Leverage Fic: Shock Factor
Title: Shock Factor
Genre: Friendship, Parker character growth fic
Word Count: ~7000
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Pairings: None, but strong Eliot/Parker friendship
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Spoilers for "The Morning After Job"
Summary: Tag to "The Morning After Job." Parker's really gotten nonchalant about using her taser. Eliot makes a comment about it, spurring Parker to take a look at the consequences of the actions she's chosen to take. Written in response to a prompt from martinius: "Characters: Parker/Eliot. He's very strong, but she's stronger" for the 2010 multifandom ficathon at the femme_fic community.
Author's Note: A huge shout out to my betas vivrebarefoot and rusting_roses for hammering a rough fic into polished form. The contributions they made to this fic--clarifying plot points, fixing all of my silly grammatical mistakes, and streamlining my at times rambling writing--helped make this story something to be proud of.
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Shock Factor
It sounded like a bug zapper. That had been Parker's first thought when Eliot had shown her what was to become her back-up weapon. He'd held it in his hand and pressed the button and its tips had lit up like lightening and it emitted a shrill buzz that had made her jump, more startled than scared. He'd tried to pass it over to her right after that but Parker had refused him at first. She didn't get caught and was never in confrontations, so why would she need such a device?
Eliot had snorted and reminded her that just last night Parker had found herself in that exact scenario, cornered in the basement with two thugs facing her. Eliot had barely made it in time to clobber the two of them before they'd reached her. Part of Parker's job was to avoid confrontation - a good thief doesn't get caught, after all- but that didn't mean that she always succeeded. He'd pressed the taser into her hand and she'd instinctually closed her hand around it. Fifty-thousand volts settled into the palm of her hand.
At first, it had just ridden in her purse, if she were acting a part in the con, or would hang on her belt with the rest of the equipment she routinely carried while rappelling or climbing through an air vent. She hardly gave it any thought at all, really.
And then had come first time she'd been faced a confrontation with the taser at her disposal; she hadn't hesitated to use it. Eliot had drilled her well. When the guard locked a hand around her wrist she'd drawn the taser, settled it to his chest, and watched him drop to the ground, twitching with the aftershocks. She didn't wait around to see if he was okay. It was enough that the man was down and no longer posing a threat. Hardison was screaming in her ear that four more of them were on the way and she needed to pull a disappearing act. She'd sprinted off, taser in one hand as she followed Hardison's careful instructions directing her out.
And when the adrenalin wore off and Eliot swung the van door shut and the tires squealed as they pulled away from the building, Parker pulled the little device off her belt and marveled at it. She wasn't a big person and never had been. The best thing she had going for her against muscle-packed men like that was her stealth and her ability to remain hidden while she worked. After all, if they couldn't find you, well, what damage could they do? They'd have as much luck trying to pin down a wraith.
During past cons- and thefts, for that matter- she'd always hated the moment when the bodyguard or security guard or henchman of the week happened to look upwards and see her outline in the rafters. Her breath would hitch and time froze. She felt like an animal in the rifle view of a hunter, caught by the indecision of whether to flee or not, conflicting instincts clamoring for her attention. It was the feeling she dreaded most in the world.
Eliot had given her a new weapon against that feeling. Even with training, Parker would never be able to match a man like that in a one-on-one fight. The laws of physics were against her. But here Eliot had given her a small device that single-handedly ruined the skewed dynamic. She was, in fact, as close to equal footing as she'd ever be. Nowadays when someone spotted her and yelled at her to stop and raise her hands, she was able to swallow that lump in her throat, wait for her opponent to close the distance, drop them with one well placed blow, and get away cleanly. There was something liberating in not having to fear so much anymore.
And she'd tried to share that feeling of liberation with her friends after they'd pulled a con on Mark Vector to get Damien Moreau's bank account numbers. The con hadn't gone perfectly, several kinks in the plan had popped up along the way, but they got it all sorted out in the end. When Vector had gone nuts at seeing her in the courtroom and had gotten a handle on Eliot's gun, she hadn't hesitated to pull out the taser, put it against the man's flesh, and incapacitate him. The man was waving a gun around with her teammates standing right there and a whole courtroom full of everyday people who weren't used to being on the bad end of a mix-up like that. It had turned out to be fake gun. A part of her felt silly at considering she had acted so liberally. But the other part of her rationalized that Eliot hadn't told them that part so she'd handled the situation on the assumption that the weapon was a real gun with live rounds.
And in the heat of the moment afterwards, every nerve still vibrating from the sudden excitement, she'd done something very uncharacteristic by throwing her arms over Hardison's and Eliot's shoulders and offering a simple enough comment: "You know, I'm really starting to like tasing people. Is that a problem?"
Hardison had laughed at that. Eliot had gone the opposite direction in his response, bristling against her touch and firmly pulling the taser from her hand. He hadn't mentioned it at all during the ride home, and Parker hadn't asked about it. After their debriefing Eliot had pulled her aside, face stern. "Tasers aren't toys Parker. They're weapons. They hurt people. You might think about that in the future."
She'd opened her mouth to explain herself, but he was gone before she'd found the words.
Stupid Eliot. Ok, maybe he wasn't stupid, that was pretty harsh and Eliot was usually pretty nice to her. He cooked for her and volunteered to spot her while she tests her new rappelling gear. But he'd gone back to their normal routine like they'd never had that short exchange. He didn't speak of it again.
While Eliot may have considered that short warning the end of the story, for her, it was as annoying as that mosquito bite whose itch you just couldn't ignore. She knew that scratching just made it worse and the next day she'd have red trenches dug in her arms from her persistent itching. Nevertheless, she couldn't shake his comment from her mind. And the more that she thought about it, the more disconcerting it all became. She'd never thought about the people she'd tased as victims. They were mean people and if she didn't take them down they'd hurt her. What sort of restraint was she supposed to show in such circumstances? The one time she hesitated might be the only time it took for someone to get a lucky shot on her.
But she hurt people when she tased them. Eliot had said as much. It made her pause, made her think, made her stare at the innocuous weapon as though she could tease the secrets out of it with nothing more than the will of her mind. She wondered if Eliot had ever been tasered. She wanted to ask him what it felt like. But Eliot would probably just growl at her and tell her to leave things alone that were his responsibility to worry about.
The paradox eventually brought Parker to the lobby of the Boston penitentiary, desperate for answers. She needed to know just what her actions had done when she'd tased all those people. It hadn't just been a few people over the past few times. How much hurt had she caused those people in her efforts for self-preservation?
"Alright, miss...Miss White is it? We've gotten your visit all arranged. You can collect your purse on your way out. If you'll just follow Officer Morrison here he'll take you back."
Parker shook her mind clear of the thoughts that had been playing on a loop through her head and followed the uniformed officer through a maze of doors and gates that buzzed when they opened and locked automatically as soon as they passed through.
The officer stepped to the side as they entered into another room and pointed to a chair toward the end of the row of cubicles. She stood in the doorway, waiting for some cue from the man.
His stern expression softened and he smiled. "This your first time visiting? Loosen up a bit, you'll do just fine. You'll find Mr. Vector in cubicle seven."
She nodded and stepped forward, past the officer, and closed the distance to the cubicle. She sat down and scooted the chair in.
Mark Vector stared back at her, an eyebrow curiously raised as he picked up the phone on his side of the thick, bullet-proof glass barrier. She did the same on her side.
"Ah, the little con artist that set me up. I wondered what brought you down here to visit. It seemed to me you'd already done enough, you know, getting me these new digs," he sneered, motioning to the drab grey room that surrounded them.
She gulped. This wasn't exactly the way she'd seen this discussion starting. She mustered her courage, meeting his eyes as evenly as she could. "You did bad things. That got you put in here."
"Enough with the trivialities. The little game you played on me has already killed any hopes I had for the next several years. So tell me, why should I waste another second on you?" he jabbed at her, a snarl curling his lips.
