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Author: YanzaDracan
Disclaimer With the exception of the work noted as being originally mine, all works of fiction and characters thereof belong to their original creators/studios/producers/publishers. No money is being earned, and they are used without permission. In the case of RPS, the people being used as characters belong to themselves. I do not know them. Everything I've written is complete fiction. Any goofs, gaffs, bending of facts, or mistakes are mine.
Characters/Pairings: Eliot/Parker; Hardison; Nate; Sophie; Guest appearance by: Jake Jensen; Cougar; & Clay from The Losers; Hetty Lange from NCIS: Los Angeles; Sons of Anarchy
Rating: R
Genre: Slash, het
Warnings/spoilers: language; adult situations, violence, implied non-con, prostitution
Word Count: 6,784/18,321
Summary: They’ve met before when he had “a flag on his shoulder and God in his heart”, before he became Eliot Spencer. Set after The Last Dam Job
Parker sat cross-legged on her bed, Bunny providing a warm spot against her side as she looked at the folders strewn across the comforter. It was something she'd started after they blew up the office in Los Angeles-collecting pieces of information about the people who somehow insinuated themselves into her life.
After they'd scattered, it had taken her weeks to process all the unfamiliar emotions that job had forced through her slim body. The adrenaline rush of cracking the moving armored car mixed with fear when Sterling was inside. The elation when she'd run to Sophie and they'd plunged from the roof, back to anger at seeing Eliot and Hardison cut and bruised while Nate and Sophie walked away fairly unscathed.
She had railed and shouted, raided Sophie's storage unit, planned jobs and run rooftops to try and purge herself of the rollercoaster inside her brain, but nothing stopped it until she'd looked down into the art gallery and saw…Sophie standing in the middle of the room. A hot rage scorched her brain until it was all she could do to not throw her electronic measure at the grifter. Joy coursed through her veins when she looked across the mezzanine and saw Eliot flip Hardison as he tried to make a run for the elevator.
Burying her nose in Eliot's shoulder as Nate drove away from the museum calmed her, but then the retrieval specialist had been able to do that since their first job together. Even when he called her crazy he seemed to know exactly what she was doing and where she was going to land. When she'd jumped off the balcony at that sleazy contractor's, Retzing's house, he'd been right there. She hadn't even known she was going to be right there.
That had convinced her Eliot was psychic, but none of the pieces of information she had ferreted out said he was psychic. Maybe it was a secret superpower that only she knew about.
A soft chime from her phone pulled her mind back to the present. It was almost time for Eliot. Ever since the job with the dust bunnies-dust men-the one where they tortured him and beat up Hardison, he wasn't sleeping much, and would make the rounds of all their places usually ending in his office/training room meditating.
After handing Hardison off the Nate, she'd gone back and collected all their files that Mr. Conrad from the CIA had given Zilgram. The stuff she read she'd already known except Eliot's. By the time she finished reading what wasn't redacted, she had Bunny clenched to her chest and her face was wet.
Parker truly understood what Eliot meant on the mountain when he'd told her they do the things the others can't -won't, the pictures in her mind clicked like an old-fashioned camera-she'd been broken young by people, who should have had her best interests at heart, and taught her to be 'normal'-a regular person, but she'd never missed what she'd never had. Now she was learning regular people stuff from thieves and grifters.
Eliot had all the regular people stuff-a real family, but had been conned and lied to by people who took advantage of his protective instincts and turned him into a nameless, faceless asset. She sometimes wondered as she watched him make magic with his knives if he missed what he'd lost.
Running nimble fingers over the folder, her face lit up in a happy, if slightly crazed expression. She was glad that interrogator had been afraid. Eliot never lied. He told everyone he was a bad man…it's just that he was their bad man so that was okay.
%%%%%
When they stood on the dam's spillway, and Nate said he had to make some big changes, none of them thought he meant moving back to the west coast-well maybe Eliot's psychic power told him, but the rest of them had been surprised.
Sophie's eyes widened as she stood in the middle of the controlled chaos that was Eliot organizing their move.
"Portland? How'd you pick Portland?" She asked.
"Threw a dart." Eliot snarked as he wheeled another pile of boxes into the truck.
