Thief
"Abby!" Parker yelled from across the room, tossing the teenager her jacket.
"Yeah?" Abby said, snatching the jacket from thin air.
"Come help me," the thief pressed, waving Abby out the door.
"Are we gonna go steal something? Because Eliot might kill you."
"What, no. We're buying monitors with a credit card," Parker replied, pulling the plastic card out of her pocket and flourishing about.
"Is it your credit card?"
"Is now!" the thief grinned. "And besides, Eliot's in Ecuador." Abby paused for a few moments, considering her options and then pulled on her jacket.
"Let's go."
"So you're the thief," Abby confirmed as they entered the warehouse of a local computer sales company.
"Yes."
"And you steal whatever the team needs; do break in for jobs and whatever?"
"Pretty much," Parker replied as the pair turned a corner to face a tall, large man in a high-visibility vest and hard hat.
"You're not meant to be here," he began. "You need to leave."
"We want to buy computers," Parker said.
"Then go to one of our conveniently placed stores," the man replied as he began to lead them out.
"But I want to buy 150 of them," Parker stated and the man paused.
"150?" he asked, confused.
"Yup!" Parker replied.
"Right this way," he said as he led them in another direction.
"Please don't tell Eliot I did this; he will ground me for a year," Abby said quietly to Parker.
"Tell Eliot what?" the thief grinned.
Ten minutes later several workers were loading the last monitors into Lucille, overseen by Abby while Parker stood face to face with the manager.
"How would you like to pay for that miss?" he enquired.
Parker grinned and pulled out the card which she had stolen from Sherman's driver. "Credit Card please," she smiled as she handed the man the plastic while the workers shut up the van.
"I'm going to make an assumption," Abby began, jumping down from the passenger seat in the van. "That you normally don't pay for these things?"
"Well, I don't steal them. Because that would mean taking money out of somebody's pocket and stopping hard earning people from making a living," the thief began, almost certainly quoting Sophie or Eliot. "Usually I pay out of the Leverage work fund. But if I can make the bad guys pay, well, that's even better."
Hacker
"Did you know that, from the outside, your job is really boring?" Abby declared as she spun herself around on a computer chair, waiting for Hardison to finish his cyber heist.
"But from the inside, it's awesome is what it is!" he defended stylishly.
"Can you teach me?"
"How to hack? You must be outta your damn mind; your uncle would fillet me like sad, sad fish."
"About computers," Abby suggested alternatively. The hacker paused and thought for a moment.
"That I could do," he grinned and began to walk the teenager through the basics of what he was doing as he finished up transferring the last of the Mako's money. "That's what I'm talking about."
"That's aces," Abby praised, genuinely impressed.
"Man, that ain't aces," Hardison began, leaning back on his chair. "Aces is like, hacking into the CIA and stealing their money, not that I've ever done that, or hacking into the TAA and changing a plane's flight path. There is a whole world of aces which you are yet to experience," he finished proudly.
"Sounds… ace," Abby concluded.
"Damn straight," the hacker replied.
"So hacking into a school network, for example, and moving classes around,"
"Hypothetically," he interrupted.
"Of course," Abby agreed. "That would be easy, no?"
"Like taking candy from a hypothetical baby," Hardison said as he smiled. "Hypothetically, what would I be changing?"
"Hypothetically, could you change my classes around so that I get most of the afternoon off?"
Hardison held up his index finger and turned to his computer and, after a few minutes of typing, lent back on his chair, his hands folded behind his head.
"It's done Ace."
"Hypothetically of course?"
"Of course," Hardison replied, playing along. "Now you should go wait in Lucille before feds get here because I do not want to suffer the wrath of Senor Spencer."
Mastermind
Through the monitors in the van Abby watched intently, wondering how exactly Nate's plan in the boiler room was going to unfold. Finally, when the FBI did burst into the room, it made perfect sense as she could finally see how all of the pieces fit together.
And, at that point she was thoroughly impressed with the extent of Nate's abilities; with the extent of the team's abilities and what they did.
