#and they all just listen to hardison play | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fablesrose · 6 months ago

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Ch 20 - The Reunion Job

Series Rewrite Masterlist

Pairing: Eliot Spencer x Ford!Reader

Description: The team goes back in time, to high school with all the insecurities of a nerd turned overly rich and successful bully.

Words: 5.7k

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It was only a couple of days later when after Hardison met the client with Nate, he burst through my door complaining about Eliot being a lurker and Nate playing mind games with him which he very much did not appreciate. At least that’s what I could decipher from his frustrated ramblings. I’ll admit, I was only half listening to him as I was just reaching the most exciting part of the book I was reading.

“How do you deal with him?” Hardison finally asked.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, I mean, he’s your uncle, he raised you. You’ve gotta have dealt with his mind games and little psychological tricks all the time, so…”

I sighed, realizing that he actually wanted an answer and not just a rant session. Meaning, I wasn’t going to be able to finish the chapter. I closed the book and turned to stare at Hardison. I contemplated whether I wanted to actually answer his question in a fulfilling and helpful way for my friend or find out what happened in the current story arc.

I think the answer is obvious. Now how to go about completing the goal.

“Well, Hardison, you are a very smart young man,” I began.

It was obvious that he was not expecting the compliment and blinked, “Well, I– I’m not sure how that–”

“It is very relevant,” I cut him off, bringing the attention to me again. “The thing with dealing with manipulation tactics is that you first have to understand them.” I stood up from my couch, making a better connection with him by having more direct eye contact. “You see, Nate does use mind games, but it isn’t an always, every time thing so in order to identify when he is trying to manipulate you, well, let's say there is a learning curve.”

“And I am at the very bottom of the curve,” Hardison whined a bit. “I have never been at the bottom of a curve!”

I thought I had him hooked, so said a quick, ‘follow me’ and tried to walk towards my door, and to my satisfaction, he started to follow without a second thought. “That’s okay, I’m sure you will catch on. The thing about manipulation is that it is most often about subverting attention, whether that be to the manipulator, yourself, or somewhere else with a hyper focus that it is hard to redirect back to where you want if you aren’t looking out for it.”

He followed and listened intently, making a few interested comments.

I walked him across the hall and entered Nate’s apartment, “It takes practice and a lot of self awareness both to spot it and to try to do it to someone. There’s also tricks that can help, in a way it is similar to grifting and hacking, just combining the two.” I finally led him to where his computer was, “But, I won’t keep you any longer. I think it is better if you did some research on some psychology and the job for the client, right?” I nodded as I asked him that and he instinctively nodded back at me, agreeing as he sat down and placed his hands on his computer.

“Okay, thanks y/n.”

I hummed in agreement and casually, but quickly, walked back across the hall to get back to my book. Hopefully Hardison didn’t think too much about what just happened when he was doing his research.

Not too much later Nate came in to bring me along for the recon of an Iranian intelligence secret police hideout.

“You’re lucky I just finished a really good part of this book and need to decompress a bit,” I said as I slipped a bookmark in and stood from my couch for the second time.

“Mmm hmm, I think you’re the lucky one because you wouldn’t be able to pull the same thing on me that you did on Hardison,” he said, very self satisfied.

I stopped in my tracks, “how do you know about that?”

“I was upstairs and heard you.”

“You’re not gonna tell him, are you?”

“Only if you hurry up, we’ve gotta go. Come on, birdy,” he insisted, ushering me along and out the door.

“Okay! Okay, I’m going!”

Eliot and Hardison went into the restaurant as health inspectors. Sophie was already there as a customer with a bug in her food to give the boys an in to do an inspection. When Eliot wouldn’t help her get the roach away from her after her outburst, she told him that he would pay for it. I’m sure that will be interesting.

Parker was breaking in one of the back rooms where we were sure all of their sensitive information was. Nate and I stayed in the truck monitoring. Once Parker plugged into their computer, Hardison cloned it so we could all see the screen and Hardison could search the files. Meanwhile, Eliot was doing the food inspection as a bit of a distraction, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought he was enjoying himself, just a little bit.

“There’s nothing on Manticore, starting a syntax search” Hardison said as he remotely connected to the computer.

“What about the Manticore?” I asked, vaguely gesturing to the graphic on the bottom corner of the screen depicting the creature.

“The image on the bottom left there,” Nate said, since Hardison couldn’t see where I was gesturing. “Manticore is a mythological creature, Persian for ‘man-eater.’”

“Yeah, I was just about to click on that,” Hardison said unconfidently.

“Oh yeah, right, sure,” I replied, making sure he knew of my skepticism.

Hardison clicked on the graphic and a bunch of files opened on the screen.

“Okay, let’s uh, copy Cyrus’s program,” Nate said.

“I’d love to, but it’s not here,” Hardison said. “Doesn’t even look like they’ve heard of Cyrus.”

I looked at Nate, “That’s odd. Then who stole the program?”

“I’ve got payment records here,” Parker said. “The last one dated three weeks ago.”

After some searching, Hardison said, “The last Manticore update was also three weeks ago.”

“And who was that payment to?” Nate asked.

Hardison answered with a low whistle.

“Larry Duberman,” Hardison began once we got back for the brief on our new mark. “Founder and Ceo of Dubertech. Back in the 90s he wrote the book on digital database security. Literally wrote the book.”

Eliot stepped between Sophie and I with an intricate looking tea set and started pouring the both of us tea as Hardison explained how much revenue Duberman pulled in. I tried to make eye contact with either Eliot or Sophie to question what was going on, but Eliot was focused on pouring the tea, and Sophie wasn’t paying any attention to him at all.

“Why would Larry Duberman be selling software to Iran? He doesn’t need the money,” Sophie said and quietly thanked Eliot for the tea with a soft touch to his shoulder.

I repeated the sentiment to him, without the touch, and took a sip, noticing it was my favorite tea. I smiled a bit to myself, not quite listening to what Hardison was saying. I did catch that Duberman had a lot of competition in the tech industry which required him to expand his market share to make money.

“So, he sells the technology to embargoed countries and the income is tax free?” Nate asked.

“That’s a nice way to keep the bottom line from being squeezed,” Sophie commented.

“Now Duberman has a long term contract around Manticore for Iran, this man has become the IT department for the axis of evil,” Hardison said definitely.

“Alright, so Eliot was right,” Nate said. “The Veserate didn’t go after Cyrus, Duberman did.”

“It’s not about politics man,” Eliot said while squeezing a lemon into Sophie’s tea. “It’s bad business for him.”

“Okay, so Duberman’s our target,” Nate said, “what are we up against?”

Hardison explained how if we could shut off a certain one of Duberman’s servers then we could shut off Manticore.

“So, get to hackin’ man,” Eliot said.

“Dude, what is it about ‘wrote the book on database security’ that you don’t comprehend?” Hardison mocked. “I can’t just access Manticore remotely, we got to get to that server, in person.”

“Have any of you ever trimmed a Bonsai?” Nate asked.

I looked at him quizzically before following his eyes to see where he was looking at an article saying that Duberman recently installed a Japanese garden.

“I mean, I took a class in college,” I said, once I thought I had an idea of where he was going with the question.

“Really?” Eliot said in an excited and almost conspiratorial whisper, “cuz I actually–”

“Maybe some other time, Eliot,” Nate cut him off, clicking on the screen to enlarge the article he was reading.

“Okay,” he said, a little dejected, also seeming to realize why Nate asked, more hypothetically.

I was about to give an encouraging remark to Eliot when my attention got pulled to the other side of the table.

“Why is Eliot pouring your tea?” Parker asked. “Hmm? You brainwash him again?”

Again? When was the first time?

Sophie hummed in a negative tone. “Neuro-linguistic programming,” she corrected. “It’s amazing what you can do with the power of suggestion. ‘Sugar, squeezed,’” She said, only slightly directed at Eliot and patted his shoulder again. “And a few strategic pats on the arm.”

Eliot seemed to register what Sophie said and paused where he was about to pour her some more tea, “Damn it!”

“You owe me for that roach business!”

“Damn it!” Eliot repeated, “Sophie, not again.” He then took the cup of tea he was pouring for Sophie and marched off.

Hardison was laughing at the front of the room, and it only took me a moment to give a laugh as well. It seems to be the job for mind games.

I took a sip of my tea, which Eliot left in front of me, and leaned toward Sophie, “Thanks for including me in the tea, this is my favorite.”

“Oh, I didn’t tell him to do either of those things, but I’m glad you enjoyed it, dear,” she replied casually.

That made me pause, because it didn’t seem like something Eliot would do on his own, but I took Sophie’s word for it and just assumed that maybe her programming accidentally implied something about me getting tea too. The tea being my favorite must have been a coincidence.

Regardless, I was going to enjoy the drink in front of me.

I had volunteered to go into Dubertech as a custodian/gardener to help in the break in, but Eliot ended up doing it. I assume because he also got some nostalgia from the bonsai as well as this part of the mini con involved literally running into Duberman and accidentally roughing him up a little.

Eliot would shove a bonsai into his hands, spilling it everywhere. Hardison and Parker would immediately come in to clean it up, swiping his keycard and his fingerprint off the bonsai pot. Hardison and Parker then proceeded to break into Duberman’s office to gain access to the Manticore server.

Sophie, Nate, and I were at his apartment watching through the camera Hardison had with him. When they walked into the supposed server room, they paused.

“Whoa,” Parker said.

“It seems like we stepped out of Japan and straight into high school,” Hardison said.

“In 1985,” Parker clarified.

As Hardison panned the camera around the room, we could see that they were right. There was so much high school memorabilia and 80s tech on the shelves and in trophy cases. The lighting even seemed to be retro.

“Did you find the server running Manticore?” Nate asked, trying to get them back on track.

“Oh, I found it,” Hardison said. “Small problem: Nate, he’s running Manticore from his high school computer.”

The computer in question came into view and I was amazed that a program as advanced and complicated to spy on Iranians could even be run on the machine. Parker picked up and waved a floppy disk with a Manticore sticker on it.

“Question: can we just smash the computer? Would that work?” I asked.

“No,” Hardison replied, but didn’t explain as he plugged in to the computer and began to try and hack it.

“Fair enough, just thought I’d double check.”

“Vintage 1980s technology, man,” Hardison said, mostly to himself, “no wonder I couldn’t hack it from the outside. It’s speaking a dead language.”

“This is bringing a whole new meaning to ‘tech people don’t trust modern tech,’” I commented.

We watched as Hardison ran passwords through the computer, trying to gain access. After a few moments, an announcement came through talking about a possible breach.

“Hey, they’re onto us!” Parker said. “What’s the deal?”

“He’s got a multi-tiered password system,” Hardison explained. “Now, I’ve already broken into the first few: uh, Zavransky, MandyDD, a bunch of other random ones.” Hardison’s computer then made an unusual sound.

“Is that a good beep or a bad beep?” Parker asked.

“Ohh, that’s a bad beep. We just hit a wall.”

“You didn’t get the password?” Nate asked.

“Not the master one,” Hardison said, “the last one I got is: L33R15L06.”

Sophie and Nate looked at each other and said ‘high school’ at the same time in a dejected voice.

“That password is what tipped you off?” I asked sarcastically, mostly to cover up how I wasn’t sure how that password connected to the theme, but with all of the high school themed stuff in the room, it made sense.

“Come on, let’s go,” Parker said anxiously.

“Hold on, let me just copy this disk,” Hardison replied. “How did anyone get anything done in the 80s?”

They were able to make their escape once the download finished and made their way back to the pub. We all met down there to discuss what to do from there.

“Nobody else thinks it’s weird that you can just buy anybody’s yearbook online?” Eliot said when Hardison pulled out Duberman’s yearbook to consult.

“You know, it’s real cute man how you still believe in privacy,” Hardison replied.

“I’m just amazed he could get his hands on it so quickly,” I commented.

“Here we go,” Nate said as he flipped through it. “Zavransy: math teacher. Now I bet if we turn to the cheerleaders… Yes. Oh, Mandy.”

Eliot gave a low whistle. I glanced at the picture and, well, the double Ds in the password did make some sense.

“What does the ‘DD’ mean?” Parker asked.

The boys gave some innuendoes towards Mandy’s chest which I rolled my eyes at. I just told Parker that she didn’t need to worry about it.

“It was the last password that tipped us off,” Nate continued, “L33R15L06, now that has to be a locker combination, right?”

I nodded my head, agreeing, trying to disguise that I was just coming to the realization of what that was now. I guess I never remembered any of my locker combinations that way. Or remembered any at all.

“So clearly, he’s obsessed with high school,” Nate concluded. “Memorabilia, his high school computer.”

