A Hitter's Work
Title: A Hitter's Work
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg
Genre: Nate/Eliot
Verse: BlackKing!WhiteKnight!Verse
Summary: A Hitter's work used to be simple.
Notes: The fifth in the "Trust and Sobriety" arc, a series of tags for the Beantown Bailout Job I'm doing to better fix my verse to follow cannon as closely as possible. Follows Queen's Gambit, Trusting Sobriety, Rule 17, and What Hardison Knows
I'm also working on editing all the stories in this verse both to corrent the typos and such I've noticed since posting as well as (more importantly) to fix cannon issues.
A Hitter’s Work was simple to sum up.
You went where you were paid to go, hit the people you were paid to hit, and asked only the questions you’re being paid to ask. Above all else you remembered that once you’ve done the above your employer has plenty of incentive to kill you before you get paid for doing what your being paid to do.
And Eliot actually liked that. It was simple. It was controlled.
Hitters always worked for someone. Even top players like Eliot never freelanced unless they were desperate and that was rare. Good hitters who survived long enough to become one of the best were always in short enough supply they could pick and chose who they wanted to work for.
Which was probably one of the reasons behind one of the ironies of the criminal world. Hitters may always be working for someone but they were always the one in control of the arrangement. If they felt for even a moment like things were getting out of hand, they’d walk out and disappear.
At that point it became a question of how many people they took out on their way out the door.
And everyone who hired them knew to expect just that.
Hitters were hit men, assassins, retrieval specialists. They survived in a world of violence where pain, injury, torture, and early death were facts of life. Their real work was to stay alive in spite of a world out to kill them.
Staying in control, putting themselves and their survival first was the only way to do that.
And Eliot was good at doing his job.
In the eight some years after helping liberate Croatia (and everything that had led him there), Eliot had become recognized as among the best in the business. The three years after he graduated from Thug to Hitter at twenty-four, when he got pulled under to go through what he mentally called “boot camp” in the crime lord Nishka’s dungeons, met and learned from Nathan Ford, and ended up neck deep in a civil war, changed him.
When he came out on the other side he wasn’t some kid barely off the streets, and barely in control of the violence he was capable of, fighting without even a hint of a compass. When Eliot had reentered the big leagues he was an experienced war vet who spoke seven languages and knew as much about the con world as most grifters.
And he’d learned control. He knew control better than almost anyone else.
For eight years he’d done a Hitter’s Work and carved out a life for himself. He’d done what he was paid to do and looked out for himself. He worked alone.
He always worked alone.
Except then, almost like an accident he saw coming but still couldn’t avoid, he was working with a team.
Part of it was because of Nate and that whole fucking long story in Cairo and how they met and all that meant to both of them. It was also that Nate understood Hitters. He understood Eliot needed control, that if Eliot got backed into a corner he’d walk away. Nate didn’t make the mistake others who tried to work with Hitters made, thinking that just because they could meant a Hitter would protect those around them.
Nate understood that a Hitter had to look out for themselves before all else. Any time a Hitter protected someone else it was just a byproduct of getting the job done. Of doing the job. It had to be.
(He’d ignore the warehouse instinct. That hadn’t been a Hitter protecting someone that had been moving Hardison out of his way and conveniently toward the door. Even if Hardison hadn’t been in his way he was sticking to that.)
But things got weird as he worked with the team. He did his bit of the con. He beat people up. He stayed alive.
But somewhere along the line something shifted. Even as this weird thing between him and Nate took a new (startling, wonderful, terrifying) turn, even as things between them changed, things between the team changed. Hell, things in his own mind changed.
He didn’t even know when or how it happened, but like a slow working poison it happened. By the time he realized something was going on it was far to late for an antidote.
Somewhere between Chicago and Juan protecting the team had stopped being a byproduct of getting the job done and become the very definition of his job. A threat to their safety was at best as a somewhat personal insult and anything worse was not tolerated a heartbeat longer than he had to allow it for the sake of the con.
They were his crew, his team, more than that if he let himself get sentimental. They were his family.
