Title: For the bird, and the bee, and the butterfly

Disclaimer: not my characters

Warnings: references to violence/death

Pairings: Hardison/Eliot/Parker, Damien Moreau/Eliot, Sophie/Nate

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 745

Point of view: third

Prompts: Leverage, Hardison/Eliot/Parker, they let Eliot think that they don't know his secrets ; Any, any, if you knew what I kind of person I am, you wouldn't want me so desperately ; Leverage, Good Guy ensemble (Eliot Spencer/Parker/Alec Hardison), Sophie figured it out long before Nate did.

Eliot thinks he's a horrible person. Alec figured that out in the first hour they knew each other. He'd known what was on record of Eliot Spencer before meeting up with the team Dubenich put together, just like he did Parker and Nathan Ford. He then went after what was supposition but without evidence.

Eliot Spencer, going by the files, is terrifying.

The man in person doesn't bear that out. Alec studies him in the early days, trying to discover what makes him tick, what would make him sing. It's a thing he does: learn everything about a subject it, master it, and move on. Before Dubenich, life had gotten boring, but this team—there's something here.

Parker is amazing but Alec knows to tread lightly. Nate is one shove away from shattering, so Alec leaves him well enough alone. But Eliot... he should be frightened to get close, should watch the man warily, shouldn't trust him at his back, same team or not. Going by the files, Eliot's a monster.

He never once feels threatened by Eliot. He has a healthy respect for the man and his quirks, but fear him? No, never. And going by how immediately Parker hangs off him, she never does either.

Eliot believes he is the man in the files. Alec has to pretend he's never read them, and it surprises him that none of the team (even Sophie) believe he wouldn't have found out every single thing about them.

(When Eliot knows Damien Moreau, Alec is thoroughly thrown. There was no hint anywhere. Watching Moreau watch Eliot, it's obvious why. The jealousy isn't surprising; the anger is. How many of Eliot's issues are because of this bastard?)

"We have to be careful," Parker tells him, once they're down the mountain. "He won't want to hurt us."

Alec's shown her the files, all of them. Hers included. "I won't ask him," Parker had said, while they were curled up in the back of the plane on the way to Moreau's country.

"No," Alec agreed. Eliot didn't want them to know, so they couldn't let him know they did.

"I don't want to hurt him, either," Alec says now, fingers resting over Parker's pulse. "You got a plan?"

Because Parker knows Eliot in a way that Alec can't. In a way that he knows neither of them ever want him to. Alec's got a lot of problems, he's willing to admit that. But he's never been broken. They both think they are; Alec knows better.

"We'll have to be slow," she says. "And quiet. Not let him know 'til it's too late and he's ours."

Alec's heard worse plans. "Alright, baby girl," he murmurs, lifting his head to smile at her. "I'll follow your lead."

…

The first time she notices, it's in the way Parker touches Eliot. Because Parker does not touch people.

Then, it's how Hardison watches Eliot, moves around him. She has a healthy respect for Eliot's personal space and it's not until she's learned his limits, both physically and emotionally, that she begins allowing herself close. She's sure from the moment Nate introduces her to this team that Eliot would never intentionally hurt her, but even the best hitter in the world has reflexes.

Hardison, however, from the moment she sees them interacting—she isn't sure if either them realize how familiar they seem with each other, and that never changes. Parker moves between them with ease, and that both Parker and Eliot are so free with Hardison's space...

If Nate wasn't trying to drown himself, he'd have noticed, she's sure.

It's obvious, as they chase down Damien Moreau, that Hardison and Parker will soon stop dancing around each other, and it saddens Sophie that Eliot will be left alone.

Then, of course, she watches them, in the weeks after that terrible job on the mountain, and she sometimes wants to clap her hands in delight because it's the quietest, loveliest courtship she's seen, Parker and Hardison wooing Eliot.

She will never, with 100% accuracy, be sure when Eliot finally realizes what they're doing and gives his answer, but after they pull Hardison out of the coffin, that's when she'll bet it happened.

It isn't until they leave Portland, leave Eliot and Parker and Hardison, certain that the children are ready, that Nate asks, "When did that happen?"

She laughs, resting her head on his shoulder. "It's been happening all along," she says, because emotionally, it has.