renew leverage

Hardison: *is in danger*

Eliot: that's a relief

Parker: can we kill Rand?

Eliot: okay

Nate: if you were ever in the position where you were given the opportunity to kill someone, would you?

Eliot, insulted: of course not, that's not me anymore

Nate: would you kill if someone like Moreau asked you to?

Eliot, without hesitation: no

Nate: what if me or Sophie asked you to?

Eliot: of course not

Nate: what about if Hardison or Parker asked you to?

Eliot: absolutely

Nate: ...

Eliot: ...

The Leverage: Redemption team are hired to investigate Merrick Pharmaceuticals following a suspicious death in South Sudan. They embark on a con, infiltrate Merrick’s HQ… and find some unexpected prisoners in his research lab.

Rating: General Audience

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Spoilers for The Old Guard

Inspired by this genius post -- thank you @chimaerakitten:

nate: no one is better than him at disarming large numbers of enemies without going down

nate: he can identify weaponry by sound and organizations by fighting style, hair cut, and shoes

(Quick shout out to Dispensary 33, where 1920s facial hair meets 2020s weed edibles!)

Title: A Very Distinctive Backstitch Rating: General Summary: Parker returns home to find Eliot has discovered both pinterest and handicrafts, and Hardison has had to use the fire extinguisher again.

Parker got home three days after the boys did, on that particular mission. When they were planning it, they seemed to think this wasn’t fair, and she’d told them they were right; she felt terrible, having so much fun without them. Still, they’d just have to keep a stiff upper lip about it and she’d let them have all the fun next time.

(When she mentioned that, Alec got his “You have misunderstood my intentions” face, but she l…she lo…she loved Alec in part because even when she didn’t understand, he wasn’t ever mean or judgey. He didn’t always explain, but he always accepted. In this case, he just got her a GoPro so she could tape herself on the stunt bike course during the mission.)

Anyway, she spent three days having so much fun, and didn’t even mind the long drive back to Portland in the taquito truck. But when she finally arrived home, letting herself into the loft above the brewpub, she was met with a mystery. As she entered she found, draped over the kitchen island, a large fold of cloth, heavily embroidered in the style of the Bayeaux tapestry.

“Did you take an entire other job without me?” she demanded, as Alec walked into the kitchen carrying an empty plastic takeaway container. He shouted, flailed, and threw it at her. She caught it and tossed it into the sink. (She was all for throwing them away, but Eliot got a really pinched look when they did that, so now they washed them and saved them forever in the Sacred Take Away Container Reliquary, aka the bottom drawer on the right of the dishwasher.)

“Parker!” Alec yelped.

“What kind of job would you need the Bayeaux tapestry for, anyhow?” she asked.

“Woman,” Alec sighed, but he hugged her, and once she’d gotten used to them hugs were nice, so she enjoyed that part. “Welcome home. It’s not the Bayeax tapestry. I have some bad news.”

“If you’re getting some 7535 you might as well grab the 7110!” Eliot’s voice drifted out from the bedroom.

“Eliot’s lost his damn mind,” Hardison finished.

In theory, Parker knew that this job would be rough on Eliot. It required their hitter to take a beating. Eliot had said he was fine with it, but he’d taken more of a hit than anyone (possibly including the bad guys’ goon) had intended. In practice she’d been prepared for him to be bedridden, doped up, and cranky, but she hadn’t been prepared for cryptography.

“What’s 7535?” she asked in a whisper.

“Embroidery thread,” Hardison replied, reaching for a plastic bin on the counter. He held up a hank of wooly yarn, wrapped in a piece of paper that did indeed read 7535. “Did you know there are seven different shades of black?”

“Well, yeah,” she said, perplexed. “I mean, Venetian Black is totally different from Cherry Black, and then there’s Dark Black – oh! I found it!” she added, plucking the other color, 7110, out of the box. “What does Eliot want with red and black yarn?”

“Thread. Embroidery thread,” Alex said. “He got high and picked up a hobby.”

