The Mangoes and Limes Job

[mizzy]

The Mangoes and Limes Job
Title: The Mangoes and Limes Job
Author: mizzy2k
Beta(s): ella_bee
Disclaimer Leverage does not belong to me.
Characters/Pairings: Hardison/Parker, Hurley/Peggy, McSweeten/Hagen
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Adventure/Romance
Warnings/spoilers: Vague season 4 spoilers.
Word Count: 13,800
Summary: So, Hardison plans a perfect date, and it's interrupted by a heist. Of course.
Link to art: by unavoidedcrisis here.

So, Hardison plans a perfect date, and it's interrupted by a heist.

Of course.

He could have rolled with it pretty well, apart from the part where Parker's trapped in a hotel with no CCTV, surrounded by a too-eager SWAT team, and being held hostage by crazy people with guns.

A brick sails out of the window with a list of demands from the hostage takers, and Hardison's stomach lurches painfully: if they don't fulfil those demands in two hours, then the bad guys are going to start shooting hostages.

And they might start with Parker.





TWO HOURS EARLIER

If Hardison were to pick a top one hundred list of things for Parker to say to him on a date, "It's definitely a lot smaller than I thought it would be" is not exactly anywhere on that list.

It might even score into his "top ten worst things for Parker to say."

Well, maybe if it was any of his body parts involved. As it is, Parker's probably directing it at the miniature Taj Mahal gracing the hill of hole fourteen. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully.

As usual, Hardison has to pause for a moment to consider if she's being genuine or not. If the guys in his WOW guild are any kind of indicator, most geeks of the male persuasion did have to spend a certain amount of time - should one score a date in the first place - deciphering the language of their female companion. Hardison's 95% sure that it's just because they're socially inept. Not because they're dating the personality equivalent of Windows XP.

Uh, probably dating.

Maybe dating.

Hopefully dating.

Hardison hopes she's talking about the miniature Taj Mahal and not little Hardison, otherwise his trivia burst is going to sound completely bizarre, even by Parker-standards. "The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built it in the 1600's in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. A lot of people think it's a palace, but it's a tomb."

Parker turns her head then, looking at him instead of her sandwich. That's a pretty decent accomplishment as it is—it takes a lot to tear Parker from her favourite food. The rest of the team think the way to Parker's heart, if you travelled via her stomach, would be nothing but cereal, cereal-covered donuts and fortune cookies, but Hardison's figured out some extra stomach-routes: graham crackers with raspberry jelly, nachos and ketchup, or butter and honey sandwiches.

He's opted for the latter this time.

"I like that," Parker says. She does like the creepier facts. It's why Hardison's been trawling wikipedia and reddit and occasionally - when the sleep deprivation hits a fever pitch - 4chan's paranormal board /x/ looking for those rare real-life moments of creepy violence with appeal to Parker's personality. "If I die before you, I want a giant bunny. No, a Glenn-Rieder money chest. No- I've got it. The Antiquity Collection at the Pergamon."

"All of it?"

"All of it. The gate, the altar, the security guard's bay by the nook of the third door, really hard to spot, by the way."

"Parker-"

"You're right." Parker swallows the last part of her sandwich, and picks up her club again. "It's unlikely I'll die first. Even though I'm older, your digestive system has been worn down by a decade of soda abuse."

"Excuse me? Because Lucky Charms have done your inner organs a galaxy of good-"

Parker looks at him flatly. "My stomach-lining destroying colourings come in more than one shade. Unlike you, I eat my greens."

"The point is conceded."

Parker lines up her shot. The whole mini golf course is made up of various wonders of the world, and this one is a shoddy looking version of Stonehenge.

Hardison's been to the real one, in one of his few trips to the UK. After realizing the security wouldn't let anyone near the stones during the day, Hardison pretended to listen to the black box the woman handed him at the entrance which was a weird audio tour, except his got stuck on German. So he counted all the security features (poor), sneaked onto the site in the early morning because it was slow tourist season and no dawn tours were available, and spent a disappointed ten minutes pushing the stones. His conspiracy-enthusiastic heart sank a little that there were no alien spacecraft hidden on the site. It was just a round circle of stones.

"When I die, burn me," Hardison says, watching Parker smack her ball into one of the plastic stones. Fakehenge wobbles a little and Parker's ball bounces back halfway up the plastic green strip. "Make sure I'm dead first. Scatter my ashes somewhere nice."

"I never thought of you as the cremation type," Parker says as she moves to take her next hit. "More the sent into space in a rocket type. Or buried in a family mausoleum."

Parker's busy squinting at the hole and its tiny little red flag. It's easier for Hardison to be truthful about the current topic if she's not looking at him. "Burial and I don't go together so well anymore."

Her thin back goes still. When she turns her face, there's a worried tension to her mouth. It looks like guilt. "I'm sorry. I forgot."

Hardison swallows down the childish impulse that still burns in the bottom of his stomach, that still laughs at him in the morning when he wakes up sweating and gasping at the memory of it, waking up in a small damn box with no oxygen and a ton of soil pushing him down into the ground, where he was left to die, and he was going to die, and-

It's not Parker's fault. She saved him. "No problem, baby girl."

