#i have never posted a single leverage OR broadchurch fic in my whole life

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

Hardison Goes to Broadchurch

Hardison meets Hardy (& Miller): a Broadchurch/Leverage story. Also on AO3.

aka: they! have! the! same! name! WE NEED TO DISCUSS THIS

****

Hardison was at the small police station for information gathering, nothing more. What he needed wasn’t available online--what kind of old weird British town kept paper files? he’d muttered while booking his flight--so there was no harm in following the job with a stop in London and some well-deserved vacation time. 

Thirty minutes, posing as an IT contractor, in and out. 

Easy. 

Of course, the small town culture was harder to hack and override than their filing system. He wasn’t even ten feet inside the door before he almost collided with a weary man in a day-old suit.

“Sorry, sorry there,” Hardison rushed to smooth over the interaction, adding just a dash of European flavor to his voice. Something about the police station, or the man glowering at him now, told him that affecting an English accent would arise more suspicion than it saved.

“And you are?”

“Yes, of course, sir. How rude of me.” Hardison held out an overeager hand, the very model of an instantly-forgettable consultant, and began his introduction at the same moment that Hardy took to be his opening. 

“Alec Hard--” they said in perfect harmony. Hardy lost his last syllable, torn between confusion and suspicion.

Hardison’s “--ison...” trailed off into a similar wariness, his mouth flattening as Hardy’s brow furrowed.

They regarded each other for a long moment before Hardison spoke.

“What is that, supposed to be a joke? A funny, funny joke--Eliot sent you, didn’t he?” 

Hardy blinked, still too baffled to summon a response, but Hardison barely paused for air. 

“This is because of that thing back in January, isn’t it? He swore he was over that, the man swore up and down that there would not be payback, so of course he waited until this very moment to--”

“Elliot who?” Hardy ventured, halting Hardison’s rant before it really got going. “I don’t know any Elliot.”

The thick Scottish accent was unexpected. Did Eliot even have contacts in Scotland? Hardison had to consider it, long enough that Hardy was able to continue.

“I mean, there’s Miller,” he thought aloud. Maybe an American, unfamiliar with the accent, could mistake ‘Ellie’ for ‘Elliot?’ A daft American. 

“Miller.” Hardison had made that alias himself, so of course he remembered it. Eliot Miller was from Phoenix, a pharma rep, divorced father of two. Cute kids. Looked like their mom. “What was Miller doing in your neck of the woods?”

“My neck of the woods?” Hardy’s mouth twisted around the phrase as though it tasted sour. 

“Here in Broadchurch.”

“Miller lives here,” Hardy said, glowering harder now. “Unlike you, whoever you are.” He wasn’t sure what this stranger was doing, imitating him in his place of work, trying to mock his authority...but he had half a mind to sic Miller on the intruder. See how the impostor liked that.

“I...highly doubt that,” Hardison countered, trying to figure out how Eliot could have possibly relocated his Arizona alias to a town off the English coast in between stealing a hospital and a school.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Hardy sighed, and took one step back so he could bellow “Miller!” at top volume. 

Both men waited, Hardison with more patience than Hardy but also more anxiety. The longer he stayed to sort this out, the harder it would be to get out without causing a stir. And getting what he came for was out of the question. 

“What is it now,” a trim brunette snapped as she approached them, her ire aimed squarely at the Scotsman. “I don’t have time for any more--”

“This is Miller? Eliot Miller?” Now Hardison was even more confused. Eliot was capable of some impressive things--many, many things--but turning himself into a British woman was not on that list. 

“Ellie Miller,” she corrected him, holding out a hand. “How do you know Hardy?”

Her partner was rolling his eyes at the politeness she offered Hardison, but he stopped long enough to point at his own chest and give Hardison the best ‘aren’t you an idiot’ look he had seen since leaving home.

“Hardy.”

“Alec Hardy,” Miller supplied helpfully. “And yourself?”

“Alec Hardison,” he said. Sometimes the simplest explanation really was the truth, Hardison thought, amused at himself and Hardy. Some things were just coincidences. “I came to take a look at your virus protection and got a bit off-track.”

“Alec Hardison.” Hardy tested the name. He didn’t like it.

“We don’t have anyone scheduled to look at our computers,” Miller pointed out. She seemed much less hung up on the surprise name mix-up than Hardison would have expected. 

But hey, if there was one thing he was great it, it was getting himself out of situations he never should have gotten himself into.

“All I know is, I was requested specifically by name. Your department hired my employer, and they sent me. As requested. If you want to talk to the staffer who put in the request, I’m sure I have his name here somewhere.”

Hardison began shuffling methodically through his paperwork, searching for a name that didn’t exist. 

“Right, right, here it is. The last name’s smudged--quite a lot of rain you folks have--but the first name looks like Bob. Or, or maybe Don. I don’t know, I’ve been meaning to buy an umbrella. Where do you find a good umbrella around here?” 

Hardison couldn’t tell if Ellie Miller was deciding which umbrella shop to recommend or if she was considering smacking him upside the head, but the two impulses were definitely at war with each other. The woman had visible radar for bullshit. Must be a mom.

Hardy, though, had taken the bait and was starting to simmer. “Bob, is it? Oh, I have been wanting a word with Bob all week. This is not the place for pranks, especially not pranks that could put our entire computer system at risk of a security breach!”

He stormed off as that sentence crescendoed, presumably in search of Bob. Hardison made a mental note to send every Bob in the office some kind of gift basket or something, after he got home. Sorry, Bob.

“Right then.” Miller offered him a firm nod, paired with a smile. Here’s your hat, on your way. “Just a mix-up. Let your boss know that you’re not meant to be here today. They can call us to follow up.”

“Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.” Hardison smiled back and took the hint. He was at the exit when her voice stopped him. 

“Mr. Hardison?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He turned with his smile still in place.

“Hughes, just down the street from the grocer’s.”

“Sorry?”

“For an umbrella.” 

Her smile widened, but not in a friendly way. Oh, she was a smart one, Hardison thought. Well, shit. 

That smile had his number. That smile said ‘From now until the day I die I will recognize you if I see you again, and I will be ready for anything you try to pull.’

“How was I supposed to know the place has a man with almost my exact same name?” Hardison muttered on the way to his rental car. 

“How was I supposed to be prepared for that exact situation? I’m a genius, I am not a wizard. Some guy with my name walks into me when he should be in Scotland...”

He was going to have to put Broadchurch on the Big List of Places We Avoid, and he was going to have to hope that none of the team would notice, and nobody would ask why. 

Because he really did not want to explain this day to any of them. 

Especially not Eliot.