In the two months since Jimmy Ford's death and the demise of Latimer and Dubenich, Nate and Eliot had made several trips to Portland, Oregon looking for a new base of operations. Six weeks ago Nate had returned alone. Parker's blood had run cold when she didn't see Eliot. She'd waited until Sophie and Hardison were distracted before cornering the mastermind.
"Nate?" She hissed as she tugged on his coat sleeve.
"Parker I…" He cut off what he was about to say when he saw the worried confusion in the dark blue eyes. "What?" He tried to hold on to his patience while she danced from foot to foot.
"Um…Eliot…"
"…Is overseeing the work that needs done to our new home."
"You sure? That Mr. Conrad was practically drooling when he saw Eliot, and Eliot got scary quiet."
"Why don't you call him?"
Her face lit up as she skipped out the door of the hotel suite. When Hardison looked up at the sound of the door closing, Nate shrugged and went back to the files he'd been reading.
%%%%%
Hardison looked up in time to see the backside of Parker go out the door. He knew his girl was worried about Eliot, but couldn't find a reason why. Hacking Parker wasn't like hacking some database. The girl had too many randoms for him to fathom, and the others on the team would just give him pitying looks if he asked-except for Eliot who'd give him that damn smirk and say,
"What can I tell ya, man? She's nuts."
But there was something between the retrieval specialist and the thief that Parker made look as though it was them against the world, and the world was lacking because of it. The hacker didn't know whether to be jealous or confront them. He just knew if he confronted them they would both look at him like he was the crazy one. So with the downtime they had thanks to Dubenich and Latimer, Hardison would do what he always did when he couldn't chart something in his head, he chart it on paper and see where it went.
Raiding the mini-bar for a fresh orange soda, digging through the cabinets of the kitchenette, Alec emptied his armload of snacks that barely passed Eliot's glare test. To do a proper chart, he needed more information on Eliot. The files Zilgram got from Mr. Conrad should have what he needed. If he had Eliot's known aliases, he could send out his little webcrawlers to gather information while he tried to logic out Parker's relationship with Mr. Punchy.
Going to the hidden directory where he kept everything on the team from the aliases he built to every tidbit he could find about them, he was shocked to find Eliot and Parker's CIA files gone. He checked his thumb and USB drives, even checked where he'd hidden the hard copies, but everything was gone. First he was pissed then a fissure of fear ran down his spine.
He checked the entire system for breaches or any sign of a footprint that someone had been in his system. There was nothing, no failed password attempts, not a trace of anyone but him having been in his servers. He could see Eliot's file having some kind of virus that deleted the file, but why would Parker's be missing?
He soon forgot about dissecting Parker and Eliot's relationship in the frenzy of looking for a needle in an electronic haystack.
%%%%%
Eliot looked around satisfied at what he saw. The new offices of Leverage and Associates were ready for the occupants. The smile that lit the rugged face was known to cause parents to lock up their sons and daughters, but the reason for this smile didn't have a thing to do with Eliot being on the prowl, but with the fact that the team would soon be on his turf.
The still grieving Nate had been easy to convince that this location was perfect for their new offices, pointing out the easily defensible position of the building, self-sufficiency because of the small hydro-electric plant in the basement, and brick façade with limited entry from the ground. Nate had been suspiciously compliant until Eliot realized he was just doing what he thought was expected of him. After touring the antiquated warehouse, the enforcer headed to the airport.
He stopped at the 'Departures' door. Nate seemed to snap out of his stupor when Eliot opened the car door and pulled him out of the seat.
"Wha…? Eliot, why are we at the airport?"
Slapping a ticket in Nate's hand and pulling his bag out of the backseat, Eliot shoved him toward the door.
"Go back to Boston, Nate. Let Sophie take care of you. I'll call when it's time to move." Eliot cajoled softly.
"But…"
"I got this, Nate. Jimmy Ford wasn't father of the year, but he was still your dad and you need time to deal with his death."
"I'm…"
"If you say you're fine I will knock you out, tell them you're drunk and dump you in your seat." Eliot threatened through gritted teeth.
"Fine." Nate shouldered his bag and stepped up on the curb.
Eliot shut the door and leaned against the fender of the SUV, arms crossed over his chest.
"Seriously?"
Pale eyes narrowed.
