Roughly On Par with the Cakemaker of Kiev

DJ Roomba was cranking out to tunes, though Hardison had left the soft serve machine at home, making this officially a 'roughing it' camping trip. Not that Eliot would necessarily agree (there was still electricity because Hardison was many things, but a goddamn savage wasn't one of them), but was it really a date if the two of them didn't bicker about something pointless while Parker looked on and offered commentary?

No. No it was not.

Originally, Hardison had planned to pitch the tent up in the woods, but something about them had been...off-putting. So instead he'd spent the morning setting up here on the shore, including hammering a 'No Suits Allowed' sign next to the water to encourage skinny dipping by his sexy, sexy partners. Steaks were resting in Eliot's signature marinade, other stuff had been peeled and chopped, the all-natural, hickory-chip grill was gently glowing red.

Aww yeah, he done good.

[For the crew!]

So, everything was terrible again. Hardison was pretty sure that Tony and his TA were evil, Eliot had brought home a version of Kathy that needed babysitting a lot more than she needed to be out heroing, there were slugs pretty much everywhere, and last night Eliot had insisted they all sleep down in the panic room in the basement. Which was actually more like a 'panic suite' because Eliot had built it and he was kind of extra about things, but even so, it was a little more claustrophobic than Hardison was comfortable with. He'd found himself calculating how much air was available in their hidey hole, which wasn't something he'd done since they'd moved from Portland.

That itchy restlessness hadn't left him, even when they'd all come back upstairs for brunch. He needed to get out for a little while. Do something. Spend some time in the open air while feeling useful. So once the meal was over, Hardison grabbed for his jacket and his laptop bag. A walk across the island to the school for some quality research time would hopefully settle him.

[Open for housemates and visitors!]

At some point on Saturday--Hardison had stopped keeping track of time after his fifth shot of Red Bull and Orange Soda--Eliot and Parker had shown up at the library covered in shark goo and hustled him home, talking about sleep and showers and real food. Probably. By the time they'd shown up, Hardison had been hopped up on so much caffeine he could practically see through time and most of what they'd been saying had sounded like a teacher from the old Peanuts cartoons.

After almost twelve hours of solid sleep, a shower that felt great even though it was cold, and a breakfast that was too good to have come from the camp stove Eliot had cooked it on, Hardison was starting to feel like a person again. He was standing in the living room, staring out the window and sipping his cocoa. "We can fix up the guest room for the girls again," he was saying. "Let 'em stay with us. An' Luke's is busted, but the freezer's still workin' an' folks can get to--oh shit!"

That oh shit? Was for the two--no three--was that four sharks being propelled through the air towards their house. At high speed. "Get down!" he yelled flinging himself behind the couch, just before a total of five sharks slammed through the front walls of the house and causing serious structural damage to most of the downstairs.

He should have stayed in the library.

[For them that are there!]

The problem with being where everybody knows your name? Getting arrested. Hardison couldn't use any of his computer magic to convince the system they had the wrong guy, or run a quick con to get Eliot out. No, when everyone knew your name, they also tended to know what you were up to, like when you got arrested for brawling in a bar because you weren't still emotionally stunted sometimes when it came to family and--

Hardison handed over a cashier's check for the amount of bail and sighed. It just felt so dishonest, a pair of proper thieves actually paying bail.

"Just a moment," the clerk behind the desk said, slowly hunting-and-pecking her way into getting the information on her computer. With two fingers! Now there was the real crime. "You just sit tight now...Alec," she said, adjusting her glasses as she peered at the name on the ID he'd provided. Because, again, no using aliases when everyone knew who he was. "We'll get Eliot out just as soon as I'm done here."

...So sometime between now and when the sun burned out. A'ight.

"Sho thing," he said with a charming smile. "I'll just wait here then."
( Who gets arrested under their REAL NAME?! )

[Preplayed with the amazing vdistinctive, and NFB/NFI applies]

After Hardison got home from the diner, Eliot had summarized the conversation he'd had with Sparkle about his sister, mostly going over the points that were relevant to find her. He hadn't even gotten halfway through the it before Hardison had pulled out his laptop and started the searches, narrowing down options with every detail Eliot provided.