“Yeah, he’s a classic computer nerd,” Sophie said. She glanced at Hardison and apologized. “The girls totally ignored him, the guys picked on him, now that he’s a success, he can’t leave the past behind him.”

“Yeah, he has to remember who he was because it made him who he is,” Nate said.

“I feel bad for the nerd,” Parker said with an almost sympathetic deadpan.

“Don’t feel bad for this guy,” Eliot replied. “Getting bullied in high school is no excuse for propping up dictators. Take Hardison, he got bullied his whole high school career, he’s not a criminal.”

We all looked at him incredulously. Sophie and Parker verbally disagreed.

“Not a bad criminal,” Eliot amended.

“What makes you think I got bullied in high school?” Hardison asked.

“A: you’ve got a green hornet doll.”

“First: it’s a limited edition action figure. Second: it is Green Lantern. Educate yourself.”

“Guys, listen, listen,” Nate interrupted, “we’ve got a locker combination, we have a teacher’s name, and we have a crush. So Duberman has made his old high school, his roman room.”

After a moment, Parker confidently said, “Of course.”

“Of course?” Nate asked her, “what’s a roman room?”

She crumbled and admitted she didn’t know.

“It’s a memory technique,” he explained. “Each of his passwords corresponds with an object in a space he is intimately familiar with. In his case: the hallway of his old high school where he kept his locker. Now if I were to make this bar my roman room, everything I need to remember is in this room. For instance:” Nate stood and clasped me on the shoulder, “my, uh, email password would be Birdy here.” He then approached the bar and picked up a bottle of liquor, “and my bank password would be Balmore,” he said with a shrug. He then poured himself a drink from the very same bottle.

“Hey,” Parker leaned across the table to Hardison, “Nate just gave us his passwords, huh?”

“No,” Hardison said, “but I already got all his passwords. Want to see his Netflix queue?” He continued with Parker’s nod, “He’s got, like, every season of ‘Rockford Files,’ every season of ‘Sex in the City,’ that show ‘Psych.’”

“Oh, that’s a good one,” I said.

“Hey,” Nate came back and leaned over Hardison’s shoulder, “Listen, if we can’t get into the main server without Duberman’s master password, you can’t hack into that, right?”

“No, the password's up in the guy’s head. Can’t hack a guy’s head.”

“So the only option is to break inside his roman room.”

“You wanna break into his high school?” Parker asked. “Pft, I could do that blindfolded. Yeah, let’s do it blindfolded.”

“No, no, no, what we’re gonna do, is we’re gonna break into that high school, twenty five years ago.”

“Hmm, what do ya know,” Hardison said, looking at his phone, “Class of ‘85 has a reunion coming up. In eight months.”

We shared a passing look between each other with a smile. I think we could make that work.

Sophie made some calls as different reunion committee members and was able to get the reunion moved up to this month. She then called Duberman to personally invite him to the party, naming some classmates that should incentivise him to come. And lo and behold, he said he ‘wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

Hardison went in and edited a picture of Sophie and put it in the yearbook under the name of Grace Pelts. Nate was going to pose as a student named Drake McIntyre and play the rival, or villain in Duberman’s story. When he came out in his chosen outfit, he for sure looked like the peaked in high school jerk that he was going for.

Parker posed as one of the caterers and placed cameras around the school so Hardison could keep an eye on everything and help Nate and Sophie out when needed.

“Oof, so many awkward people in so many ugly outfits,” Parker said as she took a look at the bulletin board with the ‘nostalgic’ photos.

“You’re lucky you never went to high school,” Hardison said. “Nothin’ but heartbreak and homework.”

I sighed with a nod of my head, though he couldn’t see me, it was true.

“Didn’t you go to your Prom?” she asked.

“Uh… I was kinda busy,” he replied in a way that told me he was doing something that he wasn’t supposed to. Probably highly impressive and highly illegal.

“So you guys get to go to the reunion, and I’m stuck on goon patrol?” Eliot griped beside me as he pulled on his gloves.

“What am I? Chopped liver?” I asked, unamused.

“No, you’re at least a nice Pâté,” he replied with a slight apologetic look.

I squinted at him, not understanding what he was implying, “I’m gonna try and take that as a compliment, but you’re on thin ice right now.”

“Eliot, listen, once we get the password, you and y/n have to enter it on Duberman’s computer and destroy Manticore,” Nate explained. “Hardison is a little occupied.”

“Besides, I’m sure you already had your high school fun,” Hardison goaded. “Big man on campus. What? Quarterback?”

I watched as a slight smirk of reminiscence appeared on his face and he pulled his hood up, “I had many interests.”

He then waited until a lone employee walked out of the Dubertech building and knocked him out with one punch. I quickly rummaged through his pockets until I found his key card. Eliot then dragged him off to the side in the bushes where we were standing and I tossed his briefcase into the bushes after him. The two of us then entered the building and made our way to the so-called server.

Meanwhile, Sophie was making first contact with Duberman, stroking his ego a bit to get him loosened up. She also helped make the introduction to Duberman of Nate being Drake McIntire.

Apparently Drake was pretty popular in high school as it sounded like he was swarmed by people greeting him. Nate made sure to point out Duberman from across the room and address him as “doucherman!”

That seemed to sell it for Duberman.

“How’d you know that was his nickname?” Sophie whispered when she was able to take a step away from Duberman.

“With a name like Duberman, it’s not exactly rocket science,” Nate replied as he greeted more people, asking Hardison to help him keep his cover.

“Doucherman’s pretty good,” I commented. “If you wanted to just mispronounce his name you could go with Doberman but that might be too cool for him. I probably would have gone for gooberman or nooberman.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Say, y/n, who were you in high school?” Hardison asked over comms.

I scoffed, “Please, I didn’t conform to high school stereotypes.”

“Emo,” a couple voices said, including Eliot who was walking alongside me.

I looked at him and sputtered a bit, trying to deny it.

“Don’t even try it, y/n,” Hardison teased, “I can always look up your yearbook pictures.”

“Don’t you dare,” I said in the most threatening voice I could muster.

“Mmhmm,” Hardison replied in a tone that told me he wasn’t convinced but then continued to help Nate by feeding him facts about his supposed classmates.

Sophie was able to pull Duberman into the hallway and started reminiscing, trying to get any passwords she could out of him.

“This hall is burned in my mind,” Doberman said as they walked.

“Say, wasn’t that Mrs. Zavransy’s room?” Sophie asked.

“Had her for homeroom. Yeah, Pat Brander once gave me a wedgie in front of the whole class,” He replied.

“Pat Brander,” Sophie emphasized as if she was remembering too.

“Check out Brander,” Eliot told me as I sat at the computer.

I typed in the last name which didn’t work and then first, and then first and last, but none worked, “Name isn’t working.”

“Try Brander303, that was the room number,” Hardison said.

I typed it in, “Uh, looks like we got payroll.”

“Alright guys, patience,” Nate told us. “If we get him riled up, he’ll lead us to the password we want.”

Nate entered the hallway in a drunken manner and started teasing Duberman in a way that was very reminiscent of teenagers.

“We’re not eighteen anymore!” Duberman whined, trying to get him to stop.

“I’m just reliving the good old times, ya know,” Nate replied.

“Good times? You think they were good times for me? Like when you told Amy Tuttleton, the prettiest girl in school, that I had both male and female genitalia?”

Nate laughed, “I forgot about that! Yeah, that was classic.”

I typed in every variation I could think of for a password with Amy Tuttleton, with no hits.

“Hermaphrodite?” Eliot asked over my shoulder.

“I’m not trying that,” I said.

After a few more passing comments between Nate, Sophie, and Duberman, Duberman finally said, “You just don’t get it, do you? I won.”

“Oh come on now, you’re not still steamed about things that happened twenty-five years ago. Come on! Listen, it wasn’t all bad, does your brain only remember the painful bits?”

“Just the important stuff,” he tried to defend. “Like what happened in the library.”

“Oh yeah, go on,” Sophie encouraged.

“No, you remember, yeah, I was sitting there–”

He was cut off by a newcomer entering the hallway and their little group. It sounded like a flirty woman, who Nate, trying to stay in character, drew her attention to himself. Nate said her name was Nikki and she implied she was a cheerleader. Hardison got to work trying to give Nate information about her, but there were multiple cheerleaders who could have had the nickname Nikki. She then dragged Nate away from Duberman and Sophie to make out.

“Nate, I hope you know, this is so gross,” I said, trying to block it out. “Hardison, can you mute him for me for a second so I can listen to Sophie?”

He did as I asked and tuned me to Sophie and Duberman’s conversation.

I kept trying passwords that Sophie was giving me, and while a few of them opened different capabilities, none were the master password we were looking for. Eliot paced around the room looking at memorabilia and giving me updates on the others.

“Ha, Nikki locked Nate in a closet after he turned her down.”

I laughed as I tried another password, “serves him right, he probably broke that poor girl’s heart. And he broke my eardrums.”

“Yeah, Parker said the same thing along with high school being dramatic. She’s gonna go break him out.”

I scoffed, “she can say that again. High school was so over dramatic.”

“Says the emo.”

I glared at him and he changed the subject, looking back at the glass case in front of him, “They give out trophies for chess?”

“Chess is at least a strategy game. It’s better than a spelling bee trophy,” I countered.

He didn’t have the chance to reply as grinding noises and sparks started to shoot through the door.

“It’s the Veserate, they’re comin’ in!” Eliot told me and the rest of the crew.

Hardison unmuted Nate for me as he asked what the Iranians were doing here.

“How are we supposed to know?” I told him.

As I typed in another password, Nikki crashed Duberman’s and Sophie’s conversation again. She said she just wanted Drake out of the way so she could have Duberman all to herself, she spilled her drink on Sophie in the process, insisting she clean up. Well, there goes our audience with him and our opportunity to get the password. At least for now.

“What happened? He get away?” Nate asked Sophie when they met up.

“She took him!” Sophie lamented, “That, that… That bloody little slut!”

I’ll admit, that was not what I expected to come out of her mouth.

“Calm down,” Nate mediated.

“Just because I’m not some cheerleader or something!”

Oh, there was some bad blood here. Some history for Sophie.

“Alright, let’s forget about it for now. Eliot and y/n have company and we’re no closer to getting the password, so I think we need to escalate.”

“You think he’s ready?” Sophie asked.

“Uh, guys,” Hardison interjected, “I’ve accounted for all the Nikkis in the class of ‘85, your Nikki’s not even in the yearbook.”

“Wait, so she’s a fraud, like us?” Parker asked.

“What, is she just some random hussy who’s out for his cash?” Sophie proposed.

“Not exactly,” Hardison answered. “She’s a hired gun.”

I shifted my focus from the melting door to Eliot, “Well, this just got more complicated.”

“An assassin?” Sophie asked. “Nikki’s an assassin?”

“Yeah, I guess we weren’t the only ones with the bright idea to pose as alumni,” Hardison said. “This chick’s connected to wetwork jobs all up and down the east coast. Russian mob, Italian mob, there’s a New Zealand mob?”

“This is our fault,” Nate said.

“I didn’t do anything,” Parker denied.

“We lured him to an unsecured environment,” Sophie said. “We exposed him.”

“Now we have to save him,” Nate said. “We can’t destroy Manticore with him dead. Split up and find him. Eliot what’s happening on your end?”

“T minus five seconds,” he replied. “This reunion sucks!”

“I agree!” I said, surveying the room, trying to find something I could defend myself with. I finally settled on using a chair if I had to.

We watched as a hole was finally punched through the door and a head appeared to assess the room. When he saw Eliot, he said, puzzled, “The health inspector?”

Eliot shrugged, “I’m gonna have to dock ya again.”

Two of them quickly entered the room, the first raising a gun to Eliot. He knocked it away and was able to knock one down at a time to fight off the other. The first was able to drive Eliot into one of the trophy cases, breaking the glass everywhere. I stepped up and stomped on the back of his knee, making him collapse. I then stepped back out of the way to play support, protect the computer, and input the password if necessary.

“Duberman must have pissed off the Iranians,” Hardison said, “They hire an assassin to take him out while they raid his office? Eliot, you’ve got to keep them away from that computer.”

“He’s working on it!” I yelled at him at the same time Eliot said, “What do you think I’m doing?”

Eliot grabbed the chess trophy and was able to knock out the second Iranian, and for a moment, they were both down, and it was quiet.

“Check mate,” Eliot said, but the first Iranian would just not stay down and stood up again, ready for another round. “Or not.”

Over comms, it sounded like Sophie was able to find Duberman and Nikki and fight her off.

“I always hated cheerleaders,” Sophie said. “It was always mean girls like you who ruined high school for the rest of us!” It sounded like they kept fighting for a bit before Sophie was able to get away.