"You're going to…" Nate stopped when Eliot nodded.
"You've got just enough time to get through security and get to your gate." Eliot prodded verbally.
"How? Nevermind." Nate spun around and headed through the doors.
On the way back to Portland's original warehouse district, Eliot stopped at an Internet café and sent a message.
%%%%%
On an uncharted island located in international waters off the Mexican coast an email was opened. A half-naked bespectacled blond ran across the sand.
"Clay! Cougs!" Jake Jensen shouted as he ran toward their living quarters.
His shout brought everyone's attention to him, including those whose names he called. He slid to a stop in front of his CO.
"Why are you shouting to wake the dead, Jake?" Clay growled at the grinning man.
"Going to the mainland." The tech held a piece of paper out.
With a sigh, Clay handed the paper to his sniper who smiled when he read it.
"Get your shopping lists together people. Cougar and Jensen are taking a trip to Portland." Clay shouted across the compound.
He looked back down at the paper the sniper had given back.
Send the kid and his nanny. W. Lobo
There were coordinates, which no doubt would take them to the exact spot Eliot wanted them. Clay shook his head as he walked back to suite he shared with Aisha wondering how his former weapons specialist was getting along, and why he would need Jake.
It didn't take long for the two men to prep their jet boat and collect shopping lists from everyone. Who knew it took so much stuff when you had kids. It was late afternoon when they pulled away from the dock. They'd stay in international waters until they got up the coast of Oregon before heading into Chinook Astoria and down the Williamette to Portland.
Cougar piloted the boat while Jake worked to merge the group's lists down to a more manageable one. The monotony of his task let Cougar's mind wander back to the young man with flat pale eyes that had been transferred out of The Losers a couple weeks after Cougar had been transferred in. He remembered the Colonel bitching about the spooks snapping up his best people, and everyone but Roque and Pooch staying out of his way as though they understood the source of Clay's ill humor.
Clay had stood on the dock looking at the boat then back at the compound as though demanding to be taken along, but Aisha had called his name and with bent shoulders, he'd turned back to their compound.
Three hours before sunrise, Cougar shut down the engines, settled on the palette they'd rigged under the shelter, curling around Jensen he dropped into a light doze knowing the sunrise would wake him.
%%%%%
Pulling up to the dock, Cougar shut down the engines as Jake scanned the river bank. The sniper had been scanning both banks for some time and saw nothing to indicate danger or their host. Still not seeing anyone, the blond kept watch while Cougar secured the boat and collected their gear. Both men's hearts stopped when a voice that was more growl than words sounded behind them.
"Y'all's gettin' soft."
"Lobo?" Cougar asked as he turned slowly ready to reach for his weapon if needed.
A wide eyed Jake watched the man in shadows closely.
"Cougar." Eliot gave the sniper a smirk.
"Ass." Jake muttered before he clamped his jaw shut.
Pale eyes flickered to him and back to Cougar.
"Slippin' in the nanny department."
Dark eyes rolled in exasperation.
"It's a behavior we're working on."
"Must be a geek thing." Eliot turned away. "Grab yer gear and come on-supper's almost ready."
A shower and the best meal they'd had in forever, and they settled around a conference table covered in blueprints.
"There's four warehouses in this block, all belonging to me. They're laid out the same with different functions on the lower floors. I want them all outfitted like a geek's wet dream." Blue/grey eyes landed on Jensen.
"Brick walls might cause a problem." The tech started only to stop abruptly when he looked at the long-haired man.
"You're here to make it not a problem." Eliot's growl caused Cougar to start to come off his chair.
"It might cost."
"Also not a problem. Since you need to stay out of sight, make a list, I'll fill it." With those words, the long-haired man left the table.
"I thought you were a hard ass." Jensen looked up into dark eyes.
The sniper looked at the figure retreating toward the kitchen.
"Being the best means you're usually someone's bitch." The softly accented voice trailed off.
%%%%%
When Eliot packed Jensen, Cougar and what seemed like a mountain of supplies onto the boat five weeks later, all that was left to do was get on a plane, and retrieve the team. Shelley had brought his truck, Challenger and motorcycles to the west coast, leaving him free to worry about getting everyone else's 'stuff' to Portland. He looked for Hardison and Sophie to be the worst culprits. He had just enough time to clean the suite the boys were using before he had to be at the airport.