Parker inhaled sharply. "I, uh, I just wanted to ask you a question..."
"Well all you've done so far is mumble incoherent fragments," Vector was quick to retort. "Spit it out already!"
She broke eye contact with the man and stared at a point on the wall behind him. If she didn't look at him, he couldn't pin her in her seat with that scary expression of his. "When we were in court and you pulled that officer's gun and I tased you, did it hurt?"
He scoffed, rolling his eyes. Then he took a second glance and realized she was serious. His eyes darkened. "You ever been electrocuted? How best to put this? Hmmm....It's like having a rusty knife slowly drawn against every nerve in your body. And as much as you want to cry out, surrender, do whatever it takes to get the pain to stop, you don't even get that reprieve. No, you're pinned in place like an insect in some exotic bug collector's display case!" He stood up then and smacked a hand against the glass.
Parker instinctually jumped back from the noise, nearly dropping the phone in the process.
"Of course it hurt, you bitch!" An officer was moving toward the ex-hockey player-turned-crooked-investor at the sudden outburst of aggression.
Parker fumbled with the phone again and eventually managed to settle it into its cradle before quickly retreating toward the door without looking back, some unseen force hurrying her movements away from Vector.
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The briefing for their next mission was finishing up. Sophie and Nate had already filed out of the briefing room and were settling into the living room for some TV while Eliot cooked their weekly team dinner. Eliot had already disappeared into the kitchen to start doing what he loved best, and Parker had been about to exit the room herself and find something to occupy her attention when Hardison had asked her to stay for a minute.
So she shrugged and sat back down and stared at him expectantly.
He closed his laptop screen and left his hands resting on top of the device. Then he sighed and spoke. "I know you went to visit Vector. You know Nate's told us that once a job is closed it's done and we aren't supposed to revisit it unless we're doing it as a team." His voice was gentle, but there was genuine worry glimmering in his eyes.
Parker cocked her head to the side a bit. "I wanted to ask him a question."
Hardison inwardly groaned. Parker was...well, she was Parker. And it was built into her personality to not really think about the risks that came along with many of the actions she impulsively decided to take. He restrained his frustration with that, but the concern bled into his voice. "Look, Vector's a dangerous man and he's got mob connections. That isn't the kind of stuff we should be reopening the book on. After a high-risk mission like that we keep our heads down and out of the line of fire. If you wanted to talk to him you should have come to me or Eliot. Going into a prison to address a very dangerous criminal with a personal vendetta against us really isn't the best idea you've had."
"I had to see him," Parker said repeated, putting a little emphasis on it.
"What was so important that you had to stick your neck on the line and go see him?"
Parker breathed in and out a few times, weighing her options. "If I tell you will you help me?"
"Depends on what you're asking for. Are we talking something risky here? If so, then the answer's probably gonna have to be no unless you're willing to bring the rest of the team in on whatever 'this' is," Hardison said, trying to negotiate. If she were going to be doing something dangerous, likely she wouldn't be talked out of it. It would at least be a partial victory if could get someone else in there to supervise whatever crazy stunt she had in mind.
"Fine. It's a deal," Parker agreed, rising from her seat, crossing over to Hardison's side of the table, and holding out her hand for a handshake to seal the negotiations.
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Hey Eliot! Meet me at Eighth and Lane Ave. at 8PM tonight.-Parker
Eliot read the text message again and flipped his phone shut. He roughly shoved it into his pocket and snorted. He didn't even bother formulating a response to that text message. What might seem to a sane person as a request just wasn't, at least not when it came to Parker. He'd tried to refuse once before when she'd invited him for a midnight run through one of the worst ghetto districts in Boston. He'd told her that a midnight run wasn't worth getting potentially shanked and she should have more common sense that that.
He'd been settled in to watch a martial arts bout on TV when Parker had shown up at his door in jogging gear, expectant and ready to do whatever was necessary to get her way. When Parker made a request, saying no just didn't work. So that night he did the only thing he could. He shook his head, donned his running shoes, and somehow ended up chasing the little blond thief through the streets. Who'd have thought that someone with such short legs could run so fast? Despite the fact that Eliot had forced Parker to pick an alternate route down different streets because of a drug deal going down on one corner and a gang of hooded thugs hanging out down an alley, when they'd finally stopped, both out of breath, Parker had smirked. "See!" she had said, "Nothing bad happened! Wasn't that exciting?" And hell, who was he to argue with that?
No, there wasn't really any way to anticipate what new crazy itch Parker wanted to scratch. He didn't know if they were robbing a bank or jumping off buildings tonight or just going for a late night snack run. The best he could do to prepare himself was to grab a bag of assorted mission gear and show up at the designated time and location and hope that and he could hope to keep his teammate out of trouble and see her safely home later that night.
A side door on the brick building near swung open, a rectangle of light emanating from the doorway crawled across the pavement. A head poked out. "Good, you're here," Parker observed in a level voice.
An unusually level voice, Eliot thought to himself. Parker was normally a ball of energy. Hell, half the time he would swear she just couldn't sit still or calm down. On a normal night she reminded him of a kid cracked out on too much sugar.
Now, however, she seemed resolute, her shoulders were tensed as if something were weighing on her mind. It made Eliot...apprehensive.
She waved him to move up toward the door. Her breath was making small puffs of fog in the chilly November air. "Come on, we're letting the heat out."
He followed her inside.
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Parker led the way through a series of narrow hallways until they faced a set of double doors. She pushed one of them open, leading them into a martial arts studio. It was a sparse but clean place as dojos often were. They abandoned the ritzy-glitzy stuff that so many of the newer gyms seemed to favor in their attempts to boost their memberships. This was the sort of place you came to learn an art and learn it right. They'd rented out the place for the evening for their own purposes. The canvas-covered mats wouldn't ring out with the slap of bodies being thrown down and pressed down for the pinning move.
"Parker, what is this?" Eliot observed, looking around the room.
Parker allowed herself a moment to do the same. She knew what she'd see. She'd been waiting here a good half hour. The room had started with seventeen individuals. Eight were one's she had come to know personally in the past few weeks. The rest were the companions of each of those eight individuals. And now that Eliot was here to serve in that capacity for her.
They'd started with her eight classmates. And one by one they had each been led into the room beyond and the door closed behind them while she waited for her own turn.
There were just two ahead of her now. Together they waited in the atrium to the dojo. The practice room, and their ultimate destination, was closed off behind a solid wood door. No windows, just apprehension and a thick tension to keep them company as they waited.
"Parker, what's going on here?" Eliot repeated in a soft voice as he stepped up to just a pace behind her.
"I've been taking this training course for the past few weeks. Hardison helped hook me up."
Eliot dropped his bag by his feet and let himself relax a bit. Parker was obviously at ease with this people, he didn't need to be on edge. At least he didn't think so. She still seemed nervous about something considering the way her fingers kept playing with the zipper on her zip-up hoodie. "What kind of training?"
"It's a police taser training course. I've done all the classroom work and watched the safety videos. This is our last night."
The door opened and a stout man, his posture radiating ex-military, stepped through. "Taylors, you're up!"
The man that had been sitting with his back against the wall nodded and stood up. The person he'd brought with him, maybe a spouse, Parker thought, stayed where she was at. Taylors and the man who'd summoned him retreated into the room beyond and the door shut again.
Eliot pulled his attention away from the spectacle as the room went quiet again. "I taught you how to use your taser. You're fine with it."
"You taught me how to use it on someone, Eliot." Parker picked her words slowly, hesitating occasionally as she struggled to get what she wanted to say to come out right. "You said yourself that I was using it too nonchalantly. And you were right. To me it was just a new novelty. I didn't understand that it's a weapon."