Eliot kept playing whack-a-mole with the Iranians, as soon as one went down, the other popped back up. I tried to help where I could, taking any cheap shots that were available while Eliot kept them occupied. Luckily, anytime they turned to engage me, Eliot was freed up to take them down, or at least divert their attention to himself.

I heard Duberman’s voice come through the comms again along with Nate, so he must have found him again. I was too preoccupied with the Iranians in front of me to pay attention to what was going on with them, but nothing seemed to be going horribly wrong yet. At least, not more than it already was.

What I did hear was Nate saying, “And, it’s done.”

That was a signal that Duberman changed the password. Eliot was still engaged with the Iranians, so I took a risk to turn my back on them and type in the new password, testing if Sophie’s neuro-linguistic programming worked to put ‘Badger85’ in his head.

“I’m in, Hardison,” I said, hearing Eliot finally knock both of them out enough to stay down.

“Great, now deauthorize and delete all directories, like we talked about,” he replied.

I typed in the commands and watched as the program fizzled out. “It’s done.”

“Manticore’s dead,” Eliot added with a note of finality.

Hardison was able to send some files to the FBI with an anonymous tip that should land Duberman in detention for a long while.

“Well, I think it’s time we graduate,” Sophie said once the figurative dust settled for a moment.

Nate agreed, but they were stopped by a loud announcement that even Eliot and I could hear through the comms.

“Your votes are in for the king and queen of the reunion, and the lucky winner is: Grace Pelts and Drake McIntyre!”

I laughed. I could just imagine the shock on their faces.

“Uh, very funny Hardison. Y/n?” Nate said.

“Oh, you think I did this?” Hardison asked. “Nah, I don’t rig elections. I mean, I could, but…”

“How could I have pulled that off? I’ve been across town this whole time,” I pointed out.

“Parker, was this you?” Sophie asked.

“I didn’t even know they had kings and queens in high school,” she replied.

“Yeah, um. I guess it was a good con,” Nate said. “Hardison, why don’t you set off the fire alarm right about now?”

“You two enjoy this, you earned it,” Hardison replied.

Music started and Hardison asked Parker for a dance.

“Everybody having a good time at the dance, anybody wondering if we’re okay? If we made it out alive?” Eliot grumpily asked the team.

“Do you want to dance? We can still hear the music,” I said, a blush coating my face at the question even though I asked it kind of sarcastically.

Eliot paused, like the thought hadn’t occurred to him. “Well, uh–”

“My vote is we get some good food,” I amended before he could say no.

“Oh, yeah. That, uh, that sounds great right now,” Eliot answered. “Much better than a dumb high school dance.”

I let out a huff of a laugh and pulled out my earbud, “uh huh.”

The employee that we stole the key card from stood up from the bushes and Eliot quickly knocked him out again with a punch.

“Was that necessary?” I asked him.

“Probably not, but it made me feel better,” he answered while he dug his own earbud out.

I nodded and jokingly linked my arm with his as we walked silently towards his truck for a few paces.

“What should we eat?” he asked me.

“I don’t know.” I thought about it for a moment and remembered what he said earlier in the night, “What’s Pâté? Is that good? Should I try that?”

“Maybe not tonight, let’s take a drive and see what we can find.”

“Sounds good to me.”

A/n: Reblogs and comments are welcome and encouraged! Thank you for reading!

Tags: @instantdinosaurtidalwave @kniselle @technikerin23 @kiwikitty13 @plasticbottleholder @wh1sp @who-actually-cares-anymore

#eliot spencer x reader #eliot spencer #leverage #rewrite #slow burn #multichapter #nate ford #sophie devereaux #alec hardison #parker #ford!reader

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trekscribbles · 4 months ago

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The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Ten

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine

(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3. I'm just overly excited and want to share what I have.)

Nate looked the part when he walked into Lancaster’s downtown office. He’d changed into a black western shirt with a matching hat, courtesy of Sophie’s lifting of one of Lancaster’s company credit cards, and his new boots gave him an extra couple inches to play with as an intimidation factor. He wanted every piece of ammunition he could use for this job.

After all, it would probably be his last.

He gave his name to the receptionist and waited while she called up to Lancaster’s office, then tipped his hat to her when she directed him to the top floor. The elevator blared a terrible blend of bluegrass and pop, and Nate tried not to picture the disgusted expression it would have elicited on Eliot’s face. It was almost over. He could hold on for this last little bit, just long enough for the others to do their jobs. He could give them that much.

The doors slid open, and Nate strode down the hall and into Lancaster’s office without knocking.

“Mr. Riley,” Lancaster said, rising from his desk and offering his hand to Nate. “My girls downstairs say you have a proposition for me.”

Nate shook his hand and sat at the offered chair across from Lancaster. “Mr. Lancaster. I hear you’re in the business of historical acquisitions.”

“I’ve been known to take an interest in various historical items,” Lancaster said, smiling. “What have you got in mind?”

Nate grinned back. “How does the lost cache of the Jesse James gang sound?”

Lancaster went still. His smile was frozen on his face, but his eyes flashed with anger. “If you can find it. Nobody in the last 200 years has managed it.”

“Well, that’s because they’ve been looking in the wrong place.” Nate took off his hat, setting it top-down on Lancaster’s desk, taking up more space than he’d been allotted.

The smile disappeared. “And you think you know where to look?”

“I did,” Nate said, leaning back in his chair. “That’s how I found it.”

Lancaster’s eyes narrowed. He studied Nate for a moment, frowning, and then shook his head. “You didn’t find it.”

Nate paused, letting the silence stretch a beat longer than necessary. “I’m not sure you want to be calling a potential new business partner a liar,” he said softly. “Not given your own background. What’s that saying about casting stones in glass houses?”

“You’re calling me a liar?” Lancaster growled.

“Well,” Nate said. “For one, you’re making a reputation on this whole country boy thing, but your accent’s a little forced. Too much of an emphasis on the drawl, not enough on the consonants.” Sophie had pointed that one out—something about T-glottalization—Nate decided not to get into the specifics. “Based on your slip-ups, I’d say east coast. Back in the old days, I think they’d call you a tenderfoot.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Lancaster said, glowering.

“Oh, I do.” Nate’s voice was soft, barely audible. “It’s a very distinctive accent.”

Lancaster opened his mouth, but the phone on his desk gave a shrill ring, and he cut himself off. With one final glare at Nate, he ground out, “Excuse me,” and answered without speaking. His expression brightened as he listened, and a premonition of unease worked its way down Nate’s spine.

“Well,” Lancaster said, hanging up with a smile. “I suppose the ruse is up. You play a good hand, Mr. Ford, but the deck was stacked against you.”

Nate’s stomach dropped. He didn’t try to deny it—there was no point—but he couldn’t help the quick glance over his shoulder. Hardison would be in the server room by now, and Parker—

“That was my head of security,” Lancaster said. “My plan, at least, has gone exactly the way it was supposed to. The server room has locked behind your hacker, my man Janish is with your grifter—clever to set her up as a receptionist, by the way, I never even noticed—and my security team is tracking down your thief. That just leaves you, Mr. Ford.” He took in Nate’s clenched jaw and laughed. “Don’t feel bad. You couldn’t have known what you were walking into. If I do say so myself, I set a mighty fine trap.”

“To what end?” Nate asked.

“Ending you,” Lancaster said. “My sources seem to think you’re dangerous, but I have to admit I’m disappointed. You really didn’t put up much of a fight. I suppose without your guard dog—”

Nate was lunging across the desk before he could tell himself not to fall for the taunt. He didn’t care. He would take the fall if he had to, but not like this, not without beating the smirk off Lancaster’s face. He wanted to see the man bleed, see him cry and cower and beg for mercy, he wanted him to—

A hand caught his. One minute there was nothing but Lancaster’s satisfied grin, and then another man stood in the way, his fingers closing over Nate’s fist, his eyes guarded. Nate stopped short, the desk between him and Lancaster, a spike of horrible, agonized hope rooting him to the spot.

“I told you to stay out of sight,” Lancaster snapped.

Eliot kept his gaze on Nate. “You’d rather I let him beat you up?” he murmured, tightening his grip on Nate’s knuckles.

Nate opened his mouth, but couldn’t form the words tumbling uselessly in his brain.

“Get back where you belong,” Lancaster said. “I can take care of him.”

Eliot stayed where he was, watching Nate with a blank expression. “You’re Nathan Ford?”

“You’re alive?” Nate whispered.

Eliot let go of his hand. “No thanks to you.”

Nate flinched; Eliot had always known how to land a good hit.

Except… if there was anything Eliot was better at than landing punches, it was pulling them. Better than any of them, Eliot knew what guilt did to a person, and he wouldn’t use it as a weapon—not against Nate. There was more going on here.

But it was hard to figure out what that might be when the only thing Nate could think was you’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive.

“Now isn’t the time,” Lancaster said. “Get back downstairs. I’ll call you when—”

“Eliot.” Nate’s voice broke over the name, so he cleared his throat and said it again. “Eliot… What happened?”

Lancaster placed his hands on the desk. “He turned on you. He works for me now, and nothing you—”

“Shut up,” Nate said. He looked at Eliot’s bruised face, at the apprehension in his eyes, and tried to read a message in them. He had to be playing some kind of angle, and if Nate could figure it out, he could play along. But he couldn’t think—it was too much, too much, and he couldn’t think.

“Is that my name?” Eliot asked. “I thought it was Spencer.”

Oh, God. Another rush of grief washed over him, draining him of everything except cold realization. “You don’t remember?”

“Head wound,” Eliot said, shrugging. “The memory loss is temporary. Probably. Jury’s still out on whether I want it back or not. But I’ve heard Lancaster’s version of things, and now I’d like to know yours. I’ll make my mind up from there.”

Lancaster reached for his phone. “Enough. If you’re not going to listen—”

Without breaking eye contact with Nate, Eliot reached out his right hand—bruised and bandaged—and yanked the phone from its cord. He tossed it across the room and spoke as if there had been no interruption. “How do you know me?”

Nate held his gaze. “I’m your friend.”

“And the others?” Eliot asked. “The hacker? The grifter? The thief? They’re my friends too?”

“Yes,” he said, scrambling for a better explanation. Our friend, our teammate, our family.

Eliot scoffed. “Then I am a criminal.”

“Eliot—”

“The blonde woman,” he said. “Who was she?”

Nate frowned. “You mean Parker? Lancaster sent you a message saying he had her, but he didn’t. It was a trap. He lured you into the LanCast building and blew it up. We thought—we thought you were—” He broke off, unable to voice it now, afraid it would somehow undo whatever miracle had brought Eliot back.

Eliot sucked in a breath. “She’s not dead?”

“He’s lying,” Lancaster said. “He’s trying to confuse you.”

“Why?” Eliot asked.

“He tried to kill you before you could come after him,” Lancaster pressed. “He knows what you’ll do to him if you figure that out.”

“That’s not true.” Nate kept his eyes on Eliot’s, his voice firm. “You may not remember me, but I know you. I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be.” A hint of desperation worked its way into Eliot’s voice, contrasting with the emotionless mask he was still fighting to keep over his face. “You don’t know what I’m capable of. The things I know how to do. I don’t remember my friends, but I remember that. What kind of a person does that make me?”

“Don’t let him confuse you,” Lancaster needled. He stood and reached for Eliot’s shoulder, but he flinched away.

Nate stayed where he was. “You’re the only one who can answer that,” he said softly. “Whatever you might have done in the past… that’s not who you are now.”

“I’ve hurt people,” Eliot said, scowling. “Stolen. Killed. You’re really going to stand there and say I’m not evil?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Nate said. “Yeah, you have a past, and if you want to know what it was, I’ll tell you. But it doesn’t matter. Lancaster wants to convince you that you’re a bad guy so he can use you, but you’re the one in control here. You decide who you want to be. But I’ll tell you, Eliot—” Nate took a breath, clutching at the remains of his composure. “Whatever you’ve done, bad guy or not, you’re a good man. One of the best I’ve ever known.”

Hurt and hope flared up in Eliot’s eyes—that old, familiar battle between who he’d been and who he wanted to be. Lancaster had tried to capitalize on that struggle, after everything, after everything he’d put them through.

They had to go. Now, before Nate did something Eliot would regret.

“Come on, Eliot,” Nate said, his voice rough. “Let’s go home.”

Eliot hesitated, frowned, and then turned to Lancaster and gestured to the chair. “Take off your belt.”

“My—what?” Lancaster sputtered. “Spencer, listen to me. He’s lying, and I can prove it.”

“I got all the proof I need.” Eliot folded his arms and dipped his head toward Nate’s hat, still resting on the desk beside the broken phone. “He knows to put that crown-down.”