She pulls a face at him. "How do you know all this stuff, anyway? Taj Mahal, etc. etc. I thought the history of things wasn't really your area."

"Oh, 'cause it's not electrical I'm instantly not an expert," Hardison starts, but Parker snorts, and he stops pretending, because it's true. Hardison might have hacked history once but it's never going to be a comfort zone. "Google, woman. It's got everything a growing guy like yours truly needs to know."

"Google," Parker says, rolling the sound out reflectively. "Sounds like an eye problem."

"'s funny," Hardison says, as Parker hits the ball again and it sails right past the hole and bounces back to her feet, "I always thought abseiling was some sort of perverted bedroom activity-"

"You always think everything is some sort of perverted bedroom activity."

"That was just once," Hardison defends, "and how was I supposed to know an Alpine Cock Ring was a climbing anchor for those rare times you are forced to walk up mountains?"

Parker arches an eyebrow at him. "Use your eye problem."

"I did. Eventually. After I stopped being appalled at your dirty, dirty hobby."

Parker inhales like she does when she's frustrated, and Hardison thinks it must be the mini-golf that's provoked this inhalation, because she hits the ball again and misses. "Are you sure we can't use your magic balls?"

"It's cheating," Hardison starts to explain, and then turns.

There's a family waiting to use the Stonehenge part of the course. A family with two kids under the age of ten. A family where the mother is staring at them, horrified, and the dad is clamping his hands over as many ears as he can (and failing, because blocking only one ear of each kid is not the best way forward.)

"Awkward," Parker says, sounding pleased with herself for noticing that it is, actually, an awkward situation.

Hardison blanches. "It's a remote controlled golf ball," he calls out to them, feeling a thousand times awkward. "Like a remote control car. You can just drive it into the hole." The kids look at the golf ball in his hand judgmentally. "This is just a regular ball! See, I'mma gonna prove it to you. Staring at other people playing mini golf, I don't even know how you can justify it to yourself." His muttering trails off as he puts his ball at the starting spot and readies his club to hit it. "Here you go, genuine proof that it's a regular, normal ball-"

He smacks the ball and it curls around and into the hole.

"Huh," Hardison manages. Parker takes him by the arm and pulls him off the course.

"It's all yours," Parker yells. Hardison grins his most shit-eating grin, and turns and runs with her, dodging past some other players and nearly knocking down a tiny version of the Easter Island heads.

They drop to a walk three streets away. Hardison checks the contents of his backsack and pulls a face at the smashed remains of the picnic he packed. "Guess that idea was sort of a bust," he says, zipping it shut and slinging it over his shoulder again.

"I was having fun," Parker says. "It's much more fun when we're the ones hitting things with sticks. If it's Eliot, he moves too fast. You can't see it. Blur and he's done." She bumps his shoulder, and says, low and warm in his ear, "Speed doesn't impress me."

Hardison blinks because just for a minute she sounds like she's flirting with him, and Parker's not the most natural flirt in the world. He remembers sourly the time after Sophie had tried to teach Parker how to play footsie with someone. The bruise on his calf took five weeks to heal.

"I'm going to miss Boston," Hardison says, as they idle down the sidewalk, because Parker never outright flirts with him if it's not a con, and he's not quite sure how else to respond. He wants her to think it can be something normal, so maybe she'll feel free to do it again later, in other normal situations. "Not that I haven't been getting restless to move. It doesn't feel right sitting still in one city for so long."

"It's like... we're sitting ducks here," Parker says, nodding slowly. She's moving oddly, side to side. Stepping on every crack, the opposite of the game everyone else played as a kid. Hardison likes it. It's a metaphor for the way they're a step out from the rest of the world. They go where others fear to tread. It's a terribly melodramatic thought. Nate would love it, if he was there, but he's not. Hardison's made enough machinations on his own to make sure he's on his own with Parker tonight. Sophie "mysteriously" got the main role in a production of The Crucible (swearing down she could still play a teenager), Nate's currently probably in the back row strangely delighted, and Eliot will be over on the other side of Boston, as far away from Sophie's dulcet acting tones as possible, using the excuse of Parker and Hardison skipping it to avoid Sophie's pouting that they're not all there in the back row. Like they usually do. Suffer together to make her happy. Eliot falls for that reasoning every time, so maybe Sophie's been using NLP on him again—regardless, Eliot's the one who locked up the earbuds. It's probably in fear that hearing Sophie's bad mojo would be just as bad as seeing it—although his vocal reason, of course, is that Eliot would vomit if he had to hear Parker and Hardison's date.

Hardison likes being without the earbuds. It leaves him free to spend a whole evening with Parker, heist-free, without anyone's voice in his ears but his own. And, hopefully, Parker's.

Not that he doesn't have some vague law-circumventing back-up plans in the back of his mind for if Parker gets bored, of course. An off-the-cuff Grift is probably normal dating practice for master-criminals.

"So what do you want to do now? And no setting fire to things," Hardison tags on quickly, even though he does have a lighter in his rucksack. He knows Parker well. It's his back-up plan. Plan M, he thinks ruefully, thinking of the number of times he has accidentally set himself on fire.

"You're such a spoilsport," Parker starts, "sometimes pyromania can be useful. You never know when you'll need a fire."