At that point Eliot himself, apparently impatient with Alec’s lack of speed, thumped into the kitchen on a crutch.

“It’s not a hobby, it’s a historical tradition,” he said. “Hi Parker, welcome home. Textiles have always been dismissed as crafts while paint and sculpture are arts,” he added, aggrieved.

Parker turned to Alec. He shrugged.

“He found a really compelling Pinterest right as the opiates kicked in,” he said.

“I learned how to embroider at three in the morning,” Eliot said to her proudly. He held out his next project after the fake Bayeaux tapestry. It was a cross stitch announcing All Cheese is Hubris. Parker studied it, impressed.

“He also almost burned the building down,” Alec interjected, as if he wasn’t used to both of them almost burning things down on a very regular basis. It was cute how he always acted surprised.

“It’s a long story,” Eliot said. “Anyway once I got the hang of it, I thought, I’ve never forged a textile before.”

“Ooh, me neither,” Parker said thoughtfully.

“But there’s a couple of panels from the Bayeaux missing, right?” he continued. “And like…why shouldn’t one of the missing panels have aliens in it?”

Parker checked the tapestry on the kitchen island. Among other more traditional motifs, it did indeed have two large-eyed aliens abducting a monk.

“He’s still high?” she asked.

“Another two days on the Vicodin,” Alec confirmed.

“It looks very authentic,” she said loyally. “Construction-wise, I mean.”

“Thanks,” Eliot said. He accepted the thread Alec handed him. “I’m gonna go finish this one. It’s for the kitchen.”

He hobbled off. Alec looked at her, his face a careful mask.

“Poor baby,” she said. “I got to base-jump twice and you’ve been tripsitting him through the hobby store.”

“ART STORE,” Eliot’s voice drifted out from the bedroom.

“Yeah, well, you know, it’s been rough, but I held up,” Alec said, putting on a mock-brave face. She grinned and kissed his cheek.

“Go play some video games. I’ll handle him from here. With a little nudge, he might learn to knit before we have to get him off the hard stuff,” she pointed out. She felt the benefits of knitting were self-evident, but Alec frowned.

“Why do we want Eliot to learn to knit?” he asked.

“Hello? Custom sized winter hats?” she pointed out. Hardison fell well within the one-size-fits-all range of most machine knitted hats – she’d done measurements while he slept – but she just knew if he had a tailored toque he’d feel better about wintering somewhere it rained every single day from Halloween to St. Patrick’s Day. She herself had quite an oval head and hadn’t gone back to off-the-rack hats since her first tailored ski mask.

“I’m gonna go…Goose Game,” he said.

But somewhere along the line they just… Disappeared. My mom says they’re not being paid and they’re not in collections. It’s almost as if someone out there did…exactly what Parker did.

“What?” Parker looked back over her shoulder at the man currently adorned with three blondes, five brunettes, and a redhead. “Why?”

“Something’s not right,” Eliot said, which wasn’t an explanation at all.

“Think you can maybe give us a little more to go on than that?” Nate asked, the kind of sardonic authority that was easy to pull off when he wasn’t even in the building.

“No,” Eliot snapped. “I don’t know what the hell it is, I just know it’s bad news.” MI6 in the way he held his champagne and CIA in the way he stood and a soldier in his shoulders and Interpol in the way he looked around the room – no, CIA again – no, FBI – League of Assassins? Obviously not that, couldn’t have been that, so what exactly was it that had him wanting to grab Parker and get the hell out? If he could get closer he might be able to tell, the mezzanine might as well have been a different building entirely for all the good it did him. All forest, no trees.

“Not distinctive enough?” Hardison asked, but it wasn’t a real question.

“Too distinctive,” Eliot answered, even though he knew Hardison didn’t actually care. “I’ve just never seen it before.”

“If you’ll pardon the intrusion, sir,” said a voice not in Eliot’s ear, and he did not make it obvious how he stiffened at the address. Eliot turned, let harmless confusion and interest soften his face.