"Parker, I just had a bad night when I made that comment. I didn't mean it-"
Parker cut him off. "Yes you did. And even if you didn't, you were right to say what you said. Tasing people is so easy. It's just touching someone and they're all of a sudden down. I know that's why you don't like guns. You don't like any weapon that someone can use from a distance. It makes everything too easy, too nonchalant."
"This isn't about some sadistic streak, Parker. I gave you that taser so you could protect yourself if I couldn't be there," Eliot protested.
"That's fine. It's good to have something to fall back on. But I don't want to sit back and close my eyes and pretend that using the tool you've given me doesn't hurt people. If I'm going to do this to someone else, I need to understand what it's like." Parker was calm on the surface, but there was something strained hiding deep in her eyes, in the pinched corners of her mouth.
The door opened again and a dazed looking Taylors came wandering out. His woman friend met him and led the stumbling man toward the exit.
"Wexler, you're up! Let's do this, then, shall we?"
Wexler leveled the man a cocky smirk. "Hell yeah, man!" He rubbed his hands together and quickly passed into the room beyond.
A dark expression crossed Eliot's face as he watched the retreating Taylors weave a crooked path toward the door, half leaning on his friend. His heavy weight bent her small frame to the side as she struggled under his weight.
"This is the police training course," Eliot noted.
"Yeah. Hardison pulled a few strings and did his computer thing and got me enrolled," she responded.
"They taser police officers in these courses...."
"Which is exactly why I picked this one. All the civilian courses just had you watch a few videos and maybe see a trained professional get tased. And at the end you'd get a certificate that said you understood what it meant to be armed with a taser," She scoffed. "That's not the real thing. You don't understand what it's like until you've suffered it yourself."
A stunned shout, muffled by the door but still audible all the same, echoed through the room. Parker visibly flinched at the noise.
"Damn it, Parker. That's not what I want for you. That's not why I said what I said about how you were acting. I just wanted you to be more careful."
"And hopefully after this I will be," Parker responded. "This is my decision. This is what I want."
"Then why did you drag me into this?" Eliot spat at her, standing so he could pace back and forth across the length of the room. "You think I want to stand here and listen to you scream like that guy in there?"
She sighed, eyes tracking his every movement. She relaxed a little when he came to stand in front of her, fiercely protective. "No. And I'm sorry that I had to drag you into this. But everyone's supposed to have someone to spot them after the fact and make sure they get home ok. I argued up and down that I didn't need it but the instructors wouldn't budge." She looked up at him, pleading. "I thought of everyone on the team you would at least understand why I'm doing this. Or failing that, you'd at least be able to handle standing back and letting me do this."
The door opened again and Wexler walked stiffly out. He was moving under his own power, though, and he shot Parker a confident grin. "Not too bad," he said to Parker as he passed.
Eliot snorted. Youths. They'd be screaming one moment and be telling you that it wasn't any worse than a tickle the next.
"White, ready to wrap it up? You're the last one."
She smiled up at Eliot, a trace of her impish grin making an appearance. "Having White as a last name? For the record, it totally sucks. Whenever it comes to alphabetical order I'm always the one to tie up all the loose ends." She shot a glance at Eliot and murmured under her breath. "Remind me to talk to Hardison about it. If he could design me a whole fake persona he can certainly arrange for a better last name." She spoke to the instructor next. " Let's do this."
The man looked at Eliot. "You want him to come in with you?"
Parker shrugged and met Eliot's concerned expression. "Up to you," she said.
There was only one decision Eliot could make.
"I'm coming."
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Parker breathed in and out deeply as she entered the room, centering herself as if she was about to leap off a building. Two of the course instructors were standing side by side on a blue gymnastics mat that had been laid out on the floor. A third man was standing several yards back from that next to a card table. He was reloading a new cartridge into his taser.
"You ready, White?"
The man noted Parker's nod and pointed her toward the two instructors on the mat while pointing Eliot toward a wooden bench that was sitting up against the wall. He frowned, but didn't debate the order. He marched across the room and stood, arms crossed, in a rigid posture.
Parker stepped up next to the instructors, raising her hand in a silent greeting as she did so. They smiled widely in response. She didn't think it was because they were happy to see her or even because they were normally emotionally expressive individuals. No, she knew better than that. They'd harped on each individual in her course over the past few weeks and pushed them hard. This wasn't a civilian course, and she accepted their treatment because she wasn't looking for coddling. More often than not a stern, blank face was the only thing she saw when she looked at either one of these men.
But for whatever reason they'd let down those barriers tonight. Maybe it was a small gesture of support for what she and the others were here to do tonight. It was both reassuring and utterly unnerving. She was anxious; her eyes kept darting toward the instructor with the taser in hand. He was checking the cartridge now. She swallowed, the anticipation building in her stomach, and definitely not in a good way. This was worse than the first time Archie had pushed her off a building. She rubbed her arms a little, an unconscious, nervous gesture.
What was it like to be tasered?
That was the question that had brought her here tonight.
You ever been electrocuted? How best to put this? Hmmm....It's like having a rusty knife slowly drawn against every nerve in your body.
She drew in a deep breath as Vector's words grated against any peace of mind she might hope to attain in the moments leading up to the final culmination of her desire to find out what this was all about.
Had she been too lackadaisical in her decisions to use her taser? Eliot thought so. Or at least he had until she professed an earnest interest in filling this gap in her understanding. She knew that he and the others sometimes saw her as the baby of the team. She was the one they had to keep an eye on, the one they had to protect. Of all of them, sometimes she felt that the others felt a need to step between her and any danger that might face her as if she couldn't stomach the exposure to violence or would quiver at the first sign of danger. What they forgot was that she'd been walking on the wrong side of the line between lawful and illegal activities since long before her first growth spurt.
"Ok, White. You remember how this is going to work?"
"Yes." She unzipped her hoodie and threw it to the side.
It skidded across the floor and came to a rest at Eliot's feet. The man looked at the item once before quickly picking it up, depositing it on the bench, and resuming his vigil in a defensive and obviously aggravated stance.
The two instructors stepped up, one on either side of her. She turned around from the instructor holding the taser and faced the opposite wall. She left her back exposed for the taser hit. Left in only a tank top, her arms immediately bristled with goose bumps in the chilly room.
The instructor called out from behind her. "Ok, we're ready. You have any last minute questions?"
She scoffed. There was one big one. What was it like to be tasered? That was the one that had brought her here tonight, to this very moment, to experience pain and fear as she has inflicted on others.
As much as you want to cry out, surrender, do whatever it takes to get the pain to stop, you don't even get that reprieve. No, you're pinned in place like an insect in some exotic bug collector's display case!
The instructor cleared his voice to speak again but Eliot pushed off the wall and took a step forward, matching her bewildered expression with one of concern. "Parker-"
She held up her hand to still his approach and shook her head.
"Parker, are you sure you want to do this? I'm telling you, you don't have something to prove to me here. I know you can be responsible with one of these things. You don't need to put yourself through this."
"Yes, I do," she responded in a whisper. Quiet, perhaps, but absolutely firm. She needed this. She pinned him with a stern expression. "Eliot, I am choosing to do this. And regardless of what happens in the next few minutes, you stay right where you are. No interference, ok?"
He gave a slow nod even though his jaw was locked in stubborn disapproval for what was about to take place.
She threw a glance over her shoulder at the instructor behind her. "I'm ready."
The man responded by dropping into a shooting position and raising the taser. She looked back toward the wall as the instructors each took one of her arms in a tight grip and held her steady.
"Taser, taser, taser!"
The words ended and that dreadfully long second passed in between until she felt the sharp prongs sink into the meat of her back. Then the sharp buzz of the electrical current racing through the wire and spreading through her body.
