoon, but had never gotten around to making an actual decision on where to order delivery from. Sliding out from under the covers, Parker walked through the condo to go investigate who was at the front door. She checked the peephole first, knowing what Eliot would say if she didn't, but quickly unlocked the door when she saw who was on the other side.
"Hardison," she greeted, clearly surprised to see him. "What are you doing here?"
"Parker?" Hardison returned, his eyes wide, just as surprised by what he was seeing. "What are you wearing, Mama?"
Parker looked down at herself, not seeing the problem. She was wearing what she always wore around the house. "Clothes?" she responded, like she wasn't sure if it was a trick question.
"Is that... is that Eliot's shirt?" Hardison couldn't help but ask.
"Is that Chinese food?" Parker asked, ignoring his question in favor of her own.
Hardison looked down at the plastic bags in his hand, full of white cardboard to-go containers like he'd forgotten they were there. "Oh, uh yeah."
"Cool, I'll let Eliot know you brought dinner," she said, before turning on a heel and heading down the hall. By the time she got back to the bedroom, Eliot was already sitting on the edge of the bed, struggling to put his knee brace back on, since he'd taken it off earlier to give his leg a break.
"Hardison?" Eliot asked, having heard his voice. He should've known that he and Parker wouldn't make it twenty-four hours before someone came to check up on them.
"Hardison," Parker confirmed, wordlessly dropping to her knees, so she could fasten the straps on his brace. She knew there would be no convincing him to stay in bed with their teammate there, so she didn't even bother to try.
Eliot was going to reply until movement in the doorway caught his eye. "Dammit, Hardison!" he exploded when he saw the hacker poking his head through the door. "You don't just walk into another man's bedroom! What's wrong with you?! Go wait in the living room!"
Parker shook her head as Hardison's sputtering excuses traveled back down the hall. "He brought dinner," she offered, as if that might keep Eliot from murdering their teammate with his thoughts. "Chinese."
"It better be from Mr. Chow's," was all Eliot said as Parker helped him shrug on a sweatshirt and settled his sling over his head. "And he better not have forgotten the crab ragoon again."
"Or the fortune cookies," she added. The whole crew knew to order extra extra fortune cookies whenever Parker was involved.
Once he was set, Parker headed out to join Hardison, leaving Eliot to follow at his own slower pace.
Out in the living room, Hardison was occupied with trying to reconcile his expectations with reality. When he'd told Sophie and Nate that he'd take the first shift checking in on how Eliot and Parker were dealing with each other, he'd fully expected to find them sniping at each other from opposite ends of the the couch, needing him to swoop in to play mediator after a full day together without one of their teammates as a buffer. Or if not that, maybe Eliot would be in bed and Parker would be banished to the living room. And then there was the third option, which quite frankly he felt a little bad for even thinking it, which was that he had half-expected Parker to not be here at all.
What he had not been expecting, was for Parker to answer the door dressed only in Eliot's shirt and then come to find that Eliot wasn't wearing a shirt at all. And never in a million years would he have guessed that they would have spent the day together in Eliot's bed. Because while he hadn't gotten a good look before he'd been chased out, the rumpled blankets and drinking glasses on both nightstands, combined with the fact that the living room had been quiet and dark until he'd flipped on some lights and turned on the TV; well, it made a pretty clear picture. If Hardison hadn't known for a fact that Eliot was as injured as he was, he might think that he was interrupting something else entirely.
By the time Eliot made it down the hall using the walls and strategically placed furniture for balance, Parker had already pulled plates and utensils out of the kitchen, thoughtfully grabbing a fork for Eliot to use instead of his usual chopsticks. Eliot was getting settled on the couch, while Hardison unpacked the takeout, when Parker re-emerged from the kitchen with three bottles of beer, the caps already popped off.
"So, how was your first day out of the hospital?" Hardison asked conversationally, loading up a plate for himself before taking a seat in the chair, since Parker was quick to claim the other end of the couch.
"Fine," Eliot said vaguely, turning the TV on to the game, before taking the plate that Parker had put together for him. "Thanks, darlin'."