Hardison's inhalation to try and contribute to the argument's swiftly curtailed by Mr. T pitying a fool, which he remembers a belated moment later is his cell phone's message alert tone.

"I hate getting pity from a machine," Parker says a little sulkily, folding her arms and sagging against the nearest wall.

"It's karma for all the time I spend pitying my netbooks," Hardison says, as he slips out his phone. It's not Nate, Eliot, or Sophie, so he's not rushing. Their alert tone is the TARDIS a-woosh-a-woosh. "The number of them that have been shot at, abandoned, lost in the Caribbean ocean-" He falters at the message on the screen, and Parker instantly straightens. They've known each other long enough to know that if Hardison stops speaking, it's something serious.

"What is it?" Parker asks, low and hurried like someone might be watching them. In their line of business, it's not an unheard of occurrence.

"It's Jack Hurley," Hardison says, re-reading the text as he speaks just to double check he's not misreading it. He looks up at Parker, and the lightness between them is gone, just like that. "Peggy's gone missing."

---

There's something about Jack Hurley that does strange things to Hardison's brain. Like someone's hacked his perception filters. He keeps forgetting just how tall Hurley is.

Hardison thinks about it as they move to greet him. Hurley's standing in the narrow aisles of a professional hotel kitchen, the place he thought Peggy would be, which probably helps to make him look taller. His worried face is reflected several times in the stainless steel worktops and utensils. It's not just the location that makes Hurley look tall in real life.

It's something to do with his unassuming, casual attitude. Along with all the charming bluster and earnestness, he has such a big personality that it just seems... so much bigger than he is. Except Hardison's memory of Hurley's big personality fades with time, and the memory of Hurley's size along with it.

Hardison is forcibly reminded of Hurley's true size when he catches him up in an almost-suffocating bear hug. His knee bangs into one of the industrial-sized ovens.

"Man, I am so glad you were nearby, I'm so sorry about interrupting your date," Hurley effuses, dropping Hardison and turning towards Parker, his arms still stretched out wide. He freezes. Tilts his head. "Um, Hardison, I love you man, but you said you were dating a chick named Parker. Her name is Rose," he adds, in a comically loud stage-whisper.

Hurley's an earnest guy. He's looking at Hardison with a pretty serious expression, like Hardison's honestly forgotten the name of his date.

"Do you tell a lot of people that we're dating?" Parker asks Hardison, sounding halfway between bored and impatient. She bobs on the balls of her feet awkwardly and looks across at a set of shiny kitchen knives set in a stainless steel block. Hardison does his too-many-teeth-showing grin.

"No, of course I don't," Hardison says, immediately. And then tries his best not to wince, because Parker's very good at taking what you've said in the wrong way, and... he's probably just walked straight into one of her humdingers. He thinks she does it deliberately, to keep them all on their toes. He sort of likes it.

Hardison will never admit that out loud.

"So you're ashamed that you're dating me," Parker throws out, narrowing her eyes and folding her arms.

Arms that Hardison knows all too well can effortlessly throw around crowbars like they're fortune cookies, so he swallows down the fact that he told Hurley he was on a date while she was standing right next to him and he ignores the fact that she doesn't care and is maybe messing with him, and tries to save his bacon by one of his number one skills outside of hacking: talking really, really fast. "I'm not ashamed of you, hell, I would get a banner the size of the Empire State Building and hang it... on the Empire State Building with a picture of you and I and maybe some glitter and some big gooey hearts, I ain't scared of my masculinity, it could be pink and red and I'd stand by with pride that I made this for my woman, y'all, and-"

"-and then we could set it on fire," Parker says, unfolding her arms and clapping her hands together in glee.

"Yeah, we could set the banner on fire," Hardison says, "some kerosene, some fireworks, whatever you want, baby girl."

"The banner," Parker says, "that's what I meant." She does that creepy grin that means she was clearly thinking of burning the building down.

"Now, Rose, replacing your kleptomania with pyromania's not the best coping strategy," Hurley says. "Remember what that doc with the expensive boots said while we were in rehab."

"That was Sophie," Parker explains to Hardison.

"I was on that con too," Hardison says.

Parker makes a scoffing sound. "Ha, on the outside. You don't know what it was like in there! Horrible, horrible place. Everyone was so happy. Creepy. Creepy and unnatural!"

"Hurley," Hardison says, slow and long, "this here is Parker. She's the world's best thief, and she is—like me—one of the team. Her name isn't Rose, she was just pretending to be called Rose for the sake of the heist."

"Oh," Hurley says. "Oh."

"So I'm Parker who is sometimes Rose, mostly just Parker," Parker explains.

"Right. Parker Rose, it's nice to meet you?" Hurley says, with a squint, and holds out his hand to shake hers.

Parker casually extends her hand, and squeezes her ever-present taser with her other hand. Hurley eyeballs the blue spark and wisely does not try to hug her. Parker beams and punches him in the arm companionably. Hurley rubs his arm. "Hell of a punch you've got there, Parker Rose," Hurley mutters, and then he freezes. "Hey, where's the rest of the gang?"

He sounds and looks completely crestfallen.