Lancaster blinked at him. “What?”

“Maybe I was working for you,” Eliot went on. “But I don’t have to stay with you. Now take off your belt before I decide to break your wrists instead of binding them.”

Shaking in either fear or anger—Nate couldn’t be sure which—Lancaster undid his belt and dropped it onto the desk. Eliot nudged him onto his chair, pulled his hands behind his back, and secured them with the belt, and then loosened the tie at Lancaster’s neck and gagged him with it. When he was satisfied with that, he pulled the chair against the wall and tied Lancaster’s ankles with the phone cord.

Then he straightened and gestured toward the door. “Follow me. I’ll take you to the others.”

“The others?” Nate echoed.

“Yeah. The rest of your team.”

Nate trailed him out of the office, pausing only to close the door behind them. “You know where they are?”

“I…” Eliot turned away, avoiding eye contact. “I thought you’d killed her—Parker—and I needed to find you, so I made a plan for Lancaster. He described the people you were working with, their reputations, their strengths, enough for me to set a trap. I had him put out a press release to say he’d found something valuable, and that he was holding it here in his office. I figured you’d break in to get it, and I could make my move then. Lancaster sent Janish after the grifter—”

“Sophie.”

“Sophie,” Eliot echoed. “I didn’t know who she was, but I went back over the surveillance footage from the last few days and noticed her lifting a credit card, so I figured she was involved.”

“I’ve never been so glad to have you on our side,” Nate said, surprising himself with a chuckle.

“You’re not mad?”

Nate looked at him. Tiny cuts along the right side of his face were just starting to heal, and his hair covered some of the bruising on his cheek and ear—superficial injuries hiding something so much worse. As bad as it had been for Nate and the rest of the team, at least they’d had each other. What must it have been like to wake up with no memory, wounded and alone, and have to grieve someone he couldn’t even remember?

“No, Eliot, I’m not mad.” Nate’s voice was soft, if a little uneven. “But… When Lancaster told you I was the one who set off the explosion, you didn’t believe him. Or at least, you were willing to give me a chance to explain my side of things. Why?”

Eliot kept his eyes on the ground as they jogged down the hall. “I, um... I had a dream. About you. You and—and Parker, and another woman, and a man. I can’t remember their faces, but when I saw you in Lancaster’s office, it felt...” He shrugged, faint color flushing across his face. “I dunno. Familiar.”

Nate had never seen Eliot blush before. He’d never been this vulnerable before—forced to trust someone he didn’t know, forced to admit a weakness. But he’d chosen to anyway. Part of had him remembered, had reached out and found them against all odds. When Nate had been ready to give up, Eliot had kept fighting.

Of course he had. Memories or no, this was Eliot.

God… he had to tell the others.

He reached for his phone, but Eliot put out his hand to stop him from dialing. “That won’t work—I had Lancaster set up a dampener so you wouldn’t be able to communicate with your crew. Landlines only.”

Nate couldn’t help the grin that broke across his face. He threw his arm around Eliot’s shoulders as they reached the elevator, his chest constricting at Eliot’s uncertain expression even as he leaned into Nate’s touch.

“It’s good to have you back, Eliot,” Nate said.

Slowly, Eliot smiled.

#leverage #eliot spencer #nathan ford #fanfiction #leverage fanfic #my fic #the bushwhack job #it's allllllll coming together

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independent-fics · 4 months ago

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Inde watches “The Tower Job”

Leverage Redemption 1x04

The description warns about recent events affecting the viewers and if I remember correctly when redemption first aired it was right around the Miami(?) apartment collapse. Dang.

Listen let Harry take initiative on this one okay.

“So she thinks she has taste” I love you Breanna

I love Parker dropping in more

And Breanna just being like I can just have the plans? She wants to steal so bad

Ahhhhh I love Eliot and Parker standing so close. And the klingon I can’t those nerds and the smile Parker has hehehe now Eliot’s grumpy again and she loves it

10 million hurts my brain too Breanna

Eliot’s head shake at her French hahaha I love them

Why is the wife and driver giving affair

“Because my American accent is better than yours” honestly I wanna explore Parker’s language mannerisms (? Idk if that’s the word I’m looking for)

Harry I love your enthusiasm. There isn’t rules just guidelines haha

Also Sophie’s fit is so nice

Parker I too am uncomfortable in business clothes

Idk which pair is having more fun Harry and Sophie being annoying or Eliot and Breanna destroying things

Off brand European tranquilizers goodness gracious

Nooooo Harry not you being in on the first lawsuit

“Your screwups make me look good” once again Breanna I love you

“The man’s trying to make amends I respect that” ugh Eliot my heart

Parker once again on the ceiling I love you. Reminded of Hardison always finding her places with rafters

Oooo Eliot love you suggesting the play of the con

Love Breanna and Harry being newbies supporting each other

The way I screamed with Breanna’s character

I love them all supporting Breanna’s art and then just Eliot’s “WHERE.” I LOVE THEM

Mrs Crawlys “I did a year at college of art” is like my “I did a study abroad” 😭 I’m sorry but I get her

Love Harry and contract law hehehe

“We never say no to parties” I love her and how foreboding that sounded and now I’m thinking about every other party the original leverage team invaded hehehe

Oh goodness not Parker knocking Breanna out hahaha but love Eliot helping her up. I’m only four episodes in but I’m desperate for new team old team bonding

Harry and Parker begging for the safe I love them

Eliot absolutely hating the kissing up he just had to do hahah I love him

THERE IS AN AFFAIR

Not Eliot’s lack of tipping annoyance reminded hahaha

Okay I am loving learning more about Harry and the changes he’s making. I get the doing your job and doing it well because who doesn’t want to do that but then realizing it’s not something that you want to be doing.

“We’re not heroes. We’re just necessary”

“ Sophie Parker Hardison and Nathan ford showed me there was another way” ugh Eliot my beloved but HA PARKER IN THE BOX

Wait I love Parker’s fit

Lil Bucky hehehe

“Wow Harry was a good bad guy” yeah Breanna he was I might be taking notes because I gotta retire one day

“I’ll go find some chopsticks” girl

I am also taking notes from Breanna dang

HARRY KEEP IT TOGETHER

“And you’re not graded on a curve Mrs Casey” dang

Oh gosh nvm as someone who also sometimes experiences vertigo get that remote away from me

I love Sophie narrating this whole thing as a show

Breanna putting on the headphones with that evil smile I love haha

BREANNA YES I TOO AM A CHEERLEADER WHEN ELIOT FIGHTS I love her enthusiasm so much and narrating. Eliot don’t deny it you’re flipping the sticks to show off

As much as I love leverage they do have a couple of iffy episodes where they really cause some trauma like wow I’m rooting for Harry rn

That chute thing would terrify me but I love that Parker is loving it

Love them buying the tower

Gosh the change in Harry from being in the first lawsuit to protecting the victims in the next

“It’s not every day someone gets a little piece of their soul back” ugh this was good

#this was a long reaction #but I think it’s because I did like this episode #it had a little bit of the og show feel #but with more explorations and explanation as Harry and Breanna got into being on a team more #I can’t believe how long it’s taken me to sit back down and continue this #a lot of life things going on but glad I can come back to leverage #leverage redemption #the tower job #inde watches #inde watches leverage redemption

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geeky-nightphilosopher · 1 year ago

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Okay, okay. You all are probably ANNOYED about my Leverage posts- and I was on the fence about posting this one because I'm only on season 3. However, I just have SO many thoughts and I need to process them. So- here it goes;

*takes a deep breath*

Leverage is home. Like, I don't- I don't know to explain it. In another post I said the show was intoxicating and that's still true. But it's also- it's also home. Maybe I'm the only one, but when I watch it- I feel like I belong. Which is ridiculous. I'm not talented at all- but Leverage is almost like a security blanket. It's- it's safe and warm... it's home.

The only thing I can think of why it's home is because of them. Because they make it feel like home. They make feel safe and like your being cared for. Like your not alone. Even if you don't think your good at something- Leverage has your back. It gives you a sense of security. Which is weird because their criminals. But- like they said; Sometimes the bad guys are the only good guys you get.

I mean- you have Nate Ford who is always two to three spaces in front of the bad guy. Who sits there and listens to victims and gives them hope. Who talks to his team and bounces ideas off of them- instead of talking down to them. He's the kinda guy that watches from the background and sees all sorts of angles. Gets into the minds of both the victim and assailant. And if the con goes wrong- he has a second one ready to cover. Whose weakness is an empty bottle in an occupied barstool.

You have Sophie. A terrible actress whose good at acting. She can play any part. Be unseen- while being seen. Whose brave, kind, and gentle- but can kick butt when needed. She's not a damsel in distress- but she'll play the part. And the thing about that part is; it's so convincing- even she believes it too. Despite that- she's honest and sincere, she'll tell you what she thinks. Her heart is gold. Her trust is thin. She's like a snake- hypnotizing. Her weakness is the love she gave to a man who thinks too much and feels too little.

You have Eliot. A man that- if you just look at him- you'll just shrug him off. He's like any other brute. Big and brawny. And that's why you shouldn't ever judge a book by it's cover. He's so much more than that. Yes. He's brawn. A real southern charmer. But he has a brain and a heart. He's that big brother and gives you hugs and you can't help but melt into the security of that feeling. That feeling of safety that you just know has an ocean of anger underneath. But your not scared, you can't be scared. Not of him. He's the kinda guy you run towards- because you know he'll keep you safe. And yeah- maybe he'll use his brawn to keep you safe, but he'll also use his brain and his heart. He'll get you out of the situation in one piece with a grumble and a growl. His weakness is his kindness and that's why doesn't let it show.

You have Alec. The brainiac. The hacker- who isn't all that much to look at (compared to Eliot,) at least not at first glance. Yet, there's something about him that screams safe. Just as much as Eliot. He's outgoing and kind. Smart and funny. And the way that he's got everyone's back- even when it doesn't seem like it. He's your go to- to find any kind of internet mistakes and he's a good shoulder to cry on. He's that brother who is dorky, awkward, and nerdy- but he's honest and sincere. His weakness is not being able to be there when it really matters.

And- and you have Parker. The thief. The master thief- that didn't belong anywhere. Nimble and lean as she flips and slinks through vents. She's the little sister the family didn't know they even wanted. Until finally they realized she was what they needed. She's bright and cheerful despite how she grew up. Her life wasn't easy foster care and street living is a rough life- but she still believes in good things; Santa clause, Nate, Sophie, and Eliot. Most importantly she believed in Hardison. She was on her own until she was found and working with a team. Then she belonged to them. Everything she had done- was so that they knew she loved them. Her weakness is having the ability to not get caught.

To end this; Leverage is an amazing shoe- because it reminds us that no matter our background. No matter how many times we've messed up and haven't belonged- we are all human. It tells us that we will find our home, our tribe, our safety. That no matter our weakness- we'll always have somebody who can take our weakness and become our strength.

I'm only on season 3. I'll more than likely have more thoughts come by season 4/ season 5. (If you agree or disagree- don't hesitate to message me!

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apocalypse-shuffle · 1 year ago

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ALEC HARDISON (leverage)

—

“Break” (Alec Hardison x Fem!Reader)

| You visit Alec to let off some stress and to get out of your own head.

| NSFW, 18+, minors dni, cockwarming, oral (male receiving), spacing out, sub space?

| Since Leverage: Redemption season two just came out and I watched Black Adam yesterday I’m gonna finally post this. Or not! It’s been, like, almost a full year since I wrote this.

| 1k+ words

Beg. NOTES: Listen, I don’t know how much of an audience reader insert fics with Hardison have (very little from what I’ve seen), and I don’t want to intrude by posting this, but hey! Without risks you’re not truly living, right? ALSO, I love Alec and Parker together and I love the OT3, okay? Don’t come for me.

You close your laptop only a little harshly, finally done with your work for the day. Now you could read or do something else to decompress and rest your eyes from the strain of your computer screen, but something is pushing you towards your boyfriend in specific.

You know he’s doing a virtual campaign right now so you haven’t seen him in a few hours, but he’s never rejected your presence as long as you weren’t disruptive, so? You shrug and walk off towards his room. No harm in testing it out. You feel the tiniest bit depraved of your Alec and you wanted to give your mind a break anyways.

He turns to you languidly, no startling and no obvious irritation on his face. You nod to yourself and softly click the door closed.

“Hey,” his voice is soft and he gives his usual bright utterly smitten smile that makes you want to die (in a good way). “Class go well?”

You smile just as sappily back at him and revel in the way it makes him soften even more.

“It was alright,” you incline your head as he chuckles. “I could use some of your company though. You know, if it’s not too much to ask?”