The butler, the one he’d seen before. Pennyworth. That familiar combination of MI6 and Interpol, muddied with domestic service but present all the same.

“May I have your name?” the butler asked, his hair was white but his eyes were sharp.

“Isaac Easton,” Eliot lied automatically. “Is something wrong?”

Mr. Pennyworth exuded serene amusement. “So sorry,” he said, “but I’m afraid you’re not Mr. Easton.”

“Don’t try to deny it,” Sophie said in Eliot’s ear before he could respond. “He couldn’t make it so he told you to come.”

“You caught me,” Eliot said, sheepish. “Turned out he had some kind of a family thing, said I could use his invite. Didn’t think anyone’d notice if I used his name. He’ll be flattered you remember him.”

It was unclear if Pennyworth bought this story, as placid as before. “I don’t, actually,” he said. “But I’ve always made it a point to examine the guest lists personally. If there were meant to be a former green beret in attendance, I would know about it.”

Eliot was, for the most fleeting of moments, stunned.

The butler smiled. It was not kind. “The way you watch the crowd,” he explained. “It’s very distinctive.”

Eliot froze. He frowned. His brow furrowed.

which is to say. leverage crew are unknowingly speedrunning this guy’s demise. bruce was already handling it, he’s just content to play a longer game cuz taking down evil rich guys who do run-of-the-mill rich people crimes and not, y'know, increasingly elaborate supervillain crimes often involving fun new dangerous chemicals and explosives is the batman equivalent of a hobby. he combs thru the banking records of gotham’s elite to relax

and. because in both the leverage crew and the batfam’s experience people who have a very particular skillset and are lying about it do not mean well, they spend the whole gala convinced the other group are Villains.

so the longer the job takes the more nate suggests maybe they just bail, guys, they can find another angle that doesn’t need those files, they have definitely stumbled into something bigger here and he has no idea who bruce wayne actually is but he does not want to piss him off, while parker and eliot stubbornly refuse to leave because, no, they are figuring out what the fuck wayne’s deal is. hardison is having too much fun talking to tim to take a side. sophie can’t decide if the inevitability of someone being stabbed is worth finding out why dick grayson is subtly grilling her about a few very specific pieces of artwork and their exact locations

(for the record dick is mostly trying to figure out if she knows selina) (he is asking the wrong person) (parker hasn’t ever talked to her but they’ve crossed paths) (only so many buildings containing incredibly expensive things in the world. yknow how it is)

and the more of the evening that passes the more bruce starts to develop a twitch, because these people are here for A Reason but no one can find anything on them, they’re not trying to get in the kitchens, they’re not armed, he sent tim off to hack into their comms two hours ago and he still hasn’t come back, dick is convinced the older woman is a prolific griffer but bruce is reasonably sure she’s related to him somehow, what are they trying to do why are they here bruce’s head hurts

eventually, eliot hits his subterfuge limit and just starts for the office, and bruce follows him, and they get in the aforementioned brawl in a relatively out-the-way hallway that slowly attracts parker, sophie, nate, and dick, and as that is playing out hardison finally says something he thinks isn’t incriminating but makes tim go “ohhh you’re after the medical fraud guy. shit, why didn’t you just say so? i’ll send you the files now”

meaning hardison finally gives his full attention back to the main comms channel and says “uh, nate? it’s cool, i sorted it, you can bounce”, only for nate to reply “eliot has bruce wayne in a chokehold” and then, as hardison splutters, “no, wait, bruce wayne has eliot pinned– no, eliot has– no, i think– wait, maybe–”

“you, uh. you can break it up” hardison says, desperately trying to find a security camera with a good angle, and tim pipes up “hey, can we set up your guy and bruce on some playdates?” as nate, caught between bemusement and concern, says “i think? this is fun for them?”

in it's honour please witness the best fmv ever made for leverage and for the ot3 and for maybe any ot3 ever which i just learned can also be found on ao3