He'd just settled into the cab when his phone rang.
"What?"
If the driver would have looked in the mirror, he'd have seen the stern face soften.
"I'm fine, Parker."
He rolled his eyes as she spoke.
"I'm glad you've got the freezer empty." An indignant squawk came through the phone. "It's that much less to pack."
Eliot could picture the frown between her brows as she deciphered what he was saying.
"I'm on my way to airport, Parker. You better have everything packed or I'm leavin' it." He gave a mock growl.
He pulled the phone back as she shrieked. "GOTTA GO!"
Pocketing the phone, he looked up to see the driver watching him in the rear view mirror.
"Wife?"
"What!? No." Eliot threw the man a disgruntled look. "Annoying co-worker."
The man gave him a look of disbelief before turning his attention back to the road.
%%%%%
"Parker!" Sophie exclaimed as the blonde nearly ran her down as headed for the door. "Where are you going in such a rush?"
"We gotta pack Eliot's coming to get us." She hurried out the door.
Sophie looked at Nate and Hardison.
"Did you know he was coming today?"
Both men shook their heads.
"The only thing he said was he'd be back when everything was ready." Nate offered.
The rest of the day was spent in a flurry of packing and gathering what they were moving to the west coast. They had shipped boxes of things they didn't use often to the new address, but there was still a lot to do.
Nate and Hardison had spent most of the day packing their servers, and had sat down to a room service dinner when the door opened. Both men looked up expecting Parker or Sophie, but continued to stare when Eliot walked through the door.
"What? I got something on my face?" Eliot's tone was sharp.
"Naw, man." Hardison was the first to come to life. "Just surprised that you found us. We've been moving every few days just in case."
Eliot turned his glare up a notch. "Hardison, what did I do before this crew?"
"Hit people, shoot people, hurt people, made people bleed..." Hardison rambled as he turned back to his dinner.
Nate caught the quick flash of hurt and anger that crossed Eliot's face before it disappeared behind his customary glare as he stalked over to settle in the corner farthest from them. Nate was still watching Eliot when Hardison gave an indignant squawk.
"OW! Woman, what's your malfunction?" He shouted at Parker.
"He retrieved stuff." Parker corrected as she stole the dessert off the table.
"HEY! That was mine." The hacker whined. "I know what Eliot used to do. I read the file."
Parker took a bite and set it back on the table.
"Not as good as yours." She smiled widely at Eliot.
"No one's is as good as mine, Sweetheart." He smiled warmly at the blonde before his usual expression dropped back in place.
Jealousy and awe flashed through the men eating dinner at the way their hitter turned the charm on and off like a faucet. Placated, Parker perched on a chair by Alec as the men finished their dinner pelting Eliot with questions about their new home.
%%%%%
Eliot slid from the suite as soon as everyone's attention was diverted to going over their lists. He was usually as quick as Sophie with picking up nonverbal clues from people, but he could not figure out what he'd done to get Hardison's shorts in a knot.
Ever since Parker had started leading Hardison on their merry little chase, the hacker had gotten extremely prickly about the thief. That Parker had little concept of personal space or privacy or the fragility of the egos of young geniuses with issues was not Eliot's fault. That he was bearing the brunt of the hacker's insecurities because he was under the impression that Eliot wouldn't retaliate was not making this a good time for the retrieval specialist.
Eliot pictured many painful training sessions in Hardison's future as he settled in for a few hours sleep.
%%%%%
Lucille and the truck they'd leased for the move were nearly loaded by the time the others made an appearance. First Hardison was flustered that Eliot had gained access to the storage unit he'd secured, then preened that a technophobe like Eliot had learned something from him.
"I gave him the code." Nate snapped. "Can we focus so we can get finished?"
Ignoring the men, Parker and Sophie moved to help Eliot. When they were out of earshot, Parker pulled Eliot to a stop.
"Nate didn't give you the code did he?"
Eliot shrugged off the question as he moved lockers of Parker's equipment onto the truck.
"I knew it." She hissed in a stage whisper as she started rolling Sophie's trunks to the truck.
