Title: Steps
Author: CONELRAD
Beta(s): YeahLev - any mistakes that remain are my doing.
Artists: alinaandalion alinaandalion
Characters/Pairings: Team; Nate/Sophie, background Parker/Hardison
Rating: R
Genre: Gen - Mystery/Angst
Warnings/spoilers: Non-graphic rape; past threats against a minor; potential spoilers for: The Girls Night Out Job, The Boy's Night Out Job, The Radio Job, The Last Dam Job, possibly others.
Notes: This was written for The Big Bang Job on Livejournal. The lyrics found within are from the fanmix I based the fic on. This story deals with somewhat darker themes than the show itself - if it is likely to disturb you please don't read it.

I

You know there will be days

When you're so tired

That you can't take another step -

The night will have no stars,

And you'll think you've gone as far

As you will ever get .

You and me walk on, walk on, walk on,

'Cause you can't go back now.

The early morning sun shines down through the mist, bathing the old Victorian house in light the consistency and color of honey; split by the early-summer leaves into beams that dance across the backyard. The still air is filled only with the sounds of the father and son team working diligently in the backyard, measuring and sanding and staining around a neat stack of boards in the dewy grass. If anyone looks in through the slightly-overgrown jungle of rhododendron and honeysuckle, they would be treated to the unusual sight of Nate Ford in a t-shirt and jeans, spattered to his elbows in dried cherry finish and pine green paint.

"I'm telling you, Sam - once that thing's done, you're going to have the best tree house in all of Boston."

The neat skeleton of that tree house rests halfway up an old oak tree, nestled safely in its thick branches, half-hidden in the new leaves. It, too, shines gold in the sunshine; its boards not yet withered and grayed by the elements. The ground beneath the tree is strewn with white curls of wood, snowflakes of sawdust scattered in the roots.

"Do you think we'll finish it today, Dad?" The boy asks, setting his paintbrush down. His father looks at him with one eyebrow raised, skepticism – playful, but skepticism nonetheless – gleaming beneath the steely blue. Sam looks back at him, calmly, and Nate feels the skepticism fade. The only expressions in his son's eyes are trust and love, so strong that his chest hurts. Then he blinks, and the tightness fades, just a bit.

"Maybe, if you don't go running off every five minutes," he finally teases, reaching out to tousle his son's hair, leaving the brown silky locks sticking up like dandelion fluff. "Maybe."

"But it's summer!" Sam protests, laughing as he ducks beneath his dad's hand, slapping it away with another giggle. "That's what I'm supposed to do, remember? I can have plans all day every day as long as I stay out of trouble. Mom said!"

As if his words are a magic spell summoning her, the screen door creaks open. Nate pauses with his paintbrush up, turning around to look. Maggie Ford steps onto the porch, her eyes narrowed in playful suspicion as she buttons her blazer.

"I heard the word plans in there, Nate!" Nate opens his mouth to protest, half-pointing at Sam, his "hey, he said that!" dying unspoken on his tongue at the look Maggie give him. "Are you, perhaps, planning to get rid of the door?"

Nate sits for a second, paint dripping from the still-raised brush, mouth hanging open before he looks at his son, who returns the look with no small amount of amusement, arms crossed over his narrow chest. He glances back at his wife, almost cringing.

"…soon?" he ventures, voice hopeful.

"You've been saying that!" Maggie calls back with a laugh. "Like, since we bought the place. Remember?" Her words hang in the warm air, drifting, almost, in the morning calm.

It was, he reflects, the truth.

The house had been their dream home; a big elegant shingle-style Victorian, set far enough out in the suburbs that Sam could walk to school. The inside was worn, lived-in but certainly not run down, big enough that when Sam dragged friends home (which was often; the boy was popular), when Maggie threw her elbow-rubbing parties for the museums and galleries, when Nate came home from hours behind his desk, it never felt crowded, never felt cramped, never felt anything but…welcoming.

