Did No One Else Think Mr. Romance Novel Heartthrob Was A Little Too Perfect? He’s A Vet And A Fire

Leverage timetravel, pre pilot/child ot3 meet their redemption era selves

(I took some liberties re: /meeting/) In hindsight, visiting the US Patent office was probably not their smartest move.  Never return to the scene of the crime, and all, at least not if the job was finished. 

But they'd put a pin in going back for the time machine, and not even a really bad idea could deter Hardison from an actual time machine. Well. Portal, like Eliot had said. 

It hadn't come with an instruction manual, but the three of them, Hardison, Parker, Eliot were professionals at figuring things out on the fly . Even lost in the past. Even scattered. 

Hardison knew he just had to wait, though. They'd find each other. They'd lived through the past once, they could deal with it again, especially knowing everything they did. And it wasn't like they had to live through the whole span of years, either. They just had to find each other, put the pieces back together, scattered with them, and go home. Easier said than done--he was starting to think they might have ended up in different times--but still, the Estimated range was fifteen to twenty years, so that was only five max before they met up, right?

Hardison had gotten right to work. Ads in every major newspaper in the heartland cost plenty, but he had years of criminal practice on top of knowing what tech to invest in, so he really wasn't that worried. He guessed Eliot would be betting on sports games, like in Back to the Future. Parker... well, it was hard to guess where she was. Once he and Eliot met up, they'd have to wait for her to get to them. He did have a few things to do, first.

He knocked on Nana's door, feeling like maybe he ought to be wearing a bow tie. 

"What is it? You from the county?" she asked, when she opened the door. He could see behind her a few curious faces, including his own. Damn, he'd been so tiny. 

"Yes, Ma'am," he said brightly. He could remember this day, vaguely. The box he held was more familiar than his adult face. "I'm here to install your new computer."

"I didn't order any computer," Nana said. "Run your scam someplace else."

"It's not a scam!" he heard his own voice say. "I entered a contest at school."

He had. And he'd lost. Stupid Jake Puckett had won, a kid who could have easily afforded a computer. Alec hadn't known that though, until Hardison'd checked idly. And he wasn't about to just let all of history change. Well, all his own history. 

"You got some proof of that?" Nana asked, and Alec went  scampering off to his room to find his copy of the essay.

Satisfied with the expertly forged documents (wow! it was much easier to forge past documents when you were in the time they were from!) Nana let him in and pointed to a corner desk near an outlet. 

"You ever use your own one of these?" Hardison asked Alec, who shook his head. " just the one at school. I really won?"

"Sure did. Now, let me show you what this thing can do."

~

Eliot stood at the edge of the field, a newspaper crumpled in his hand. Hardison was in Boston, if the ad was right, and of course the ad was. No one else put that much effort into a coded message. 

He watched the football fly. In two weeks, the kid throwing it would be on a bus to boot camp. He closed his eyes. There were options.  Kid wouldn't believe him, of course. There were no secrets yet, to spill as proof. And he was too stubborn to buy the warning.  A good solid tackle, though. Break his arm bad enough...

He'd thought about it. And then about the what ifs. The blood would still be spilled, he knew that. Someone else would end up on Moreau's chain. Someone else would end up with a half dug grave for Flores, and maybe keep digging it.  Everything he'd done for money, the money'd go to someone else. Job might not get done, or it might. 

He'd be there for his mother's funeral. He'd miss Katherine Clive's. Rebecca Ibanez.  the way the drinking might have gone... he'd miss Nate Ford's.  He'd go to school, like his dad wanted, never play college ball. Study something-- art history, maybe -- but no, that was him now. Not him then. Him then would be angry and broken. Him then wouldn't have... his people.

He crumped the paper further. "Dammit, Hardison," he said quietly, and walked away. 

~

Parker had a code. Some things, you just didn't do. Some were big and flashy and obvious. Some were smaller, quieter. 

Hardison would say she shouldn't do this, she knew, and she usually listened to Hardison. He knew what he was talking about, most of the time. You can't change the past. That'd been part of the lecture before they'd gone to steal the time machine.  You can do things, sure, but you always did them. 

Well, Parker hadn't done this. No one had, back the first time she'd lived through this day. But she was doing it anyways, breaking his rule and her own. You don't steal from kids who don't have anything. 

Carefully, she picked the lock on the child's bicycle chain. 

there's something about maggie/sophie that will always have me in its thrall... it's not even about the mutual nate of it all, necessarily, although that's delicious.

it's also about, they both love art in a visceral way. and about the fact that maggie recognized sophie in the museum. that the "of course she bloody speaks spanish" is reminiscent of the cat and mouse game sophie had fun with with nate.

and it's the easy way in which sophie manages to instruct maggie. and how "she's turning into quite the grifter" actually does highlight how sophie's area of crime is probably the one maggie's most suited to, too.

and then, of course, there's the whole thing about maggie being "the most honest person" the team knows and sophie being The Liar of all time.

something so simultaneously jagged, mismatched and soft, understanding about them that makes me want to eat gravel.

this post was made unrebloggable, so im stealing it

when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. and when you have a favourite character everything looks like . The Character

started watching white collar because the venn diagram of the white collar and leverage fandoms appears to be a circle and you know what. yeah. i get it now.

Sophie loves to go dancing, but she rarely goes with Nate. He takes it too seriously, and he always get involved in the dance hall politics. Plus, as technical and detail oriented as he is, he isn't really good at dancing. He can do the steps, but he doesn't understand how to let himself get swept away by the music.

The first time she asked Eliot, he laughed at her. Said there was no way he was going to spend his night off in some dusty ballroom when he could be at home relaxing. She'd shrugged it off, having anticipated his refusal, and had gone by herself, intending to find a partner when she got there.

Except when she showed up, she found Eliot dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt, his hair pulled back in a pony tail, mumbling something about not wanting her to have to go without a partner.

The next time she asked, he complained about how slippery his shoes were and how handsy Mrs. Gunderson had been during the open dance, but he picked Sophie up at 6 and dropped her off at 10 and smiled most of the time between.

A week after that, she found a flyer for a foxtrot competition slipped under her door, with the note "I'm free on Saturday" scrawled across the bottom.

(They won.)

They go several times a month now. Hardison laughs when he finds out, but Eliot says it's good exercise. Parker is very excited about their trophy but loses interest when she finds out it's plastic. Nate comes to watch sometimes, because as much as he dislikes dancing himself, he appreciates the skill involved.

(Maybe he's picking up pointers. He'll never tell.)

Pitching Leverage to a socialist friend: "The heist team gets hired by people who have been victimized by these corporate baddies, so there is always a scene at the beginning where some lady is telling the team 'my dad died because he couldn't afford his diabetes medication after the new factory owner Joshua Dirtbag the Third cut his hours' and the team is like 'say no more. we will put on elaborate disguises and convince him to bet on a fake racehorse, and somehow at the end of it you will have all his money and he will go to jail'."

Inspired by this post by @lemissingmask

The team holding Eliot back from violence, either with a simple gesture or by putting themselves in front of him.

And the time the violence was encouraged:

I realize there are some jobs that are too big for Leverage (eg taking down a predatory big-box stores a la Walmart), but surely there's something they can do about the state of the U.S. Supreme Court

The best part of the whole #ElectricCon, 100%.