Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Anonymous asked: You mentioned Parker and Sophie in your John Wick tags so can I request some Leverage for the headcanon ask?

Let’s go steal a headcanon meme.  (shut up, I’m hilarious)

A: what I think realistically

The brew pub’s microcosm, at this point, is bolstered by layers upon layers of gambling.  The old staff bets on how long new kitchen hires will last, and if you last out the first three months without quitting in a mild panic about what the fuck is happening here, you get formally inducted into the wider pool of bets.  The three top questions are:

The date of Nate and Sophie’s wedding: the pot is a handsome $700 despite the relatively small bets placed and regularly reupped (it took them two years to properly exchange names and thirteen years to sleep together, don’t tell me it wouldn’t be an ongoing question)

Who exactly is dating whom, among their three bosses: there are a scant three people who put their money on a poly triad, and they’ll be splitting the $1100 between them when someone figures Eliot and Parker and Hardison out

No, Really, What The Fuck Is Happening Here: There is one person who put their whole paycheck on “fuck it, they’re fucking criminal masterminds, they probably take down governments in their fucking free time” after seven pints of Thief Juice, and they are walking away with a cool two grand if they can ever actually prove it

B: what I think is fucking hilarious

So, the FBI thinks that Hardison and Parker are official agents.  Like, the FBI is so convinced of this, so convinced of this, that Hardison actually discovers they have valid badge numbers–they are all but being paid by the federal government as part of their Portland white collar crimes office.  Agent McSweeten and his partner have benefited handsomely from Hardison and Parker’s involvement, and they vouch for their ‘old buddies’ at every turn, to the extent that most of the feds they could run into in a number of cities (Boston, Portland, probably NYC) are like ‘yes, they’re undercover again, c’est la vie.’

Which is all well and good until Interpol shows up and has to work with the FBI on something quite unrelated, which results in Sterling tearing his hair out because “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THEY’RE NOT FEDERAL AGENTS THEY’RE CRIMINALS, OF COURSE THEY’RE CRIMINALS.”

The Feds honestly pity the poor guy.  Damn, their people are good, their undercover personalities even managed to convince Interpol, damn fine.  McSweeten tells Parker the story next time he sees her and she laughs for literally days.

C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends

Eliot believes–no, he knows–that he’s going to die for Parker and Hardison.  He’s actually pretty comfortable with this, but he knows that if he ever brings it up out loud, the pair of them are going to mutually implode.  I wrote that into a fic, actually.  Also, listen, we all know this is canon.  “Until my dying day.”  Eliot, please be a little less obviously worshipful of these people.  Some of my Eliot Spencer feelings can also be found here.

D:  what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway

I like to think that there’s a Leverage Mark II comprised of some of the kids they run into over the course of their jobs, I even wrote out like 2K words in headcanons for it.  Members include: 

Mastermind: Olivia Sterling, from The Queen’s Gambit Job

Hitter: Molly (who now identifies as Matthew), from The Carnival Job

Hacker: Trevor, from The Hot Potato Job

Grifter: Widmark (Mark), from The Fairy Godparents Job

Thief: Josie, from The Boost Job

Client: Luka, from The Stork Job, whose little sister has been kidnapped

I just really want this, okay?  I want to see them become the greatest criminals around under the tutelage of the Leverage squad and take up the torch when Eliot and Hardison and Parker decide to dial it back a bit and buy a restaurant somewhere.

(Related headcanon that Leverage habitually starts training up new generations and like in five hundred years humanity’s in space and the Leverage has an ancient oil painting hanging in their mess hall and whenever someone asks why they don’t transfer it to a hologram, the crew of the ship puffs up and declaims at length about their honored founder Harlan Leverage III and how they would never insult his memory like that!  In the afterlife, Nate S C R E A M S.)

kashinoha asked: #70. (67%) with Hardison/Parker/Eliot!

From this ancient prompt list, because I am the worst and it took me forever to get around to this.  I just want everyone to be proud of me because I almost went somewhere REALLY terrible with this prompt.  Because the last episode of Leverage fucked me all the way up and I remain vengeful about that.  That near miss will be obvious.

The con had unraveled at light speed.  Things had gone south almost as quickly as the time Leverage Incorporated had stolen the maquettes of the David, leaving Parker scrambling to adapt their plan and salvage as much as possible.  They’d managed to get the files that would prove their target responsible a fistful of deaths revolving around tainted eggs, but now Eliot’s earbud was fried.

Well. He thought it was fried—admittedly he hadn’t devoted a lot of time to checking in more detail.  Between the black eye swelling on his face (bone undamaged, bruising unlikely to occlude vision), the blood seeping into his jeans from a nasty knife cut to his thigh (missed the artery, unlikely to prove lethal, would inhibit full range of motion) and the four cracked-hopefully-not-broken ribs impeding his breathing (another hit would shatter them along the fissures) and, naturally, the fact that he was tied to a chair (efficiently, they had practice), the earbud had taken low priority.  If it was fried, he was going to murder Hardison with his bare hands, assuming he got out of this with both hands intact.  