"I'm offended," Parker says, blunt and outright, eyeballing Hurley. Hurley freezes, eyes sliding back to her taser. She grins so widely that she shows him her wisdom teeth. It's her predatory smile. The kind where she's happy about potential violence, fire and slash or mayhem. Hardison swallows the sigh he sort of wants to make.

"Hurley, you've got the best Hacker and Thief in the world standing in your kitchen," Hardison says, "one of us could get Peggy back single-handedly. Wanting the whole team is just greedy. Now bring us up to speed, 'k?"

Hurley rambles through the facts while Parker starts prowling around the kitchen. It's a nice rig, all stainless steel and large ovens. Hardison takes in a few of the details even as Hurley explains—Peggy was busy tonight, but she never eats what she makes, so Hurley came by to surprise her with a picnic. Hardison thinks of his own smashed picnic, and then thinks about what it would have been like if Parker hadn't met him when she said she would, and a curl of panic slides uneasily in the pit of his stomach even imagining it. Some of that feeling must show on Hardison's face, because Hurley's eyes go suspiciously misty and he yanks Hardison into another slightly-moist bear hug. Hardison surreptitiously brushes at his now damp shoulder, and joins Parker in looking around the kitchen.

"No evidence of a struggle," Parker says. "The dishwashers empty and I can't find any evidence of used pots, but there's a half-empty pan cupboard over near the sinks."

"Are you totally sure she was going to be here? I mean, she had time to clean up before she went missing," Hardison says. He looks around the immaculate room before something catches his eye, a piece of paper pushed into where the orders normally hang. "Is this Peggy's handwriting?"

"I was trying to surprise her. This is where she said she was, earlier in the day." Hurley comes over and hovers over Hardison's shoulder. "Yeah, that's one of her invoices. Look at the sketch of Mr. Snuggles on the bottom right hand corner."

"24 dinners," Hardison reads from just above the badly penned outline of what's supposed to be a cat but sort of looks like a sack of potatoes with whiskers.

"I checked with the host of the dinner here," Hurley says. "Peggy wheeled out their food and when they came back in to thank her, she was gone. They were looking for her when I turned up."

"And there were 24 guests," Hardison says, wandering over to the bin, "none of them saw anything?"

"Not a single one," Hurley says. "I've got the contact details of the host if you need it."

"Might not be necessary," Hardison says, looking down at the contents of the bin. He hates his life furiously for a moment, and sticks his hand in to fish out a slightly crumpled piece of paper, and then looks down into the contents. "Here, have a look at this."

"Cool, garbage." Parker sticks her head nearly into the bin. Hurley blinks and looks at Hardison with a clear and this is the best thief in the world? expression. Hardison just shrugs. A lot of people have that expression when encountering Parker. "I don't get it."

"Here," Hardison says, waving the paper at her.

"You fished that out of the bin? You're disgusting," Parker informs Hardison, wrinkling her nose.

Even though Parker's practically just stuck her whole head in the bin, Hardison doesn't rise to the argument. He's starting to figure her out. Sometimes she just does the loopy things to put people off-kilter. She probably doesn't even realize she does it any more. Any good thief knows the psychology of stealing. Cause a distraction in one direction so you can steal from the other.

"You just have to read it," Hardison says, "not touch it. The key is the mango."

"Mango Chicken Curry," Parker reads. "What's a mango?"

"It's a type of fruit," Hurley explains, "tastes real good as a smoothie."

"Tastes real good as a what?" Parker says, face carefully blank.

Hurley's face falls.

"Anywho," Hardison says, drawing out the last syllable, "look again."

"Caipiroska," Hurley reads. "4 teaspoons sugar, 1 lime, 2 measures vodka- She didn't tell me she was making cocktails at work. Man, that's so thoughtful of her not to tell me. Over 2 years sober and counting, yeah."

"Below that," Hardison says, giving Hurley a high-five with his spare hand.

"Mango Chicken Curry," Parker reads out, "feeds 24. 8 pounds of chicken, 3 red bell peppers, 8 mangoes-"

"Ohhh, I get it, I get it," Hurley says, excitedly. Hardison nods. "I don't get it," Hurley finishes, wrinkling his nose.

"And you were so close," Parker says commiseratively, patting his arm.

"Look in the garbage again," Hardison says, slow and patient.

"Chicken bones. Pepper bits. And what are those red and green thingies?" Parker asks.

"Ohhh, mango skins!" Hurley fishes one out excitedly. Parker backs up, flinching.

"It looks dead," Parker says.

"Well, you chop 'em up to look like a hedgehog and scoop 'em out, pretty sure it kills them if they're not dead by the time they fall from the tree," Hurley says while Parker nods like she's pleased at the idea that preparing a mango is some sort of fruit murder. "Or bush. Or. pit. Wherever mangoes grow."

"Trees," Hardison says. "And what can we deduce from the mango skins?"

"Oooh, the deduction game," Parker claps her hand. "I like this one. He thinks he's the black Sherlock Holmes," she confides to Hurley in a mock-whisper.

"Woman, I could be," Hardison tells her.

"Sure you could," Parker says, obviously mollifying him. "Same way as hobbits are tall, and Harry Potter was 25 when Hogwarts sent him his letter." She side-eyes Hurley. "He has these play fantasies he likes to rant about when he's coding."