They had everything loaded by noon and after a quick lunch at a nearby diner, Nate and Sophie climbed into Nate's car while Parker and Hardison took Lucille and Eliot the truck.
Nate's car and Lucille remained in close proximity to each other, the heavy truck falling behind on the hills, which was fine with Eliot they didn't need to cross America looking like a convoy.
Around midnight, he pulled into the truck stop outside Joliet, Illinois, filled the fuel tanks and found a quiet spot in the back row of the parking lot to get a few hours sleep.
Too controlled to give himself away when he was jerked awake by his nightmare, Eliot sat up slowly, body stiff from sleeping on the truck's bench seat. Grabbing his pack and fuel receipt, he felt better after a hot shower and breakfast. The sun had just breached the horizon when he started the second leg of his trip.
%%%%%
Stepping into the parking lot of the Fairfield Inn, Nate and Alec looked around for any signs of Eliot. They were hoping to pawn Parker off on him today.
The thief had spent the day before going back and forth between vehicles, and as much as Alec Hardison cared about Parker, he wasn't sure he could spend another day in an enclosed space with her. Even now she was demolishing the hotel's continental breakfast bar.
Seeing no sign of their large truck, the hacker had already fired up his Notebook when Nate turned to him.
"Where?"
"Iowa."
They groaned at the thought of entertaining the high energy thief for two more days without Eliot's calming influence.
They'd stopped in North Platte, Nebraska for the night, Sophie twitchy until they made it through Lincoln.
"We could have had Eliot tow your car and flown to Portland." Sophie complained.
Even her patience was wearing thin.
"What did you do to piss off Eliot?" Her tone was testy.
"Me? Nothing. I think Hardison's jealous boyfriend act was getting old. He's fine while we're on a job, then he gets all jealous when it's back to real life."
"Ah. On the job, he's the damsel in distress being saved by Parker and Eliot, so he tries to assert control and pisses everyone off?"
"Something like that." Nate grinned before pulling her in for a quick kiss.
"Eliot driving out ahead keeps us from looking like a gypsy caravan and gives Hardison exactly what he wanted …time alone with Parker."
"Yep."
Sophie put her arm through Nate's as they strolled into the hotel lobby.
"Oh dear." Sophie looked up. "Maybe they have a gym where she can work off a little of that energy."
Rolling his eyes, Nate checked them into the suite Hardison booked from their last fuel stop.
%%%%%
Lying back on the queen size bed, Eliot breathed deeply letting go the tensions of the past few days. The time he'd spent prepping the warehouses had kept his hands busy as his mind dealt with all the shit dredged up during the job with the CIA. The time Cougar and Jake had been with him had been companionable, the work and Cougar keeping the young man's high energy contained. The silence after they left had been a balm to his psyche that had been battered by immersion into a culture that could have been his fate if not for his iron will and stubborn determination to not get lost in the morass of memories from too many missions and too many bodies. The explosions, guns and worry that Nate wouldn't nosedive them all into something Eliot couldn't get them out of after his father's death, the desire to put a bullet in Dubenich's brain so Nate wouldn't. Sophie's horror at his actions, Quinn's silent support left his nerves so raw that the time alone had given him the space he needed to stuff all his demons back in their boxes.
Another reason he was running out ahead was the mess he'd left in the space he claimed for himself. Like most people in his profession, he constantly moved from place to place. Now he found he'd accumulated things, and not just the trappings of his profession. There were odds and ends from clients, jobs, Parker bless her twisted little heart-so he was sorting it all. Amongst the foot lockers and bins he'd collected from the dozen storage units he had around the country, he'd found a lock box that it'd taken him some time to open.
It was in a unit he'd rented after he'd been transferred to General Atherton's black ops command. The key was long gone the lock rusted, and by the time he'd cleaned and lubricated the tumblers enough to pick the lock, his anxiety of what he'd thought important enough to keep all these years was running pretty high.
Inside the lock box was the last vestiges of the man who died on his last mission for Atherton. The first time he'd thought about that mission in years was when Hardison had played 'The Ice Man' and they'd dressed Parker like a Barbie doll. The last time he'd thought of it was when he'd seen Archie Leach. Now those files were scattered across his loft, and he needed to get it all locked away before the team, especially Parker and Hardison saw them.