Still, of those details, there weren't many and most were years out of date, which meant the search had taken a long time--by which Hardison meant more than a few hours. But even with the extended timeframe, the end result was the same: he had a hit. (Technically, he had several, but this one wasn't just the most promising, it was straight-up promising.)

"Eliot!" he called. "You wanna grab Sparkle? I'm pretty sure I found his sister."

( Family is complicated )

[Preplayed with the wonderful vdistinctive, whoisalicewhite, and myownface. Broadcast fine, NFI, OOC is love]

Hardison wasn't worried.

At least, that's what he was telling himself as he waited hour after hour for any sign of the group he'd sent to Los Angeles. Afternoon turned to night turned to dawn and still there was no sign of them. Hardison didn't sleep. Hardison couldn't sleep. Sleep was a thing that would never happen again until everyone came back, safe and sound.

After this, however, he no longer doubted Nate had been right to tell him he couldn't hack it as a mastermind. Not when he could feel every moment that ticked by as a personal accusation that he'd controlled the portal and that he'd sent them into danger.

The birds were just starting to chirp and the first hints of blue were still staining the sky when he opened the portal for what felt like the hundreth time and saw them all; Parker and Eliot, Raven and Ringo, Anders and Dante, and even Kathy, her face bound by tape and her head lolling at an unnatural angle. "Yo, welcome home" he crowed, exited to see them all hale and hearty, or at the very least, unbitten.

In a few moments, he'd be able to see the physical and emotional toll the world had taken on them. For now, though, there were excited greetings and congratulations, and a huge breakfast order being sent to Luke's for special delivery.

[For them who know who they are. Up early for SP]

So this day was all kinds of fired. First, Hardison had met some crazy, murder hobo version of his boyfriend in the park and had gotten to have not-so happy funtimes with the wrong end baseball bat. And then on his way home, he'd kept seeing things out of the corner of his eye, but when he'd turned to see what was out there, there was absolutely nothing.

Was that a sign of a concussion? He was pretty sure that was a sign of a concussion. Or maybe some kind of brain swelling thing. Or was brain swelling what a concussion was? He couldn't remember off the top of his head and that was probably a bad sign, too. And staring at a computer screen would just make his headache worse and he was already squinting out of his left eye, as bruised and blackened as that one was and rather than look up Web MD and discover that he had some form of cancer, he was going to rest right here on Eliot's couch and steal Eliot's last sandwich and use Eliot's good William's Sonoma handtowel to wrap around the ice he was holding against his bruised face.

Hardison...might have been a tad grumpy at Eliot, yes, even though it wasn't, technically speaking, his fault a crazy version of him had kicked Hardison's ass earlier. Not that being grumpy kept Hardison out of Eliot's house and waiting for either of his partners to come home so he could demand cuddles and sympathy.

Man, he wished he had some kind of neat superpower so he could see when the island was going to go crazy and ruin his whole goddamn day.

[For the crew, please!]

"This sucks," Hardison grumbled from his couch where the bank of TVs against the wall were turned to something that was very specifically not the Oscars. "You know I've been to every single one of these since I was fifteen, right? Fifteen! Had to steal a damn tuxedo my first year just to be allowed in. All that tradition down the damn drain because some folks can't remember that it ain't 1956 no more."

He had been ranting about this for over an hour now and showed no signs of stopping.

"Bad enough they ignored Selma last year," he continued. "I mean, any movie about Dr. King is, like, instant Oscar bait. But to ignore Straight Outta Compton? That movie was amazing! Yo, that dude who played MC Ren was on point in every damn scene he was in. This is a damn travesty!"

The couch could no longer contain his frustration. Hardison flung himself up and started to pace, furiously downing bottles of Squeeze Orange soda, which wasn't helping his energy levels any. "You know, I can fix this. I can hack the hell outta those Oscars. We'll see how good their damn ceremony is with Hardison in control of the lights an' music an' the damn teleprompter!"

This would...probably not end well.

[Establishy, but open to the crew if they want in! Thanks to whoisalicewhite for reminding me of Hardison's canonical Oscar attendance. Which, combined with Aldis Hodge's role in the unfairly-snubbed Straight Outta Compton made this post a must]

After the excitement of yesterday, no one had felt like broaching the topic of Leverage and how Nana felt about it. Instead, they'd gone home, helped clean up the remains of the attack, and then settled down to eat the best damn dinner Nana had cooked in her entire life. Saturday had melted away in a blur of warmth and love and family, with Nana relating embarrassing stories of Hardison's childhood, and Parker and Eliot relating embarrassing stories about his adulthood.