Her vision went from clear to blurry, interspersed with colored blotches. Every nerve was lit aflame as her muscles clenched. She couldn't move. She might've made a noise; things were fuzzy then. It was all wrong. The world was tilting and she was leaning forward with it. Something was keeping her from falling flat on her face, instead slowly lowering her there as the electrical current flowed along every channel in her body.
Fifty thousand volts.
Five seconds.
Just five seconds. Part of her was awestruck that so much pain could be condensed into so short a time frame. And then she was being pressed into the mat and though her body was no longer on fire but a residual effect remained in the sudden void. Her muscles went lax and flaccid and slight tremors ran through her limbs.
"White, you ok there?"
She made a grunt in response and willed her arm muscles to work so she could get up. The grip on her arms tightened and pressed her back down.
"Easy, we're done. Hold still and let us get the darts out."
She felt a hand lightly brush against the now-sensitive flesh on her back and then a sharp sting as something was pulled out. The process repeated and then the grips on her arms switched from holding her down to helping her sit up.
She breathed heavily for a few moments. Eliot had at some point moved from his position by the wall to crouching in front of her. He pressed her chin upward from its slumped position and prompted her to look at him. "Parker, are you ok?"
She nodded, weakly at first, and then firmer. "I'm ok."
Eliot hadn't moved from where he'd knelt. She sighed deeply, wiped a hand over her face, and rose to her feet quickly so that the men hovering around her didn't have a chance to offer her a hand or try to help her up. She had this.
The two instructors backed up to give her some space to get her bearings. Eliot stepped forward to stand just inches to her side. She scoffed at that. He was expecting her to keel to the side and right into his arms. So protective, the whole lot of them, her adopted family.
She ignored his gesture. She muttered an assurance to the instructors that she was good to go. One of them pulled Eliot aside to give him some tips on just making sure she got home ok. She rolled her eyes at the two of them chatting a few paces away.
Eventually they halted their discussion and Eliot approached, holding out Parker's jacket. "How are you feeling?"
She shrugged, unable to really sum up the experience except in words that seemed to fall too short to give it justice. "It hurt. But I'm fine."
"Was it worth it?" he asked.
She reached a hand over her shoulder to press against the spot where one of the taser prods had dug into her flesh, the memory arcing through her. "I got what I came looking for. Let's go." She led the way out.
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“Parker, try a left at the next corner,“ Hardison's voice rang in her ear through the comm.
She hooked a tight turn at the next intersection, Eliot sprinting after her tight on her heels. Their steps echoed down the hallway in sync with one another.
Eliot snatched a glance at their pursuers, a pair of guards from the company they were investigating. He cursed low under his breath, they were closing the gap. He pressed forward at a quickened pace, passing Parker with his long strides as he went. "Pick it up, Parker. They're catching up."
She didn't get a chance to formulate a response between her gasping breaths.
Eliot skidded to a stop in front of her. She barely managed to sidestep and slide to a halt next to him instead of crashing into him.
"Damn it, Hardison. There's a wall here!" Eliot snapped at their teammate through the comm.
“What? That's not right. There's nothing in the floor plans for the building about a wall in that hallway.“
"Well it didn't appear out of thin air, now did it?" Eliot growled.
"Alright, you two! Turn around, hands in the air. Slowly now," one of the guards barked.
Parker complied first, and upon observing the dangerous expression on Eliot's face, she wondered if the hitter would dart forward and attack. But ultimately, the man realized the futility of their position and complied as well. She didn't miss the fact that he positioned himself directly in front of her and in the line of fire of the guards.
"That's right. Now stay right there," one of them spoke. He addressed his partner next. "Mike, radio up to security and tell them to send us a few more men to help transport these two up to a holding cell. They put down Celeste and Baker on their little chase through the building. That puts them staunchly in the dangerous category."
The second security guard reached for his radio and stepped away to speak softly into it.
In the meantime, Eliot's gaze was focused on the taser in the man's hand. Parker shook her head. As contradictory as it was, Eliot hated tasers. She'd seen him flinch when she used it in his presence. She asked Hardison about it one time. He'd told her that some bad stuff had happened to Eliot when he was held as a captive in Croatia. There were just some things that didn't sit right with Eliot. Like the way he didn't like guns. Parker had assumed that was the reason he'd given the model where you had to actually physically place it against a person's skin. Hardison had told her that what had happened over there, the stuff he never talked about, it also probably explained why he didn't like things that shocked people either.
And yet he had given such an implement to Parker. She'd puzzled about that, but in the end, had chalked it up to sheer practicality. Parker couldn't outmatch someone in hand to hand and there were going to be times she was going to be in a jam and need to protect herself. And as much as Eliot hated the weapon, he'd gifted one upon Parker so she would be safe.
At first she'd used it a little bit, then she'd become very reliant on it. And after the taser course and feeling how much it hurt herself, she had used it a lot less. Only if she was really in a bad place and couldn't figure a way out other than through the person trying to catch her or hurt her. Eliot had actually told her to stop being so conservative with it when a thug had her cornered. She'd hesitated to use it and Eliot had come in and gotten her out of there just seconds before the thug had cocked his gun. There was just no pleasing the man; it was either using it too much or too little.
The taser hurt. The instructors had been right about that. It was just five seconds experienced at five thousand volts. And after those few fleeting moments, all she had was the residual memory. The whole sequence wasn't clear; some pieces of the puzzle were missing. But one thing stood unblurry, and that was the memory of the pain. That was burned into her mind. And every time the taser was seated in her hand and pointed at another individual, she had to weigh whether the person was really evil enough to inflict that kind of suffering upon.
Like the man holding a taser pointed at them now. She didn't know the man's story. She didn't know whether he knew what terrible things his company was doing or whether he was in the dark. Not that she even had her taser with her tonight where she would have to make a decision. No, all Parker and Eliot had were each other.
And Eliot didn't even seem to acknowledge that. He wasn't treating Parker like she could contribute anything in this situation other than to serve as a person for him to protect. She put up with it most of the time. Eliot was big and physically strong. The man had a strong personality that demanded to be acknowledged. It was precisely at the moment that someone underestimated the hitter that they ended up unconscious on the ground.
But strength didn't just come in muscles and demanding such a presence in a room that others couldn't help but stand transfixed, too afraid to move.
Parker stepped up next to Eliot. Her teammate didn't pull his gaze away from attempting to stare down the man aiming the weapon at her.
Strength wasn't just muscle. Sure, it could be displayed in physical dominance, like Eliot's. Or maybe it could be a quieter thing.
She stepped in front of Eliot and advanced further then, purposefully antagonizing the guard. The man stepped back once but then raised his taser and his finger tightened around the trigger. She saw the movement, just barely. She saw the taser darts flying toward her. And then she felt them digging into her belly and felt the electricity web through her. The floor slammed against her body as she dropped. She hoped Eliot could take a cue and use the distraction. That was the one thought that passed through her mind, the one thought that her mind clung to and fought for tooth and nail.
She lay there still for several beats after the electric pulse died out. A hand gripped her own and pulled her to her feet.
"Why'd you do that, Parker? You knew it would hurt. You should've let me handle it," Eliot spoke after a few moments of silence. His voice was soft, gentle, and a little confused.
She rubbed at the spot where she'd accidently bit into her lip in the process. Pulling it away, she saw that a bit of blood coated her finger. She wiped it off on her jeans. "You don't like projectile weapons or weapons that stun," She said simply. "I decided to take care of it."
"But-"
"Strength comes in many forms, Eliot."
He pondered that for a moment, face pensive. His gaze changed after a moment, filled with something that looked every much like awe and a sudden glimmer of understanding. Parker wasn't sure she could assign it a specific meaning, but if she had to pin it down, she would say that Eliot's gaze promised a new respect that she hadn't seen in his eyes before.
He nodded. Together, the two of them ran for the closest exit. She noticed that Eliot didn't plow ahead like he normally did to put down anything that he saw as a threat to Parker's small stature. Side by side, the two of them loped away as equals.