"What'd y'all do?" Hardison continued to press.
"Nothing much," Parker shrugged, popping a potsticker into her mouth, while putting together a plate of her own.
"Sounds exciting," Hardison said dryly.
"Yup," Eliot agreed in the same tone.
"Why do I even try to have a normal conversation with you two? Like tryin' to squeeze blood from a damn stone," Hardison grumbled.
That piqued Parker's interest. "There are rocks that bleed?" She asked looking to Eliot for answers. "Can you make rocks bleed?"
"No Parker, it's just an expression for something that's impossible," he explained, gesturing with his fork, wordlessly asking her for the sweet and sour.
"Oh," she said, visibly deflating in disappointment as she passed the sauce.
Hardison carried most of the conversation as they ate, filling them in on the new identities he was building for them and how he wanted to improve the earbuds while they had some downtime. But eventually any talk was centered mainly around the game they were watching. At least until Parker reached over and tugged the blanket that lived draped over the back of the couch, out from behind Eliot.
"Cold?" Eliot asked leaning forward slightly, so she could grab the blanket that he considered hers, more easily.
"Little bit," she shrugged, wrapping the throw around her shoulders.
"You know what would help with that?" he asked, a smirk spreading across his face.
"Sparky..." Parker said warningly, already knowing what was coming.
"Pants."
Parker threw a fortune cookie from the pile on the coffee table at Eliot, the hitter catching it easily even with the cast on his arm.
Having no idea that the exchange he'd just witnessed was actually something of a running joke between the pair, Hardison interjected. "I can come by again tomorrow if you want to go home to pick up some of your own stuff, Parker," he offered.
Eliot and Parker both turned to look at Hardison with inscrutable expressions, and the hacker couldn't help but feel like he'd just walked into the middle of something, despite the fact that he'd been sitting there the whole time.
"Why would I do that?" she asked.
"So you could wear your own clothes and not Eliot's…" Hardison said, trailing off, trying not to let the blank expression on Parker's face dissuade him. "...since he might not like that."
Parker just blinked at Hardison until Eliot handed her the cookie she'd thrown at him and she was distracted by cracking it open and eating it. When Hardison looked to Eliot for some kind of backup or possibly just validation, the hitter just rolled his eyes and shook his head, before turning his attention back to the game. He was not about to explain Parker's preferred clothing choices, or that there was no need for her to go to her place since over half of her wardrobe already lived in the guest room closet and dresser.
As the game dragged on, Parker sank down on the couch, until she was laying down, using the armrest as a pillow. Despite her full night of sleep the day before, she was still bouncing back from over a week of sleep deprivation and she was currently feeling it. However, if anyone had asked, she would have insisted that she wasn't sleepy, she was just getting comfortable.
But that didn't mean that Eliot didn't see exactly what was happening on the couch next to him. He noticed when Parker's blinks started getting longer and longer as she fought to stay awake. And he was definitely aware of the way she startled almost infinitesimally, every time Hardison yelled at the TV. When her eyes drifted shut for the third time in as many minutes, Eliot reached out and ran his knuckle up the sole of the foot poking out from underneath the blanket she had wrapped herself up in. Her foot swiftly retreated to the safety of the blanket and her eyes popped open to glare at him.
"Why don't you go on to bed, darlin'," he suggested softly, knowing that she would have conked out on the couch already if Hardison wasn't over. He could see the warring expression on her face and saw she was about two seconds from denying she was tired at all. "You're not going to miss anything. The game is almost over, then Hardison is going to go home, and I'm going to go to bed myself."
Parker clearly considered this for a moment before conceding, rolling from the couch, stretching, and heading off down the hallway dragging the blanket behind her, without so much as a goodbye or goodnight to the two men she left behind.
Hardison waited until he heard a door open, then close, before speaking. "So how are things man, really?"
Eliot sighed mentally as he drained the last of his beer. "Things are fine," he said, wondering the quickest way out of this heart-to-heart that Hardison seemed intent on having.
"And everything is okay with Parker here?" the hacker asked.