The big door in the foyer, however - opposite the front door - looked more like it belonged in a factory than in his family's home; industrial hardware and steel clashed with the décor. It was, according to the real estate agent who had sold them the place three years ago now, the last vestige of the previous owner's cold-war paranoia, with nothing behind it but their bedroom wall.

He kind-of liked it where it was, though. It added character.

"I'll give you until Wednesday," Maggie continues, hands on her hips, dragging him out of his reverie. "I want the hall all cleaned up for the party, remember?" Nate sighs, pushing his hair back from his forehead and leaving a streak of green in his fingers' wake. He had almost successfully forgotten about the party, again, but that's not a road he wants to go down right now. "You told Jimmy you'd have it gone by Christmas."

"…it's June, Maggie. I got plenty of time…"

"Yeah? You said that last August. I just want to see you explain it still being there to your dad. At the party."

And then she's gone, the screen-door slam echoing in her wake. Nate looks at his son conspiratorially, his face a parody of a grimace. "Gee, I don't know…she sounds serious this time."

The boy laughs, his voice ringing out over the birdsong of the new day. "Well, yeah! You've been saying you'd get rid of it for for-ev-er."

"So…a day or two more won't hurt matters, right?"

"Right!"

"I heard that!" Maggie calls back as she steps out on the porch again, briefcase and coffee in hand. "And I don't care. Just remember: in time for the party." She blows them both a kiss, and hurries toward the garage, steps light on the stones of the garden path.

Nate watches her until she was out of sight before he shakes his head. "Or…?" He mutters under his breath.

Sam elbows him in the ribs lightly, expression knowing. "Or you're in the doghouse!" he offers with a grin. Nate returns it, picking up his discarded paintbrush.

"We'd have to get that built first too. And get the dog for it." Nate smirks as Sam thinks about that for a moment before his eyes brighten with the realization.

"….you're never going to be in trouble then. Ever."

Nate grins and reaches out with the brush, painting a stripe of dark green down his son's nose.

"Perfect!"

He barely manages to duck the retaliatory brush Sam throws at his head.

The rest of the morning is lost to the required paint fight.

Here comes the rain again,
Falling from the stars -
Drenched in my pain again,
Becoming who we are.

As my memory rests,
But never forgets what I lost -
Wake me up when September ends.

"Nate's been hurt. Meet us at the hospital."

Click.

Her hair was still wet, she hadn't touched her makeup, and she knew for a fact that her Jimmy Choos did not match her exercise sweats (she would, after this, categorically deny that she had anything as shapeless and colorless and bland as those sweats). Somehow, Sophie Devereaux couldn't be bothered to care, not even when she had to work her way into Massachusetts General Hospital between three police officers and a security guard, going on eye contact and subtle glances alone.

"What happened?" she asked the moment she saw Alec Hardison and Parker in the fourth floor hallway. Not even a waiting room – just the hall. Hardison sprawled on one of the uncomfortably firm couches like a teenager, one leg resting on the back, the other dangling over the armrest. Parker perched on the edge of one varicolored cushion, a bird about to take flight, though she occasionally leaned back against Hardison's stomach like she was trying to reassure herself that he was still there.

Hardison, regardless, didn't look up from his phone. If it had been anyone else, Sophie would have deeply considered convincing him to eat said phone, but in the genius hacker's hands it could tell them more than any hospital staff ever would.

"I don't know, I'm working on that."

"We were playing Warcraft and the phone rang," Parker said, as Eliot Spencer came storming down the hall, a knit cap pulled down over his flyaway hair. He arrived just in time to hear the young woman's words, and he gave her a skeptical look. Parker ignored it. "Caller ID said it was Bonanno, so…"

"So I pushed the panic button," Hardison's eyes flickered in the glow from his screen. "See? Wouldn't an Eliot-signal have been so much cooler?" The expression on his face belied the light-hearted words. "Avengers, assemble?"