And you did not mess with his family. It just wasn’t a smart thing to do.
So even though it went against every instinct he’d built up over the last eight years.
Even if he knew from a childhood acting as a shield between That Man and his little sister, that in the end pain and violence had their own laws of conservation. It had to happen somewhere and someone had to take it. If you protected someone you had to be willing to take more of your fair share of both.
Even if it meant controlling his bodies reactions and choosing his clothes carefully after fights to keep the team from seeing the bruises and realizing that no matter how good a fighter you were it was a rare day you walked away from combat completely uninjured.
Even if it meant a joke at his expense and not really answering the question to keep the team safe from his world so much different from the one they lived in, and from his own violence.
Even if it meant hyper-vigilance, always, always, always staying on guard, prepared and anticipating the next threat.
It was worth it.
Even if he’d sooner give Hardison hell about his damn car (he never did clean it out the asshole) than admit it, it was worth it.
His family was safe. Just like when he was a kid. He’d take the punishment if it meant his family was safe.
By the time he found himself limping up the stairs to the office knowing he should be laying low but unable to do anything but limp toward where Hardison needed rescuing protecting his family was all that mattered.
Three months later, when they all walked away from each other, he found himself floundering. His relationship with Nate, life with the team, protecting his family, everything that had mattered, the only things that had really mattered for eight years were gone.
He tried to move on but even halfway across the world he couldn’t forget.
Then, suddenly, they were back together in Nate’s apartment, plotting (cause really there was no other word for it) how to draw Nate back into the game, when he admitted to himself (he did try to be mostly honest with himself) that he was relaxing a little for the first time in six months. He had all of his team mates where he liked them, nearby. He knew they were all capable but as Nate had said earlier, musing aloud when he maybe wasn’t aware Eliot hadn’t left, there were wolves in the world.
And it was this Hitter’s job to keep them at bay.
That relaxation lasted right up until Sophie mentioned how this was perfect. The con to turn this around was the Turnabout. The Turnabout needed five people. There were only four of them. They just had to get Nate to that point and she knew, they all knew, it would be the last little shove to pull him back in.
After that they could thank his addictive personality for something at least. If they got him for one job they’d have him back for sure.
Hardison and Sophie were chatting excitedly about how best to stage this, though a nervous glance toward Eliot every so often made him wonder if something was wrong. It wasn’t until they vaguely mentioned the parts they’d be playing when Eliot realized the issue.
There was some irony there. He’d been thinking about keeping the wolves at bay and now he was playing the sheepdog.
He was playing the sheepdog while Nate was going in as the bag man and they all knew he wouldn’t be walking out unscratched. Sophie and Hardison were giving him looks that let him know they knew what he considered his job description and just how much he suddenly did not like this plan.
But he’d go along with it. It was the best choice they had.
He didn’t have to like it.
Though with things the way they were between him and Nate right now it would at least be a little easier. A little bit. Maybe.
But he’d do his part and follow orders. Hit who he was on the crew to hit and con who he was here to con and protect them (even when Hardison pulled that stunt with the explosives).
And when Hardison told them all that bull about how he was working on their coms and such and Nate would have to go into the meeting without them Eliot understood it was an attempt to mitigate damages. He understood what it would do to Eliot to listen to Nate getting hurt over the coms, just as well as he understood that Eliot would still have made himself listen just to make sure he wasn’t needed (even if there was no way he could get there if he was).
It was how Eliot worked, and Hardison knew just enough to take the choice away. Somehow Eliot wasn’t even really surprised that Hardison read the situation so well.
Like Eliot’s job their hacker’s work had shifted. He wasn’t just their hacker. He was in charge of communications, keeping them connected, and getting where the connections might break down, even when computers had nothing to do with it.
No he wasn’t surprised then. It wasn’t until later, when Parker told him she firmly believed that Nate wouldn’t get dead, that he was a little startled.
It seemed a Hitter’s and a Hacker’s work weren’t the only jobs changing.