"Of course it's okay with Parker here," Eliot retorted irritably, not looking away from the TV. "Did we not look okay to you?"
"Nah," Hardison backtracked. "You know I got nothing but mad love for Parker, but I know that she can also be… a lot, after a while. I meant what I said earlier, I can come back tomorrow and hang out for awhile if you, ya know, need a break from her."
Eliot shot the other man a disgruntled look. "You know what my favorite part of having Parker here is?" he asked, before continuing without waiting for an answer "It's that she's not constantly asking how I am!"
Hardison held up his hands in surrender, reading the hitter's mood correctly. "Alright man, just remember the offer stands."
They watched the end of the game in silence, and as the post-game analysis began, Hardison made quick work of putting up the leftovers and dropping the dirty dishes in the sink. Eliot followed Hardison to the door, and after the two men said their goodnights, locked the door behind him.
Eliot leaned against the closed door for a moment, just listening to Hardison's footsteps heading for the elevator and let himself relax, grateful that he was gone. It wasn't that he didn't like Hardison. He did. And under normal circumstances, take-out, beer, and Thursday Night Football would be a pretty good evening in his book. But he was exhausted, as annoying as he found that since he'd done pretty much nothing all day, and he was in more pain than he would have liked to admit. He was very much looking forward to going back to bed.
Limping back to his bedroom, he paused in the hallway when he realized that the door to the guest room was open and the bed was clearly empty. Which could only mean…
"Dammit, Parker," he sighed softly, when he walked into his bedroom and immediately spotted the glint of blonde hair reflecting the moonlight that was pouring through the open curtains. This was not what he'd meant when he'd told Parker to go to bed.
He'd meant it when he told her that the night before was a one time only deal.
Crossing over to the bed, he had every intention of waking her up and sending her back to her own room. But then, with his arm extended to shake her awake, he paused. She looked so peaceful swallowed up by his down comforter, one hand curled under her chin, eyelashes impossibly long against her pale cheeks. He just didn't have the heart to wake her.
With another sigh, he simply got ready for bed as quietly as he could as to not disturb the sleeping thief, and then crawled beneath the covers next to her.
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Eliot woke up to a gentle pressure on the middle of his chest. Cracking his eyes open, he saw that sometime in the night Parker had inched closer and placed her hand over his heart while he was sleeping. He legitimately didn't know if he should be touched that she cared so much that she needed to reassure herself that he was okay, or offended that she was so concerned he was going to just expire in the middle of the night.
He needed to get up and use the bathroom, but he knew the second he moved, she would wake up. Not wanting to disturb her just quite yet, he decided that he could wait and closed his eyes, letting Parker's soft rhythmic breathing lull him into a light doze. The peaceful moment didn't last long however, when the ringing of the doorbell had Parker out of bed and on her feet before the chiming had even stopped.
She looked around the room with wild eyes for a moment while she tried to process why she had gone from a dead sleep, to alert and awake in 0.02 seconds. It was a survival skill that Eliot knew from experience was at odds with the way she woke up naturally. On a normal morning where she was able to wake up on her own, he knew it usually took about twenty minutes and a cup of coffee, before she was capable of, or willing to carry on a coherent conversation.
"Doorbell," was all she said before leaving the room to go see who it was.
Looking through the peephole, Parker felt the adrenaline from her wake up call start to drain from her body when she saw who it was. Pulling the door open, she didn't bother with any kind of greeting other than reaching out to take one of the coffees out of the tray Sophie was carrying, only then opening the door wide enough to let the other woman in.
"Good morning, Parker," Sophie greeted. "I hope I didn't wake you," she added, taking in the younger woman's obviously sleep-mussed hair and tired eyes, dressed in what could only be one of Eliot's quintessential plaid shirts.
"Well, you did," Parker said bluntly, not bothering to hide her yawn as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "I'll go tell Eliot that you're here."
"No need, darlin'," Eliot said, from where he was working his way down the hall. "I'm right here. But what are you doing here so early, Sophie?"
"I thought I'd bring you two breakfast," Sophie explained cheerfully, sweeping into the room, dropping the bag of assorted pastries onto the dining room table.