---THE END---
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Genre: Friendship, Parker character growth fic
Word Count: ~7000
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Pairings: None, but strong Eliot/Parker friendship
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Spoilers for "The Morning After Job"
Summary: Tag to "The Morning After Job." Parker's really gotten nonchalant about using her taser. Eliot makes a comment about it, spurring Parker to take a look at the consequences of the actions she's chosen to take. Written in response to a prompt from martinius: "Characters: Parker/Eliot. He's very strong, but she's stronger" for the 2010 multifandom ficathon at the femme_fic community.
Author's Note: A huge shout out to my betas vivrebarefoot and rusting_roses for hammering a rough fic into polished form. The contributions they made to this fic--clarifying plot points, fixing all of my silly grammatical mistakes, and streamlining my at times rambling writing--helped make this story something to be proud of.
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Shock Factor
It sounded like a bug zapper. That had been Parker's first thought when Eliot had shown her what was to become her back-up weapon. He'd held it in his hand and pressed the button and its tips had lit up like lightening and it emitted a shrill buzz that had made her jump, more startled than scared. He'd tried to pass it over to her right after that but Parker had refused him at first. She didn't get caught and was never in confrontations, so why would she need such a device?
Eliot had snorted and reminded her that just last night Parker had found herself in that exact scenario, cornered in the basement with two thugs facing her. Eliot had barely made it in time to clobber the two of them before they'd reached her. Part of Parker's job was to avoid confrontation - a good thief doesn't get caught, after all- but that didn't mean that she always succeeded. He'd pressed the taser into her hand and she'd instinctually closed her hand around it. Fifty-thousand volts settled into the palm of her hand.
At first, it had just ridden in her purse, if she were acting a part in the con, or would hang on her belt with the rest of the equipment she routinely carried while rappelling or climbing through an air vent. She hardly gave it any thought at all, really.
And then had come first time she'd been faced a confrontation with the taser at her disposal; she hadn't hesitated to use it. Eliot had drilled her well. When the guard locked a hand around her wrist she'd drawn the taser, settled it to his chest, and watched him drop to the ground, twitching with the aftershocks. She didn't wait around to see if he was okay. It was enough that the man was down and no longer posing a threat. Hardison was screaming in her ear that four more of them were on the way and she needed to pull a disappearing act. She'd sprinted off, taser in one hand as she followed Hardison's careful instructions directing her out.
And when the adrenalin wore off and Eliot swung the van door shut and the tires squealed as they pulled away from the building, Parker pulled the little device off her belt and marveled at it. She wasn't a big person and never had been. The best thing she had going for her against muscle-packed men like that was her stealth and her ability to remain hidden while she worked. After all, if they couldn't find you, well, what damage could they do? They'd have as much luck trying to pin down a wraith.
During past cons- and thefts, for that matter- she'd always hated the moment when the bodyguard or security guard or henchman of the week happened to look upwards and see her outline in the rafters. Her breath would hitch and time froze. She felt like an animal in the rifle view of a hunter, caught by the indecision of whether to flee or not, conflicting instincts clamoring for her attention. It was the feeling she dreaded most in the world.
Eliot had given her a new weapon against that feeling. Even with training, Parker would never be able to match a man like that in a one-on-one fight. The laws of physics were against her. But here Eliot had given her a small device that single-handedly ruined the skewed dynamic. She was, in fact, as close to equal footing as she'd ever be. Nowadays when someone spotted her and yelled at her to stop and raise her hands, she was able to swallow that lump in her throat, wait for her opponent to close the distance, drop them with one well placed blow, and get away cleanly. There was something liberating in not having to fear so much anymore.
And she'd tried to share that feeling of liberation with her friends after they'd pulled a con on Mark Vector to get Damien Moreau's bank account numbers. The con hadn't gone perfectly, several kinks in the plan had popped up along the way, but they got it all sorted out in the end. When Vector had gone nuts at seeing her in the courtroom and had gotten a handle on Eliot's gun, she hadn't hesitated to pull out the taser, put it against the man's flesh, and incapacitate him. The man was waving a gun around with her teammates standing right there and a whole courtroom full of everyday people who weren't used to being on the bad end of a mix-up like that. It had turned out to be fake gun. A part of her felt silly at considering she had acted so liberally. But the other part of her rationalized that Eliot hadn't told them that part so she'd handled the situation on the assumption that the weapon was a real gun with live rounds.
And in the heat of the moment afterwards, every nerve still vibrating from the sudden excitement, she'd done something very uncharacteristic by throwing her arms over Hardison's and Eliot's shoulders and offering a simple enough comment: "You know, I'm really starting to like tasing people. Is that a problem?"
Hardison had laughed at that. Eliot had gone the opposite direction in his response, bristling against her touch and firmly pulling the taser from her hand. He hadn't mentioned it at all during the ride home, and Parker hadn't asked about it. After their debriefing Eliot had pulled her aside, face stern. "Tasers aren't toys Parker. They're weapons. They hurt people. You might think about that in the future."
She'd opened her mouth to explain herself, but he was gone before she'd found the words.
Stupid Eliot. Ok, maybe he wasn't stupid, that was pretty harsh and Eliot was usually pretty nice to her. He cooked for her and volunteered to spot her while she tests her new rappelling gear. But he'd gone back to their normal routine like they'd never had that short exchange. He didn't speak of it again.
While Eliot may have considered that short warning the end of the story, for her, it was as annoying as that mosquito bite whose itch you just couldn't ignore. She knew that scratching just made it worse and the next day she'd have red trenches dug in her arms from her persistent itching. Nevertheless, she couldn't shake his comment from her mind. And the more that she thought about it, the more disconcerting it all became. She'd never thought about the people she'd tased as victims. They were mean people and if she didn't take them down they'd hurt her. What sort of restraint was she supposed to show in such circumstances? The one time she hesitated might be the only time it took for someone to get a lucky shot on her.
But she hurt people when she tased them. Eliot had said as much. It made her pause, made her think, made her stare at the innocuous weapon as though she could tease the secrets out of it with nothing more than the will of her mind. She wondered if Eliot had ever been tasered. She wanted to ask him what it felt like. But Eliot would probably just growl at her and tell her to leave things alone that were his responsibility to worry about.
The paradox eventually brought Parker to the lobby of the Boston penitentiary, desperate for answers. She needed to know just what her actions had done when she'd tased all those people. It hadn't just been a few people over the past few times. How much hurt had she caused those people in her efforts for self-preservation?
"Alright, miss...Miss White is it? We've gotten your visit all arranged. You can collect your purse on your way out. If you'll just follow Officer Morrison here he'll take you back."
Parker shook her mind clear of the thoughts that had been playing on a loop through her head and followed the uniformed officer through a maze of doors and gates that buzzed when they opened and locked automatically as soon as they passed through.
The officer stepped to the side as they entered into another room and pointed to a chair toward the end of the row of cubicles. She stood in the doorway, waiting for some cue from the man.
His stern expression softened and he smiled. "This your first time visiting? Loosen up a bit, you'll do just fine. You'll find Mr. Vector in cubicle seven."
She nodded and stepped forward, past the officer, and closed the distance to the cubicle. She sat down and scooted the chair in.
Mark Vector stared back at her, an eyebrow curiously raised as he picked up the phone on his side of the thick, bullet-proof glass barrier. She did the same on her side.
"Ah, the little con artist that set me up. I wondered what brought you down here to visit. It seemed to me you'd already done enough, you know, getting me these new digs," he sneered, motioning to the drab grey room that surrounded them.
She gulped. This wasn't exactly the way she'd seen this discussion starting. She mustered her courage, meeting his eyes as evenly as she could. "You did bad things. That got you put in here."
"Enough with the trivialities. The little game you played on me has already killed any hopes I had for the next several years. So tell me, why should I waste another second on you?" he jabbed at her, a snarl curling his lips.
