Roughly On Par with the Cakemaker of Kiev

It was Thanksgiving! The house smelled amazing too, like roasting turkey and sage and simmering apple cider and baking pies. Eliot had outdone himself in the kitchen this year, whipping up the creamiest mashed potatoes, the fluffiest stuffing, and even the crispiest egg rolls Hardison had ever seen. His own contribution was a platter of the croissant-variety Hot Pockets in various flavors.

Look, his TA had requested them and he was gonna provide, dammit.

Now they were finishing up the last few dishes, setting the table, and preparing for a delicious Thanksgiving meal. Not every member of their assorted families could be here today, but every person who was here was family in their own way. For Hardison, found family was infinitely more precious than people just related by blood. Each person had chosen to be here, to be part of this, and--

Shut up, he wasn't getting all misty-eyed. It was the dust. It got all up in his allergies.

[Up super-early I know, but holiday-related SP expected in a big way and also timezones! Sorry to anyone confused, but this post is definitely set for Thursday, Thanksgiving.]

So, after their discussion in the diner, Hardison had grudgingly agreed to go off to the cliffs with Parker. In case there was ever any doubt how much he loved that girl, let this be the evidence against. That and volunteering to go slug Eliot; he wasn't entirely sure which of those ideas was more stupid, truth be told. Or more dangerous to his soft, squishy manly bits.

Before he left, he got out the hard drive that had the Black Book on it and hooked it up to the Dark Web. Tonight was his night for making super-secure backups, just in case anything happened to the original hard drive. The Black Book was Interpol's most secret file: the name of every person who'd contributed to the global financial crisis and a summary of their criminal activity. It was like a Who's Who of the rich and powerful from almost every country someone could name. Individuals, banking institutions, hedge fund groups--every single person that had helped bring the world's economy to a screeching halt had their name and information in that file.

Interpol and various international agencies had all agreed that they couldn't pursue any of these people, even though their crimes were staggering enough to make what the Leverage crew did look like kids playing pretend. But the combined wisdom of the officials was that it was better to hide the information and try to rebuild trust than to make sure any of their cronies saw the consequences of their actions. Leverage, Inc didn't necessarily agree, which was why they'd stolen the Book. But since that put them directly opposite, oh, damn near every government in the world, Hardison made sure to make semi-regular backups and hid them all over the darker edges of cyberspace.

Couldn't ever be too careful.

Which was why he was leaving the hard drive out on his desk, attached to his computer while he went cliff-jumping with his girlfriend. No, it's not something he'd ever think of doing in any of their other bases, but this was a tiny town spied on by squirrels. What were the odds that anything could go wrong here?

[For two, at least at first! All details of the break-in is NFB, please!]