"Yeah, well, a little warning would be nice next time; the place is crawling with cops." Eliot peeled his hat off, shaking it in Hardison's face, blocking his view of the phone. "I had to come down from the roof-"

Footsteps.

Sophie hissed a warning and Eliot's sentence dissolved as Detective Captain Patrick Bonanno came into sight. The look on his face made Sophie's stomach drop further than it had been, resettling somewhere near her ankles. Eliot pushed away from the wall in a smooth easy motion that put him between the policeman and his friends, shoulders squared defensively.

"What?" he demanded, before Bonnano had even said a word.

Bonnano just raised an eyebrow. Hardison glanced at him past his phone. "What, you call us all down here just to give us the Spock-look? Right. Spill."

The detective shook his head, once. "I don't think this is the best place to talk. Do you?"

Eliot looked at Sophie. Sophie looked back to Bonnano. He didn't seem like he was planning a double-cross or anything, didn't look like he was feeling guilty, but then…there was a large possibility that he wouldn't feel guilty, unorthodox friendship or not. They were all criminals, and wanted criminals at that. But…she nodded back to the hitter. Parker grabbed Hardison's shoulder, tugged him upright.

"C'mon. Let's hear the man out."

The door closed behind Alec Hardison with a loud click, and Bonanno turned to look at the four criminals he'd just led into the conference room. The last time he had seen any of them had been after the poker game that somehow evolved to include a drug bust and an attempted bombing.

And they somehow looked a lot less stressed that time.

He rubbed his forehead, trying to think of how to say anything. The words might have been easier to find if he could have focused on them one at a time, but that would have made them paranoid. Fearful. Better to do it all at once.

Right?

"At approximately five-forty this morning, first responders were called to a warehouse fire down near the harbor," he kept the report brusque and matter-of-fact. He knew who he was dealing with, knew he wasn't talking to civilians, and he hoped they would return the respect. "I was in the area and heard the call on my radio."

The only reason he had even gone to the scene was the address. The Organized Crime Division had that warehouse on file, tied to the Callaghan family but supposedly long abandoned. By the time he had reached the warehouse, it had been engulfed in flames, orange light flickering off the dark clouds overhead.

"The fire is being investigated, but…" Bonanno shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. His shoulder still gave a twinge at the motion, and the pain moved him on. "There's not much to investigate. It was four alarm within twenty minutes."

It had been pure luck all around, even if he still wasn't sure if it was good luck or bad luck. He'd hit the scene just as the first firemen pulled someone from the building and into the ring of flashing red and white lights: a bare figure, skin translucent in the darkness and smudged with purple and blue bruises; duct tape wrapped tight around his wrists, more tape over his mouth, his eyes…

His stomach twisted at the memory, and he rubbed his eyes again. Devereaux moved to sit on the edge of the table as elegantly as if she was wearing a designer dress instead of grey cotton. Parker shifted so she was sitting next to the older woman, arms wrapped around her torso. "I trust," the con woman said calmly, "there is a point to this…little story?"

This was a risk; a step over the line into a grey area he'd never truly committed to, but these people – these genuinely likeable, genuinely good people – operated and lived within that grey area. He owed them for the Callaghan bust, the Adam Worth bust…hell, still owed them for taking down Kadjic and Culpepper.

There is a point to this story. I just don't want to get to it.

"There was one survivor pulled from the building," he continued, pacing along the table to look out the window over the Charles River, suddenly needing the motion. "Nathan Ford."

If he gave himself time to think, he still saw the EMTs sawing the duct tape from Nate's bloody wrists, carefully peeling the tape from his eyes; still felt that strange flutter of guilt in the back of his mind at the moment of recognition. The thought, it's impossible to repay a dead man.

The EMT had set aside the tape, moving on to the strip over Nate's lips…

And he'd paused, then, eyes wide but his tone calm and professional.

