#hardison is a fish? no. that doesn't sound right

[geeky-nightphilosopher]

Can somebody explain to me how Parker is a cat AND a mouse? Is she a mouse only on a job and a cat with her family?

Am I making this up? Am I crazy? Am I the only person who sees this?

[possibly-god]

The Stand-Up Job, a.k.a. Leverage's Bizarre Adventure

Time for a crossover AU maybe 2 people will care about! Because you know what the JoJoverse's trademark uniquely skilled ensemble casts and "I outsmarted your outsmarting" remind me of? Heists.

February 2011, 2 months out from the San Lorenzo job. With the heat finally dying down to Nate's liking, the Leverage crew has had enough of laying low - they're ready to start taking clients again, get back to stealing the world a better place. So when the Horsell family shows up at McRory's, it couldn't be more perfect.

Good old boy Holden spins them a yarn about hostile workplaces and head wounds that still trouble him 20 years later. His wife Mariah tells of a road accident that left her paralyzed and of massive hospital bills when company insurance refused to pay out. Their son Benji recounts losing his older brother to a work accident. Lives full of pain on account of the place meant to provide for them - the Speedwagon Foundation.

Sure, maybe the Horsells' story doesn't quite add up (Sophie's grifter sense is tingling from the jump), but neither does the Foundation's - a privately-owned multi-million dollar "environmental research institute" with no notable output or major publications, ties to the oil industry, international paramilitary operations, and organized crime, and seemingly only answerable to some old-money family (what kind of name is Joestar anyway)? That ticks a lot of Leverage's boxes - definitely something to look into.

Meanwhile in their hotel room, Hol Horse, Mariah, and Boingo celebrate the incoming payout, plus a little long-coming revenge on those damned Joestars, not realizing that, once again, they've underestimated their marks.

Not that the Speedwagon Foundation doesn't give Leverage trouble. Getting into their New York offices, digging around in their files, that's small potatoes - hell, it's weird how little security the place seems to have. But then a manager taps Sophie on the shoulder and she literally can't lie. The others try to bail her out, and then their earpieces are just gone. Guards are called and Eliot starts taking hits from something he can't even see. They have to go all the way to Plan J to escape (too close to Plan M for Hardison's liking), and when they blow the wall of the lab Parker gets hit with some shrapnel. Only it's not concrete or plaster they pull from her shoulder - it's antique bronze, a shard of an old arrowhead. Still plenty sharp too, no one can touch it without getting cut...

They regroup. Nate and Hardison start going through anything they can find of the Foundation with a fine-tooth comb, finding more and more bizarre details with each sweep. Sophie and Eliot start sniffing around the Horsells, poking their shoddy story into a veritable fishing net of holes. Parker starts coming down with something, starts worrying when the rest of the team does too, worrying about secret bioweapons, about viral hallucinogens when she starts seeing things.

It's almost a relief when they come back to a strange man in their office - this is familiar, this they can handle. This "Dr. Kujo's" explanation sounds like bull, but it's hard to deny when a ghostly figure lunges out from him - and when Eliot does the same thing right back. The next several hours are full of discussions, and of discovery -

Nate - 「Rock of Ages」

An ornate doorknob which can be inserted into any solid surface to create a door through to the other side. Once placed, anyone can see and use the door until Nate calls the knob back to him.

Sophie - 「Like a Prayer」

An elegant jeweled cameo choker which allows perfect vocal mimicry of any target whose name she knows - she doesn't have to know their voice, and the cameo changes to show the subject even if she's never seen them. She can give the necklace to another person to wear, but she can only change the target while wearing it herself, and she can call it back to herself at any time.

Parker - 「Free Bird」

A feathered suit stand which reverses gravity for the user. Any person she touches directly matches her gravity, returning to normal when released, while inanimate objects retain normal direction.

Eliot - 「Red Right Hand」

Come on, you know this boy has a punching ghost. Beyond simple melee utility, a touch (or punch) from the eponymous hand to any part of the body deadens sensation in that area. Eliot throws off regular combatants with invisible backup and other stand users by fighting in tandem with his stand instead of letting it have all the fun.

Hardison - 「Fools Gold」

Typically a small humanoid made of gold computer parts, it can morph into any electronic device it touches, copying the data and capabilities therein. However, it can only hold one device in memory at a time. These mimicked devices can be passed to and used by other stand users and do not require a charge to function, but do require WiFi/data/etc. to do any tasks that would ordinarily require such things.

After much deliberation, it's decided that both sides will be allowed to continue as before - the crew may call upon the Foundation if need be and vice versa, but they'll be keeping their noses out of each other's business. Of course, things change around Leverage - Parker spends days finding new hiding spots and new ways to use her gear, Sophie pranks the others with their voices over the comms, Hardison calibrates face and voice recognition to work with LaP, Eliot discovers the best sous chef he's ever had, and Nate incorporates a new dimension of skills and contingencies into their plans. New abilities also mean new scrapes to get into, new crimes to bust,  and general shenanigans -

Their immediate job is going after the idiots who tried to con the con men and got them into this mess - Hardison gets got trying to plug his laptop into Bast (he just about goes insane with the magnetism wiping every electronic he touches until he figures out Fools Gold is immune) and Eliot hates Emperor with a burning passion (not only is it a gun, it's a gun that *cheats*), but in the end the "Horsells" are still just a cut-rate cut-and runner, an egotistical knife pervert, and an utterly useless comic book junkie (Hardison berates him for "giving nerds a bad name").

Hardison calls home to catch up with his Nana and siblings, and while reminiscing he realizes "hey that wasn't normal" and that he showed Hamon potential as a child. Not that it really affects him after 20 years without any further incidents or training - but it sounds like little Breanna might be following in his footsteps in more ways than one...

They call Tara in on a con and, at the vehement behest of the Speedwagon Foundation, do their damnedest to keep Stands and the paranormal a secret from her... and in the end she knew about it long before they did (perks of an FBI background)

Conversely, Sterling is perpetually on the verge of an aneurysm as the bane of his existence has somehow become even banier - before this he could at least catch up with the con after the fact, but now?

A job busting a drug ring in Italy runs the team afoul of Passione, and after shots fired on both sides and the intervention of the Foundation, the two organizations come to an uneasy understanding - Giorno and Nate each see the other as naive in method but admirable in ambition.

Come October, Dr. Kujo returns to personally hire the team as "expert consultants" in the matter of his daughter being sent to prison - their intervention perhaps brings about a happier end to Part 6.

Idk how I came up with this, or why I spent so much time on it - ultimately, I guess I just want to give the Leverage team some new gadgets to play with :)