#(Harm to the team from the fact that Moreau is watching them is a risk he accepted implicitly from the start. This is different.)

[onyxbird]

#oh man Parker finding out Eliot still works for moreau#like Eliot recognizes that she Knows something because sometimes she’ll give him a Look#but he doesn’t think she could possibly know /that/

#until one time after a job where they really helped a lot of people and did a lot of good. Parker follows him home#to his apartment#she knows it already. has cased it before but hadn’t been inside#and it’s Empty. like completely barren of any personal items

#anyway she follows him back and into his place and he keeps trying to get rid of her so he can report back to moreau#and she asks like ‘do you report in after every job? or every five jobs? or once a week?’#trying to figure out how the system works bc if she knows the system she can break into it#the system being Eliot’s loyalty to moreau#but surprise she’s already stolen that a long time ago

#Eliot panics bc /she knows/ but she isn’t doing anything about it#she’s just watching and waiting#and if he refuses to answer she won’t ask again. but she had to ask at least once [via @thieves-never-say-die]

I see this and raise you:

They finish a job, probably one that went off the rails and took much longer than anticipated. Eliot's missed at least one of his normal call-ins and knows he absolutely has to report in ASAP or someone's going to come looking for him and it's going to be bad, but the rest of the team is celebrating the win and there's no way to extract himself without raising suspicions. (Not suspicions that working for Moreau--they'd never imagine--but if they think he's hiding an injury or something, it'll be even harder to get away.)

So Parker makes him an excuse. She demands a specific food that requires a trip to the grocery store for ingredients only Eliot knows how to pick out. Or volunteers them both to pick up take-out food from a specific hole-in-the-wall near his apartment that none of the rest of the team knows. Or acts really hyped up on adrenaline and disappears with some cryptic statement implies she's going to hotwire his car for a joyride so that he can chase after her.

And Eliot's out of his mind with frustration thinking this is how Parker finally intends to blow his cover, by deliberately making it even harder to slip away until the whole house of cards comes tumbling down... But the moment they're alone, Parker cheerfully tells him to go ahead and make his call in--she'll [drive on the way to the grocery store/pick up the food/whatever] and won't make a sound while he's on the phone--but he has to come back to join them afterwards.

it’s been a long time but……hell au thought that’s been bonking around in my empty brain, re: if the team figures it out pre-big bang job,

nate is smart but he’s playing an honest man, which would either make him blind to eliot’s con or make it easier for him to figure out. tbd. [if he does it’s hell au 2.0]

hardison is smart but he’s too good, too kind to expect one of his best friends is not entirely who he says he is 

sophie’s smart and can spot a grift a mile away but she can’t imagine actually hurting anyone (re: the homecoming job) 

parker though, parker could be the one to figure out it’s a con

and if parker is the one to figure it out, she might actually keep the secret 

vs. sophie or hardison wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret/look at eliot like he wasn’t a Monster/etc etc. but nate and parker would compartmentalize and use what they know. in different ways, but, still, two sides to the same coin

[vickyvicarious]

Moreau’s anger in the famous scene with Nate (“a 24yo genius w/ a problem with authority”) is scary. he’s so contained, saying things that coming from the usual bad guy of the week would be ranted, shouted - but he’s so controlled in his anger

So I was thinking about this ask a lot as I was watching the last two episodes of S3. Because it really is true, he is always so controlled. I counted how many times he raises/loses control of his voice and it really wasn't a lot:

At the end of the Big Bang Job, when Nate is going on and on about how he is framing Moreau. He goes from calm and amused to more and more frustrated, and - just once - raises his voice. He snaps, "Who ARE you?!" But then immediately pulls his face back under control. The penultimate picture on this post is literally one second after he yells; he reins it all back in.

When he just saw Eliot on TV petting a puppy and claiming the president held dogfights. When he turns to face Reberra and reassure him this is all under control, despite being obviously very fed up with the crew messing with his election, his voice - only once - goes down into a growl as he says "Tonight, you bury him at the debate. Tomorrow, he loses in what will be the closest election in years. Which frankly only helps legitimize you, so RELAX." Just on that very last word, the rest of the time he does a good job of sounding reassuring and even a little unphased.

When the election results are being counted. "Too close to call. TOO CLOSE TO CALL, how'd you let it get this far?!" This is pretty much the only time he rants in frustration, and even then he quickly pulls himself together. Puts on a convincing show of being unbothered moments later.

Even in that final confrontation with Nate, he finds himself at a loss for words, he is furious and unsure of what to do - but his voice stays quiet and intent. You can hear him seething, but only a few times. He doesn't really lose control per se, not until he is literally being dragged away. Right up until that very second he just gets thoughtful and is staring off into the distance, trying to process how this happened and what he can do to get out of it.

When you consider just how much the crew was pushing all of his buttons, that is not a lot at all. Definitely less than we would usually see from other villains. And that's not exactly a coincidence, because...