"There's something in his mouth…"

Bonanno shook his head abruptly, pacing back and wishing he could shake off the thoughts. He tried his best to ignore the looks the team was giving him. "Of course, as far as Massachusetts General and the rest of the guys know, it's Tom Baker. His wallet had four other IDs in it."

The wallet had been the only thing they found besides Nate before the building had been too dangerous to reenter. One of the firemen had handed it over, giving Bonanno a chance to misappropriate the IDs. He dug into his pocket now to pull them out, noting the way Eliot stiffened when he did. "Easy…" he said, and dropped the cards in Sophie's outstretched hand. "You didn't get those from me; I never saw them before in my life."

Sophie just stared, wordlessly, as if she was sizing him up. Bonanno shifted from foot to foot, trying to ease his nerves and the ache in his arm, and her brown eyes narrowed. He'd learned enough about her to know what she was thinking: a man of Patrick Bonanno's confidence shouldn't display nerves, even when expecting a deluge of questions.

Questions which Parker and Hardison readily supplied; the first to regain their voices.

"What building-?"

"Can we see him?"

"Why didn't you call earlier-?"

"Can we see him?"

"What happened? Is he alright?"

"Can we see him?

Eliot looked at Sophie over the endless stream of words and demands, and Bonanno knew. The hitter and the grifter had both caught the same question.

Why didn't you call earlier?

He dove for the opening Parker had left him desperately, pointing at the grill on the conference room's far wall.

"Room 407. There's a uniform on the door, so…"

The girl didn't need any further invitation. She was on the back of the couch faster than he could blink, unscrewing the grill with nimble fingers. The metal grate clattered loudly when she dropped it, her sneakers disappearing before he'd even processed that she had climbed in. Hardison, most noticeably, looked almost crestfallen until a curtain of blonde hair cascaded from the hole in the wall.

"You coming?"

The hacker didn't even pause to think. He just let the thief pull him up with an ease surprising for her size. Bonanno watched them disappear, and when he lowered his gaze again, Eliot and Sophie looked positively grim. He swallowed, squared his shoulders, and continued.

"We don't know what happened, exactly. Nate's not seriously hurt; he was banged up quite a bit, but most, if not all, of his injuries are superficial." Superficial, and suspicious. He moved between them to pick up the folder he'd left on the table earlier, trying to keep the thoughts in his head from showing on his face.

Nate had been beaten. He had been drugged – likely by someone who had no idea what the hell they were doing, from the torn tracks they left on his fingers. His wrists had been rubbed bloody, and there were teeth marks on his left forearm, red and angry, bitten nearly to the bone. The doctors so far had sounded confused on that one: the angle was wrong for it to have come from anyone else's teeth. He'd done that to himself.

And the rest…

Bonanno cleared his throat, passing the folder to Spencer and viciously slamming the lid on the little procedural voice telling him how much trouble he'd be in if he got caught. "They're treating him for smoke inhalation and we don't know…you…" He faltered, his eyes flickering to Devereaux's for a moment. Her eyes were practically slits, something dangerous flickering there, and he felt his own gaze skitter away before finally, more resolutely fixing on hers.

She apparently didn't find it convincing.

"…why are you looking at me like that, Sophie?"

"It's four," Sophie said, her tone flat. Eliot nodded his agreement, hands clamped tight on the manila folder. "Why did it take you almost eleven hours to contact us?"

Bonanno looked away, grimacing; it probably did nothing to reassure Sophie in the least.

Spit it out.

"He hasn't woken up yet."

Sophie was on her feet in an instant, nearly lunging over Eliot's arm when he put it up to bar her. Her voice rose to a surprising shrill tone. "You said he wasn't seriously injured!"

Once again, Bonanno could not – would not – meet either of their eyes. The sound of Eliot rustling through the folder filled the room, murmuring low as he read and reread sections. The detective could practically see the wheels turning in the hitter's head; imagine the puzzle pieces clicking into place.