"At seven in the morning?" Eliot asked doubtfully, sitting carefully in a chair, holding his left arm close to his chest since he hadn't bothered putting his sling on. While he was always awake at this time, and usually for awhile at this point, he knew for a fact that unless they had to be up for a job, Sophie didn't like to be awake before nine. He didn't believe for a moment that she didn't have ulterior motives.
"I'm just getting a jump start on the day," Sophie said lightly, watching Parker unpack breakfast for a moment before turning to Eliot. "Restroom?" she asked simply.
"Second door on the left," Eliot informed her distractedly, pointing down the hall, preoccupied with trying to stop Parker from licking every pastry to decide which one she wanted.
Walking down the hallway, Sophie glanced over her shoulder, before pausing to peek into the guest bedroom, immediately spotting the obviously unslept in bed. Clasping a hand over her mouth in surprise, she quickly ducked into the bathroom across the hall, leaning against the shut door. Hardison had come back to Nate's loft the night before full of only half-comprehensible statements about clothes and bed sharing. Sophie was sure the hacker was reading into things that weren't there, and over exaggerating as he was prone to do. So of course she'd had to come over and investigate for herself. What she hadn't expected was for Hardison to be so completely right.
Realizing she'd been in the bathroom long enough, she leaned over to flush the toilet and then let the water in the sink run for a moment while she checked her lipstick, before heading back out to the main room.
"Alright, well I'll leave you two to it," Sophie announced, picking up her purse which she'd left on the table.
"You're leaving already?" Eliot asked surprised, but not necessarily disappointed. It was just that he had been sure he was going to have the grifter hanging around all morning.
"I'm afraid so, I have things to do, people to see today," she said breezily. She needed to talk to Nate, she couldn't have been the only one to miss this development, whatever it was.
"But you brought breakfast," Parker said, equally confused. "And you didn't eat any."
"I brought it for you," Sophie replied. "Enjoy!" she called behind her as she swept out of the condo, the door clicking shut behind her.
"That was weird, right?" Parker asked after a few moments of them eating in silence. "I mean I know I'm not good at these sorts of things, but..." she looked to Eliot for confirmation.
"Yeah, that was definitely weird," he assured her.
"What got into her?" Parker wondered, her head cocked to the side as she turned back to the front door, like she expected Sophie to come bursting back through it at any minute.
Eliot could only imagine. "Don't know," he said honestly. "But I don't really care. I'm gonna go take a shower."
After a nice long steam, Eliot couldn't even say he was surprised when he came out of the bathroom and found Parker sitting on his bed folded practically in half while she painted her toenails. What did give him pause was the look on her face. She was trying to look like she was focused on what she was doing, but underneath that was the same face she made when she felt like she was getting away with something. It was usually something innocuous, like purposely riling Hardison up, by giving some controversial opinion about one of those stupid sci-fi shows he enjoyed so much. But the key word there was usually, so he still wanted to know what she'd gotten up to while he had been otherwise distracted.
"What did you do?" he asked plainly.
"What do you mean?" she asked, glancing up from her toes, the epitome of innocence written all over her face.
He didn't believe it for a second. "While I was in the shower, what did you do?"
"Nothing," she proclaimed, screwing the top back onto the bright purple polish she was using. "Other than cleaning up the dishes from breakfast and from yesterday."
"And?" he continued, leadingly.
"And I used the dishwasher, because you weren't there to stop me," Parker admitted, sticking her tongue out at him.
Eliot rolled his eyes. That wasn't nearly as bad as he had feared. In fact, he was mildly amused at her obstinance, until a realization settled over him.
"Parker," he said with a carefully measured calm. "Please tell me you didn't just use the regular dish soap that is under the sink?"
"It's dish soap, right?" she replied. "It's made to clean dishes."
"You can't use sink dish soap in the dishwasher," he ground out. "You have to use dishwasher detergent."
"Does it really matter?"
"Dammit Parker, it matters!" he exclaimed, losing his cool, imagining his kitchen at that very moment, completely filled with suds. "It matters a lot!"