Parker inhaled sharply. "I, uh, I just wanted to ask you a question..."
"Well all you've done so far is mumble incoherent fragments," Vector was quick to retort. "Spit it out already!"
She broke eye contact with the man and stared at a point on the wall behind him. If she didn't look at him, he couldn't pin her in her seat with that scary expression of his. "When we were in court and you pulled that officer's gun and I tased you, did it hurt?"
He scoffed, rolling his eyes. Then he took a second glance and realized she was serious. His eyes darkened. "You ever been electrocuted? How best to put this? Hmmm....It's like having a rusty knife slowly drawn against every nerve in your body. And as much as you want to cry out, surrender, do whatever it takes to get the pain to stop, you don't even get that reprieve. No, you're pinned in place like an insect in some exotic bug collector's display case!" He stood up then and smacked a hand against the glass.
Parker instinctually jumped back from the noise, nearly dropping the phone in the process.
"Of course it hurt, you bitch!" An officer was moving toward the ex-hockey player-turned-crooked-investor at the sudden outburst of aggression.
Parker fumbled with the phone again and eventually managed to settle it into its cradle before quickly retreating toward the door without looking back, some unseen force hurrying her movements away from Vector.
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The briefing for their next mission was finishing up. Sophie and Nate had already filed out of the briefing room and were settling into the living room for some TV while Eliot cooked their weekly team dinner. Eliot had already disappeared into the kitchen to start doing what he loved best, and Parker had been about to exit the room herself and find something to occupy her attention when Hardison had asked her to stay for a minute.
So she shrugged and sat back down and stared at him expectantly.
He closed his laptop screen and left his hands resting on top of the device. Then he sighed and spoke. "I know you went to visit Vector. You know Nate's told us that once a job is closed it's done and we aren't supposed to revisit it unless we're doing it as a team." His voice was gentle, but there was genuine worry glimmering in his eyes.
Parker cocked her head to the side a bit. "I wanted to ask him a question."
Hardison inwardly groaned. Parker was...well, she was Parker. And it was built into her personality to not really think about the risks that came along with many of the actions she impulsively decided to take. He restrained his frustration with that, but the concern bled into his voice. "Look, Vector's a dangerous man and he's got mob connections. That isn't the kind of stuff we should be reopening the book on. After a high-risk mission like that we keep our heads down and out of the line of fire. If you wanted to talk to him you should have come to me or Eliot. Going into a prison to address a very dangerous criminal with a personal vendetta against us really isn't the best idea you've had."
"I had to see him," Parker said repeated, putting a little emphasis on it.
"What was so important that you had to stick your neck on the line and go see him?"
Parker breathed in and out a few times, weighing her options. "If I tell you will you help me?"
"Depends on what you're asking for. Are we talking something risky here? If so, then the answer's probably gonna have to be no unless you're willing to bring the rest of the team in on whatever 'this' is," Hardison said, trying to negotiate. If she were going to be doing something dangerous, likely she wouldn't be talked out of it. It would at least be a partial victory if could get someone else in there to supervise whatever crazy stunt she had in mind.
"Fine. It's a deal," Parker agreed, rising from her seat, crossing over to Hardison's side of the table, and holding out her hand for a handshake to seal the negotiations.
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Hey Eliot! Meet me at Eighth and Lane Ave. at 8PM tonight.-Parker
Eliot read the text message again and flipped his phone shut. He roughly shoved it into his pocket and snorted. He didn't even bother formulating a response to that text message. What might seem to a sane person as a request just wasn't, at least not when it came to Parker. He'd tried to refuse once before when she'd invited him for a midnight run through one of the worst ghetto districts in Boston. He'd told her that a midnight run wasn't worth getting potentially shanked and she should have more common sense that that.
He'd been settled in to watch a martial arts bout on TV when Parker had shown up at his door in jogging gear, expectant and ready to do whatever was necessary to get her way. When Parker made a request, saying no just didn't work. So that night he did the only thing he could. He shook his head, donned his running shoes, and somehow ended up chasing the little blond thief through the streets. Who'd have thought that someone with such short legs could run so fast? Despite the fact that Eliot had forced Parker to pick an alternate route down different streets because of a drug deal going down on one corner and a gang of hooded thugs hanging out down an alley, when they'd finally stopped, both out of breath, Parker had smirked. "See!" she had said, "Nothing bad happened! Wasn't that exciting?" And hell, who was he to argue with that?
No, there wasn't really any way to anticipate what new crazy itch Parker wanted to scratch. He didn't know if they were robbing a bank or jumping off buildings tonight or just going for a late night snack run. The best he could do to prepare himself was to grab a bag of assorted mission gear and show up at the designated time and location and hope that and he could hope to keep his teammate out of trouble and see her safely home later that night.
A side door on the brick building near swung open, a rectangle of light emanating from the doorway crawled across the pavement. A head poked out. "Good, you're here," Parker observed in a level voice.
An unusually level voice, Eliot thought to himself. Parker was normally a ball of energy. Hell, half the time he would swear she just couldn't sit still or calm down. On a normal night she reminded him of a kid cracked out on too much sugar.
Now, however, she seemed resolute, her shoulders were tensed as if something were weighing on her mind. It made Eliot...apprehensive.
She waved him to move up toward the door. Her breath was making small puffs of fog in the chilly November air. "Come on, we're letting the heat out."
He followed her inside.
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Parker led the way through a series of narrow hallways until they faced a set of double doors. She pushed one of them open, leading them into a martial arts studio. It was a sparse but clean place as dojos often were. They abandoned the ritzy-glitzy stuff that so many of the newer gyms seemed to favor in their attempts to boost their memberships. This was the sort of place you came to learn an art and learn it right. They'd rented out the place for the evening for their own purposes. The canvas-covered mats wouldn't ring out with the slap of bodies being thrown down and pressed down for the pinning move.
"Parker, what is this?" Eliot observed, looking around the room.
Parker allowed herself a moment to do the same. She knew what she'd see. She'd been waiting here a good half hour. The room had started with seventeen individuals. Eight were one's she had come to know personally in the past few weeks. The rest were the companions of each of those eight individuals. And now that Eliot was here to serve in that capacity for her.
They'd started with her eight classmates. And one by one they had each been led into the room beyond and the door closed behind them while she waited for her own turn.
There were just two ahead of her now. Together they waited in the atrium to the dojo. The practice room, and their ultimate destination, was closed off behind a solid wood door. No windows, just apprehension and a thick tension to keep them company as they waited.
"Parker, what's going on here?" Eliot repeated in a soft voice as he stepped up to just a pace behind her.
"I've been taking this training course for the past few weeks. Hardison helped hook me up."
Eliot dropped his bag by his feet and let himself relax a bit. Parker was obviously at ease with this people, he didn't need to be on edge. At least he didn't think so. She still seemed nervous about something considering the way her fingers kept playing with the zipper on her zip-up hoodie. "What kind of training?"
"It's a police taser training course. I've done all the classroom work and watched the safety videos. This is our last night."
The door opened and a stout man, his posture radiating ex-military, stepped through. "Taylors, you're up!"
The man that had been sitting with his back against the wall nodded and stood up. The person he'd brought with him, maybe a spouse, Parker thought, stayed where she was at. Taylors and the man who'd summoned him retreated into the room beyond and the door shut again.
Eliot pulled his attention away from the spectacle as the room went quiet again. "I taught you how to use your taser. You're fine with it."
"You taught me how to use it on someone, Eliot." Parker picked her words slowly, hesitating occasionally as she struggled to get what she wanted to say to come out right. "You said yourself that I was using it too nonchalantly. And you were right. To me it was just a new novelty. I didn't understand that it's a weapon."