His eyes widen briefly before he starts hurriedly moving things around.

“Yea- yeah, girl. Come right ahead, you know I always got time for you,” he takes a second to unmute to declare he’s present since he was apparently on hold because of complications on somebody’s end. He beckons you over right afterwards. “You have something to do?”

You shrug, dropping down on all fours.

“I have four hours to waste, which means I have four hours to relax. If you wanna fuck around some?”

“Oh,” he breathes. He knows exactly how you like to fuck around when you’re stressed.

Alec looks at you wide eyed for the entire time it takes you to cross the room to his desk. Snapping out of it only when you’re kneeling in front of him and running your hands up his thighs.

He makes a choked noise, hand snapping up to cover his mike and pull it away from his mouth even with it being off.

“Jesus, baby, are you sure?”

His voice is rushed but he’s looking at you with obvious interest. You smile up at him before leaning in and ghosting the tip of your nose over where you know his cock is hiding in his basketball shorts.

You make eye contact, “Please?”

Alec’s leg jumps.

That, the soft needy question you pose, is all he needs because in a second he’s reaching his hand back for one of his pillows and dropping it down for you to kneel on. You do so with a small chuckle and a “thank you.”

He’s trembling and giving you the most eager looks in between participating, voice mainly only keeping steady because you’re not trying to distract him. You just want him in your mouth, no mischief needed. Though he is fidgety partially because he knows if the inclination struck you you could easily embarrass the hell out of him.

You laugh and move to pull his pants down his thighs with his assistance. Once he’s free to your satisfaction you brush the lightest kiss to his happy trail. He sighs, meeting your gaze intermittently as he plays through his turn. In response you trail featherlight kisses down to his dick, which is steadily hardening for your consideration, kiss at his base and then travel down to lick over his balls.

His voice stutters harshly over his next sentence and you smile before pulling away. He gives you this panicked desperate look, making as if he’s about to start complaining you, but you wave him off.

“Easy baby,” you mouth right before making him gasp by kissing his tip and then wrapping your lips around his head.

You keep your pace easygoing as Alec stutters and stops over his words; as he trembles against you, dick twitching while you slowly engulf him.

You wring your first moan out of him when you’ve gotten him all the way down your throat, mind steadily blanking on anything other than the weight of him on your tongue and the slight twinge in your jaw, when the back of your throat swallows over his head.

His head drops down and his hand clumsily snaps out to mute his microphone.

“S-shit girl, oh my god. It’s like you’re trying to kill me -goddamn.” he groans at the hum you give him.

You barely fucking hear him, have no clue when he moaned that he nearly did it for everyone to hear. You're just losing yourself in the sensations. The way he pulses in your mouth, the occasional twitch as he struggles not to fuck into your throat, how your jaw feels, the stretch of your lips, and then the drool running clear like polished glass down your chin and dripping onto Alec’s balls.

You sigh and go limp against him when his hand moves to your head. He burrows his fingers into your thick curls to get a firm grip but doesn’t do anything else. You swallow around his cock again in thanks, only in tune with the way it makes him shift against you. In the strangled noise he makes. The fact he’s on call isn’t even a factor any more; just his pleasure and how he feels in your mouth.

Your eyes flutter shut happily as he scratches blunt nails against your scalp.

“God baby,” he gasps and you whine just the tiniest bit, pussy twinging between your legs. Your hands don’t move from their position in your lap though.

Alec’s got you. The thought echoes in your mind nicely as you hand over control. You don’t have to worry about anything else but him.

- - -

Alec curses above your head, completely unregistered by you, and then rushes to get himself excused. You’re making him feel so fucking good and for that you deserve all his attention -and boy does he want to give it. Plus, you dropped so fast that he’s a bit worried about you; it typically took way more coaxing from him to get you out of your head.

He’s extra careful with his movements as he logs off and shuts down his setup. His eyes draw fully to you once he’s done and don’t leave. You were too pretty like this, face relaxed like it only ever was in sleep with your lips stretched to accommodate his girth.

He brushes his free hand over your face when he shifts too much for your liking and you let out an utterly disparaging whine.

“Shh, baby, it’s alright. You’re doing so good for me, you know that? I got you I promise,” he grinds forward the smallest bit, moaning when you squeeze down. “So damn good.”

NOTES: Hi, hope you enjoyed! I don’t know shit about dnd so I kept this as vague as possible, and I didn’t use gaming because I know even less about that shit.

I’ll catch any typos later!

I just got back on my Leverage bullshit and so now I feel I must finally blow the thick layer of built up dust off of this draft and post it. Keep in mind though that I have since turned this fic into another - heavily edited - Peter Parker fic with a similar premise because of how scared I was to post a “Hardison x Reader” story, let alone a smutty one. (I know, self plagiarism; the horrors! The whole idea of “self plagiarism” is nonsense anyway, but I digress.)

btw: if you’d like to leave a comment I’d very much appreciate it! this is a sideblog tho so I won’t respond.

#alec hardison #black!reader #black y/n #alec hardison x black!reader #alec hardison x fem!reader #alec hardison imagine #leverage x black!reader #alec hardison x reader #leverage x reader #leverage imagine #x reader smut #leverage #adult shit

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aardvaark · 9 months ago

Note

Ok so I watched leverage (because of you) (also hi I am the anon who sent you all the panic messages about the finale) and now I am rewatching and in no particular order dumping leverage thoughts on you

Oh my god in The Order 23 job I didn't even realize Eliot was pretending to ignore Hardison telling him what star trek movies he would reference, and then showed he was actually listening and paying attention

One of my favorite scenes has to be in The Studio Job when Parker is dancing through stealing everything hunting for tickets Hardison asked for. I just love seeing them be hyper-competent

Canine Eliot comparison's save me

I forgot how much I loved the entire end of s3. And by the end I mean the entire season.

omg?? im so glad my silly leverageposting managed to help get other people interested in this show!! and im glad you enjoyed it, i think its permanently changed my brain chemistry lmao. re each dot point:

i can’t decide if it’s funnier if eliot was lying about not having a tv/not having seen any star trek, or if hardison just talks about it so much that eliot has learnt star trek series titles via osmosis lol. i haven’t seen star trek but im sure someone who has would have good hcs about what might lead eliot to have watched it, and what parts he would like. i think he probably does at least own a tv bc some of his whole I’m A Tough Guy act is definitely put on.

yessss i love that scene!! parker being extremely impressive my beloved <3. any of the team showing off their skills, tbh. on the episode commentary, people often refer to it as "competence porn" lol, just watching the characters being ridiculously awesome at what they do. don’t even need dialogue or cuts to what the others are doing or stuff happening in the background, it’s great just watching parker stealing or eliot fighting someone (especially eliot & quinn) for a while.

also werewolf!eliot hcs and fic by @werewolfsmile is so great with this.

the middle seasons (2, 3, 4) are probs my favourite era… nate’s apartment era. season 1 is its own narrative and i love that, it’s probably my favourite individual season, and season 5 plays around with format & concepts which is cool, plus it’s getting ready for the end. but the *era* of s2-4? the development of the characters between s2-4?? incredible!! on rewatch, s3 is so interesting for eliot even in the early episodes, cause with the context of his past with moreau…. there’s an impending meeting with moreau and it’s inevitable and eliot knows that. and having that context on rewatch really makes you notice his expressions and think about what he’s emotionally/cognitively going through.

thank you very much for the thought dumping, i always love getting to think & talk about this show!!

P.S. i remember i once used that same picture that you’ve got as your pfp for like an email account or something in high school!! labracadabrador, always makes me laugh lol

#leverageposting #leverage #asks #ask #wren speaks #the order 23 job #the studio job

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chaotic-tired-cat · 28 days ago

Note

SASUKE AND BATMAN

Consider: Sasuke gets reincarnated as Bruce Wayne, experiences a second round of traumatic parent deaths, and swears off killing because he knows he'd never stop otherwise. Then, oh nooo, a series of orphans that look just like if he and Naruto had kids? What is supposed to do, walk away?

(It's also got a few background crossovers. If a hacker is named Hardison and a coroner is Danny Nightingale, then that's none of my business.)

Here's a bit, for fun:

“Granville is outside,” Tim murmurs as he passes. "He's going to make contact tonight.”

“Good work, chum.” Bruce hides his scan of the room with a sip of champagne and wanders towards the ballroom’s open air side. Granville’s greying hair isn't easy to pick out, but he's got the thin, wiry look older Gothamites get when their functional muscle gets eaten away by enough rogue chemical attacks. That's not common for gala guests who spend most of their time abroad, in Diamond District high security penthouses, or in Bristol.

Granville finds him by an ugly vase Dick has unfortunately avoided breaking through some cosmic mystery.

“Wayne,” Granville says. When the older Gothamite shakes hands, his badge and gun are visible for a moment. “Got a moment?”

“Always,” Bruce says, and leads him outside to where it's quieter. “What can I do for you? Please tell me it's taxes and I can fork over some of my net worth, because this is getting ridiculous.”

“Hm? Oh, no, The state of new Jersey actually owes you-”

Bruce has to put all his focus into not crushing his glass. Darn. He was so sure this would work.

His guest’s tone shifts. “-but that's not why I'm here.”

“Not the party? You should take a moment to enjoy it, with the stressful job and all.”

“No, but I'm glad you were willing to make the time.” Granville isn't particularly common in Bruce Wayne’s circles, but the head of Gotham’s FBI branch has survived by hanging onto his anonymity wherever it's available. FBI agents in this city are either good at their jobs and dead, or selectively blind. The bad ones are barely agents. A good portion of their force are Probies sent out to get hazed or scared straight, depending on circumstances.

“Always.” Bruce manages a smile. Granville ignores it.

“I'll cut to the chase, Wayne. Gordon and I both know you're funding the Bat. We lost contact almost half a year ago now, and we need leverage to pull him into a meeting.”

Bruce tilts his glass so the bubbles inside drift upward in a shower of pale gold. “I'm not sure what you're trying to say?”

“I don't have a way to threaten the Bat into putting kid-gloves back on, but we both know you do. I'm asking to borrow that.” Granville sets his forearms on the watered railing so he can glare past Bristol’s gardens. City lights glitter far beyond. “Hate that I have to. It's not how we should be doing this, but when has this city ever played easy?”

“You… want me to threaten Batman.” Bruce furrows his eyebrows. “Me? I'm not exactly a blackbelt in anything.”

“It's off the books and puts you at risk, but people are getting hurt in Gotham, Wayne. Gordon thinks that's enough of a reason for you to act. Figured I'd ask.”

And hope for a miracle, Granville doesn't say. It might just be Bruce's imagination putting that line in.

Bruce turns, leaning back against the railing to face the opposite way from Granville as he thinks. Inside the ballroom, high society mingles in orange and yellow warmth, glitz and glamor painting distraction over the networking bloodbath of a reality.

The crowds part long enough to show Tim, wine glass of sparkling juice in hand and attention locked on Bruce. Socialites mill between them, but the kid stands firm.

Challenging.

Is he listening in?

“I fund the Justice League,” Bruce says as he fidgets with his cuffs. No bugs yet. Huh. “Batman- he's a member, right?”

“Yeah. You fund ‘em.” Granville has to know who is currently in the League, but this is a very competent player of a game Bruce can only imagine. Nobody chooses to willingly stay in FBI’s Gotham ranks for long. Their city is the first pick when agents who can't be fired for whatever reason get reassigned.

Tim stands in the orange-gold light of the gala, as dancers whirl past. He raises a glass in silent toast to Bruce.

A challenge and blessing.

“I'll call them,” Bruce decides. It feels like choosing to live.

“Good man.” Granville lets out a measured breath, and turns from the distant city lights to clap Bruce's shoulder. His eyes skip over the gala, but Tim is long gone.

“I try to be.” Bruce smiles. “So, you want Batman to get a kid?”

“Get-?” Granville’s eye twitches. “I said, get the Bat to put kid gloves back on. Not get a kid. Goodness.”

“Okay,” Bruce says as dubiously as he can manage. He tucks a fist under his chin to really sell it. “Are you sure you didn't mean both?”

“Yes. Don't tell the Bat to snatch a kid off the streets-”

“I just think it would fix him.”

Granville stops with his drink halfway to his mouth.

Sets the glass back down on Wayne Manor’s railing.

And says, “is… is that why you…?”

Bruce waits.

“Not my business,” Granville decides quietly. “I'll call you tomorrow, Wayne. Thanks for helping us out with this one.”

Bruce thanks everything above and below the earth that Tim has come into his life. If this happened a few weeks ago, he would've blown off Granville at the start and buried the FBI Agent’s entire career. As it is, he drops a layer of Brucie and nods.