Parker burst into hysterical laughter, tipping sideways onto the bed, holding her stomach with both arms. "Oh, your face!" she giggled. "I know it's a different soap," she assured him, once she started to settle. "Trust me, I learned that lesson the hard way when I was nine. I spent enough time in the closet after that mistake to never make it again."
"The closet?" Eliot asked, not sure if he really wanted to know.
"Yeah, and it was a holiday weekend, so I was stuck in there for three days before he had to let me out to go to school," she explained casually, as if she wasn't revealing something extremely appalling. "But it was a walk-in so it was pretty roomy, and I'd learned to keep a few boxes of cereal hidden on the top shelf behind the stack of old Playboys, so it actually wasn't too bad of a weekend."
"Jesus Christ, Parker," Eliot exhaled, horrified.
"Don't worry," she continued on like it was nothing, "I went downstairs to borrow some soap from Miss Angelika and Madame Du Pompadour."
Eliot had to stop and wonder if he'd just had a small stroke, because what? "You borrowed soap from Louis XV's mistress?" he asked, bewildered.
Parker let out another barking laugh. "No, Miss Angelika. The lady who lives in 4B."
Eliot tried to remember which of his neighbors Parker was talking about. He had made it a point to know everyone who lived in the building on sight, even if he had also made efforts to not actually interact with any of them. "You mean the old lady with the blue hair and the pink poodle?"
Parker nodded with a wide grin. "Uh huh!"
"So Madame Du Pompadour is-"
"The poodle."
"Riiiiiight," Eliot drawled slowly. "And how do you know her well enough to borrow soap?" he couldn't stop himself from asking.
"I was in the vents one time and I saw her struggling to take her trash out to the chute, so I helped her," she said with a shrug. "She has arthritis, so it's hard for her to carry the bags. So now I go over once a week to take out her trash, and then we have candy cane tea and ginger snaps while she tells me stories."
Eliot blinked at her once, and then again. He had so many questions that he didn't even know where to start. "Every week? How long has this been going on? What the hell is candy cane tea?"
"Usually on Tuesdays, unless we're out of town for work. I guess it's been five or six months now. Peppermint tea with a mini candy cane in it," she answered each question in turn.
"It's not even October," he pointed out.
"So?" she responded. "There's never a bad time of year for candy canes."
"I had no idea," Eliot admitted frankly. He'd truly had no clue Parker was out making friends with his elderly neighbor.
Parker just shrugged, not seeing how that was a concern of hers. "I like her. She says she doesn't think I'm weird. She says I just have a unique and refreshing perspective of the world, and that people who can't see that, aren't worth my time," Parker recited, with a decisive nod.
"She's right," Eliot agreed, even if he would always think Parker was weird. But he had learned over the years, that for the most part, it was a weird that suited her, and he wouldn't change her for the world.
"She even likes that I don't use the door," she continued, "because her knees make it hard for her to get up to answer it."
That right there, though. The fact that she'd just confessed to breaking into his neighbor's home on a weekly basis, even if said neighbor apparently didn't mind. That was the stuff that gave him a headache.
"She has the best stories too. Did you know she was a burlesque performer in New York City during World War II?" she continued excitedly. "She was a fan dancer. She'd be naked on stage in front of all those soldiers on leave, with nothing but two big fans made of ostrich feathers."
"Is that right..." he drawled, not sure how else to respond to that information. Not that he was about to admit it to Parker, but he'd actually seen a fan dancer perform before. It was far more alluring than one would expect it to be.
"Yeah," she nodded. "She still has them. They're hanging up on her wall. Well, when she's not teaching me how to use them."
Eliot's brain stuttered. "Wait, what?"
"I'm actually getting pretty good at it," Parker said. "Miss Angelika says I'm a natural."
Eliot chuckled, shaking his head to himself as he processed that information. "You, darlin', are a constant surprise."
"In a good way or a bad way?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"Depends," he said honestly. "But this time I mean it in a good way. It's usually a good way," he assured her, at least ever since he'd stopped finding her quirks annoying and started finding them charming. "You certainly keep me on my toes."