"She destroys all of my dreams," Hardison adds, mournfully.

"Dude," Hurley says, "um, I don't know how to break it to you, but Harry Potter's not real. It's just a book. Some lady made it up."

Hardison sighs, "Thanks, Captain Obvious."

"Wait," Parker says, "Harry Potter's not real?"

"Can we get back to the case, please?" Hardison demands, because if he lets this get any further... Well, let's just say he still has a tiny scar from the incident in Wal-Mart when some idiot decided to try and tell Parker that pineapples did not grow under the sea.

He's still not sure whether she knows there's fruit in the centre and not a porous sponge.

"Sir, yes, Mr. Hardison, sir," Parker says, saluting and elbowing Hurley until he copies her.

"There's clearly more than 8 dead mangoes in the garbage," Hardison explains, rolling his eyes a little at them. Parker beams at him. "Maybe more like 32 at a guess. So what can we deduce from that?"

"Peggy really likes mangoes," Parker says.

"Maybe she snacks on them while she eats," Hurley tries. "I guess I'm too busy looking at her when she cooks. She does this little shimmy, it gets me kinda hot-"

"Thank you, Hurley. But neither of you are thinking what I'm thinking," Hardison says.

"Um," Parker says, edging closer, "I don't think this is the time or place. Especially not with company."

Hardison resists the urge to epic facepalm. "Hurley, does Peggy ever cater for places which don't have a kitchen? Or maybe she hires the use of one to do two meals for budget's sake? Because as you can see from the notice on the wall over there... this place doesn't have an alcohol license."

"Sure," Hurley says, "she just uses the same kitchen sometimes and transports the food-" He stops halfway through what he's saying. "Oh. Oh."

"32 mangoes would make enough dinner for 75 guests," Parker realizes. "So she has enough curry left over for at least fifty-one more people."

"Does Peggy keep any kind of electronic diary?" Hardison asks, already sliding out one of his netbooks and starting to head out of the kitchen. Parker instantly moves with him.

The hotel across the street has decent wi-fi. He should be able to pick it up on the sidewalk. He curses himself for not bringing his usual kit with him. He would have brought it, on a date with anyone else. But this is Parker, and he doesn't have to show off in front of her.

Bringing his netbook, on the other hand, was automatic. Not having a computer with him is like going out with a missing limb.

"Sure, just on Google Calendar," Hurley says, hurrying after them.

Hardison grins. "Child's play."

He balances his netbook on a wheeled recycling bin out in the back alley of the hotel, and starts hacking into the hotel's wi-fi network.

"I tried to call her earlier. She didn't respond." Hurley paces back and forth in the small space.

"Pass me the number, I'll see if we can get a signal," Hardison says, sing-song. He doesn't mind showing off... in front of Hurley.

"It definitely connected and she always has it with her, always. Something's still wrong, I know it. I know it."

"Relax, man," Hardison says, looking up from his netbook for a moment, his fingers still typing out the string of commands his programs needed to operate. "If she's in trouble, we'll find her. But not with her phone." He wrinkles his nose. "Her GPS is offline."

"Oh, god," Hurley moans, "oh god."

"We're not out the game yet," Hardison mutters. "Ah, see here."

He points at the netbook screen. They crowd around to watch a calendar page load. "Cute wallpaper," Parker comments as Hardison squints to read the text over the obnoxiously cat-filled background.

"It's our cat Muffins. We decided to get a cat together. Although Muffins prefers Peggy to me. I don't blame Muffins. I prefer Peggy to me. She smells nicer for a start," Hurley says, "and-"

"And here's her schedule," Hardison says, extra-loudly to stop Hurley's waffling. "48 heads for a charity dinner at the Back Bay."

"There was a fire in their kitchen a few weeks back," Parker says. "Guess it makes sense they're pulling in outside caterers."

"Peggy does have a permit for that. That's three blocks from here," Hurley says, turning and running in the direction of the hotel.

"Always with all the running," Hardison moans, flipping the netbook shut and tucking it under his arm as they give chase.

"I thought you liked it," Parker says, "because it makes you feel like Doctor Who."

"The new one doesn't run so much," Hardison says, but he shuts up, because it's sort of true. He wonders if Parker would hit him if he referred to her as his companion, and then remembers he's showed her some Firefly, so it's probably not the best term to use.

"I've worked this hotel before," Parker says, "it should be easy enough to get in through the back, there's a vent-"

Hardison slows down and stands next to Hurley on the street corner, lights flickering across his face. "-just a couple of feet behind the FBI and a sizeable number of police officers," Hardison finishes.

"Well, it's safe to say Peggy's probably in trouble," Parker says, tilting her head.

"Oh, god," Hurley says, looking absolutely stricken.

"Nah, we got this," Hardison says, dropping his rucksack from his shoulder and rummaging in a pocket at the bottom. He tosses something at Parker that she catches easily.

"You brought these on our date, but not the earbuds?" Parker asks.

"Uh, yeah. Thought we might have some fun with them. Do some spot checks on one or two of the banks in the area. Y'know. Pick up some souvenirs. Have fun without Sophie's acting and Eliot's whining in our ears."