"Awesome," she declared softly in awe as the Mako's driver made a break for the door, only to be stopped dead in his tracks by Eliot. Bad idea, Abby thought to herself. Then the man tried to hit Eliot. Okay, that was a really bad idea.
"Thanks man," Eliot said sarcastically. "That's awesome; I hadn't hit anybody in over two weeks."
Then the man stupidly threw another punch, which Eliot blocked effortlessly and, with no trouble at all, knocked the man down for the FBI to take away.
"These guys don't learn do they?" Abby stated softly as her uncle grinned at a young woman in the boiler room. Eww, eww, eww, Abby thought to herself. Eww.
"To the Big Store," Sophie cheered as the team chinked their glasses together. "So how was Ecuador?"
"Better than the last time I was there," Eliot replied as he took a long sip of his beer.
"Not even going to ask," Hardison stated. "Where's Ace?"
"Ace?" the hitter enquired.
"It fits," Hardison replied.
"Out at the movies with some friends," Eliot said, then looked at his watch. "Should be back…" he was interrupted by Abby walking through the door with a familiar, to Eliot at least, looking teenage boy.
"Who's the boy?" Parker asked as Eliot growled, not so quietly, then stood up to 'greet' the boy.
"Nuh uh," Sophie said, trying to stop the man from starting a potentially disastrous argument.
"Sophie, she's my responsibility," he said before she could protest and then walked up to the pair of teenagers. "Who's this?"
Eliot was greeted with a hug from his niece as she introduced her friend. "Eliot this is Kyle Bonnano."
The clearly intimidated teenager held his hand out which Eliot shook, harshly.
"Nice to meet you," Kyle said, obviously trying to stop his voice from breaking.
"Same to you," Eliot greeted in return, without breaking eye contact, or releasing his hand.
"Umm Eliot," Abby said softly as she nervously rubbed her face.
"Yeah," her uncle said as he released the boy's hand, which he rubbed and flexed uncomfortably. "Patrick's son?"
"Yeah," he replied. "He seems to like you."
Eliot nodded.
"Well it's getting late," the hitter declared. "Shouldn't you be getting home?"
The teenager looked at his watch. "Uh, probably," he agreed then began to back away. "I'll see you at school AJ?"
"Yeah," the girl smiled.
"And it was nice to meet you Mr Spencer," he said, already mostly out the door.
As soon as the door had shut behind him, Abby walked behind the bar and poured herself a glass of cola.
"Did you have to?" she asked as she walked, huffing, to the table where the others were sitting.
"Abby you told me you were going to the movies with some friends. As in plural," Eliot replied as he followed her around the bar.
"I did; Kyle is one of them."
"You're not allowed to date," Eliot said, crossing his arms.
"First of all, Kyle isn't my boyfriend and we're not dating; we're just friends. Secondly, I think I'm old enough to date."
"But you like him?"
"Eliot!" Sophie scalded. "You do not ask your teenager whether they like a guy."
"I got it Sophie," Abby stated. "Eliot, you have to trust me. Kyle and I are just friends. If I want to date him or anyone else. I will talk to you about it. Deal?"
Eliot rubbed his temple.
"You're not allowed to date…"
"Deal?"
"Deal," he reluctantly agreed
"So, basically, this guy had stock in all those companies, and we cost him a lot of money. He wants revenge. Uh, how much did he lose?" Nate said to Hardison in his apartment that evening.
"Who said he lost money?" the hacker asked in response.
"He's making money off us?" Nate confirmed and Hardison nodded.
"You have to tell the others."
"When the time is right…"
"No, Nate. It's not just us anymore," he pleaded. "Eliot deserves to know; he deserves to be able to protect her."
"I'll tell them when the time is right," Nate insisted.
"At least go and figure out what this guy's up to," Hardison stated.
"That was the plan."
Hope you guys are enjoying, next chapter up by next week. =)
Please review, if you feel so inclined.