“Cheers,” he says, and takes a sip.

Granville downs his own glass in answer and heads to the outdoor stairs, avoiding the party entirely. He must've come just for Bruce.

Bruce absently checks for bugs and finds one under the railing. The second is under his collar where Granville patted him.

“What do you think, kiddo?” Bruce asks, tapping a warning about listening ears onto his glass.

“Asking for Bat interference from Bruce Wayne takes the kind of heart Gotham needs.” Tim melts out of the shadows, confirmation drummed against the railing. “He's not stupid, you know. Granville is the head of the FBI in a city you all but own. Any favor asked of Bruce Wayne? Stupid dangerous for him. There isn't a single thing he could appeal to besides your mercy, but he walked in confident that you’d at least choose neutrality between the law and the Bat.”

Bruce raises an eyebrow. “Uh, mind dumbing it down a bit for me?”

“I like him,” Tim decides. “He's good at profiling. It'd only work with a big softie who can inflict his own adoption problem on the locals of his choosing, and you're fantastic at misinterpreting instructions with the best of intentions. Honestly, I'd set HR’s recruitment team on him if he’d let me get away with it.”

“...Still a bit much, Timbo. It's a little late, and I'm getting into those silver fox years.”

“You barely have greys, Bruce. And I meant that he read you like a book.”

“Oh, yeah! Neat trick, isn't it? I bet he cleans house at Poker.”

Bruce gives a more genuine approval through a hand on Tim’s shoulder. Ideally it'd ground the kid, but really, Tim is acting as more of an anchor for Bruce. It's the way of things.

“Huh. You never struck me as a Poker player.”

“I guess that's the Gotham in me.” Bruce chuckles, hating how fake it sounds. “This city, I tell you.”

“It has good people.”

“I think I like him, too,” Bruce decides. “There's this kind of… charm, I guess, to people who take risks. Us adrenaline junkies need to stick together.”

“Mhm. He cares. That's why he was willing to bet you do, too.” Tim leans into the hand on his shoulder, then freezes as if he's been caught stealing Alfred’s cookies red-handed.

The kid is so touch starved. Bruce squeezes his shoulder.

“Huh. Do you think he was right… about… uh. Whatever he said. Think he should’ve asked someone better at tracking this sort of thing?” It's not fair to ask, but he's curious.

“No. Duh,” Tim says, shrugging. “Caring is why Lady Gotham chose you. It's why you did the whole fund-the-League schtick.”

Bruce swallows his guilt so it can rest with the other poisons in his stomach. This is a painful way to find self reclamation, but he tries to scrape courage off the backs of his teeth anyway. There's a kid counting on him to care now, and consequences if he fails. Tim deserves better.

For that alone, Bruce will try to mend bridges.

“Tim?”

“Yeah?”

“Jason would've hated this party.” Why did he say that.

“He would've,” Tim says with the fervor of a kid asked to infodump about their special interest. “I once found him in a hedge maze at one of these things with a copy of Much Ado About Nothing. Nobody goes into gala hedge mazes unless they're hoping to get lost or drunk.”

“Dick always said that was what rafters are for.”

“Dick was a child Olympian who grew up in the circus, then a manor you retrofitted into a child-proof gym, Bruce. He has a skewed perspective on sulking hideouts. I always found Jason with the cars or behind a bush.”

Bruce sighs. “And I found you at that concierge in France.”

“Don't be pedantic, Bruce.” Tim looks down into his glass, a little melancholy as he slouches closer to the bug. “I chose you as a father figure, not the other way around. That coffee was bait, pure and simple. I'm just lucky you have a habit of picking up strays.”

“What's that, Timbo?”

“I said, I'm lucky to have you around.”

That was not what he said, and they'll be talking about it.

Later.

When there isn't an FBI team listening in, Bruce tells himself, well aware the real issue is his inability to find proper words.

“I'm the lucky one, Timbo.” Bruce drops his socialite persona to speak with what he hopes will be understood as candid truth. “You're a hell of a son, even if I can't claim you as mine by blood or law.”

“That means a lot,” Tim says, eyes sliding to the bug.

“No, really. I know what the papers say, kiddo. They're right. I am clumsy, and forgetful, and a little bit of a disaster-”

“A little bit?”

“Hey now,” Bruce says cheerfully. “I resemble that remark.”

“I can't tell if you made that joke on purpose,” Tim lies, grinning.

#wip ask game #cosmic-deeds-undone #sasuke & batman #theyre so fucked up its facinating #tired cat asks #tired cat writes #fic snippet

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seriouslycromulent · 2 years ago

Text

I noticed a few people sharing excerpts from this new interview from Christian that came out on July 6th on TVInsider.com, but most fans aren't sharing the part I found most interesting. So I thought I'd share the part I thought deserved more attention. Note: the bold purple sections are my emphasis, not the article's.

----

Speaking of his father, talk about finally getting to explore that relationship with his dad. Because you and Keith David were so good together.

Well, it’s really funny because we had come up with this idea literally in the first season. We always thought it would be funny if Eliot was adopted because Dean loves — we’re all broken toys, you know what I mean? And I think why you rooted for it so hard right off the bat is because we’re all broken toys and we’re looking to get fixed. And so we were always thinking that Eliot was adopted, his mom had probably passed. But we thought it’d be really great if we had a Black actor come in and play this role. We thought Hardison’s [Aldis Hodge] eyes would just bug out if he ever saw that, you know what I mean? And the years went by and the years went by and we kept it. I kept it as a backstory and I’d always bring it up.

I was talking about maybe Mr. T, something like that, which would’ve been fun. But I saw Keith David at an award show, and I walked up to him, I said, “Do you have a second?” And he goes, “You!” And I was like, “What?” And I just gave him a hug and I didn’t even realize what was going on. We just both ended up hugging each other. And I said, “I just want to tell you what a huge fan I am.” He goes, “Dude, I’m a huge fan.” Turns out he is a huge Leverage fan. And I couldn’t say much about it at the time, but I said, “Dude, I have something for you. I cannot tell you what it is, but if I call you, would you be interested?” He said, “Call me.”

So me and Dean hashed it out. We talked about it. The storyline was absolutely perfect. Dean wrote it. It was great. Dean directed it. And I made the call, and listen, is he worth more money than we paid him? 100 percent. But he came in and he did me a favor, and I couldn’t thank him enough the whole time. I said, “I’ve been working on this backstory in my head for over 10 years, man, way over 10 years. And you came in and just put everything together for me, man. And it was just perfect.”

It was so much fun because a lot of that emotional stuff, my dad had recently passed, and I wasn’t going to get that emotional when I saw him, but he got emotional, and everybody thought that it was because of my dad. It really honestly wasn’t. It was because I was acting with him and he was giving me what I needed, and I really wanted to show Eliot in such a different light that we had never seen him. It was important to me, and it was strange. I was literally embarrassed on set because of the emotions that we had, which was right on the money of what I wanted to do.

And it made for such a great episode.

Yeah. I mean, if it’s Christian Kane, I’m giving Keith David a hug, I’ll probably tear up a little bit right now. I don’t care about that crap. But as playing a character, as Eliot, when I turned around to them, I was literally embarrassed. And I just thought, if I’m embarrassed right now, that means I did it right.

----

This is easily the most fascinating section of the interview in my opinion, and I'm so glad that he shared it. I saw his post on Instagram talking about this a little while back in December 2022, but it was nice to see a longer version with more details about how that episode and concept came together.

I didn't know Chris' dad had passed away, and even though he said that wasn't why he started crying in that scene, it makes that moment seem even more powerful to me as a fan of the show, the character and the actor.

#leverage #leverage: redemption #fandom #christian kane #eliot spencer

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fablesrose · 10 months ago

Text

Ch 18 - The Maltese Falcon Job

Series Rewrite Masterlist

Pairing: Eliot Spencer x Ford!Reader

Description: The season finale! The team has to back track a little bit, but continue to take down the mayor and his partner to get justice for Bonanno.

Words: 6194

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No one spoke as Eliot sped away from the waterfront. I couldn’t even allow myself to ponder on how my leg was pressed against his and I tried not to slide into his seat when he made a sharp turn. He finally pulled over under a bridge in the middle of the city, far enough away for us to get our bearings.

“The mayor’s a federal witness? Federal?” Eliot demanded in disbelief.

“Every badge in a hundred miles is looking for us,” Tara said.

“Guys,” Hardison said as he looked through his phone, “They are ripping through Nate and Tara’s cover stories. All their financials are blown. So look, until I know what they know? No credit cards, no debit cards, no ATMs, nothing that can be traced back to us, okay? Cash in hand, only.”

“It just gets better and better,” Parker said sarcastically.

“So what can we do?” I asked.

“Okay, the mayor’s not innocent,” Nate pointed out. “He cut a deal with the feds because he’s guilty and he’s got somebody working on the outside.”

“At the warehouse he admitted he has an accomplice,” Tara added.

“Alright, do we scatter or stay?” Eliot asked Nate.

“No, if we scatter we give the mayor and his partner time to cover their tracks to get away with murder, literally,” he replied.

“Well we can’t get anything done out here in the street, we need a hiding place,” Parker said.

“Guys look, when I contacted the FBI team lead I put a worm in the operating system from the SIM card on her phone-”

“Hardison,” Eliot interrupted, “geek spiral.”

“We can listen to what they say,” Hardison summarized.

He played a clip from his phone, the team lead saying that they weren’t taking the mayor to a safe house. Interpol wanted him somewhere off the FBI system, so they were taking him to the Governor Hotel.

“Okay, that’s it. That’s where we’re gonna hole up,” Nate said.

“The Governor Hotel?” I asked, a bit skeptical, but I thought I could see his logic.

“Yeah,” Nate said.

“The hotel crawling with FBI?” Tara clarified incredulously.

“FBI and Interpol,” Eliot added.

“It’s the one place in Boston they won’t be looking for us,” Nate said. “Come on, we just gotta get there first.”

We did manage to arrive at the hotel before all of the feds showed up. We sent Tara, Eliot, and Parker into the hotel to sneak into a room. When we finally followed, Tara opened the door wrapped in a towel, clothes in hand.

“Did I, uh, miss something?” Nate asked, voicing my own thoughts.

“She was naked,” Parker said matter of factly.

Hardison didn’t acknowledge that, simply getting on his computer to address the room situation. “In-room check out. This means that I have access to the hotel’s billing computers. It’s a big old backdoor into every hotel room in America.” He then went on and made it so we had an additional week and a half on the reservation for the room. It was all under the name of the previous guest who apparently, watched a lot of adult content while in the room.

“Hardison, I need background on all the mayor’s business partners and all his little shell companies,” Nate said, taking a sip of some alcohol that was left in the room.

“You want background checks on this? A TV?” Hardison asked.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I’ll have Super Mario and Dig Dug get right on that.”

“Guns – anything to do with guns,” Nate then walked out of the room.

Eliot started to follow, “Alright, I’m gonna go get some keys made. I’m going to the gym. Make sure I can charge stuff on the room.”

Parker headed down to the lobby to snag someone else’s keycard for Eliot’s ruse of going to the gym and the key to his room not working anymore. It seemed to work and he got the keycard reformatted for our room when Nate told Hardison, Tara, and I to stay in the hotel room and for Eliot and Parker to meet him outside.

“Why?” Hardison asked.

“Sterling,” Nate answered gravely.

“Uh oh,” I said.

Once the others met outside, Nate asked Hardison to go over what he had found on the mayor’s business partners.

“Alright guys, this is Tony Kadjic,” Hardison began. “He started out as a smuggler in Albania. He left a lot of competitors in shallow graves. He’s been indicted for murder eight times in four different countries with zero convictions.”

“His shipping company looks semi legit,” Tara said. “It has ties to countries in the ‘stans’ and Central America. He’s got a big batch of government contracts including for US security forces.”

“Why do we care about him?” Nate asked.

“Cuz he’s big on the surplus weapons market,” I answered.

Eliot puffed an amused scoff, “That’s just a polite way of saying arms dealer.”

“His specialty is buying cheap guns from third world countries and reselling them,” Tara said.

“Okay, well, uh, this tracks,” Nate said. “So the mayor grifts the 9/11 money that’s meant to improve security at the ports. That along with crooked cops makes the Bellbridge ports a perfect place for Tony Kadjic to run his guns in and out of the country.”

“Interpol must be chasing down the gun running,” Parker concluded.

“Don’t worry about Sterling,” Nate assured.

“Did you just say don’t worry about Sterling?” Eliot asked.

“Yeah, don’t worry about Sterling,” Nate repeated. “What? You don’t think I can beat Sterling?”

