"These are for you." Clint thrust a bunch of five petaled purplish blue flowers at Phil, shifting nervously from foot to foot.

Phil raised an eyebrow in question, but accepted the flowers, burying his nose in them and inhaling. "Is it our anniversary already?" He joked, attempting to lighten the mood and soften the intense look on Clint's face.

"Yeah. Sort of." Clint looked down and away, his gaze settling briefly on everything, but Phil. "You brought me in a year ago and offered me a job with SHIELD." He shot Phil a grin then looked away quickly. "I mean you shot me to do it, but it was a good shoot. I don't even have a scar."

"Coming from you that is quite a compliment." Phil smiled, a genuine one that showed a hint of his softer side. "Thank you and thank you for the flowers." He rose to fill an empty coffee cup with water and when he turned back to his desk Clint was gone. Smiling again, though this time with a bit more wistful longing Phil took another long look at the flowers before shaking his head. As if anyone could actually forget Clint Barton.

"See that one?" Louis murmurs into Harry's curls, barely nodding towards the woman who just slunk into the bar. "She's an ancient vampire, older than the written word."

Harry snorts slightly, fingers pulling at Louis' shirt.

"She's lookin' for someone to turn," he continues. "Amarate, older than you can fathom, young Harold."

"You're not that much older than me," Harry mutters. "And if she's that ancient, what's she doin' here?"

Louis shrugs, jostling him a little, so Harry presses against him, shifting in place until he's comfortable again. "Well that one," he says, jutting his chin slightly towards the older man at the bar, the one watching the not-a-vampire-named-Amarate, "he's a wolf, and he's hiding from his birthpack."

"Ooh, really," Louis says. "Well, go on then, tell me the rest." He brings his hand up to curl around Harry's, and it feels so safe, sitting in Louis' arms, their backs to the wall, knowing that no one around them was as dangerous or as powerful as Louis, so there was no threat at all, not here, not ever with Louis.

"His name's Pete," Harry tells Louis in a murmur, letting his head loll onto Louis' shoulder, baring his neck. Louis presses his lips to the side of Harry's throat as Harry continues, spinning an epic story about Pete the wolf, who ends up falling under Amarate's charms, and it leads to an all-out war between shifters and vampires.

They stay at the bar until closing, whispering stories to each other, and when they leave, Harry's fallen deeper in love.

Here’s the thing: Rodney’s a fantastic liar. He received a Sears Drama Award when he was twelve, and he’s only gotten better since. People assume Rodney’s a bad liar because he tends to be loud and open with his complaints and emotions generally. They don’t expect him to be able to pretend when it counts. So the fact that he’s undercover on an alien planet, pretending to be a disaffected Genii scientist who can smuggle people to the endlessly prosperous Earth is really no surprise.

That Lorne is on this mission with him is also no surprise. Everyone thinks the man cannot melt butter in his mouth, with his blue eyes and flutter eyelashes and big dimples, because he gets things done and John is happy and somehow Atlantis runs like a well-oiled machine. Lorne can lie like a rug, though. Rodney knows this because one time he stumbled across Lorne and Ronon in an alcove off a remote corridor, Lorne bent over and braced against the wall and moaning like a whore while Ronon took him from behind, and fifteen minutes later when they’d reported to John for morning duty Lorne looked like he was perfectly fresh for the day, and Ronon had mumbled something about sparring with the Marines.

What Rodney can’t figure out is why Sergeant Walker, a lowly Marine, is on this mission too. Yes, he is a natural gene carrier. But he can’t lie to save his life. Or anyone else’s, which is why Lorne, Rodney, and Walker are all crammed into yet another alien cell.

“How many does this make?” Rodney asks. “A hundred?”

“More than that,” Lorne says. “Unless you’re only counting the Pegasus Galaxy?”

Walker says nothing, huddled into the corner of the cell and looking sheepish, guilty.

“So,” Rodney says, “what’s the plan?”

“We’ll get them to let us out.” Lorne, sitting against the wall of the cell with his elbows propped on his knees, looks supremely unbothered by their situation.

“How?” Walker asks in a small voice.

Lorne turns and catches Rodney’s eye. “How good an actor are you?”

“Just dandy, till Peach Fuzz over there got us thrown into the alien brig again.” Rodney casts Walker a disdainful look.

Lorne’s smile is not comforting. “Good. Walker, pretend to be asleep.”

Walker immediately closes his eyes and tips his head to the side, and then he opens one eye. “Wait. Why?”