Previous: What Hardison Knows
Next: And Then There was Silence
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg
Genre: Nate/Eliot
Verse: BlackKing!WhiteKnight!Verse
Summary: A Hitter's work used to be simple.
Notes: The fifth in the "Trust and Sobriety" arc, a series of tags for the Beantown Bailout Job I'm doing to better fix my verse to follow cannon as closely as possible. Follows Queen's Gambit, Trusting Sobriety, Rule 17, and What Hardison Knows
I'm also working on editing all the stories in this verse both to corrent the typos and such I've noticed since posting as well as (more importantly) to fix cannon issues.
A Hitter’s Work was simple to sum up.
You went where you were paid to go, hit the people you were paid to hit, and asked only the questions you’re being paid to ask. Above all else you remembered that once you’ve done the above your employer has plenty of incentive to kill you before you get paid for doing what your being paid to do.
And Eliot actually liked that. It was simple. It was controlled.
Hitters always worked for someone. Even top players like Eliot never freelanced unless they were desperate and that was rare. Good hitters who survived long enough to become one of the best were always in short enough supply they could pick and chose who they wanted to work for.
Which was probably one of the reasons behind one of the ironies of the criminal world. Hitters may always be working for someone but they were always the one in control of the arrangement. If they felt for even a moment like things were getting out of hand, they’d walk out and disappear.
At that point it became a question of how many people they took out on their way out the door.
And everyone who hired them knew to expect just that.
Hitters were hit men, assassins, retrieval specialists. They survived in a world of violence where pain, injury, torture, and early death were facts of life. Their real work was to stay alive in spite of a world out to kill them.
Staying in control, putting themselves and their survival first was the only way to do that.
And Eliot was good at doing his job.
In the eight some years after helping liberate Croatia (and everything that had led him there), Eliot had become recognized as among the best in the business. The three years after he graduated from Thug to Hitter at twenty-four, when he got pulled under to go through what he mentally called “boot camp” in the crime lord Nishka’s dungeons, met and learned from Nathan Ford, and ended up neck deep in a civil war, changed him.
When he came out on the other side he wasn’t some kid barely off the streets, and barely in control of the violence he was capable of, fighting without even a hint of a compass. When Eliot had reentered the big leagues he was an experienced war vet who spoke seven languages and knew as much about the con world as most grifters.
And he’d learned control. He knew control better than almost anyone else.
For eight years he’d done a Hitter’s Work and carved out a life for himself. He’d done what he was paid to do and looked out for himself. He worked alone.
He always worked alone.
Except then, almost like an accident he saw coming but still couldn’t avoid, he was working with a team.
Part of it was because of Nate and that whole fucking long story in Cairo and how they met and all that meant to both of them. It was also that Nate understood Hitters. He understood Eliot needed control, that if Eliot got backed into a corner he’d walk away. Nate didn’t make the mistake others who tried to work with Hitters made, thinking that just because they could meant a Hitter would protect those around them.
Nate understood that a Hitter had to look out for themselves before all else. Any time a Hitter protected someone else it was just a byproduct of getting the job done. Of doing the job. It had to be.
(He’d ignore the warehouse instinct. That hadn’t been a Hitter protecting someone that had been moving Hardison out of his way and conveniently toward the door. Even if Hardison hadn’t been in his way he was sticking to that.)
But things got weird as he worked with the team. He did his bit of the con. He beat people up. He stayed alive.
But somewhere along the line something shifted. Even as this weird thing between him and Nate took a new (startling, wonderful, terrifying) turn, even as things between them changed, things between the team changed. Hell, things in his own mind changed.
He didn’t even know when or how it happened, but like a slow working poison it happened. By the time he realized something was going on it was far to late for an antidote.
Somewhere between Chicago and Juan protecting the team had stopped being a byproduct of getting the job done and become the very definition of his job. A threat to their safety was at best as a somewhat personal insult and anything worse was not tolerated a heartbeat longer than he had to allow it for the sake of the con.
They were his crew, his team, more than that if he let himself get sentimental. They were his family.
