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.)