"Parker, I just had a bad night when I made that comment. I didn't mean it-"
Parker cut him off. "Yes you did. And even if you didn't, you were right to say what you said. Tasing people is so easy. It's just touching someone and they're all of a sudden down. I know that's why you don't like guns. You don't like any weapon that someone can use from a distance. It makes everything too easy, too nonchalant."
"This isn't about some sadistic streak, Parker. I gave you that taser so you could protect yourself if I couldn't be there," Eliot protested.
"That's fine. It's good to have something to fall back on. But I don't want to sit back and close my eyes and pretend that using the tool you've given me doesn't hurt people. If I'm going to do this to someone else, I need to understand what it's like." Parker was calm on the surface, but there was something strained hiding deep in her eyes, in the pinched corners of her mouth.
The door opened again and a dazed looking Taylors came wandering out. His woman friend met him and led the stumbling man toward the exit.
"Wexler, you're up! Let's do this, then, shall we?"
Wexler leveled the man a cocky smirk. "Hell yeah, man!" He rubbed his hands together and quickly passed into the room beyond.
A dark expression crossed Eliot's face as he watched the retreating Taylors weave a crooked path toward the door, half leaning on his friend. His heavy weight bent her small frame to the side as she struggled under his weight.
"This is the police training course," Eliot noted.
"Yeah. Hardison pulled a few strings and did his computer thing and got me enrolled," she responded.
"They taser police officers in these courses...."
"Which is exactly why I picked this one. All the civilian courses just had you watch a few videos and maybe see a trained professional get tased. And at the end you'd get a certificate that said you understood what it meant to be armed with a taser," She scoffed. "That's not the real thing. You don't understand what it's like until you've suffered it yourself."
A stunned shout, muffled by the door but still audible all the same, echoed through the room. Parker visibly flinched at the noise.
"Damn it, Parker. That's not what I want for you. That's not why I said what I said about how you were acting. I just wanted you to be more careful."
"And hopefully after this I will be," Parker responded. "This is my decision. This is what I want."
"Then why did you drag me into this?" Eliot spat at her, standing so he could pace back and forth across the length of the room. "You think I want to stand here and listen to you scream like that guy in there?"
She sighed, eyes tracking his every movement. She relaxed a little when he came to stand in front of her, fiercely protective. "No. And I'm sorry that I had to drag you into this. But everyone's supposed to have someone to spot them after the fact and make sure they get home ok. I argued up and down that I didn't need it but the instructors wouldn't budge." She looked up at him, pleading. "I thought of everyone on the team you would at least understand why I'm doing this. Or failing that, you'd at least be able to handle standing back and letting me do this."
The door opened again and Wexler walked stiffly out. He was moving under his own power, though, and he shot Parker a confident grin. "Not too bad," he said to Parker as he passed.
Eliot snorted. Youths. They'd be screaming one moment and be telling you that it wasn't any worse than a tickle the next.
"White, ready to wrap it up? You're the last one."
She smiled up at Eliot, a trace of her impish grin making an appearance. "Having White as a last name? For the record, it totally sucks. Whenever it comes to alphabetical order I'm always the one to tie up all the loose ends." She shot a glance at Eliot and murmured under her breath. "Remind me to talk to Hardison about it. If he could design me a whole fake persona he can certainly arrange for a better last name." She spoke to the instructor next. " Let's do this."
The man looked at Eliot. "You want him to come in with you?"
Parker shrugged and met Eliot's concerned expression. "Up to you," she said.
There was only one decision Eliot could make.
"I'm coming."
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Parker breathed in and out deeply as she entered the room, centering herself as if she was about to leap off a building. Two of the course instructors were standing side by side on a blue gymnastics mat that had been laid out on the floor. A third man was standing several yards back from that next to a card table. He was reloading a new cartridge into his taser.
"You ready, White?"
The man noted Parker's nod and pointed her toward the two instructors on the mat while pointing Eliot toward a wooden bench that was sitting up against the wall. He frowned, but didn't debate the order. He marched across the room and stood, arms crossed, in a rigid posture.
Parker stepped up next to the instructors, raising her hand in a silent greeting as she did so. They smiled widely in response. She didn't think it was because they were happy to see her or even because they were normally emotionally expressive individuals. No, she knew better than that. They'd harped on each individual in her course over the past few weeks and pushed them hard. This wasn't a civilian course, and she accepted their treatment because she wasn't looking for coddling. More often than not a stern, blank face was the only thing she saw when she looked at either one of these men.
But for whatever reason they'd let down those barriers tonight. Maybe it was a small gesture of support for what she and the others were here to do tonight. It was both reassuring and utterly unnerving. She was anxious; her eyes kept darting toward the instructor with the taser in hand. He was checking the cartridge now. She swallowed, the anticipation building in her stomach, and definitely not in a good way. This was worse than the first time Archie had pushed her off a building. She rubbed her arms a little, an unconscious, nervous gesture.
What was it like to be tasered?
That was the question that had brought her here tonight.
You ever been electrocuted? How best to put this? Hmmm....It's like having a rusty knife slowly drawn against every nerve in your body.
She drew in a deep breath as Vector's words grated against any peace of mind she might hope to attain in the moments leading up to the final culmination of her desire to find out what this was all about.
Had she been too lackadaisical in her decisions to use her taser? Eliot thought so. Or at least he had until she professed an earnest interest in filling this gap in her understanding. She knew that he and the others sometimes saw her as the baby of the team. She was the one they had to keep an eye on, the one they had to protect. Of all of them, sometimes she felt that the others felt a need to step between her and any danger that might face her as if she couldn't stomach the exposure to violence or would quiver at the first sign of danger. What they forgot was that she'd been walking on the wrong side of the line between lawful and illegal activities since long before her first growth spurt.
"Ok, White. You remember how this is going to work?"
"Yes." She unzipped her hoodie and threw it to the side.
It skidded across the floor and came to a rest at Eliot's feet. The man looked at the item once before quickly picking it up, depositing it on the bench, and resuming his vigil in a defensive and obviously aggravated stance.
The two instructors stepped up, one on either side of her. She turned around from the instructor holding the taser and faced the opposite wall. She left her back exposed for the taser hit. Left in only a tank top, her arms immediately bristled with goose bumps in the chilly room.
The instructor called out from behind her. "Ok, we're ready. You have any last minute questions?"
She scoffed. There was one big one. What was it like to be tasered? That was the one that had brought her here tonight, to this very moment, to experience pain and fear as she has inflicted on others.
As much as you want to cry out, surrender, do whatever it takes to get the pain to stop, you don't even get that reprieve. No, you're pinned in place like an insect in some exotic bug collector's display case!
The instructor cleared his voice to speak again but Eliot pushed off the wall and took a step forward, matching her bewildered expression with one of concern. "Parker-"
She held up her hand to still his approach and shook her head.
"Parker, are you sure you want to do this? I'm telling you, you don't have something to prove to me here. I know you can be responsible with one of these things. You don't need to put yourself through this."
"Yes, I do," she responded in a whisper. Quiet, perhaps, but absolutely firm. She needed this. She pinned him with a stern expression. "Eliot, I am choosing to do this. And regardless of what happens in the next few minutes, you stay right where you are. No interference, ok?"
He gave a slow nod even though his jaw was locked in stubborn disapproval for what was about to take place.
She threw a glance over her shoulder at the instructor behind her. "I'm ready."
The man responded by dropping into a shooting position and raising the taser. She looked back toward the wall as the instructors each took one of her arms in a tight grip and held her steady.
"Taser, taser, taser!"
The words ended and that dreadfully long second passed in between until she felt the sharp prongs sink into the meat of her back. Then the sharp buzz of the electrical current racing through the wire and spreading through her body.
Her vision went from clear to blurry, interspersed with colored blotches. Every nerve was lit aflame as her muscles clenched. She couldn't move. She might've made a noise; things were fuzzy then. It was all wrong. The world was tilting and she was leaning forward with it. Something was keeping her from falling flat on her face, instead slowly lowering her there as the electrical current flowed along every channel in her body.