“I think in the last six months I’ve heard you talk about beating the Triads, beating the Russians, alright?” Eliot reminded him. “Maggie’s boyfriend? Huh, how’d that work out? We all said that meet was a bad idea. But now you’ve got a taste of taking down this mayor, and you can’t resist.”

“You wanna walk away? Walk away,” Nate said.

“I’m not walking away, that’s not my job. My job is to get your back, and Nate?” Eliot said seriously, “I’m gonna do it, all the way down. But I need you to do your job.”

“And what’s that?”

“Be Nathan Ford!” Parker cut in. “Be the person we came back for.”

There were two beats of silence where Nate took in what they were saying before he spoke again, “Listen, guys, I’m trying to figure out why a group of very rich, very powerful men are trying to take out a good, decent, cop. Now are you going to stick with me on this? Is that enough?”

Eliot gave a quiet, “yeah.”

Hardison looked at Tara and then me.

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” I pointed out.

“Us too,” Hardison said for himself and Tara.

“Good,” Nate said. “Tony Kadjic is the one who pulled the trigger, I wanna know exactly what he’s up to and who he is.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Hardison asked with a smile.

“Let’s go steal a mayor.”

The plan was pretty simple, by some standards. I dressed up as a hotel maid, the costume a little too on the nose in my opinion. With the mayor consistently ordering as many mini bottles of alcohol he could get his hands on, it was easy to give him one that was drugged, knocking him out quickly. The guards at the door wouldn’t let me in the room, but I handed them off to the mayor himself when he opened the door. I used a master key from the maid cart I had grabbed to enter the room next to the mayor’s. One that happened to have a conjoining door.

Unfortunately Sterling was coming back sooner than anticipated, so it was Nate’s job to stall him, without being seen. With the sound of Nate’s heavy breathing and the routine sound of the elevator dinging, it didn’t take long to figure out what he decided to do. I don’t think it was pleasant for either of them.

Parker, Hardison, and Tara dropped down to the room I stepped into from the roof using Parker’s equipment. Parker quickly moved to pick the door into the mayor’s room. Once we walked in to find the Mayor passed out on his bed, we took pictures of the room in all of its mess to replicate it. We were able to situate him into the lower compartment of my maid cart so that I smuggled him out the door, right under the nose of the agents at the door. The cart was significantly heavier and harder to push, but the guards didn’t seem suspicious of it.

Eliot played the red herring by rolling the largest trunk we could find, one that could possibly hold a whole person in it, by Sterling, placing it in a taxi to make him believe we had moved the mayor off the premises.

And that’s how we kidnapped the mayor. Now to get information out of him.

The first step was to convince him we meant business and that there was no one there to protect him. When the mayor was panicking about the FBI agents that were supposed to be at the door, Eliot and I’s small role came in.

“You ready for this?” Eliot asked me.

I rolled my head side to side to loosen my neck and adjusted the maid outfit I was still wearing, “yup, just play dead. And you try not to drop me.”

“I’d never drop you sweetheart,” Eliot said with a smile and a wink. He then squatted down, allowing me to lean over his shoulder. He wrapped one arm around my legs and the other grabbed my wrist, pulling it to his other side to keep me on his shoulder.

I went limp as he stood and slightly kicked the hotel room door open, effectively shutting up the mayor.

“Did you have to?” Nate asked. “She saw our faces,” Eliot said.

“Okay,” Nate relented easily. “Put her in the tub with the others.”

Eliot put me down gently in the bathroom to which I gave him a thumbs up to refrain from speaking and alerting the mayor I was, in fact, alive.

Nate was now playing a more serious and powerful role for the mayor. He was the boss, and not too happy with being turned over to the feds. What might make up for it and not get the mayor killed would be a cut in and meeting with Tony Kadjic. Every answer that Nate didn’t like, Hardison played a goon that would go to strangle the mayor with a coarse rope.

When we got all the information we needed from him, Eliot went out and knocked him out again, this time with his fist.

Tara and Parker then came in announcing that the FBI had cleared the building and I exited the bathroom to join the others.

“So we kidnapped a mayor,” Tara said, “I hope you realize that even if we pull this off, we’re gonna leave the city with nothing but the clothes on our backs.”

I thought it over and determined that I was okay with that. I could buy almost everything I needed and anything I thought I couldn’t live without for sentimental reasons I was sure I could get Cora to hold onto for me. Anything else I could figure out.

“Yeah, okay, uh, Kadjic has a shipment at the docks,” Nate moved on quickly, “Hardison, stash the mayor somewhere else and uh, see what you can dig up.”

“If I can access the security cameras at the port, maybe with facial recognition I can find Kadjic,” Hardison said.

Nate sighed, “Yeah. Eliot, Parker, Tara, y/n, do a physical sweep of the docks.” He then nodded and walked straight out of the hotel room.

“Where you going?” Eliot asked him before he shut the door. Eliot looked at Tara and I, “Where’s he going?”

I looked at where he exited, I couldn’t help but shake my head. I didn’t know, but I hoped it wasn’t where I thought. Or somewhere stupid in general.

Tara stepped out for a moment before we went to the docks as directed. Once we got there we split up into pairs, Eliot and Parker, and Tara and I. We each had a list of ships that were anchored there and went to work to try and find the ship with Tony Kadjic’s weapons. We looked at each other for a moment before heading in opposite directions. This was gonna be a job, that’s for sure.

Tara and I took the strategy of checking two ships at a time, one for each of us, not straying very far from each other so we could check in after each one. We had gotten through about ten when Tara suggested we check each one together and just move through each ship quicker. It didn’t take much longer before she stopped me completely.

She obviously took out her ear bud and placed it in her pocket.

I hesitantly followed her lead and removed my own, “yes?”

“So, we need to talk,” Tara said.

“About?”

“About you and Eliot.”

I was brushing my thumb over the edge of the stack of pages I was holding onto, but at her words, everything stopped, “What? What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

I could feel the heat rushing to my head, surely causing my face to turn red. I immediately broke my eye contact with her and looked down at the list of ships. I found the next one on the list and tried to walk past her, “There’s nothing to talk about.”

She caught my arm and placed me in front of her again, “Nope, not doing that. I need you to be honest or else this is probably gonna blow up in the future.”

I sighed, “Isn’t lying like your whole thing?”

“Not relevant right now, and plus I’m always honest about my feelings and what I think when I’m not grifting,” she replied.

“Look, like I said, there isn’t anything to talk about. Nothing is going on, probably nothing will ever happen-”

“You like him though. You have feelings for him beyond ‘coworker and friend’ before you give me that crap.”

I simply stared over her shoulder into the distance, I couldn’t decide if I was trying or not to say something in response.

“I can see the way you look at him and act around him. It’s different than the rest of the team.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“No, I’m just good at reading people. I doubt anyone else has noticed.”

I finally looked at her again, “Look, Tara, I have been trying not to acknowledge it or make it a reality for a while now. Eliot and I met on a con, when I wasn’t in on it. We flirted, I thought we hit it off, but it didn’t go anywhere. Probably because Nate told him off for it, even if I’m a big girl and can make my own decisions. Still, Eliot still has some respect or duty to Nate, so… whatever.” I sighed before continuing, “Despite that, you’ve seen Eliot. He flirts with any pretty girl that crosses his vision for more than ten seconds. I didn’t miss the look he had when it was mentioned that you were naked, Tara.”

Tara gave a little shrug, but allowed me to continue.

“That first con didn’t mean anything, I said that in Ukraine to Maggie, it’s true for you too. So no matter my feelings, it needs to stay platonic, because I know that’s all it will end up being. I don’t really belong in this world, no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I may want to. I’m sure it will end eventually. All of it.” I took a deep breath to keep myself from falling over an emotional ledge, “So I’m not allowing or acknowledging my feelings to become anything more. I will enjoy the time I have with the team. With Eliot. Even if nothing comes of it. I have to keep telling myself that, so maybe I’ll believe it.”

I stopped talking, not wanting to say more. Not wanting to fall over the edge. Tara gave me a moment before speaking.

“That’s a good start, but in order for this to not blow up eventually, you need to acknowledge it so you can do something about it. Whether that be to jump his bones or get over it,” she finally said with a look on her face that told me this was not negotiable.

“Fine,” I said, clenching my hands to release some of the pressure building inside of me, “Yes, I like Eliot. I like him more than a friend. I wish something would happen between us. He’s handsome, and strong, and so protective. And he's talented in more ways than I anticipated.” My rambling trailed off as I realized, “He’s… He’s everything…” A rush of feelings was churning inside of me at the admission. I wasn’t sure if I could handle much more. “I don’t know how I’m gonna face him anymore. His touch already lingers on my skin and I can’t get him out of my head when he sneaks in.”

“That was a little bit more than I was wanting,” Tara said, “But it was good.”

“You asked for it,” I batted back, “Now I feel like shit.”

She laughed, “Now that you’ve released those feelings, you’ll feel better, promise.”

“Why are you treating me like a high schooler who has their first real crush?”

“Because you are kind of acting like one.”

“Go to hell Tara,” I said with only moderate conviction. I jumped around and shook my limbs trying to release the emotional energy and tension that had built in my body. “Okay, this job isn’t over. My feelings don’t matter, let’s go.”

Tara stopped me before I started walking again.

“What?” I snapped, “I did what you wanted, can we leave it alone?”

“Your feelings do matter, y/n. Just so you know.” She then walked in the direction of the ships and started searching again, not waiting for a response for me.

“I hate this,” I said to myself. I slipped my earbud back into my ear and looked at the list. “Next ship.”

After what seemed like forever, we met back up with Eliot and Parker. You would think that this meant we were close to the end, but no. We still had over a hundred ships at port that we hadn’t searched.

“This is hopeless,” Tara said as we fell into step with Parker.

“And it smells,” Parker added.

“Yess,” Tara and I said in sync.

“Like old clown shoes,” Tara described.

“Briney despair,” Parker added.

“Rusty defeat,” I countered.

“Maybe Hardison…” Eliot began but trailed off. Before stopping us with a ‘hey.’

“What?”

“He’s Italian,” Eliot said, digging into his jacket pocket and pulling out the page from Bonanno’s notebook. “Bonanno’s Italian.” Eliot after looking at the words ‘Maltese Falcon,’ he walked off towards a ship.

“So now he’s walking off?” Tara asked in disbelief.

“It rubs off on people,” I said before following Eliot.

“Yup,” Parker agreed.

“Sparky, slow down,” Tara called after him.

When we finally caught up and looked at the ship’s name, there it was. ‘Il Falcone Maltese,’ the Maltese Falcon in what I assumed was Italian.

“Well that was easy,” I joked. The others gave me a glare so I backtracked, “I’m kidding, you cracked the code Sherlock.” I leaned to nudge Eliot with my shoulder, trying not to overthink any interaction I had with him after my talk with Tara. Everything seemed to be becoming real after the talk, something I feared would happen. I tried to feel resentment or anger at her for forcing my hand, but I had to admit, I felt a bit more free. And the feelings I felt were fuller somehow.

“Hey guys,” Hardison said through comms, “Head over to Nate’s apartment. He says he has a plan.”

“Is it safe?” I asked, already heading back to the car.

“He said it is,” Hardison replied.

“Okay, let’s hear it,” I said once we got back to the apartment. The ride back was quiet and tense, but if Nate said he had a plan…

He outlined the plan for us that mostly consisted of Nate posing to strike a business deal with Kadjic and ultimately pinning him with the weapons and the shooting.

“Is it possible?” Nate asked solemnly once he relayed what he wanted done to complete the plan.

“I’ll need Eliot,” Hardison answered, “and to buy some new supplies, and maybe five hours. Plus I need to hack into the cargo ship and system at the docks.”

“What about the money?” Nate asked.

“It’s on short notice, but…”

“Use my accounts.”

“That’ll clean you out,” Hardison pointed out. Something didn’t seem right here.

“Use them,” Nate insisted. “And what about you guys, on your end?” He was referring to Tara and Parker breaking into the FBI Boston field office to deal with evidence.

“I don’t think we can make it in through the main entrance,” Parker answered. “So I think we need to go up and make it down from the roof.”

“But you can do it.”

“Sure, it’s not our part of the scam that’s impossible,” Tara said.

“No, it’s everything else,” Parker added.

“Yeah, definitely that, but our part, no,” Tara emphasized.

“Alright, well, I’m gonna set up the meet with Kadjic,” Nate said, not addressing the ‘impossible’ parts of the scam.

“No, no,” Eliot tried to stop him, “I said I know where the weapons are. I don’t know if Kadjic’s gonna be there.”

“Well, we’re gonna have to lure Kadjic to the weapons,” Nate said as a solution as if it were easy. “Our whole plan depends on our ability to confirm Kadjic and the weapons being in the same place at the same time.”

