So then, because he’s Hardison, he created a fandom.

"I'll come bail you out," Arthur tells Eames loudly before hanging up, just to make his date splutter and start to wave down the waiter for the bill.

Parker and Hardison pretend to be married for a job.

It might be reluctantly, it might be angrily, it might even be to his death and despair, but Eliot would ultimately always go where he pointed, and Nate never understood it, not until now.

He also thinks it's a little odd that they don't have any fabric bolts, or any sample garments with them, but perhaps that's the way with royal tailors. Merlin wouldn't know.

Nobody wants to bring the shadow priest who has to stop melting faces in order to hack through a security system from afar, and "gotta go, my cat's on fire" only works so many times before people start asking "how many cats do you HAVE?" and "what are you DOING to those cats?"

There's a pause, and Alec tries to think of something smartass to say, but he's got nothin'. S.H.I.E.L.D. It's like the frickin' Death Star, and not the one with the whoops-blow-up button, but the fully armed and operational battle station. He swallows.

The first time Alec read a slash fic—Kirk/Spock, and it was one of the first fics he’d ever read, and he’d only scrolled down because he was curious and didn’t get the terminology yet, and daaaamn that was graphic—he backed out of the post fast.

"Just don't get into trouble while we're gone."

"Well, it's true that some people might find collectors to be a... useful revenue stream. But if I were such a person, as you're intimating, I think I'd be insulted to be lumped into such a generic class so rudely. Isn't each and every person on this earth a unique individual in their own way?"

"I find your attitude towards human interaction to be very sensible."

Sometimes, a geeky fanboy has to do what a geeky fanboy has to do.

"Oh, no—no, no, no. You are not here, you are an apparition or a halucination, because that security system is an unbeatable, Alec Hardison special—cannot be jacked by any electronics, circumvented by any thief, not even you, and therefore, you are not here.

Hardison tries to impart his wisdom on Parker and Eliot with little effect.

Eliot's theory is that Hardison spent too much time playing with his joystick and got that carpal whatsit thing.

"Saint Nicholas is our patron saint," Parker says, again, more insistent this time.

Everything was going fine until the elevator spent ten seconds in free fall.