Neither Parker nor Leach seemed to remember him and he wanted to keep it that way.
%%%%%
July 2000
"Hey Sarge, General's asking for you!"
The guy sitting next to him nudged him with his elbow.
"That's you." He snickered.
With a glare he stood and headed for the door. The promotion had come after their last mission, and with the ink barely dry in his file, it looked like they were throwing him into the fire.
There were four other men in the office when he stepped through the door.
"Close the door, Sergeant." Atherton ordered. "At ease, sit." He tossed a file toward each man. "One of the raids we recently conducted," he looked pointedly at his newest Sergeant, "garnered us intel we've been working six months to get."
Atherton watched the frowns appear on the handsome faces in front of him, all except one that held its usual icy glare. The intelligence behind those eyes worried him, but he had several agencies that were after him to let them have the Sergeant, and he was beginning to think it might be a good idea.
"You men were selected for two reasons. Your pretty boy faces and you're part or full blood Indian…excuse me, Native American." Now they were all glaring.
He raised a hand to stop their objections.
"Our arms dealer is using his wife's 'debut' of her newest line of clothes to smuggle a shipment of weapons to one of the more violent drug cartel's we've been battling. This is our chance to cut the head off two snakes at the same time. Now the 'theme' of this fashion spectacle is Cowboys and Indians." He rolled his eyes. "We've already got you booked, and your 'agent' will have your gear if and when the shipment appears. Try to keep collateral damage to a minimum-this woman apparently has enough clout to get the use of top end everything including enough diamond jewelry to cover the defense budget all shipped to an abandoned airstrip…here."
He looked through the folder and rolled his blue eyes at the location…Lake Tahoe…could this get anymore cliché. This had all the earmarks of a glorious disaster, but he could see no way to get out of the mission.
A week later, he was glad it was July. The only thing between him and Mother Nature was a couple feathers and a Pendleton blanket covering the tender parts of his anatomy. Their arms dealer had yet to make an appearance though his wife had left her fingerprints on all the male models, and a couple of the female.
Heading to the dressing rooms to put clothes on for the next part of the shoot, he walked past an argument between and older man and the security guard for the jewelry.
"I am so terribly sorry," the older man seemed to be pleading, "my daughter, though she looks like an adult is a little simple minded. She saw the pretty jewelry and became fascinated. I humbly apologize for any trouble she may have caused."
"Simple minded?" The guard let go the blonde's arm with a shove toward her father. "Shorten her leash or I'll have her and you banned from this event." The guard growled.
"I understand. Thank you for your kindness, Sir." He took his daughter by the arm and walked away.
Still watching the pair, he saw no lack of intelligence-though there was a hint of insanity in the deep blue eyes. The girl began reciting details as they walked. So jewels thieves then. Nothing to do with his mission, but he made a note of their faces, and went in search of some clothes that would cover his nether regions.
%%%%%
Parker looked around feeling eyes on her, but not seeing who was staring. She pulled her attention back to Archie and the guard, but apparently her spacing out, looking for the eyes, sold security on her being a simpleton that liked shiny things. A tug on her arm, and they were walking across the room as she gave Archie a recitation of what she'd seen in regards to security on the jewels. Feeling the eyes again, she looked up-into the stare of a pale eyed wolf who winked at her before turning away.
She brushed her bangs out of her eyes, but the wolf was gone.
"Parker? Are you paying attention?" Archie's cultured voice cut through the confusion making static in her brain.
"What? Yeah. Paying attention. Anyway…" She continued with her report pushing away thoughts of wolves and eyes like blue topaz.
%%%%%
When they weren't being photographed with little or no clothing, the four Delta Force soldiers wandered the area looking for signs of things or people that didn't belong. Nothing…there was nothing that even hinted at not being what it was supposed to be.
It was the last day when a wave of excitement ran through the models and support people as the crowd parted to allow the passage of the designer and her husband, Damien Moreau.
Blue/grey eyes narrowed as they took the measure of the man. The suit cost more than he got paid in six months, watch and cufflinks expensive but understated-everything perfect, but he saw the man behind the trappings of wealth. The eyes scanning the room, the contempt in the expression for the fawning sycophants around him, the casual cruelty to the people around him, and the black suited men that were never very far away.