“You want to get out of here or not?” Lorne pushes himself to his feet, crosses the cell, and crouches down beside Rodney.

Walker closes his eye again and affects a sleeping pose.

“What do I have to do?” Rodney is discomfited by how close Lorne is in his personal space.

“I know you’re with Sheppard,” Lorne says, “so don’t take this the wrong way.”

Rodney doesn’t have the chance to protest or lie before Lorne is kissing him. When they break for air, Lorne whispers, “Just go with me on this.”

And somehow they end up in the middle of the cell, artfully recreating some scenes from a prison porno Rodney once watched in college. There’s no actual penetration, and Lorne’s moans are very theatrical, and they don’t get too far before the guards come to watch. They don’t get much further before Lorne angles himself and Rodney just so, and the guards have to ease open the door to get a better view.

And then Lorne and Walker are rushing the door and beating the guards over the heads, and Walker is yelling Run, McKay, run!

If they’re a little disheveled when they make it back to the clearing where the gate is located, well, they ran hard. John, Teyla, Ronon, and the rest of the Marines on Lorne’s team are standing on the gate platform.

“Major,” John says, “we were worried about you.”

“Walker needs some lessons on espionage,” Lorne says calmly, “but we got the name of the mole, so mission accomplished.”

Rodney is sure he is blushing furiously, but Ronon just looks him up and down and says, “You need to do more cardio,” and back through the gate they go.

Walker cannot lie to save his life, or anyone else’s but when they buckle down and start interrogating the mole, well, suddenly he’s a lot more useful.

Set in Home and Away. Odds Are on AO3. It kinda ran away from me.

Wally cracked his (Bruce's) back and stretched. "Man, you feel terrible! You feel like a man twice your age!"

Bruce folded his arms and glared.

Wally looked surprised. "Whoa, is that what I look like when I'm angry? Wait, no, I'm never, ever as angry looking as you are on an average day, never mind." He stretched by twisting back and forth and then winced, saying, "Geez, Bruce, it's like wearing a suit of broken mousetraps - how many injuries do you have at any given point?"

Bruce stepped forward. "I'm about to get one more if you don't stop insulting my body."

Wally gave him a big smile. "Don't worry, babe, being secretly 100 years old inside doesn't make your body any less hot. In fact, I think I'm going to go to that party tonight and just talk about how hot my body is."

"Not funny."

"Oh. Okay. That wouldn't be funny? To be totally out of character for you?" Wally waited.

Bruce sighed. "Fine. I'll stop threatening to throw your annoying music-blaring neighbors out the window. Though they deserve it."

Wally leaned in for a quick kiss. "You're adorable. Supercute."

"Stop using words like 'supercute' - they leave a bad taste in my mouth."

"Sure thing, twinklebug," Wally said. "By the way, when are we trying out the bedroom in these new bodies? I've got ideas."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "Just don't mess up the party."

Joshua stared unblinking at his sister, noticing in an out of body sort of way that the tactical suit she was wearing was much too form fitting for the baby girl he used to read bedtime stories to. "What the hell?" The fact he managed to squeak that out was pretty impressive considering his brain felt like it was a high impact spin cycle. "Seriously, what the hell?"

"I wanted to tell you." Claudia leaned forward and applied her index finger to the underside of his jaw so that his mouth no longer hung open. "But Artie said no."

"Artie? Your boss Artie? He knows about this?"

She shot him a look the clearly said duh even though no words were spoken. "He's the one who hooked me up. He helped me pick out a name and get a costume."

"Oh, Lord." Joshua sank down on the nearest piece of furniture which fortunately happened to be an overstuffed ottoman. "What about everyone else you work with? Are they..." He let the sentence trail off not quite able to wrap his head around the idea of his sister being a superhero, let alone saying the words.

"Yep. All of them." Claudia's grin was more gleeful than it necessarily needed to be, but she made no effort to tone it down. "Steve's superpower is that he knows if people are lying." Her grin widened and took on a decidedly pointed edge when Joshua's complexion went white then a deep red blush.

"So he knows." Joshua dropped his head into his hands and made a sound that would not have been out of place coming from a small, sad, puppy.

"Yep." Claudia patted her mortified brother on the top of his head, clearly enjoying herself. "The good news is he likes you too."

"Really?" Joshua lifted his head just enough that he could see Claudia's face.

"Really." She laughed, ruffling his hair then added. "Would I lie to you?"