Fifty thousand volts.
Five seconds.
Just five seconds. Part of her was awestruck that so much pain could be condensed into so short a time frame. And then she was being pressed into the mat and though her body was no longer on fire but a residual effect remained in the sudden void. Her muscles went lax and flaccid and slight tremors ran through her limbs.
"White, you ok there?"
She made a grunt in response and willed her arm muscles to work so she could get up. The grip on her arms tightened and pressed her back down.
"Easy, we're done. Hold still and let us get the darts out."
She felt a hand lightly brush against the now-sensitive flesh on her back and then a sharp sting as something was pulled out. The process repeated and then the grips on her arms switched from holding her down to helping her sit up.
She breathed heavily for a few moments. Eliot had at some point moved from his position by the wall to crouching in front of her. He pressed her chin upward from its slumped position and prompted her to look at him. "Parker, are you ok?"
She nodded, weakly at first, and then firmer. "I'm ok."
Eliot hadn't moved from where he'd knelt. She sighed deeply, wiped a hand over her face, and rose to her feet quickly so that the men hovering around her didn't have a chance to offer her a hand or try to help her up. She had this.
The two instructors backed up to give her some space to get her bearings. Eliot stepped forward to stand just inches to her side. She scoffed at that. He was expecting her to keel to the side and right into his arms. So protective, the whole lot of them, her adopted family.
She ignored his gesture. She muttered an assurance to the instructors that she was good to go. One of them pulled Eliot aside to give him some tips on just making sure she got home ok. She rolled her eyes at the two of them chatting a few paces away.
Eventually they halted their discussion and Eliot approached, holding out Parker's jacket. "How are you feeling?"
She shrugged, unable to really sum up the experience except in words that seemed to fall too short to give it justice. "It hurt. But I'm fine."
"Was it worth it?" he asked.
She reached a hand over her shoulder to press against the spot where one of the taser prods had dug into her flesh, the memory arcing through her. "I got what I came looking for. Let's go." She led the way out.
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“Parker, try a left at the next corner,“ Hardison's voice rang in her ear through the comm.
She hooked a tight turn at the next intersection, Eliot sprinting after her tight on her heels. Their steps echoed down the hallway in sync with one another.
Eliot snatched a glance at their pursuers, a pair of guards from the company they were investigating. He cursed low under his breath, they were closing the gap. He pressed forward at a quickened pace, passing Parker with his long strides as he went. "Pick it up, Parker. They're catching up."
She didn't get a chance to formulate a response between her gasping breaths.
Eliot skidded to a stop in front of her. She barely managed to sidestep and slide to a halt next to him instead of crashing into him.
"Damn it, Hardison. There's a wall here!" Eliot snapped at their teammate through the comm.
“What? That's not right. There's nothing in the floor plans for the building about a wall in that hallway.“
"Well it didn't appear out of thin air, now did it?" Eliot growled.
"Alright, you two! Turn around, hands in the air. Slowly now," one of the guards barked.
Parker complied first, and upon observing the dangerous expression on Eliot's face, she wondered if the hitter would dart forward and attack. But ultimately, the man realized the futility of their position and complied as well. She didn't miss the fact that he positioned himself directly in front of her and in the line of fire of the guards.
"That's right. Now stay right there," one of them spoke. He addressed his partner next. "Mike, radio up to security and tell them to send us a few more men to help transport these two up to a holding cell. They put down Celeste and Baker on their little chase through the building. That puts them staunchly in the dangerous category."
The second security guard reached for his radio and stepped away to speak softly into it.
In the meantime, Eliot's gaze was focused on the taser in the man's hand. Parker shook her head. As contradictory as it was, Eliot hated tasers. She'd seen him flinch when she used it in his presence. She asked Hardison about it one time. He'd told her that some bad stuff had happened to Eliot when he was held as a captive in Croatia. There were just some things that didn't sit right with Eliot. Like the way he didn't like guns. Parker had assumed that was the reason he'd given the model where you had to actually physically place it against a person's skin. Hardison had told her that what had happened over there, the stuff he never talked about, it also probably explained why he didn't like things that shocked people either.
And yet he had given such an implement to Parker. She'd puzzled about that, but in the end, had chalked it up to sheer practicality. Parker couldn't outmatch someone in hand to hand and there were going to be times she was going to be in a jam and need to protect herself. And as much as Eliot hated the weapon, he'd gifted one upon Parker so she would be safe.
At first she'd used it a little bit, then she'd become very reliant on it. And after the taser course and feeling how much it hurt herself, she had used it a lot less. Only if she was really in a bad place and couldn't figure a way out other than through the person trying to catch her or hurt her. Eliot had actually told her to stop being so conservative with it when a thug had her cornered. She'd hesitated to use it and Eliot had come in and gotten her out of there just seconds before the thug had cocked his gun. There was just no pleasing the man; it was either using it too much or too little.
The taser hurt. The instructors had been right about that. It was just five seconds experienced at five thousand volts. And after those few fleeting moments, all she had was the residual memory. The whole sequence wasn't clear; some pieces of the puzzle were missing. But one thing stood unblurry, and that was the memory of the pain. That was burned into her mind. And every time the taser was seated in her hand and pointed at another individual, she had to weigh whether the person was really evil enough to inflict that kind of suffering upon.
Like the man holding a taser pointed at them now. She didn't know the man's story. She didn't know whether he knew what terrible things his company was doing or whether he was in the dark. Not that she even had her taser with her tonight where she would have to make a decision. No, all Parker and Eliot had were each other.
And Eliot didn't even seem to acknowledge that. He wasn't treating Parker like she could contribute anything in this situation other than to serve as a person for him to protect. She put up with it most of the time. Eliot was big and physically strong. The man had a strong personality that demanded to be acknowledged. It was precisely at the moment that someone underestimated the hitter that they ended up unconscious on the ground.
But strength didn't just come in muscles and demanding such a presence in a room that others couldn't help but stand transfixed, too afraid to move.
Parker stepped up next to Eliot. Her teammate didn't pull his gaze away from attempting to stare down the man aiming the weapon at her.
Strength wasn't just muscle. Sure, it could be displayed in physical dominance, like Eliot's. Or maybe it could be a quieter thing.
She stepped in front of Eliot and advanced further then, purposefully antagonizing the guard. The man stepped back once but then raised his taser and his finger tightened around the trigger. She saw the movement, just barely. She saw the taser darts flying toward her. And then she felt them digging into her belly and felt the electricity web through her. The floor slammed against her body as she dropped. She hoped Eliot could take a cue and use the distraction. That was the one thought that passed through her mind, the one thought that her mind clung to and fought for tooth and nail.
She lay there still for several beats after the electric pulse died out. A hand gripped her own and pulled her to her feet.
"Why'd you do that, Parker? You knew it would hurt. You should've let me handle it," Eliot spoke after a few moments of silence. His voice was soft, gentle, and a little confused.
She rubbed at the spot where she'd accidently bit into her lip in the process. Pulling it away, she saw that a bit of blood coated her finger. She wiped it off on her jeans. "You don't like projectile weapons or weapons that stun," She said simply. "I decided to take care of it."
"But-"
"Strength comes in many forms, Eliot."
He pondered that for a moment, face pensive. His gaze changed after a moment, filled with something that looked every much like awe and a sudden glimmer of understanding. Parker wasn't sure she could assign it a specific meaning, but if she had to pin it down, she would say that Eliot's gaze promised a new respect that she hadn't seen in his eyes before.
He nodded. Together, the two of them ran for the closest exit. She noticed that Eliot didn't plow ahead like he normally did to put down anything that he saw as a threat to Parker's small stature. Side by side, the two of them loped away as equals.
---THE END---
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