He looked away, not wanting Moreau to see the other predator in the room, but as his head turned he saw the blonde waif he'd heard called Parker sliding through the crowd. Wallets, watches and necklaces were disappearing into nimble little fingers as she moved closer to the king and queen of the event.
Inwardly chastising himself for getting involved, he moved to intercept the skinny blonde. He grabbed her wrist just as fingers moved toward the platinum Rolex.
"Yer late. Yer supposed to be in hair and makeup, Sweetheart." He tugged the wide-eyed blonde away from the arms dealer and his wife.
"You have a death wish, girl?" He hissed as he pulled her across the room.
Spotting the older man who claimed to be her father, he shoved the girl in his arms.
"If you know what's good for you, you'll clear out…" He looked around the room at the swarm of activity, "now." He added a glare to emphasize his words.
"Thank you, young man. I think you may be right in your assessment." Giving the room a last glance, he wrapped an arm around the girl's waist. "Come along, Parker."
"But…"
"No, your young man's right. It's time we returned home."
Watching until they drove away, he moved to where the others from the squad were waiting for their orders.
"Not long now." He murmured just as the assistant that Moreau had been verbally kicking came to get them for their next session.
Standing from where he'd been posing with an artfully debauched red-head, he could hear the whir of the camera motor so made sure the couch and the red-head hid the parts that made this art and not porn. Not liking the feeling he was getting, he looked up into the face of the man they were here to capture. The heat coming from those eyes should have set the couch on fire. Snatching his robe from the photographer's assistant, he took his time giving Moreau just enough of a peek to be an accidental tease before stalking off to the dressing rooms.
"Sarge, we got trucks comin' in supposedly to haul all these sets and stuff back to the city." Jake Tall Bear filled him in as he was pulling on his clothes.
"Do we hear anything?" He asked their 'agent' since he had the most freedom of movement.
"Some grumbling from one of the black suits about missin' out on one of the models 'cause he has to work tonight."
"That's a start. Tonight we watch from the perimeter. Bring the guns in on the trucks from the set company, and in the confusion of breakin' down, the shipment gets exchanged."
The launch party was being touted a huge success for Katya Moreau's fashion line, but now the guests and buyers were beginning to depart. At the now empty camper trailers the models had been using as living quarters, the black ops team geared up.
"I'll stay in close and call you if it looks like the exchange is goin' down."
With a grunt of acknowledgement the squad scattered.
Things stayed quiet until two things happened-he saw the first crate of RPGs come off one truck and get loaded on another, and a slim shadow slipped from the office where a safe full of jewelry was being stored until it was picked up in the morning.
Watching the activity at the loading dock, she didn't see the security guard coming back from the men's room. He'd just activated his mic to call his men when everything went to hell.
"HEY!" The security guard shouted, alerting the men on the dock.
The blonde's head snapped around to assess her situation. With few places to hide, she shot for the shadows hoping to disappear into the dark. Gunfire erupted from the dock, taking out the guard, and spraying his general vicinity. He reached from behind the crate where he was hiding and pulled the girl out of the line of fire.
%%%%%
Parker cringed when she heard the guard yell. Archie would be so disappointed if she got caught. Looking for cover, she turned into the shadows. Her black clothes should give her the chance to work her way back to the door. She knew she was royally screwed when the guys on the dock started shooting, but before she got very far something grabbed her out of the dark.
Panicked, she froze as she was pulled close to a heavily armed body.
"Dammit, girl. I thought I told you to leave." He growled in her ear.
Parker opened her eyes and looked straight into the glowing eyes of her wolf. She relaxed and let him pull her deeper into the shadows of the large crate. She looked around the other side to see the guard lying in a pool of blood.
"FIND THEM!" Someone yelled.
"Come on." The wolf growled through gritted teeth as he pulled her deeper into the building.
They paused to get their bearings, the man protecting her slung his rifle around his back and pulled his knife, which he used to kill the guard that had set to guard inside the door. Eyes wide and heart fluttering in her throat she watched him wipe his knife on the bad guy's pants before moving toward the door.
Opening the door a crack, they were driven back by machine gun fire.
He touched his throat. "Could us a little help on the west side, guys."