It was such a good time that Hardison was sometimes able to forget the secrets and discussions hanging between them.

But nothing good can stay and soon it was Sunday, just a little while before they had to return to the island. And, as much as he hated the idea, Hardison knew that he needed to speak up about things now--if he was going to speak of them at all.

( And so it goes... )

[And over with! Thanks so much to my wonderful partners in crime, whoisalicewhite and vdistinctive. They were AMAZING, working with me on this since July. NFI, NFB, but OOC is lovely]

Hardison pressed the End Call button on his phone and then flung it onto the couch. It landed so hard it bounced back up and crashed to the floor. Whatever. He had like a million others and, honestly, the sound of something breaking was welcome. He followed that up with a sharp punch to the wall, trying to vent his fury out through violence.

Ouch. Nope. Okay, bad idea. The sound of something breaking was only okay if it wasn't his fingers.

On the bright side, the pain took sharp the edge off his anger, leaving him clear-headed enough to think. Okay, Nana and a bunch of her friends had gotten swindled out of their pensions. She was still financially secure, of course, not that she knew it. Hardison had long ago set up various accounts and trusts for her. But the same couldn't be said for her friends--and she didn't know she wasn't in any financial trouble yet, because he couldn't explain to her about all her money without answering some uncomfortable questions about where it all came from.

Step one: let the crew know they had a new job. Stat. Sorry, vacation, but Nana took priority. Step two: dig up all the information about Deon Walker and his shady operation and make up an info briefing. Step three: use that information in Chicago to nail Walker's ass to the ground. Step four--

Actually, wait. Step one was going to be 'get some ice for his hand.' Everything else came after that.

( The Pensioner Pyramid Scheme )

***
The taxi from the airport dropped them off in front of an unassuming white house on Luella Avenue, not far from Trinity Hospital. Hardison had his own place in Chicago, of course, and his own car, both under a pseudonym stolen from Mister What, and neither of which would do him any good for awhile. His car was in longterm storage across the city and he had no reasonable explanation for the existence of an apartment that was still furnished and rented and yet had sat empty for years, without even a sublet. In the end, it had been easier to agree to stay with his Nana in her place than try to argue with her about where they were staying.

He could con a bunch of thieving Russians so well that they'd kidnapped him, but put him on the phone with the woman who'd raised him and he was barely able to fib about the weather.

"We'll be able to get the car in a few hours," he said, hoisting his duffel bag full of electronics over his shoulder. That was all his bag contained; his clothes had been split between Parker and Eliot's bags to make room for more gadgets. "Someone at the storage place is gonna drive it over. Had to tell Nana that I was borrowin' it from an old friend. Otherwise she'd've insisted we drive hers an' she needs that for her shift at Trinity's." He was babbling, he didn't need to tell his crew why using Nana's car for their work was a terrible idea. It was just nerves. Not about the job--please, they could take down scum like Walker in their sleep--but bringing two of people he loved most in this world to his childhood home to meet the third. Nothing much had changed in the few years since he'd been gone. He tried to see it with strangers' eyes.

The same blue station wagon Nana'd bought the year before he'd graduated high school sat in the driveway that could use a good resurfacing. The house had a two-car garage, but it had been converted into a playroom back in the 90s, a few years before Hardison had come to live here. The lawn was a little shaggy, more clover and weeds than grass, but still green. Hardison wondered whose job it was now to mow it. The outside of the house was in good condition; Nana had 'won a contest' for discounted siding a few years back and the contractor had 'known a guy' who did roofing was was willing to shingle the roof for a fraction of the usual cost. It had still run Nana a few thousand dollars to get all the work done, but there was no cover story in the world that could make her believe she could get it done for less. Hardison knew that for a fact--he'd asked Sophie to help him come up with one and even she'd been stumped.

Which made Nana getting conned all the more surprising.

"So, uhh, yeah," he said, swinging open the gate to lead them up to the front door. "This is the place. Home sweet home."

( In the (Calumet) Heights! )

[Phone call and resulting discussion available for broadcast, everything in Chicago is obviously NFB. Preplayed with the wonderful vdistinctive and whoisalicewhite]