Also assuming that the others got out of this to be murdered, of course, which was never a certainty when someone had the forethought to take their hitter out of the equation.  Eliot almost would have been reassured if the target’s hired muscle (most of them half-decent, with a small command structure of better trained mercs) was busy torturing him, because if they were occupied with him, the others would have time to get out.  Instead, they had managed to knock him out with a hard blow to the head (mild concussion, vertigo manageable for motion) and left him here alone, tied up and out of play.  But he was trying not to think about that, because if he thought too hard about the kind of disaster that could befall Hardison and Parker when he wasn’t there to take the hit for them, he got a little lightheaded (possibly the concussion, more probably a mild anxiety response).  So the dead earbud had to take a back burner to getting the fuck out of here and finding the other sixty-seven percent of Leverage International.

Keep reading

vulcan-sunflower:

Gosh, see that’s why I love Hardison bc he doesn’t see a problem, he sees a solution. No office? Still feeling a bit insecure about your place in your family and where your family’s relationship is after a trauma?
BUY the building your not-dad person lives in and give Eliot a chainsaw. Where’s that crime against humanity painting? Put it over the mantle or something, it’s beautiful and terrible. Bring in a couple extra fridges bc Eliot refuses to let his gourmet deli meats to be in the same fridge as Hardison’s fifteen 2 liters of orange soda. And Sophie demands something other than coffee and orange soda. Parker just wants a workbench to build rigs(and small explosives).

(Source: vulcan-love-child, via fyeahleverage)

On Hardison’s paintings

parvasilvi:

The painting of old Nate had started out as a joke, but after he’d finished it, Hardison found he couldn’t just stop there. He needed to have the whole set. So he painted them all; stunning Sophie, powerful Parker, enigmatic Eliot, even Hardison himself. Old Nate was blown up, but the other four portraits are still kept safely in one of Hardison’s safehouses.

Sophie’s portrait is the busiest, but your gaze is drawn immediately to her dark, smoldering eyes. She holds your gaze there despite the many paintings that hang in the background behind her, despite the expensive vases on delicate antique tables. It takes more willpower than you can explain to avert your gaze and take in the rest of the painting. She’s seated on a dark-red settee, twisted slightly to show off the curve of her body, her hands on her knees. At first, you think the glittering golden fabric covering her is a dress, but you notice her legs end in a fish’s tail, and you realize they’re scales. The portrait is titled “Siren Sophie”.

Parker’s portrait is much starker, almost empty compared to Sophie’s. In a silver rectangular frame, it’s background is completely black. Cutting through the darkness are bright white lasers, spreading out from the centre in a web-like pattern. At several places, a small origami fly is trapped in the web. Upon looking closer, you see they’re folded from 100 dollar bills. In the dead-centre of the painting is Parker, hanging comfortably from her rig. Her legs are bent underneath her, one hand on a thigh, the other wrapped around the dark chord above her to keep herself steady. She’s looking out at you with a half-grin on her face, like you’re just another 100-dollar fly she’s about to ensnare. A circular sign at the top of the frame reads “Spiderwoman”.

Eliot is the only one of the group who is not centered in his own portrait. Instead he stands to one side in his usual hitter-pose: arms crossed, feet firmly anchored, an unimpressed scowl on his face. What isn’t usual is his clothing: he’s wearing a long, dark golden cloak. A matching circlet is in his long, loose-flowing hair. He’s standing in the middle of a yellow desert, impossibly blue sky above him. In the centre of the painting is a huge pyramid, with two more in the background. The title is carved into the simple dark wood frame: “Sphinx Eliot”. You wonder idly what kind of riddle he would pose.

As weird as the first four paintings were, Hardison’s is the most unexpected. You’ve come to expect overconfidence from the boisterous geek. Maybe “Hero Hardison” surrounded by his favorite tech gadgets. You’re unprepared for the honesty you find in the hacker’s self-portrait. The painting looks like you’ve just thrown open the door to go outside. On the doorstep is a young, curly-haired boy that you hardly recognize as Hardison. The boy, dressed in a suit and bow tie, stares up at you with wide eyes. In one hand he holds a worn little suitcase. In the other is a slip of paper that reads: “Please take care of this boy”. The title is written on a similar, slip of paper pinned to the top of the simple frame: “Alec Paddington”.

(via renew-leverage)

battlships:

I feel like if/when Hardison and Parker have kids, they’ll all wind up being Super-Skrulls. They’ll be grifters, thieves, hackers, hitters, and masterminds all rolled up, because they’ll learn from their parents. I mean, we’ve already seen Eliot, Parker, and Hardison teach kids how to do what they do. And considering how famous Eliot, Parker, and Hardison are in the criminal world, those kids’ll be legends before they even start committing crimes. 

But they’ll also have morals. They won’t be like season 1 EPH, they’ll be season 5. They will care so much about everyone and be willing to fight as dirty as they need to protect them. Whoever gets in their way will be destroyed so severely they won’t even think about getting back up. Maybe they’ll even give people chances. They’ll see a look in someone and think of Uncle Eliot, who they know has done terrible things but they only know him as their favorite uncle (sorry Nate). The guy who cooks Thanksgiving dinner, who tells funny jokes, and always snuck them extra sweets.

Or maybe they’ll see someone tense up the way their mom does if someone she doesn’t know well touches her. She’s never told them about it, but they know something bad happened to her as a kid. They know that’s why she still hesitates a bit when she tells them that she loves them, and why, despite that, she makes sure they know it’s true.

They’ll see those things and think maybe we can help. And they do.

(via lathori)