And you did not mess with his family. It just wasn’t a smart thing to do.
So even though it went against every instinct he’d built up over the last eight years.
Even if he knew from a childhood acting as a shield between That Man and his little sister, that in the end pain and violence had their own laws of conservation. It had to happen somewhere and someone had to take it. If you protected someone you had to be willing to take more of your fair share of both.
Even if it meant controlling his bodies reactions and choosing his clothes carefully after fights to keep the team from seeing the bruises and realizing that no matter how good a fighter you were it was a rare day you walked away from combat completely uninjured.
Even if it meant a joke at his expense and not really answering the question to keep the team safe from his world so much different from the one they lived in, and from his own violence.
Even if it meant hyper-vigilance, always, always, always staying on guard, prepared and anticipating the next threat.
It was worth it.
Even if he’d sooner give Hardison hell about his damn car (he never did clean it out the asshole) than admit it, it was worth it.
His family was safe. Just like when he was a kid. He’d take the punishment if it meant his family was safe.
By the time he found himself limping up the stairs to the office knowing he should be laying low but unable to do anything but limp toward where Hardison needed rescuing protecting his family was all that mattered.
Three months later, when they all walked away from each other, he found himself floundering. His relationship with Nate, life with the team, protecting his family, everything that had mattered, the only things that had really mattered for eight years were gone.
He tried to move on but even halfway across the world he couldn’t forget.
Then, suddenly, they were back together in Nate’s apartment, plotting (cause really there was no other word for it) how to draw Nate back into the game, when he admitted to himself (he did try to be mostly honest with himself) that he was relaxing a little for the first time in six months. He had all of his team mates where he liked them, nearby. He knew they were all capable but as Nate had said earlier, musing aloud when he maybe wasn’t aware Eliot hadn’t left, there were wolves in the world.
And it was this Hitter’s job to keep them at bay.
That relaxation lasted right up until Sophie mentioned how this was perfect. The con to turn this around was the Turnabout. The Turnabout needed five people. There were only four of them. They just had to get Nate to that point and she knew, they all knew, it would be the last little shove to pull him back in.
After that they could thank his addictive personality for something at least. If they got him for one job they’d have him back for sure.
Hardison and Sophie were chatting excitedly about how best to stage this, though a nervous glance toward Eliot every so often made him wonder if something was wrong. It wasn’t until they vaguely mentioned the parts they’d be playing when Eliot realized the issue.
There was some irony there. He’d been thinking about keeping the wolves at bay and now he was playing the sheepdog.
He was playing the sheepdog while Nate was going in as the bag man and they all knew he wouldn’t be walking out unscratched. Sophie and Hardison were giving him looks that let him know they knew what he considered his job description and just how much he suddenly did not like this plan.
But he’d go along with it. It was the best choice they had.
He didn’t have to like it.
Though with things the way they were between him and Nate right now it would at least be a little easier. A little bit. Maybe.
But he’d do his part and follow orders. Hit who he was on the crew to hit and con who he was here to con and protect them (even when Hardison pulled that stunt with the explosives).
And when Hardison told them all that bull about how he was working on their coms and such and Nate would have to go into the meeting without them Eliot understood it was an attempt to mitigate damages. He understood what it would do to Eliot to listen to Nate getting hurt over the coms, just as well as he understood that Eliot would still have made himself listen just to make sure he wasn’t needed (even if there was no way he could get there if he was).
It was how Eliot worked, and Hardison knew just enough to take the choice away. Somehow Eliot wasn’t even really surprised that Hardison read the situation so well.
Like Eliot’s job their hacker’s work had shifted. He wasn’t just their hacker. He was in charge of communications, keeping them connected, and getting where the connections might break down, even when computers had nothing to do with it.
No he wasn’t surprised then. It wasn’t until later, when Parker told him she firmly believed that Nate wouldn’t get dead, that he was a little startled.
It seemed a Hitter’s and a Hacker’s work weren’t the only jobs changing.
Previous: What Hardison Knows
Next: And Then There was Silence