Parker grins at him and pockets her FBI ID ready to whip out when required. "That sounds like an amazing follow-up to mini golf and sandwiches."

"Hurley, just stay behind us, stay quiet, nod along, and don't blow our cover," Hardison says, then nods at Parker and they head across to the crowded crime scene

"This is really freaking me out," Hurley says. "Are you sure this is going to be okay?"

"We'll be fine," Hardison says, maybe lying a little. "Totally cool."

"You spoke too soon," Parker says, completely without tact, because Hurley loses all the colour in his face.

"Why?" Hardison starts to ask, but a strangled sound comes out instead.

"Exactly, I completely agree," Parker says, nodding.

"Special Agent Thomas! Special Agent Hagen!"

Hardison plasters a grin on his face as Agents Taggart and McSweeten of the FBI start heading over towards them. "Great," Hardison says, behind clenched teeth.

"Oh, man, am I glad to see you," Taggart says, "we could really do with some help on this one."

"Man, you have too many names, Parker Rose Hagen," Hurley says, and then frowns, thinking about what's going on. He blinks, and stares between Parker and Hardison. "Dudes, you two didn't tell me you were FBI agents. That's so awesome! I mean, I've seen you guys in action, but FBI, yeah! Oh, man, Peggy's as good as safe in the hands of the FBI!"

"Did we just blow your cover?" Taggart says, blinking between them. "Man, I am so sorry. Not too hot on this on-spec field work, y'know? We were pulling a nice long-term surveillance down near the docks and now wham, right in the action. Weird."

"I hear you," Parker says, in her solemn-FBI voice. "Hurley, you just stick with who you think we are. So

"Yeah. You're the great thief Parker and Thomas here's a computer-geek-hacker-type," Hurley says, waving his arms around. He finishes, and looks at Hardison, completely lost.

Hardison swings an arm around him. "Why don't you just go over there, find a seat, grab some coffee—we'll get all the hostages out before you know it."

"The great thief Parker," McSweeten says, as he leads them over to the vans. McSweeten looks over to where Hurley's dejectedly sitting on a bench, "The guy believes that as a cover? I've read Parker's file. We had to get an insurance company to compile it for us, she's that hard to find. She's got a rep for pure insanity. Kudos for pulling that off."

"I try," Parker says. "The taser helps." She sparks her taser up.

"You're prettier than I imagined her, too," McSweeten says. "That guy's a real idiot for not noticing that."

"Ha!" Taggart booms. "I think it's hilarious he's bought both of your covers. You two as a Thief and a Hacker. Yeah, I can totally see that."

"Oh, I don't know," McSweeten says, a little shyly, "I think Hagen would be a great Thief. I mean." A hint of faint colour appears on his face. "I think she'd be good at anything she set her mind to."

Parker beams, and shuffles over so she can shoulder-bump him. "Why, thank you Agent McSweeten, that's so sweet!"

"Yeah," Hardison says, the remnants of his good mood dissolving, "you're a peach, Todd."

McSweeten beams like it's a genuine compliment and not ragingly jealous hatred, which does slightly cheer Hardison. Hopefully Parker goes for brains over things like random compliments.

Probably.

Hopefully.

Maybe.

Hardison tries his best not to grind his teeth, and follows McSweeten and Taggart over to where the action's going down.

---

Taggart stands before some pieces of paper taped to the side of his Plumber surveillance van to do the briefing. "Here's what we got so far: At least four guys in balaclavas carrying some sort of machine gun barged in to the hotel reception. They've locked down the elevators, trapping all the guests upstairs. They let out one pregnant woman to deliver us a message: There'll be a list of demands and if they don't get them all fulfilled within two hours of receiving the list, they'll start to kill their hostages."

He nods at McSweeten, who takes over. "As far as we can tell, there are 50 guests inside the main hall, plus maybe 6 wait staff and the caterer. We don't know how many hotel staff or guests might have wandered in. The suspects have locked down the hotel, including trapping the guests on the second floor up, although we can't stop any guest from using the emergency stairs, so there is an increasing pool of potential hostages."

"We got pulled off our surveillance down near the docks," Taggart says. "We're a little bit surprised at that considering you two are both in the vicinity—Thomas, your negotiating experience is a hundred times ours."

Hardison holds up his hands. "Look, we just got a notice to come, no further details. We're on a more... long-term thing, you get what I'm saying? Our current, um. friend here, he's uh, you know, one of our sources. It's not too out-of-character that he's here but if some of my lingo sounds off-" Hardison lowers his voice. "'cause I don't want him to know how senior Hagen and I are, y'know?"

"Oh, of course," McSweeten says. "We understand completely."

Hardison tries his best not to look relieved, because swagger only goes so far when the FBI is involved. He looks up at the building, thinking. "We got the layout of the place yet?"

"We've got someone interviewing the pregnant woman, but she didn't see too much before she got bundled up and sent out," Taggart explains, "so we're getting hold of the blueprints as we speak from the City Hall."

"How about any off-duty staff?" Hardison suggests. "They could run us through the layout quicker."

"Excellent idea," Taggart says, like it's the most brilliant thing he's ever heard. It's a tone Hardison's heard quite a bit in his life. It's also a tone he'll never tire of. Taggart makes as if to move off towards the cops. Then he pauses. "Um, how do we find out who works there?"