"I'll have to give you a show sometime," she offered casually, before getting up to go put her nail polish away.
Eliot choked on thin air at the very thought.
Yup, a constant surprise.
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
"God dammit!" Eliot exclaimed, throwing his head back on the couch and looking up at the ceiling when the doorbell rang yet again. He'd finally found a comfortable position where none of his assorted injuries hurt too. "What now?!"
Setting down the beer he was drinking, he carefully levered himself up off the couch before slowly making his way to the door, the person on the other side of it getting impatient and ringing the bell again before he was halfway there.
"I'm coming, hold your fucking horses," he grumbled as he unlocked the door to find Nate standing on his threshold. He supposed he should have expected this, since he was the only one who hadn't shown up yet.
"Really, Nate?" he asked, unimpressed, stepping back to let the mastermind in. "You too?" After all, Nate had been the only one to support his decision to have Parker stay with him while he recuperated.
Nate held his hands up in front of him placatingly. "Sophie insisted," he admitted with a shrug. "But I brought Cuban sandwiches."
"Whatever," Eliot sighed, gingerly heading back towards the couch.
"What are you doing answering the door anyways?" Nate asked, as he watch Eliot replace the ice pack he'd been using on his knee before the doorbell rang. "Where's Parker?"
"She's up on the roof," Eliot said, making a vague gesture to the stairs behind him. It had been too long since he'd been up there to check on the garden and greenhouse and while the watering was on an automated system, he'd asked her to make sure it wasn't being completely overrun with weeds in his absence. "I don't know why you all keep expecting to find out that she's taken off," he added irritably, offended on her behalf.
"I didn't," Nate replied simply. "That's why I was surprised she didn't answer the door."
"Really?" Eliot couldn't stop himself from asking.
"Yeah, unless it involves emotions, which even that she's getting better with, Parker excels at anything she decides she wants to excel at. She just generally doesn't choose to care about most things," Nate said conversationally, as he unpacked the take-out bags. "I knew she wouldn't let you down."
"Huh." Was all Eliot said, the hitter trying not to think too hard about the deeper ramifications of his boss's statement.
"Where do you keep your plates?" Nate asked, never having spent any extended time in Eliot's home.
"Cupboard to the left of the fridge," Eliot answered, picking up the earbud that Parker had left out for him in case he needed anything while she was upstairs. As he slipped it into his ear, he was surprised that he was coming into a conversation mid-sentence.
"You guys have to keep growing until you look like a big brain so Eliot can turn you into something yummy for me to eat. He thinks I don't know that he hides you in mashed potatoes, but we don't have to tell him that. It makes him feel better to sneak extra vegetables into my dinner, so that can just be our little secret."
A small smile passed over Eliot's lips as he listened to Parker share secrets with his cauliflower. He should have known he couldn't pull one over on the sneakiest person he knew, but since she obviously didn't have a problem with it, he would keep doing it and let her think the plants had kept her confidence.
"Well hello, tomatoes, you guys are looking nice and ripe this afternoon," Parker said, clearly moving down the rows. "We'll have to ask Eliot if I should pick you guys."
"If you think they're ready, go ahead and pick them," Eliot said, letting her know he was now on the comms.
"Do you want me to just bring one down, so you can double-check?" she asked.
"No, I trust you," he replied. "I've shown you before how to tell which ones are ready to pick. And once you're done, come back down. Nate is here and he brought sandwiches."
It didn't take long for Parker to come skipping down the stairs, a wicker basket full of tomatoes, snap peas, and a bunch of spinach, hanging from her elbow.
Nate's steps actually faltered when he looked up and saw Parker hop off the last stair. "What are you wearing?"
"It's my gardening outfit," Parker explained excitedly, twirling on her toes to show off her overalls over a plaid shirt, her green striped rubber boots, and of course, her big floppy straw hat, covering her hair which she had in two braids. "Do you like it?"
"It's very…" Nate looked for the right word, "apropos."