Moreau is someone who has built his entire empire on control.

He moves money around for other people, makes sure never to get his own hands dirty. Even the hitmen he sends are trained to not leave any evidence behind - that one guy they scared out with the fire alarm still took the time to clean the room and collect any shell casings, and Eliot confirmed that is expected for someone working for Moreau. He's perfected the art of not laying a trail of evidence, to the point that the crew had to use someone else's crimes to get to him both times they went up against him. They couldn't prove his criminal empire so they instead framed him for stuff the Italian had done. Then he just hid away in the country he'd bought and was doing fine. Once there, they couldn't expose his part in the election so they rigged it even more than he was, and took advantage of the greed of Reberra to get him to turn against him. Nate wasn't lying when he said "honestly, no [we stood no chance against you]."

Moreau doesn't work with people he doesn't know. He just won't do it. He manipulates and abuses his own people, as is evident with Eliot. The entire pool scene is rife with Moreau proving again and again and again that he is not willing to let anyone else hold the cards. He has it drilled into them that they can either be assets or liabilities, and everyone knows what he does to liabilities. People are terrified to turn on him, and pretty much no one willingly does. Moreau understands the value of public perception, so he makes sure that he is pandering to the UN and not immediately eliminating his rivals in San Lorenzo until the election is over, but it's very clear that he would not hesitate otherwise. The fact that he chooses to wait is extremely deliberate as well; he's calculated the odds, and hurting the crew isn't worth it. Yet. No matter how much he hates them, he is willing to wait. He doesn't let emotion rule him.

Even his body language - he smiles. He is deliberately relaxed when others are worked up or when the situation is tense. (Casually sips his drink as Hardison drowns in the pool, laughs at Nate's accusations about him being a terrible person even as he's losing the election.) When he's truly, truly furious, when things aren't going at all as planned - he goes still. In the Big Bang Job, he holds his hands together in front of him and doesn't make a move to step towards Nate. When Eliot is rushing him, he levels the gun and shoots the Italian with deliberate aim, then turns and leaves in a hurry, but by no means running for his life. Then in San Lorenzo, he goes still and dangerous several times when he knows he can't make a move against the crew yet, but the biggest example is when President Reberra signs his arrest warrant. Moreau just stands there, hands on the desk, quiet and still and so thoughtful. It's only, again, when he is literally being dragged away and he realizes there's nothing he can do that he finally loses his iron control and struggles to get away. Until then he always, always tries to stay calm and cool and even relaxed, projecting an unbothered image of implacable power.

It's one of the scariest things about Moreau, this complete control over himself and his people. It means he thinks things through, you just can't get him to react rashly. He's not someone you can con. So the team works around this by, and I love this - turning his perfect control from an asset into a liability. They know he will have the election news on lockdown, so they manipulate everyone else to believe it was their victory. They know he wouldn't risk harming them in front of the world's eyes, so they pretend to harm themselves. They know he has abused the system to lock up his rivals and take all their assets, so they do the very same thing to him. They literally don't do anything he hasn't already planned around (sure, they use methods he hasn't thought of as viable, emailing everyone in the country for example, but the core of the idea isn't anything new to him). They just figure out what he wants to avoid happening and then they make it happen, which only succeeds because he is so determined to ensure it doesn't. If he'd been more ruthless, more short-sighted... they couldn't have won.

[darkfinch]

#On the one hand it's such an enormous load off Eliot's shoulders to have someone helping his efforts to get away when needed.

#On the other hand Parker's now *complicit* in his treachery and the stakes of the team finding out are astronomically higher. #And if Moreau discovers that she knows and Eliot didn't ''take care of it''... unthinkable.

#I feel like this version would get Eliot well on the way to practically planning his escape long before the rest of the crew finds out #just due to the fact that harm to Parker from protecting his secret is simply *unthinkable* for reasons he can't even begin to articulate.

#(Harm to the team from the fact that Moreau is watching them is a risk he accepted implicitly from the start. This is different.) [via @onyxbird]

it’s been a long time but……hell au thought that’s been bonking around in my empty brain, re: if the team figures it out pre-big bang job,

nate is smart but he’s playing an honest man, which would either make him blind to eliot’s con or make it easier for him to figure out. tbd. [if he does it’s hell au 2.0]

hardison is smart but he’s too good, too kind to expect one of his best friends is not entirely who he says he is 

sophie’s smart and can spot a grift a mile away but she can’t imagine actually hurting anyone (re: the homecoming job) 

parker though, parker could be the one to figure out it’s a con

and if parker is the one to figure it out, she might actually keep the secret 

vs. sophie or hardison wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret/look at eliot like he wasn’t a Monster/etc etc. but nate and parker would compartmentalize and use what they know. in different ways, but, still, two sides to the same coin