"Patrick…" Sophie began anew, her voice flattening suddenly, too low to be natural, though none of it showed on her face. "There's something else, isn't there?"

"Your notes say he was found naked." Eliot spoke before Bonano could say a word. His gravely voice was even harder than Sophie's, filled with a coldness that almost hurt. "What aren't you telling us? Was he…"

"What the hell...?" The EMT's voice had lost some of its calm when he pulled a neatly-folded hundred dollar bill out of Nate's mouth, dropped it on the stretcher next to his head. Bonanno stared at it for a second before his thoughts juxtaposed the money with the finger shaped bruises he could see smudged along Nate's shoulders and ribs and just starting on the skin above his blanket-covered hips. His stomach had clenched with a sick fear he hadn't wanted to voice.

It was all in the folder now. The informal report held mentioned everything: the cash, the injections, the bite marks and bruises…and the blood, streaked a cruelly bright crimson on the pale skin of Nate's thighs.

His earlier fear resurfaced here, in the faces of Nate's friends.

He drew in a breath, let it out silently. "We're still waiting for…formal confirmation," Bonnano said, still not even looking in their general direction, "but…I'm absolutely certain that Ford…that Nate…was raped."

It felt like being punched, though Sophie managed to swallow her gasp, managed to internalize the sudden confused rage at the thought of anyone touching Nate. She drew in a shaky breath and looked away, feeling her fingers trembling; feeling like her skin was on too tight. Next to her, Eliot had gone perfectly still, something dangerous in his stance.

"You…" Bonanno rubbed his eyes, and Sophie drew her attention back to the detective with some effort. "We…" he drew in a deep breath, and shook his head. "I shouldn't be doing this, but…"

Sophie let him think for a moment before she finally spoke. "But?" she prompted, dazed but still trying to pay attention past the thoughts now coursing through her.

Nate was raped. Nate's unconscious, Nate was raped…

"But…I had the hospital...well, once they knew Nate was stable, I had them…" Bonanno kept grimacing, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation. "I asked the hospital to collect a rape kit."

"…you're not supposed to do that without his consent," Eliot pointed out, voice a low growl. Bonanno didn't flinch away from the hitter's bright stare.

"I know. But this is…different. He's unconscious, we don't know when he'll wake up, that's…when you take his injuries into account, that's implied consent. More than that, he's a friend. He deserved…deserves better. And this way…" He shrugged. "I can let you know what I know."

The way Bonanno said it, Sophie knew it was a struggle for him. He could be in a lot of trouble for doing this. Lose his position, lose his job…but he wasn't taking the folder back, and he was still here.

"…Alright. Thank you," Eliot said, finally. Grimly. "So…is that why the hospital's got the cop gauntlet?"

"They don't- we don't officially know if it was just wrong-place wrong time, if he was a witness to something or a participant in something…" Bonanno pointed out, inexplicably reasonable. "Better safe than sorry."

Her mind shied off of its current path, onto the how do we tell Alec and Parker path for all she tried to head it off at the pass. She didn't want to even contemplate that.

I don't want to think about anything but him waking up alright.

Bonanno rubbed his eyes again. "Right now, we're calling it attempted homicide. The warehouse belonged to Harry Callaghan -well, the Callaghan family, anyway- so we think the fire might be drug related, but that still doesn't explain Nate being there."

The name Callaghan was familiar; he was the man they caught almost entirely by accident that night with Tara and Peggy and the bomb. It would be exactly like Nate to think he'd found something new and head there on his own, but something in that didn't sit right in Sophie's mind.

Bonanno let out a weak laugh and continued. "If the fire was set to send a message or disrupt the Callaghan's route, it's shutting the barn door after the horses have gone. No one's used that building for over a year and the Callaghan's have been lying low since…well. Since you guys got to Harry."

Eliot was still focused on the folder, but he looked at the detective over top of it, grimly. "And if it wasn't set for those reasons?"

"Then someone had it out for Nate personally."