"On the way, Sarge."
They moved for cover away from the door, the wolf putting her behind him as footsteps came closer. Parker held her breath as two men walked by close enough to touch when lights snapped on and voices yelled.
"FEDERAL AGENTS!!! EVERYONE DROP YOUR WEAPONS!!!"
She looked at her protector and saw his eyes narrow then widen.
"Fuck!"
He moved like quicksilver as he stripped off his rifle and pistol then grabbed her and rolled them up like an armadillo behind a concrete half wall. The hangar lit up with fireworks before everything went black.
She didn't know how long she'd been unconscious, but it must not have been very long because feet were running and people were still yelling. She squirmed out from under the heavy bulk of the man who'd shielded her. He was breathing, but it sounded funny…kind of wet. She didn't want to leave him, but if they caught her there'd be no escape. She didn't have Archie's ability to talk her way out of things so she did the only sensible thing-she whispered an apology to her wolf as she propped him up so he could breathe easier then slipped out the hole that had been blown in the wall.
%%%%%
Fighting to open his eyes, he panicked when he couldn't breathe. He tried to reach for whatever was choking him, but found he couldn't move. Taking control of his panic, his eyes did a quick scan. Restraints on his wrists, a breathing tube in his throat-he relaxed knowing his panicked heart rate would have someone rushing in any minute.
Looking around the room, he concluded he was somewhere private because this didn't look like any hospital he'd ever seen. He must have been taken by friendlies because if he was found by Moreau's people they'd have left him to die. His next thought was for his squad and the little blonde, Parker-he wondered if…
His thoughts were interrupted by two women entering the room.
"Good of you to join us Mr. Spencer. Give us just a moment, and if everything checks out we'll pull that nasty tube out of your throat." The older woman soothed.
Spencer. Who was Spencer?
Not knowing his circumstances, he kept quiet and let them work. Watching the doctor check his wounds and the nurse change the bandages, he knew he was lucky to be alive. He wondered briefly about the skinny blonde, and hoped she'd gotten away in one piece. Finally left alone with a cup of ice chips and the promise of dinner, he felt his eye lids grow heavy. Just about to tip over into sleep, the creak of leather and the scrape of a shoe on tile shot adrenaline through his veins though he kept his body relaxed and his eyes mere slits. The person stopped at his bedside reading his chart.
He opened his eyes and saw a diminutive woman with a page boy hair cut and horn rimmed glasses.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. Spencer."
Opening his mouth to correct her, she raised her hand to stop him.
"There was an unfortunate casualty during the raid on the gunrunners. A Gunnery Sergeant was killed by what was determined to be friendly fire from his own teammates. The body was destroyed in the fire that ensued when the gunrunners fired an RPG into the building."
Exhausted from his injuries and recent foray into consciousness, his natural snark came forward.
"Does Mr. Spencer have a first name?"
"Eliot."
"What does Eliot Spencer do?" He sighed tiredly.
"Works for me because there were some issues with his previous employer."
"Fu…" He cut himself off remembering the older woman, and his mama raised him not to curse in front of his elders. "If I work for you I should at least know your name."
"Henrietta Lange, but MY people call me Hetty."
"So…Hetty…when can I get out of here?"
A flash of headlights pulled his attention back to the present as a combination of fatigue and hunger had him looking for someplace to take a break.
The last time Eliot thought about the fiasco that got him away from Atherton before the General had him killed for the information he'd collected about his treasonous dealings was when he'd been standing on the roof for the first time with Parker and Hardison and the wind had carried Parker's scent to him waking the memory of a skinny blonde thief and her 'father'.
Being only three hours from his destination, Eliot decided to push on knowing the others would probably stop around Twin Falls, Idaho, and arrive in Portland a day behind him.
Part II
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Date: 2012-04-10 12:38 am (UTC)From:Small nitpick, though: SEALs don't become Gunnies/Gunnery Sergeants since they're Sailors, not Marines. The correct E-7 rank would be Chief Petty Officer (however, I doubt that Eliot would have become a CPO already in his twenties. It's usually a rank you attain in your thirties AFAIK.). Hope this didn't come across as patronizing, I just stumbled across it :S
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Date: 2012-04-10 12:53 am (UTC)From: