#and Hardison holding back Sophie and Parker

[lightthewaybackhome]

[iviin-855]

Au where everything is the same except Eliot Spencer was one of the fighting cooks of the baratie

[geeky-nightphilosopher]

M'Kay- I know I've posted A LOT about Leverage. But- guess what? I'm gonna be posting A LOT more! (Just posts, because I'm going off my phone and I'm technological challenged. 😆) Also, YES I know I'm late to the discussion- but just... go with it. Please?

I want to discuss a bunch of things.

Like how Nate isn't whole without Sophie.

Eliot and just- is he a natural at everything he does? Is that why Hardison hates him? Because I would too.

Hardison, Eliot, and Parker are honestly on the fence. And it wasn't exactly Nate Parker and Hardison were listening to. But Eliot. (Am I wrong there?)

Tara was definitely not the right fit- but I'm glad she was there.

Lucille. RIP. She was the best van Hardison ever had.

Parker's eye roll at Hardison.

Eliot's HAIR. WHAT. IS. HIS. SECRET?!

The sandwich isn't all that impressive since it's a reuben.

Just. The ENTIRE con. Start to finish. *chef's kiss.*

Hardison sabotaging the boat and finding Eliot.

Parker choke holding Tara over a roof. (She's been spending too much time with her older brother Eliot.)

Sophie. Is. Back.

Nate's deal with Sterling. (And only with Sterling.)

Nate getting shot.

Nate looking to Eliot to get them somewhere safe. Keep them safe.

That kiss and slap.

"I'm Nate Ford and I'm a thief."

I. Love. This. Show.

[scotchiegirl]

What's in a name:

The team leveraging Hardison's first name to get him to take them seriously.

It started with the Grave Danger Job. With Parker's panicked "I need you. Do you hear me, Alec? I need you!" It isn't something that's conscious or anything, but all of them lean into it occasionally.

"Alec, just drop it," Nate stares at Hardison, watching the young man realize maybe he'd been pushing Nate too hard on a topic that was a sore subject. Alec nods grimly and backs down.

"Hardison, how long have you been up?" Sophie asks gently, watching the genius wipe the grit from his eyes, his latest forging project laid out around him. When he mumbles something about not remembering, needing to finish, Sophie catches his chin in a manicured hand and holds his attention. "Alec, go to bed." He goes.

"Come on, man, get off the screen for a little while, let's go get some sun," Eliot pokes him after a long job on top of a new World of Warcraft update. Hardison can't even remember what he said back, something glib he's sure, but he remembers the hesitation in Eliot's voice. "Alec, please. You're gonna fuck up your eyesight before you're thirty, staring at blue light a foot away from your face. Please?" Hardison goes with him. They go to an outdoor gun range. Hardison rags Eliot about them both not liking guns, but listens as his best friend talks him through focusing on targets of different distances. He'll never have Eliot's skill, but it's a quick way to help his eyesight and he turns out to be half decent with practice.

"Alec, I'm serious!" Parker pleads with him, a picture of some conspiracy theory held up in her hands. "I need to know if this is real or not, please. Because it doesn't seem real and then it does seem real and Eliot won't give me a straight answer and Nate won't give me any answer at all, and I need to know if-" if I'm going crazy, she doesn't say, but he hears it now. He lays a hand over hers and explains that it's not real, explains the joke patiently until she understands and can laugh at it and "yes, and" Eliot when that particular theory comes up again.

"Hey y'all, it's Alec," he says, a gun to his head and a phone in his hand, one chance to get it right, to make them understand that this is serious. He can practically hear them all sitting up in the tones of their voices, in the grimness of the rapid fire questions, and he breathes a sigh of relief. They'll come get him. They know it's serious.

[frogs-running-in-circles]

leverage: the long goodbye job

y'all i just finished watching this episode for the first time and let me tell you. i. am. sobbing. it was a roller-coaster of emotions. anyways here are my thoughts:

the "job" being to stop someone from going through the same pain nate went through when is son died had me in shambles from the beginning

parker and nate on the roof. the passing of the torch. the "i trust your judgment" from someone who has spent the whole show planning everything alone. what the fuck.

the fake out. parker and hardison escaping through the elevator shaft. parker dropping hardison because she got shot. "i've got you, i've got you". eliot getting shot. the three of them die HOLDING HANDS. "did eliot make it". "im right here" parker dying last and alone. nate and sophie looking back and seeing that theyre dead before holding hands and driving off the bridge. because if they go out they go out together.

"WHY WOULD I LIE? WHY? I SCREWED UP, I GOT THEM KILLED! I LOST EVERVERYTHING, THE ONLY THING I EVER HAD! WHY! WHY WOULD I LIE?"

the worst possible senario for nate being loosing them. loosing his family. the tears in his eyes. sophie taught him well

enter sterling. he's mad at nate for getting his crew killed. "you would get them killed for that"->i am crying

JUSTICE OR ORDER

nate telling sterling that one day he will have to choose one.

the fake bodies. sterling starting to catch on. nate's gloat.

sophie playing every single part. THE grifter of all time.

nate was the patrol officer all along. eliot rolling his eyes when he gets shot. the recap. the goofy knight costumes so they can blend in on stage.

"justice is always easy". "now we’re even tell sophie to drive carefully". godamnit sterling stop making me like you.

THE PROPOSAL. "you've always stood by me". "you gotta say it"

"TAKE CARE OF THEM" "TILL MY DYING DAY". i am SCREAMING. you cant just say that. what the hell.

season one call back.

WE PROVIDE...LEVERAGE ft. mastermind parker

[ziorite]

crying laughing (mostly just crying) over the long goodbye job rn because what the fuck guys. what the FUCK.

(spoilers for the last episode of leverage season 5)

i still had so much hope for them even after hardison fell and parker got shot. i was crossing my fingers because eliot will be there and they’ll get away because they always get away ?? right ?? but then they make it the van and eliot gets shot. right in the fucking chest.

THE VAN SCENE. I WAS DISTRAUGHT. DISTRAUGHT Y’ALL. AND THEN HARDISON’S LAST WORDS ARE TO WONDER IF ELIOT IS OKAY ??? “HERE I AM”??? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. AND THE THREE OF THEM FUCKING DIE HOLDING EACH OTHER’S HANDS WHAT DID THEY DO THAT TO US FOR. (something something parker dying alone when she’s finally learned what it means to have a family something something eliot dies first because to watch the people he’s dedicated his life to protecting die in front of him is to die a second and third time something something)

and then the cherry on top when nate and sophie look back and the three of them are dead and bleeding out and clutching on to each other in death what do they do ??? they don’t even consider giving themselves up they drive that van up the bridge and into the damn river.

nate’s enraged yelling at the agent had me wide eyed with my hand over my mouth. fucking STUNNED yall. nate is really no one’s favorite but my god the fucking pain in his voice. 10/10. BUT THEN of course that’s not all there is to it. the switch from grieving fury to composed nonchalance was both peak comedy and absolute whiplash.

AND HERE’S STERLING !! everyone’s favorite slime ball <3 and ho ho ? he’s mad at nate for killing the rest of the team ?? they grew on him didn’t they— like clumps of adorable mold that just keep coming back <3

and finally. the master plan is revealed. sterling did scare the living shit out of me shooting “hardison” like that but of course nate had a better plan than what they believed. crazy to think that the whole damn emotional rollercoaster was really just set up for the actual break in. (eliot’s exasperated eye roll and fall at nate’s “bang !” was everything.) starring sterling as the trojan horse! an amazing choice all around.

AND !! we have a proposal !! proposals plural actually because no way in fucking hell was that not a confession from eliot. that scene was the height of romance and i will be DAMNED if someone tries to tell me that was just normal best friend shit. OT3 IS REAL !!!

in conclusion: love leverage, they have the amazingest show to ever show and a finale better than any other out there. 200/10 would watch again and i am currently penning a love letter to john rogers and dean devlin.

[deconstructthesoup]

Thoughts on a Leverage-Dead Boy Detectives crossover that I'll probably never officially write but still:

-The Leverage crew (Redemption timeline because it lines up with the DBD show, but Hardison's there in person) is staying in London for a little while, mainly because Sophie's trying her best to reconnect with Astrid again

-They get hired by a woman who says that her younger sister, who was a student at St. Hillarion's (which went co-ed sometime in the 90's), died mysteriously and she's absolutely sure that the school covered up the circumstances

-And guess what? Meanwhile, the DBD crew's been hired by the ghost of the girl who died, and while it is a pretty personal case for Edwin and Charles, they agree that not solving the case would be a disservice to themselves

-So, the two teams make gameplans---Hardison, Eliot, and Parker infiltrate the school as teachers (Breanna is Hardison's TA, much to her irritation) while Sophie and Harry act as shady lawyers who tell the headmaster that they're very good at burying secrets; and Crystal and Niko get enrolled as exchange students while Jenny gets a position in the cooking staff (the Night Nurse absolutely refuses to actively take part in the case-solving, and of course Edwin and Charles don't need aliases)

-However, things start to go south for both teams pretty quick

-For starters, Sophie and Harry know Crystal, at least by way of her parents---Sophie attempted to pull a con on Maddy back in the day, failed, and convinced her to con her rival instead, and Harry helped the Surname-von Hoverkrafts out of some legal trouble when they still lived in the States

-Not to mention, Breanna's very tapped into the social media circuit, and she knows that a) Crystal used to be the epitome of the entitled rich showbiz kid, b) that she dated some guy named David and then went completely off-grid for weeks, and c) she's suddenly had a complete personality and lifestyle change

-And on the flip side of things, Charles is a little too interested in the weirdly high-tech things that the new computer science teacher and his TA have hanging around, which means that Breanna and Hardison are convinced that someone is sabotaging them when it's really just Charles accidentally breaking their gadgets

-This comes to a head when the OT3's having a lunch break on the grounds, Parker points out Niko, and Hardison and Eliot immediately begin making fun of the stuffy-looking kid in a bow tie that she's talking to... and when Breanna comes up with her sandwich in hand, she's incredibly confused, because all she sees is Niko talking to herself

-So, naturally, Hardison, Parker, and Eliot wind up scouring the school records until they eventually find a boy who matches Edwin's description... who, of course, vanished mysteriously over a century ago, along with five or six of his classmates

-Hardison talks Eliot and Parker into doing a stakeout of the computer lab, and they wind up catching Charles in his "fiddling with electronics" act---and, well, it turns out that a) Eliot can beat up a ghost, even one who's a fairly decent fighter himself, and b) Parker carries a pair of iron cuffs with her (why? she's Parker, next question)

-There's a little interrogation action between Charles and the Leverage crew... except, of course, Breanna and Harry still can't see him, and they don't understand why all of these legendary thieves are yelling at an empty chair

-And then the electricity cuts out and everyone hears whispers

-And suddenly someone puts their hands on Hardison's shoulder and he's thrust back into that time with the coffin

-And Eliot turns around and sees the mean goth from the kitchens pointing a knife at him, and the two of them wind up facing off

-Everyone else is stuck in a full-ass vengeful haunting, but Parker notices Crystal holding onto Hardison, Niko sneaking over to Charles, and Edwin standing at the center of the room with his eyes glowing and a hellish aura radiating off of him

-Parker does the sensible thing and, after getting Sophie to pull Crystal off of the boys, takes the cuffs off of Charles's hands

-The haunting immediately stops, Breanna and Harry can definitely see Edwin and Charles... and both teams have some explaining to do

-Once they figure out that they're here for the same reason, Niko's the first to suggest that they work together

-There's a lot of arguing over that, but the general consensus is that they're after the same goal, they're on the same side, and clearly if they don't actively work together, things are gonna go sideways

-Also, once they start talking, Breanna is very psyched to know everything about the supernatural side of things, and Parker decides that she's going to make Niko her apprentice (mostly because they have been getting along in the girl's gym class---and yes, St. Hillarion's does have different gym classes for boys and girls, despite it being co-ed now)

-Once they begin comparing notes, Charles mentions that he recognizes the headmaster---it's the same one he had when he was a student, and the man was already ancient then

-And... yep, turns out that the headmaster is a supernatural entity that's been doing some seriously messed-up shit in order to stay alive

-The two teams settle on a double-pronged attack---some of them will figure out how to get rid of the headmaster for good, while the others will figure out a way to expose the school's habit of covering up hate crimes

-I don't know how it finishes, but... uh, yeah, if anybody wants to take a crack at this, in fic form or comic form, you're free to

(Also, Eliot pretty much adopts Edwin and Charles the second he learns how messed up their lives were, there's also a few schemes from Niko, Crystal, and Breanna to get Payneland together, and Sophie somehow finds out Nate's afterlife placement and is beyond relieved to find out that he's living his afterlife in peace after all)

[meanderingstream]

So I saw a poll a few days ago about whether your blorbo would survive if the person they loved the most died and they couldn’t save them. And so I was thinking about the leverage OT3, but specifically if both of the other 2 died and they couldn’t save them, how would each of them go on.

I think Hardison would survive. He would obviously be devastated and especially if he was trying to save them from his computer or something while they were in the field and he failed, he would never get over it. However, he has a support network both deep and wide in his nana, his foster siblings, and to some extent his online friends, as well as Breanna, Sophie, Harry, and other people he knows through Leverage. I think the loss of Parker and Eliot together would fundamentally change him, but eventually, he would be able to move on and find happiness and connection with others again both because he has that support network to hold him up and because connecting with people is such a fundamental part of who Hardison is.

I think Parker is a survivor. She has had to be a survivor for her whole life. She is used to surviving even when everything falls apart. I think she would try and use some of the coping mechanisms we see her use in the show of trying to attribute her emotions to other people or to past or future Parker, but those would be woefully insufficient to this devastation. I could see her for a time running away from people and trying to lose herself in jumping off high buildings and stealing things, but it would end in an utter breakdown. She might even regret becoming the person who had opened her heart and changed together with them and tried to do the right thing. She might almost wish she had stayed alone with her emotions locked away to avoid this current pain. Except she couldn’t ever regret knowing them. She would either come back or Sophie would eventually find her, and they would commiserate about losing their person(s). If Parker had failed to save the boys, she might feel a lot of guilt around Breanna, but Breanna would likely feel guilt about why she wasn't there / couldn't save them either. They would eventually talk it out and then be able to support each other. Parker would survive, but she might lose some of her progress in opening up to people. Someone else would almost certainly have to take over Leverage International for a while. I think Parker would make it through and recover, but would never be as open as she managed to get while she was with Hardison and Eliot. 

I think Eliot is the toughest call. On the one hand, he has survived so much that others didn't. From the army, to the PMCs, to working for Moreau and others like him, to (probably the biggest challenge) facing the guilt and shame of who he had become. Eliot got through it all. But now, after swearing to watch over them until his dying day, if he failed to save them, then he would prefer to die with them. Eliot is the most likely of the three to not survive the loss of the other two, but I think it would come down to whether he felt he was still needed. If Sophie, Breanna, Harry, and others that he cares about needed him to protect them, then he might just make it through for them. Eliot, of course, believes he is already damned, and he is not looking for redemption because he doesn't believe it's possible after the things he’s done, but he appreciates the opportunity to be useful. To his mind, he needs to be useful to the people who are redeemed and to doing good in the world, because it’s already too late for him. If losing his partners happened while it was just the 3 of them, I think he would go after those that did it and not intend to survive the process. But if he has the rest of the team, I think he would stay alive to continue protecting them. Especially because of Breanna. If he failed Hardison, he can at least protect his baby sister. Eliot would stay alive for exactly as long as he felt useful, but he would likely never be able to really try retiring from the physical parts of his job and would probably plan on going out swinging when he got too old to be a hitter. Depending on a lot of variables, the rest of the team might eventually be able to convince him that there were other ways to take care of them like cooking and advising and being there for people, but it would be a long shot and, either way, he would never forgive himself for failing to protect Parker and Hardison or for not being the first to go.

[trekscribbles]

The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Two

Chapter One

The building wasn’t supposed to explode.

Well, it was, but it wasn’t supposed to explode yet.

Parker had the C4 charges in her bag, ready for her to plant them against the support beams in the basement at the half-constructed LanCast offices. The blast wouldn’t take down the building, just shake the foundation enough that the resulting investigation would find the cheap ash mixture in the concrete, and they’d be able to prove that Stephen Lancaster had embezzled the city grant money that was supposed to go into his new high-rise company building.

The plan had been for her to place the charges an hour ago, but she’d gotten distracted by the candy store down the road and had been late. Now, she stood on the sidewalk across from the burning office, watching their evidence literally go up in flames, listening to the firefighters yell directions as they fought to control the destruction. Normally she enjoyed a good explosion, but this one made her feel the way Hardison said he felt when he jumped off buildings.

She was supposed to be inside.

“Guys?” she tried again, holding her finger to her earbud. “Can anybody hear me?”

The coms had been silent all afternoon, but she hadn’t thought anything of it. Hardison had pulled an all-nighter getting their paperwork together and was napping back at the hotel, and Nate and Sophie were across town distracting Lancaster so Parker could break into his building. Eliot was probably out shopping for organic groceries at the nearest vegan market. She’d asked him to make her brownies to celebrate the her birthday (which wasn’t for another two months, but Eliot never asked), and he’d only agreed after she promised to eat some vegetables first. He’d said something about a vegetarian bourguignon, but she’d tuned him out when he started listing ingredients.

She’d give the Centenary Diamond to hear him ramble about beans and onions now.

More sirens cut through the air, and Parker drew back as a police car and a black SUV joined the dozen law enforcement and first responder vehicles already parked on the street. The back door of the SUV opened, and Lancaster threw himself out of the car with a cry of dismay.

A police officer stopped him as he ran for the building, and Parker slipped across the street to join the crowd gathered outside the ring of cones and police tape.

“Mr. Lancaster,” the officer said. “We need you to confirm that no one was inside the building.”

“I don’t know,” Lancaster answered breathlessly. “The foreman said he might stop by to check on something. How did this happen?”

The officer guided Lancaster toward a group of firefighters, and Parker followed in the crowd. “We’re not sure yet. Captain Stanley should be able to give you more information.”

They moved out of earshot, but it only took a few minutes for Parker to duck the tape, find an unattended coat and helmet, and move to the side of a firetruck behind Lancaster and the captain. “—can’t believe this happened,” Lancaster was saying. “I never imagined the threats were real.”

“What threats?” the officer said.

Lancaster put a hand in his pocket and handed over a folded envelop. “This showed up in my downtown office yesterday morning. It says there’s a group of thieves targeting me, and that they were planning to blow up my building. I get so many threats each week, I never thought anything of it.”

Parker glanced over her shoulder. “Nate,” she hissed. “I really need you to hear me now. We have problems.”

“I’m going to have to ask you to come in to the station to give a statement,” the officer said. “Anything you can give us about this group of thieves will help us...”

He kept talking, but a shout from the crowd pulled her attention away. Hardison. She started toward him, relief washing through her, but let out another cry that cut through her chest like a bullet. “Parker! Move, please, I have to—”

He tore through the police tape and broke toward the building, but two other officers blocked his way and dragged him back from the fire. “Let me go, she’s inside—please, let me go. Let me—”

“I got him,” Parker said, pushing between the officers and setting her hand on Hardison’s arm. “Come on, sir, this way.”

He fought her for a moment, still intent on forcing his way through the barricade, until she put her hand against his cheek to turn his face from the fire.

“Please,” he whispered, already sagging against her.

She held him up, moving to block his view of the building. “Hardison,” she said firmly, hating the way the flashing lights highlighted the anguish on his face.

He blinked at her, opened his mouth, and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Parker?”

“Yes,” she said.

He threw his arms around her, crushing her against his chest and burying his face in her neck. “Thank God,” he sobbed. “Girl, I thought—I saw the news, and I couldn’t get you on the coms, and I thought—”

Guilt prickled through her. Hardison was always so careful about the way he touched her, making sure she had space and choice and an escape route. But his shoulders shook against her cheek, and she pressed back into his hug as a silent apology. “I hadn’t gone in yet,” she murmured.

He pulled away, but kept his hands on her shoulders. “What happened?”

“I think we’re blown,” Parker said, frowning at the building. “Lancaster just showed up and said he received a warning that a bunch of thieves were going to blow up his office.”

“But you didn’t...?”

Parker shook her head. “It was already burning when I got here. What’s going on with the coms?”

“I don’t know.” Hardison’s eyes were on the fire now, too, and he let go with one hand to fish in his pocket for his phone. “I woke up and saw this all on the news, and when no one answered their phones, I thought...”

Right, phones. Hardison kept saying she should carry one of those with her, but it never made sense when they had the earbuds. Who else was she going to talk to?

“Where are the others?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Hardison said. He showed her his screen, which flashed no service across the top. “I can’t get ahold of anyone.”

Parker shivered as a pulse of worry worked its way down her spine. No coms? No phones? Lancaster's warning, and now the building? Something was wrong.

“Eliot said to go back to base if the coms ever failed,” Hardison said, breaking through her spiral. “I guess that’s the hotel.”

Parker nodded. He’d walked them all through it—how to take winding routes that changed direction without warning, how to spot a tail, how to get rid of it. How to approach the base carefully in case it had been compromised. Unease fluttered in her stomach, but she pushed it down and gave Hardison a small smile.

“Can I drive?”

Hardison groaned, sighed, and handed over his keys.

*

Nate and Sophie were waiting for them at the hotel.

Eliot was not.

They’d made it back without trouble, even if the extra turns and backtracking had cost them extra time. Sophie met them at the door and ushered them into the room, where Nate was planted pensively in front of the window. He spoke without looking at them.

“Lancaster ducked us. We lost him. What’s going on with the coms?”

Hardison dropped onto the couch and dragged his laptop across the coffee table. “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to look into it.”

“Do you think it was Lancaster?” Sophie asked. She had closed the door behind them and was pacing before it, her shawl clutched tight around her shoulders.

Parker sat on the arm of the couch. “Or whoever warned him?”

“Yeah, about that,” Hardison said, without looking up from his laptop. “Who the hell could have warned him? Our aliases are air-tight, a’ight, didn’t nobody see through those. Maybe someone on his staff recognized one of us?”

“We would have recognized them, too,” Sophie said.

Hardison shrugged and opened his mouth, but Nate cut him off. “The phones aren’t working, either. Have either of you heard from Eliot?”

Parker shook her head, and Hardison scooted closer to his laptop.

“I might be able to track him. Give me a sec.”

Nate waited. They all did, tense under the weight of anxiety and silence. Hardison tapped his keyboard, Sophie rubbed her forefinger over her thumbnail, and Nate stared out the window. Parker tried to remember what kinds of vegetables Eliot said he was going to make her eat that night. She liked it when he picked the weird ones—black carrots and watermelon radish and fiddleheads. She liked to stand behind him and sneak the pieces he’d chopped up and smile when he stuttered at her to stop. She liked to share the space with him while he created.

She did not like the way Hardison’s eyes squinted up as he read his screen, or the way he covered his mouth and took out his phone. “Does anyone have service?”

One by one, the others shook their heads.

Hardison glanced at Parker. “Okay. We’re looking for a signal jammer—a walkie-talkie, or another phone, maybe even a router. Something that’s not supposed to be there.”

She bounded to her feet and threw herself into searching/destroying the room, upending chairs, de-shading lamps, ripping down curtains. The others took slightly more reserved approaches, but Parker was the one who found the cellphone taped to the back of the register.

Hardison held it in his palm and frowned. “Uh-oh.”

The balloon of hope that had been inflating in Parker’s chest popped. She couldn’t voice the question, but Hardison answered anyway.

“This isn’t a jammer… it’s more like my EMP emitter. This is what knocked out our coms, and our phones. It sends out a small, targeted signal, probably only has power in this room, but when we were all here yesterday, it would have been enough.”

“Can you reverse it?” Nate asked. 

Hardison shook his head. “I can turn it off, but we have to wait for our devices to come back online. What I can do, though, is transfer the info on our phones over to new ones, so we’ll know if Eliot tries to call.”

Nate spoke to the window. “Do it.”

Parker frowned at Nate as Hardison went back to work, but Nate was busy with his own phone. This was taking too long. If they’d been found out, if someone had gotten to Eliot—

“Okay,” Hardison said. “I need new phones. Parker, can you—?”

She was out of the room and halfway down the hall before he finished talking. Nate didn’t like it when she stole from non-marks, but she didn’t have time to find a phone store, and she’d return them all before this was over. There were plenty of people in the lobby, and it only took a few moments to lift four shiny new-to-her phones from their pockets, bags, and purses.

She took the stairs back up to the room, keeping an eye on the other hotel guests the way Eliot had taught her. Remember the faces you see. Find details that stand out and hold on to them. Facial features, voices, walks. Things that are harder to change.

She noticed those things easily enough, but she’d never understand how he could remember so much about the people in the background.

How much he saw. What he thought was important.

She ran faster.

“Got them,” she said, slipping into the room and dropping the phones on the couch beside Hardison. He lifted one and pried the back off, then pulled a chip out of Nate’s already half-dissembled phone and stuck it into the new one. He snapped the back closed and turned it on, then held it up with a nod. “There. Eliot called two hours ago, and he left a voicemail.”

He tapped the screen and held it out so they could listen on speaker.

“Nate.”

Parker swallowed. Eliot’s voice on the message was cold and flat—she’d never heard him like that before.

“We’re burned. Get Sophie and Hardison and go to another hotel—new names, new cards, everything. Get rid of your phones. Don’t leave a trail—I’ll find you. I just got a text from an unknown number with a picture of Parker on her way to the LanCast building, and then a message saying they had her.” There was a pause, the crash of a slamming door through the speaker. “I’m on my way to her now. Be ready.”

The message ended. All eyes went to Parker, who could only stare back as her body went cold. “They didn’t have me,” she whispered.

Nate swore. “They set a trap. Hardison, can you get a track on him?”

Hardison’s eyes were wide, and filled with all the terror coursing through Parker’s veins.

“Last location was the LanCast office,” he whispered. “But the signal went dead an hour ago, when...”

He didn’t finish.

He didn’t have to.

[lemissingmask]

I don’t know why, but I absolutely adore when any of the team hold Eliot back from violence with a simple gesture or by putting themselves in front of him. And Hardison is the first to do it, right in the pilot episode 😌 But they all get a turn, like Parker in the inside job and Sophie in the snow job, or Nate several times.

[onyxbird]

OK, the idea of a soulmate au where you can't look anyone but your soulmate directly in the eyes was not done with me yet.

Leverage version:

Sophie knows all the tricks for faking full eye contact. For a third-party observer, it's nigh-impossible to tell that she's not quite achieving direct eye contact short of using cameras with very good eye-tracking software. Trying to fool a mark into thinking she's their soulmate via “eye contact” is tougher, but on a mark who hasn't met their own soulmate (and thus has never experienced true full eye contact), Sophie still has a pretty good success rate. Every member of the team has been drafted as her fake soulmate on a con at least once. Or, at least, Sophie has tried. Parker failed to pick up on any of the hints Sophie was able to drop without blowing their cover, so Sophie had to switch tactics. Hardison tried valiantly to hold the near-eye-contact, and they pulled off the job, but he was struggling and his resulting nervous blather did not help the illusion at all. Eliot picked up her cues and pulled off the illusion flawlessly… and hated every second of it. The first time they faked prolonged eye contact, he ducked away to Nate's bathroom the second they got in the door, and Sophie (slightly insulted) wondered if he was going to throw up. He didn't, just practically boiled his skin off in the hottest shower he could stand. Nate is by far Sophie's most frequent “soulmate” on the job… None of the rest of the team are entirely sure whether the eye contact is fake or not, and neither Nate nor Sophie is telling.

Parker has never had any interest in making eye contact, and was genuinely unaware that this was a serious thing people actually believe in. (Sure, people talk about finding their “soulmate” through eye contact, but people also talk about summoning Bloody Mary through the bathroom mirror. That doesn't mean it's real.) The first time she looked directly into Hardison's eyes was both accidental and jarring. She averted her eyes and assumed they would never mention this uncomfortable situation again. She was not expecting Hardison to suddenly want to have an intense, excited conversation that was clearly loaded with some meaning she wasn't picking up on, and she definitely wasn't expecting him to do so while trying to eagerly stare into her eyeballs. When Eliot happened to walk in, she latched onto him like a spooked cat, demanding he do something about Hardison; there was something wrong with him, like he's possessed or something; make him stop!

Eliot has habitually avoided even the possibility of eye contact with anyone since he was in high school. (He certainly wasn't trying to lock eyes with people even before that, but, well, he and Aimee had tried once, back when they were young and naive and thought maybe they were meant to be. They weren't.) In his line of work… it was better not to know. There was just no way that would end well. He doesn't have anything against other people finding their soulmates, though. Really. So he's not quite sure why there's such a bite to his words when he snaps at Hardison to knock it off—that “soulmates” is no excuse for trying to look someone in the eye when they don't like it. But he's sure he can feel a headache forming as he's stuck between Parker's “'Soulmates'! Ha! …Oh, come on. You're kidding, right? That's not real” from one side and Hardison's horrified “Oh my god, I'm sorry! Parker, I am so, so sorry—I was just so excited, you know? I didn't realize—” start of what was clearly going to be a long and heartfelt apology on the other.

Hardison thinks soulmates are very romantic, and he's always hoped, you know? He tries not to talk too openly about it—dreaming of finding your soulmate was deemed “girly” and “wussy” by the popular boys at his high school, and he had more than enough targets on his back for bullying as a kid without drawing attention this one. He's always kind of thought he'd probably never find his, if he even had one. He did so much of his socializing with like-minded people online, and you can't make eye contact—not real eye contact—over a webcam. There have been some near misses that made his heart flip (Hell, back during that first Dubenich job, when Eliot had taken out all the Pierson guards and then given him that smug little smirk, for an instant—just for an instant—Hardison had almost thought their eyes met directly. He must have imagined it, too caught up in the incredibly sexy and unexpected display of competence on display in front of him to avoid a split second of daydreaming about what it would feel like to look straight into those incredibly blue eyes. Anyway, it had never happened again, and after working together for so long, they surely would have looked each other in the eyes by now if it were possible.), but no dice. Until now. Parker, though… Even while apologizing (he should have realized to be more careful with Parker), Hardison could barely keep the absolutely giddy smile off his face. There had been no mistaking that, and god when people talked about “getting lost” in their soulmate's eyes… Wow, they weren't kidding!

Nate will expound at length about how the concept of “soulmates” and consequently the act of making eye contact have been exploited and commercialized for all of recorded history, the absence of any scientific evidence that the rare ability to make eye contact with another person actually correlates with any real measures of relationship compatibility rather than being a random biological quirk that has been superstitiously fetishized, and (if the person who brought it up isn't desperately trying to escape the conversation yet) whether the concept soulmates is compatible with Catholic theology. Very few people last long enough through his disparagement of the entire concept to notice that he has skirted around ever actually saying whether or not he's ever made direct eye contact with another person, and even fewer are willing to risk touching off another lengthy tirade to press him on the matter.

Thanks @soulmate-au-bargain-bin for the fun idea!

[independent-fics]

Inde watches “The Rollin’ on the River Job”

Leverage Redemption 1x03

“Hardison had to have a lot of practice before Eliot agreed to open those van doors” yes please missing 12 years lore (or original run lore) either way I love

I kinda love how Sophie just keeps referring to Harry as our Mr Wilson it’s cute. She really working to make him feel included

Oof growing pains with Sophie coming back and Parker being the mastermind

Really love Hardison’s algorithm. Love how he’s still helping them find clients

Ahhhh callbacks to learning it’s not always about the money with clients

“I lost count of my marriages, but I only had one husband” my heart

15 MANUALS WHERE

Sophie being happy to be back on a stage

”I’m Parker” yes you are

“We have to rob the vault” “YES” Parker my beloved she deserves all the vents and vaults 

Brennas “trash bags from couch, couch” the implications there

Telling Sophie to walk off after her “let’s go steal” get her back in the groove hahaha

a con with a flow chart Hardison making those for her and helping her ahhh I love them

“Are you using a flow chart for all your interactions” SO WHAT IF SHE IS and where can I get one

The Mark being upset about not being verified on Twitter goodness, they really thought these guys through 

Goodness, Eliot transitioning into OK I was a cop why is he so dramatic 😭this man closeted theater kid I swear the slight accent and tone change? Man suddenly sounded like he’s been through 40 years on the beat like what

I don’t like the cgi clay birds (idk why it bothers me like it would be cool if they learned ig )

I am not getting enough Parker and Eliot brainstorming moments together

Sophie that pink suit is stunning

Breanna already out and aboutttt

Gahgh nvm already benched

Gah the parallels of the newer team members growing like the originals

Parker’s you don’t like my dress? 🥺(also love that this is kinda mirroring the original run episode 3 bridesmaid dress? In a way)

Eliot bonding over cooking with the other security guard ahhh my heart

Ahhh more leverage friends??? I want all the lore

“It’s a very distinctive- hold on” the writers just couldn’t forget that love it

Ice cave, gorilla enclosure, catered a wedding I love these mentions

“Food sensory experience” Eliot you nerd

Harry’s little thumbs up to Breanna I love this duo

Nooo not Eliot’s new friend

Why they always go for typical Russian names we got Ivan Dimitri then the bodyguard is Jake??

Parker making Eliot smell the money haha I love them

Breanna coming in with the ideal gas law you smartical partical

Awww Eliot helping Dennis still and having game night (and the 7 shirt!!!)

THAT WAS MY CAKE PARKER (I love them so much)

Always trust the person inside the van (ugh Hardison I love your notes)

Ugh yeah Breanna me too about the world and the timeline of my life. I would love to kick it in the junk too.

With the pearl yes Parker!!! My beloved world famous thief

[geeky-nightphilosopher]

The Rashomon Job is hands down the best episode and nobody can tell me otherwise.

Like, your gonna tell me all of these *professional criminals* can't recognize each other five years later? And each of their stories are somehow accurate to how they perceive each other- even without them noticing at first. I couldn't get over how Hardison, Nate, and Parker all have Eliot holding basically a sword to Hardison's throat. 🤣 Sophie and Nate's were the probably the most accurate.

The ending was so sweet too, because it's all a redo. Even though they had Sophie, Parker, and Hardison running to go steal it and leaving Eliot and Nate at the bar- the viewers still get the implication that they'll steal it as a team. Especially when you get that little amused smile/nod from Eliot and that confirmation from Nate.

Nate was practically telling Eliot- Go. Watch their backs. Then he went to because he didn't want to be left out.

Also- Parker's imitation of Sophie is how I think she processes everyone's voice. 😂🫣

[theladyragnell]

if you’ll indulge my continuing Witch King obsession, Kai/Bashasa for 19? Or if you don’t feel like writing for a random novel you read once, leverage OT3 for 16?

(Tragically, much as Witch King delighted me, I do not have a strong enough sense of the characters after one read to feel as though I would do them justice! So here's some Leverage instead, for "naturally gravitating together"!)

Parker doesn’t want most people anywhere near her. She says that once, early on, and Sophie prompts her with a “No offense” that she probably means Parker to say, but she kind of does mean the offense, for most people. Parker’s spent her whole life slipping away, making sure nobody ever lays hands on her, because if she’s caught, that’s it, game over, and being touched is being caught. There’s nobody she trusts enough to catch her.

Except.

Except she trusts Eliot to boost her up and catch her when she jumps. She lets Hardison throw an arm around her shoulders. Sometimes she throws an arm around his. And they don’t try to catch her, either. They hold on, they let go. She doesn’t know what to do with that.

Maybe it’s having a team. She hasn’t had one of those before. None of them has. It definitely seems weird for Hardison, who usually does crime for a totally different from than the crime is actually happening in. Which sounds boring for Parker, but she sees it in his eyes, sometimes, hears it in the way his voice gets all high: if somebody’s close enough to lay hands on him, he’s already lost.

And Eliot touches people all the time, but usually to hit them, or get hit by them, so probably he doesn’t like being too close to people either, she figures, and at first she thinks that’s the nice thing about the team, that maybe they all feel like that and they know it so they won’t ever expect it of each other.

It changes, though. Like how Eliot and Hardison have a secret handshake now, and they have to be standing next to each other to do it, and it’s only when she counts how often she’s seeing it that she realizes how often they’re close enough to touch. And like how Eliot makes muffins sometimes, and Parker likes to watch him mix them up. Or how Hardison mutters to himself while he’s working, and Parker wants to hear what he’s doing, so she gets closer and closer while she listens.

And at first, she has to decide to get closer, every time. When she stops thinking, she drifts away, out of arm’s reach. That’s what she does, what they all do. They back off.

Sometime between team meals that Eliot always cooks and Sophie always chooses the wine for, between late nights planning jobs, between Hardison opening doors and Eliot standing between her and other people’s grabbing hands, she starts thinking about having to move away, instead.

It’s a quiet night, when she realizes that. Nate finished the job briefing and then he and Sophie left to do some of their weird grift-flirting or maybe to different places, she doesn’t know what’s going on with them and doesn’t really want to think about it enough to figure it out, so it’s the three of them getting the pieces ready to start. And by that Parker mostly means that Hardison is getting the pieces ready to start and Eliot is making sarcastic comments and Parker is watching.

But when Parker watches people, she watches them from the ceiling or across the room or across the street. She doesn’t shift a little closer to hear a whispered joke, and then even closer to peer at somebody’s computer screen, and then just a little closer for no reason she cares about. But when she thinks about it, actually shakes her head and realizes what she’s doing, she’s six inches away from Hardison on the couch, and he’s alternating telling her and Eliot what’s going on, and she’s been answering and asking questions. Not watching at all.

“What do you think, Parker?” Hardison asks.

Parker’s throat is gripped by panic so strong she completely loses her place in a conversation she’s been having without realizing it for—how long, exactly? Eliot, on Hardison’s other side, is watching her like he gets it. Eliot always gets it. That’s new too, and just as scary. “It’s really cool!” she says, too bright, and is so glad Sophie isn’t there.

Hardison’s weird look tells her maybe that’s not quite the response she was supposed to give him, even though it’s what he wants to hear at least sixty percent of the time. “Yeah, the software is cool, but I mean the schematics, and whether you think Nate’s infiltration plan is going to work with the non-standard vent sizes?”

Those are words she can deal with, ones that take the panic down to a manageable level. Parker breathes, and thinks about vents. Nice comforting vents, keeping her in and the world out. She’s shifting in closer, though, her knee almost pressed against Hardison’s knee, her chin almost touching his shoulder, while she scowls at the schematics and tries to figure out how close it’s going to be.

Hardison’s elbow digs companionably into her ribs, and Eliot watches her like he sees as much as Sophie does, and Parker feels caught, held, but maybe for once like that might make her safe.

[letparkerbackinthevents]

I gotta do a things I'm noticing on my leverage rewatch masterlist but literally just in the first two eps I think the things I love the most are that they are, every single one of them, here to cause chaos FIRST. oho the congressman is obsessed with his house is he? Hey, can I borrow your phone? It would be a shame :3 if something :3 happened to his mahogany wood panels :3

and it's simple!! Eliot makes one (1) phone call in the name of making trouble and it gets folded into the con seamlessly. He throws a rock at a camera. Parker's skills are showcased in how you never see her working - one moment the picture is on the wall, the next second it isn't. She's in one outfit walking in the door, in another walking out. Working together to get the voice command - parker knows exactly what she needs, she's already onto solving the problem, and Nate just goes "Eliot" to get the rest of the sounds and he manufactures, on the fly, a two-part grift that Sophie immediately joins in on to get what she needs. He remembers every single sound, pairs it with his fancy food knowledge, looks at the appetizers he can get his hands on, and goes for it! Hardison needs the rfid card, he's already put what he needs in the cell phone, Eliot just needs to hold the card close to it. Offices like a real business, established since 1913. old Nate.

Masterfully, casually competent, and they all enjoy working with other experts! Hardison and Nate sit down with beers and popcorn just to watch Parker put paper in a box! People with different specialities have certain aspects handed to them and the rest of them kick back and watch a master at work, ready to give backup but generally just there, having a good time.

[shutupineedtothink]

Look I’m not saying I can match everyone in the coven with members of the Leverage crew…. But yeah I definitely can. And it’s not even a stretch. (The relationships don’t cross though.)

Agatha ➡️ Nate

The reluctant leader

Brings the team together

Knows everyone’s skills and brings out their best

Holds information back

The One With the Plan

Secretly cares about everyone’s wellbeing, will absolutely not show it (except when they do)

Dead son and has a lot of unresolved feelings about it

Lilia ➡️ Sophie

Emotional center of the group

Teaches everyone how to deal with their feelings

Most experienced and takes the craft most seriously

Starts the show with a bad performance but quickly shows her real skills

A little kooky/dramatic/weird but absolutely on top of her shit

Does not suffer fools

A little scary underneath it all

Alice ➡️ Elliot

The Protector

Family Trauma TM

Constantly guilt tripping themselves

Also pretty emotionally in tune, once they look at their shit

Takes their role very seriously but tries not to show it too much

Former cop/military, left for unspecified reasons

Jen ➡️ Hardison

Creates stuff out of random but specific shit

Constantly saving the group

Most versatile knowledge & knowledge is their strength

Becomes more confident in their skills as time goes on

Under appreciated tbh

Rio ➡️ Parker

You bet your ass I saved the best for last

Insane TM, but also misunderstood (what is she??)

Something’s wrong with that girl

Will stab you without thought or remorse

Has something to stab with on her person at all times

Appears out of nowhere

Probably the most powerful of them all, given a little time

Drives everyone else crazy in one way or another

Weird and specific interests

Nobody ever knows what’s going on in her head, don’t try, just go with it

Will growl/bark/make random noises at you and act like it’s normal

Bonus: Teen ➡️ Brianna

Baby queer

Are we… the bad guys?

Excited to be there tbh

Smart as hell and very good but still learning

Everyone else is at least a little parental toward them

… you see what I mean. Did I miss anything obvious??