Parker beamed and Eliot smirked. The straw hat was one of the uglier things Eliot had ever seen, but Parker had seen it that day he took her to the nursery and she had immediately decided that she had to have it. And since he had just told her she needed a sunhat next time to keep her from burning again, he couldn't really tell her no. Plus, it made her so happy, and she looked so ridiculous in it every time she wore it that it always made him smile, so he considered it a win-win.
"So you garden now," Nate said, looking amused. "And here I was, thinking that you didn't get plants." He'd been drunk almost all the time back then, but he was pretty sure there had been long, drawn-out debates on the merits of keeping potted plants in the office, back when they had actual offices in Los Angeles instead of just working out of his living room.
"No, I don't get flowers," she corrected. "Especially once they're cut. Then they're just the amputees of the plant world."
Nate laughed, wondering if she'd ever shared this theory with Sophie, already imagining the grifter's response.
"Eliot showed me that there are plants with a purpose," Parker continued. "So that I get. And I like digging in the dirt," she added, waving her grubby hands in Nate's face. "I like the way it feels on my fingers."
"Parker, darlin', why don't you go wash up for lunch," Eliot interjected, saving the mastermind from Parker's soil-covered fingers. "You've got dirt on your face too," he added reaching out to brush a bit of dirt off her nose.
"Okay," she said agreeably, before disappearing down the hall.
"Where on earth did she get that hat?" Nate asked, after the men watched her leave the room.
"It's Parker," Eliot responded, leaving it at that. He had no desire to explain the actual story so it was best just to let Nate fill in the blanks however she wanted. "I blame Sophie," he added.
"I have no doubts that Sophie would be absolutely horrified to hear that, once she's seen that hat."
"Well, Sophie's the one that taught her that the right outfit does half the work for you on the grift," Eliot pointed out. "Now Parker thinks that that applies to every situation in life, and insists that she needs the right get-up whenever she tries something even remotely out of her comfort zone."
Nate couldn't deny the truth in Eliot's words and chose not to say anything. Instead, he continued to surreptitiously watch the pair as Parker vaulted over the back of the couch, now minus the hat and boots. Eliot didn't even blink as she landed lightly at his side, managing to not jostle him at all.
When Parker started to wordlessly deconstruct her lunch, and Eliot unthinkingly lifted the top half of his sandwich to accept the pickles that Parker was picking out of her sandwich to drop onto his, Nate really began to understand what Sophie had been going on about at length after her visit the day before. The mastermind stayed quiet as he ate his own lunch, still observing the way they playfully sniped at each other as Parker reported the status of Eliot's much beloved garden. It was becoming clear that she had more experience with it than Nate ever would have guessed.
Nate had been vaguely aware of the shifting dynamic in his hitter and his thief's relationship over the past few months, but he hadn't given it much thought, beyond the fact that the team was running smoother than ever. But seeing them together, outside of the work setting in what was clearly a comfort zone for both of them, was eye-opening. Suddenly, puzzle pieces that he'd dismissed as outliers started slotting into place.
"Is there anything you two need while I'm here?" Nate asked, as they were all finishing up their meal, and he stood to take his leave.
Parker and Eliot exchanged a look that encompassed an entire conversation.
"No, I think we're good," Eliot answered.
"Alright, feel free to give someone a call if you change your mind." Nate paused for just a moment before continuing. "I can't make any promises, but I'll see what I can do about making the others give you two some space."
"Uh, thanks Nate," Eliot responded. It wasn't that he was against some peace and quiet from his well meaning teammates since that was exactly what he wanted, but he couldn't shake the feeling that Nate meant something... more, somehow, with his offer.
When Parker returned from walking Nate out, taking a detour through the kitchen to retrieve a carton of ice cream and two spoons, he couldn't help but comment on it.
"Is it just me, or has everyone been acting really odd?" he asked, taking one of the spoons.
Parker nodded her agreement, as she dug into the pint of mint chocolate chip. "And they all think I'm the weird one."
A/N Alrighty, there we have it! The longest chapter yet! I sincerely hope you enjoyed it, so please let me know what you guys thought!