Hardison resists the urge to roll his eyes. "Cops know the area better than us Quantico-graduates, huh? So let's see if any of them on duty know someone who works here."

"Great." Taggart takes the lead as if it's his own plan. Hardison's cool with that. Although if Bonanno's on duty, he's going to have to be ready to talk fast—Nate's already made his goodbyes. Bonanno thinks them already gone. They're just in Boston one more day now to tie off any loose ends and then that's it. Good-bye Boston, hello Portland.

Hardison withers a little inside at the thought. It's why he'd been trying to make this date a date to remember, and now they're pulling an impromptu con that's much bigger than anything Hardison would have planned. He wanted this to be a perfect date, a perfect last memory of Boston before the move.

He's only been to Oregon twice, and both those times were for work not sight-seeing, but his programming and fake forums and email IDs are still pulling in information about people to help, and it's a decent location to help them from. Maybe he'll just have to make a perfect date happen there. It's a nice idea. Make the new place more attractive, and keep Boston as the place weird dates happened and Portland the place for perfection.

One of the officers knows a worker at the hotel. Taggart gets the details and they call her, and Hardison leans against the nearest cop car and stares over at McSweeten and Parker as they wait. They two are looking over the plans, and at the hotel. The street's quiet for this time of day, so Hardison doesn't even have to use the lip-reading skills that Eliot's been slowing teaching him to eavesdrop.

"This is a terrible location for crime," Parker says, looking down the narrow streets and the tall buildings.

"I know," McSweeten says. "The take can't be very high. If I was a criminal, I'd probably hit up something more like the MFA. One Degas is worth more than my entire FBI career so far and to come, my training costs included."

Hardison folds his arms and tries not to look like he's listening, even though the curl of jealousy is like fire up his spine. It is jealousy. He's not too much of a coward to deny it. McSweeten has a weird chemistry and connection with Parker, something even Hardison doesn't have, and it's... irksome, is what it is.

"Degas paintings are hard to shift at the moment," Parker says, "you want one of their Monets. They have more and are easier to shift in South America. Uh. So our research says."

"I get it. When I go undercover, my persona spills out a little too," McSweeten says. He shuffles. "That Hurley guy, he really thinks you're a thief, right?"

Parker glances over to where Hurley's sat on the other side of the street, nursing a coffee and staring blankly at the hotel. His fingers are crushing the full cup. The fear on his face is tangible to Parker, but that's because she knows he's thinking of Peggy. She wonders what he looks to McSweeten.

"He's so convinced," Parker says, with a straight face. "Ridiculously convinced. Hell, if you talk to him, he even thinks I stole rehab a while back. Crazy fellow. Cuckoo." She loops her fingers around her ears a few times to emphasise.

"Stole rehab," McSweeten repeats, and Hardison can see his shy smile from where he is. "That's. um. a pretty wild concept."

"What," Parker says immediately, "it can be done. Totally. Do I look like I couldn't steal rehab? Hmm?"

"No," McSweeten says automatically, flummoxed and back-pedalling hard, "you could steal rehab. You could steal whatever you wanted to. I'm sure you could."

"Damn straight," Parker says. "Now, where's this hostage. I'd like a word with her if that's okay."

McSweeten beams at being asked to show her the way. "She's over by the ambulances."

"Great."

Hardison tries his best not to grit his teeth as McSweeten puts his hand on the small of Parker's back, leading her over to the ambulance.

"You too, huh?" Taggart mutters. Hardison blinks, and turns to where Taggart has come to a still next to him. He hadn't realized he'd stopped to stare. He follows Taggart's gaze to McSweeten and Parker. Parker's now bending over the pregnant woman, her ear glued to the woman's belly. McSweeten's hovering by. Parker's not moving. Hardison fights his grin. "He's a good guy. It's easy to get swept up in his charm."

"He sure is charming," Hardison grumbles.

"But, as you can see, he likes the ladies," Taggart sighs. "Neither of us have a chance with him." He slaps Hardison on the back commiseratively.

Hardison jumps, stares down at Taggart, and fights the urge to react, because it's sort of handy if Taggart thinks they've bonded over something. And they are sort of bonding in hatred of the idea of McSweeten romancing Parker, even if it's not exactly the same form they're warm for. Hardison nods, and puts his fists out to bump with Taggart's.

"What's she doing, anyway?" Taggart says. Parker's still bent over the pregnant woman's belly, her ear still pressed uncomfortably close to where the baby's resting.

"Oh, we came across a fake hostage situation the other month," Hardison says, not even having to lie—just to omit the fact that they were the instigators of the situation. "Where they released a pregnant woman as a hostage, but the bump was a Mr. Mommy—a mechanical baby bump with a heartbeat and a fake clockwork foot kick, y'know? To fully simulate bearing a child? Hagen's just checking it's a real baby."

"A Mr. Mommy? A fake hostage? You guys really work the field," Taggart says, whistling through his teeth. "Makes it an honour to work alongside you, Thomas."

"You too," Hardison says. Taggart smiles, pleased, and Hardison ignores the faint curl of the lie running across his fingertips. He's been a liar all his life. It never gets easier.