Before we knew it, it was go time. Hardison and I moved the mayor into a storage container on the docks, while he was knocked out of course so he wouldn’t know where he was. The container had plastic hanging around with electric lamps to give a very ominous look. To top it off, Hardison was in his mob suit, and I had dressed in an all black, long sleeve and pant ensemble myself to match.

“Everybody ready?” Nate asked as we were finishing setting up Hardison’s laptop and Nate and Eliot approached the dock.

“Yeah, but remember, once you’re on that ship, all that metal’s gonna mess with reception,” Hardison answered. “Won’t be able to reach you once you’re below decks.”

Tara and Parker indicated they were ready over comms as well.

We listened in as Nate and Eliot boarded the ship and made their presence known when Eliot beat up some guards. Nate mediated with the armed guards by asking for a meeting with Kadjic, a bag of cash in hand. It seemed to work as nobody got shot or was injured, but I wasn’t hopeful about the situation when Eliot mentioned he was counting how many guys with guns there were. Apparently there were a lot.

In the storage container, I sat away from Culpepper to have less chance of him recognizing me from my stint as a dead maid, and monitored the computer. Hardison adopted a thick Irish accent to threaten the mayor, asking him to act scared when calling Kadjic. Hardison had a drill with a scary looking bit on it for good measure. The mayor agreed quite readily to comply.

He called and begged Kadjic to do whatever we wanted, citing what we supposedly did to his FBI handlers before Hardison revved the drill again and cut the line with Culpepper’s scream. It sounded very convincing to me, especially since the mayor was still screaming behind me.

Nate used the call to his advantage, building up a more threatening reputation and the now open opportunity to be Kadjic’s business partner. Kadjic was at least interested in the proposition, enough that he led them around the ship it sounded like, and eventually below deck.

Meanwhile, Parker and Tara were able to gain access to the field office, their database, and physical evidence. I watched as Hardison took his computer back to transfer the digital evidence in the FBI’s database, deleting the original files. Once that was completed and he relayed to Tara what case file to destroy the physical evidence in, he put his system back to work on facial recognition around the dock. After a while, the computer alerted us, saying that it had a match.

Hardison and I looked to see what the match was and a security photo of the docks popped up on the screen. What we weren’t expecting was for Tara to be in the shot with Kadjic. The shot was taken early this morning. The two of us shared a look.

“That can’t be good,” I said.

Hardison shook his head as he put his finger in his ear, trying to get a hold of Parker. When he couldn’t, he dashed out between the plastic and out of the unit to try and get a better signal. I followed, leaving the mayor tied up in the unit. Once we were outside Hardison was able to talk to Parker. Hardison relayed what we found to her and took a sigh of relief that it seemed she was okay. Once she had all the information, she could handle herself.

What really startled me was the ship nearby starting its engine. The ship was Il Falcone Maltese, the ship where Nate, Eliot, and Kadjic were. The ship that wasn’t supposed to be going anywhere, especially with them on it.

I immediately started running to the ship.

“Where are you going?” Hardison yelled after me.

“To do something that’s probably stupid!” I called back. There was a large pipe wrench on a bench that I picked up along the way. “But I’m pretty sure we should stop that ship!”

I heard Hardison follow me as we scampered up to the ship’s deck and dropped down to the lower levels, finally finding the engine room. I looked at Hardison who had grabbed a large tool of his own along the way.

“Let’s get to work.”

We started pulling and twisting knobs left and right, hacking away at electronics and pipes with our heavy tools until everything was flashing red lights or leaking something. We heard the engine start to sputter and shut down.

Hardison and I shared a smug smile and a fist bump, “Nice work.” That was until there were some noises coming from around the corner. We walked around to see Eliot start to climb some stairs to one of the upper levels. There was blood on his face and it looked like he was looking to spill someone else’s.

“Hey,” Hardison called to stop him from running off, “took you long enough.”

“What?” Eliot asked, walking towards us instead. An armed guard jumped around a corner next to Eliot and it took less than two seconds and three hits to have him on the ground and out of commission. “One,” Eliot said to himself once the guard was down.

“What?” Hardison asked.

“Wha- where’s Nate?” Eliot changed the subject.

“I don’t know, man. All this metal is messing with the signal,” Hardison replied.

The sound of heeled shoes came from a neighboring corridor and caught our attention as a familiar looking woman walked by. I dashed around to get a better look with the boys following after me. We stopped when we were behind her.

“Sophie?” We asked all at once.

She looked over her shoulder at us and echoed Hardison, “took you long enough. Come on,” she then walked off in the direction she was previously heading, expecting us to follow.

We shared a quick look of confusion before following. While we navigated the ship Sophie relayed how Tara told her everything and how she met with Kadjic to get Sophie a meeting in order to be here. That explained the security photo from this morning and why she was here. Eventually we found a room that had a single armed guard. Eliot quickly knocked him out, busting open the door in the process and finding Nate sitting there handcuffed.

“Zero,” Eliot said before grabbing the handcuff key and freeing Nate.

Hardison, Eliot, and I left the area and waited for Sophie and Nate to have a short conversation. In all the previous commotion, I now had a good look at Eliot. He had his hair in a half updo, keeping it out of his face. Blood had begun to dry on his temple and from his nose. My heart skipped a beat in a way I couldn’t deny anymore that I cared for him. More than I should. I gently pulled a corner of my sleeve up and approached him to clean him up a bit. I raised my hand steadily, making my intentions obvious when Eliot grabbed my wrist gently.

“Don’t get your shirt dirty for me, it’s fine,” he said softly.

“It’s black, it’ll be fine. Please?” I whispered, my eyes tracing where a bead of sweat dropped to his brow. He finally released me and affirmed with a nod.

I started at his temple, brushing away the newer blood to luckily see that it had stopped bleeding with the exception of a small bead, just enough to form a scab. The rest had dried to his skin despite the sweat, but I was able to get it off with a few gentle scratches of my nail. I moved on to the area under his nose where a single track of blood had trailed to his lip. This brushed away a bit more easily. It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment of time with my thumb brushing over his top lip to remove his own blood how much I wanted to kiss him. The skin of my fingers brushing his face so intimately became too much and I stepped away when I was sure the blood was gone.

He whispered, “Thank you, sweetheart.”

I didn’t have time to reply before Sophie and Nate finally caught up to us. They led the way outside where we saw the mayor, still in his hotel bathrobe, enter the bridge of the ship, coincidentally, where Kadjic was as well, trying to get the ship underway. Hardison and Eliot went to lock them in one side and Nate and Sophie went to lock the other, trapping them there with no escape. I went around the corner to wave down Parker and Tara who were on their way.

The four of them came up behind me once Kadjic and Culpepper were trapped just as Parker and Tara climbed the stairs where I was.

Parker almost immediately hugged Sophie.

“Oh,” Sophie said at the gesture, “Parker, touching.”

“Kinda, yeah,” Parker replied a bit bashfully.

There were sirens in the distance, coming to arrest Kadjic and Culpepper with any luck.

“Listen, I hate to cut goodbyes short,” Tara said at the sound, “but they're playing my song.”

“Keep out of trouble,” Eliot said.

“Or if you wanna get in trouble again,” Hardison said with a smirk.

Tara smiled at the implication.

“Is this why…?” I asked, wondering about the earlier conversation we had.

She shrugged, “Maybe.” She then looked at Sophie, “So we’re…”

“Oh, we’re even,” Sophie responded. “Absolutely.”

Tara nodded and with a pat on Nate’s arm, started to dash around the back side of the ship.

“Hey,” Nate stopped her, “Are you gonna be alright on your own?”

Tara smiled, “What do you think?” She then continued on her path.

We then looked at each other, wondering what to do.

“There’s not that many ways out of here,” Eliot said after an assessing look around.

“Eliot, when I arrange a rescue, I do it properly,” Sophie said with a smug expression.

We all looked above as a helicopter touched down on the docks next to the ship.

“Indeed you do,” I said following after Eliot and Parker down towards the getaway vehicle.

Just when we were going to climb off the deck of the ship, Sterling popped out of nowhere, clapping his hands and a “Bravo!”

FBI agents then surrounded us, stopping us in our tracks. Of course it wasn’t a clean getaway.

“So,” Sterling said, approaching us. “Where is Tony Kadjic?”

“He’s locked in the bridge,” Nate replied from behind us, but moved in front of us to talk directly to Sterling. “And the guns are stored in boxes in the hold.”

“I see you kept your end of the deal, Nate,” Sterling said.

“What?” I asked softly, looking at Nate, trying to figure out what was going on.

Nate didn’t respond, he just walked slowly to the side and handcuffed himself to the rail. “Yeah Sterling, we have a deal.”

“Nate, what are you doing?” Hardison asked this time, but still, Nate didn’t answer.

“Quit messing around,” Sterling said. “In thirty seconds there will be another dozen guns on the deck.”

I looked around, the team was edging closer to the rail, Nate, and ultimately freedom in the helicopter. Eliot was specifically keeping his eyes on the armed FBI agents. I was unsure what to do. I kept close to the team, but it almost felt like my feet were glued to the deck.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on right now, Sterling?” Nate asked. “There’s a fire in the FBI evidence room,” he said, referring to the tampering Tara and Parker did earlier, planting an ignition system to destroy evidence. “And Hardison wiped the servers of all the evidence.”

“Where are you going with this?” Sterling asked.

“I destroyed all the evidence the FBI had on Culpepper and Kadjic. You have no photos, no tapes, you don’t have anything. You don’t have a case on anybody, unless you arrest me, and only me,” Nate explained. My eyes were glued on him, explaining his case to Sterling, and us, all unaware of what he was planning. “I agree to turn state’s evidence. And I testify to what Kadjic told me, how he put the hit on Bonanno. Hell, I’ll even give you Bonanno’s evidence against the gun running!”

“Nate,” Eliot said steadily, “I can take these guys.”

“It’s just ten more yards to the chopper, man,” Hardison said.

“Listen, guys,” Nate said, “I got you into this mess, this is the only way to get you out.” He turned to Sterling, “And I can feel you thinking Sterling, and don’t, don’t bother! And if you touch one of them, the deal is off. Nevins loses two years of work, and your first case with Interpol.”

“So, you’re my case, or I have no case,” Sterling summarized.

“Exactly.”

There was a slight upturn to Sterling’s lips that finally dropped, “Fine, we’ll call it a draw then.”

Nevins, the FBI agent in charge, protested, “No, we do not take this deal!”

Sterling forcibly lowered her gun, “Take one more step, and I’ll shoot you myself.”

The agents and Sterling backed off, leaving us somewhat alone.

“Come here,” Nate said to us, “You guys are the most honorable people I’ve ever met in my life. You’ve become my family,” he looked at me, “Our only family.I won’t forget that.” There was a pause before he said to Eliot, “Now get them on the chopper. Now!”

Eliot took a moment to nudge Parker and Hardison towards the stairs to get off the ship. I wouldn’t move, raising my hand at Eliot to give me a moment. He allowed it, standing a bit off to the side.

“I’m sorry, Birdie,” Nate said, his face sorrowful, but determined.

“I know,” I said, surprising myself with how calm I was, at least on the outside. “But I’m still angry.”

“At me?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. I paused before taking the two steps forward it took to close the gap between us, “But I know I would regret it if I didn’t hug you right now.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, knowing this was a different kind of goodbye. I felt a tear roll down my cheek and onto his coat before I released him. I took a step back, but couldn’t find it in myself to keep going.

I think Nate could see that, “Goodbye Birdie.”

I just nodded.

Nate looked over my shoulder to Eliot, “Get her out of here, please.”

I felt one of Eliot’s arms wrap around my waist, the other on my arm to guide me away. He whispered a “come on, sweetheart,” as we walked down the stairs, leaving Nate and Sophie on the deck of the ship. We passed Sterling on the way, and Eliot told him coolly to watch his back, a stark contrast to the way he gently led me towards the helicopter. He helped me to my seat and waited to help Sophie in as well before we took off.

To freedom I suppose.

A/n: Hey guys! So glad you were able to stick it out until now. I'm going to be taking a little bit of hiatus between seasons 2 and 3. I have finals these next two weeks and want to plan out this next season a bit more, hopefully getting a few episodes written before I start posting again. Thank you so much for reading so far, can't wait for next season, where stuff might start moving!! Reblogs and comments are welcome and encouraged!

Tags: @instantdinosaurtidalwave @kniselle @technikerin23 @kiwikitty13 @plasticbottleholder @mushycore

#eliot spencer x reader #eliot spencer #leverage #rewrite #slow burn #multichapter #nate ford #sophie devereaux #alec hardison #parker #ford!reader

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