The woman comes by, greets her boyfriend cop with a kiss, and starts excitedly telling them all about the layout of the first floor, and the staff who are likely on duty.

Parker's on his netbook by the time Taggart and Hardison wander back over from getting details of the layout. Hardison doesn't even have to check his backpack to know it's still zipped shut. Parker's an excellent thief. Hardison doesn't even know when she took it.

He looks over her shoulder. Mango chicken curry is in the tab she's reading.

"You hungry?" McSweeten says. "I don't have a snack, but when this is over-"

"Thomas and I ate before we got here," Parker says. "But thanks anyway."

Hardison tries his best not to feel smug at McSweeten's slightly crestfallen expression.

"We've got a ton of information," Taggart says. "I've sent it back to HQ and they'll be sending us orders as soon as they've analyzed the situation. A SWAT team is already on their way."

"Automatic protocol for guns," McSweeten says, and then colors. "Sorry, I've been explaining FBI protocol since we got here to the guys." He nods at the cops behind them, who are standing around restlessly. "I keep forgetting you guys have had the same training we've had."

"It's fine," Hardison says, nodding. "It's a compliment. It means we're good at flying under the radar if even an agent as highly-competent as yourself can't immediately remember that we're agents too."

"I've been thinking about what we said earlier," Parker says to McSweeten. There's still pink on his cheeks. It darkens even more. Hardison dives for his pockets so no one can see he's balled his hand into a fist. "You were right."

"I was?"

"This is a terrible place for crime," Parker says. "It means whoever they've taken hostage, whatever they want—it has to be for a political or moral reason. It's not for money or goods, unless it's a specific item that only the hostages have. They wouldn't have risked such a stupid location if it wasn't important."

"It means even if we get a list of demands," Hardison says, "we probably won't be able to deliver. Not within two hours. Our only hope is to let the SWAT team do their thing."

"But without CCTV or an accurate count of the bad guys," Taggart says, "if the SWAT team moves in blindly, we'll lose civilians."

"So we need to get someone in," Parker says. "We need eyes in there."

"They let a hostage out once. But that was a hostage who hadn't seen the full situation. She was able to give us some names, which are being analysed right now, but it could be some time before that info comes back. They'll start shooting hostages soon."

"I can hack anything digital," Hardison says, "but there's very little chance of them letting anything digital come out of there before they're done."

"And they wouldn't send out anyone we sent in," McSweeten says. "We'd just be handing them extra leverage."

"Um, Thomas?" Taggart says. "Your cover vocabulary is leaking through. You're not a hacker."

Hardison makes his fake-solemn-FBI expression and lifts a fist to Taggart. "Keeping me on the straight and narrow, man. Appreciated." He fakes a sniffle and Taggart puffs his chest out, looking proud.

Parker snaps Hardison's netbook shut and turns to them, a spark in her eyes. She's thought of something good. "You can't hack digital. But you can hack a piece of paper."

"We thought of that," Taggart says. "Send in one of ours, put a code on the hostage's list of demands... But they'd see it. Anything that they didn't write, they'd see it. And if we send in anyone bugged, they'd be shot."

"And they might send out the list at any time, and our window's gone for using that," McSweeten adds. "So maybe our only hope is for headquarters to give us some useable information, or risk the SWAT teams barging in and a high body count."

"Is there any long-distance listening devices we can get a hold of?" Hardison asks. "We might not be able to hear clearly, but a hint of voices could give us more of a clue of location of the hostages and the bad guys. And what about a sniper? There's plenty of rooms looking down on our location. We have no idea what they can see."

"The off-duty waitstaff we talked to think the hostages must be being held in the Argyle Suite. It's on the main floor, an interior ballroom. There's no windows into that room. They must have triggermen up on the higher floors facing out on us to have any validity to their threat."

Taggart sighs. "Seeing as they shot up one of the cop cars, we have to assume that, I think. The bullets came from several different directions," he says, "although that might mean they're communicating on a radio frequency we can listen in on?"

"Excellent," Hardison says, "I'm pretty good with radio. Facilitating, not hacking." Taggart winks at him and mouths good job. "You've got the same equipment in the van as usual?"

"Yeah," McSweeten says, "nothing too special, just the usual rig. Nothing that could go that long distance without a bug."

"That's cool," Hardison says, "I might break a couple of things, but I've got some skills with stuff like that."

"You break it, you fill out the requisition order," Taggart says flatly, but hands Hardison the keys.

"Great," Hardison says, and turns to Parker, "why don't you-" He trails off.

McSweeten realizes almost at the same time Hardison does. "Um, where's Agent Hagen?"

"She's right-" Hardison starts, and his stomach plummets. He turns around just in time to see one of the windows on the ground floor clatter shut. McSweeten follows his gaze immediately. "There," Hardison finishes, lamely.

He thought his stomach had plummeted right to the ground, but it tightens, squeezing, bubbling, reminding him painfully that it still exists in the same place as ever. Hardison stares, his eyes hot and dry for a moment, and he swallows. When he looks to the side, McSweeten's expression briefly resembles everything Hardison's feeling.

Hardison might be jealous, but in this moment... They might be from entirely different worlds, but if nothing else, their fear for Parker's safety makes them equals.

ON TO PART TWO!