#also! tobias! tobias as parker! it's perfect! he's the calmest quietest thief ever!

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Listen. Listen. Hear me out. Leverage AU of Animorphs. Adults, no war, wacky found family hijinks.

Hell yeah!  Anon, you’re a visionary!

Jake is the mastermind, of course, although he’s not—he’s not happy about it.  He actually started life as a grifter, sort of, playing cheerful lugs and quietly menacing hired hands while he chased thieves, but he always seemed to be the person who had a plan, when everything went to shit.  When he worked as an insurance investigator, he was mostly good at his work because he could blend in, he could adjust when things went bad, and he was a big believer in just being a stubborn ass until the world eventually gave him a lead.  Until his brother died, he was exceptional at his work, largely by dint of hardheaded determination.  Tom was a good detective and Jake was a good field agent, and they were an excellent team, the best in the business, made a name for themselves first in insurance, then in the criminal world, as the Berenson brothers.  Everyone including Tom knew that, when things went wrong, it was Jake who was going to get them out.  Of course—then Tom died.  The company they both worked for denied Tom’s life insurance, fired Jake, and threatened to bring criminal charges against their parents, when they pushed for a civil suit over the insurance.  Jake’s parents mortgaged their house to pay for Tom’s funeral expenses, because Tom and Jake’s apartment—well, Jake still needs somewhere to live.  Jake is…not handling it well, when he’s approached with an offer to run a team—one job, no encores, for a good cause.

The dossiers he’s given are:

His own cousin, actually, Rachel, the best hitter in the business, who vanished when she was eighteen and sent home money for her sisters’ education for eight years after her mother lost her job.  Jake has encountered her five times in a professional capacity, she usually grins and shouts “Hey, Big Jake” just like she did when they were kids, and then she usually punches him so hard in the solar plexus that it lays him out while she runs. Two of those times she didn’t have anything stolen on her—just bad luck, really—and he didn’t really try that hard to catch her.  One time she had a gold signet ring from the Ming dynasty that was worth millions alone and even more to Sharing Insurance—Jake got that one back.  One time she had a small fortune in diamonds, and she dislocated his shoulder, broke three of his ribs, and very nearly blew out everything in his right knee.  She walked away from him, smirking, prize in hand.  One time, she didn’t have anything on her, not even a knife, just blood and a distant expression.  Jake sat with her for an hour until her hands stopped shaking, and lied, and said that she had been long gone by the time he got there.  That’s how he knows Rachel’s well past theft, at this point, but—she’s still the best in the business and she was grinning again, by next time. 

Aximili Isthill, who was stamped as a national security risk at sixteen, when he altered the DoD secure login page to feature a short thesis on motherboard design as what he insisted was a ‘pop up’ but also crashed computers when someone tried to close the window without scrolling to the bottom.  Apparently it was mostly just to prove a point to someone, but no one ever figured out who and no one ever caught him.  Jake has met him in person exactly once—a lanky guy who at the time had a shock of electric blue hair and a sweet smile—and didn’t figure out who it was until well afterward, when he got an email from a junk username featuring a fun fact about apple genetics, a picture of Jake himself from earlier that day, and a signature reading AX.  

Tobias, last name unknown, who is quite simply the finest thief anyone has ever met.  Jake’s seen him, but never spoken to him—tall and slender, almost gangly, serious expression.  Not a remarkable face, really.  No one knows anything about him, except that he likes the vertical approach, is apparently very soft-spoken, and, other than his ridiculous heists, never does anything worth noting.

Jake takes the dossiers home and Marco cackles with delight—his lifetime best friend, upright stolid dependable Jake, finally playing Marco’s side.  Jake rolls his eyes and pretends to be annoyed with him, and doesn’t admit that he’s grateful for Marco deciding to find jobs on the East Coast these days, since the funeral, so that he can spend weeks on end sleeping on Jake’s couch.  This arrangement used to take some careful negotiating, wherein Marco told Jake absolutely nothing, ever, about his work and never brought anything into the apartment, but now Marco has five different types of paper and several binding options laid out on the kitchen table because—well, frankly, if Jake was going to hand Marco in for forgery, it would have been years ago, back when Jake got paid for it.  Besides, neither Tom nor Jake was an art expert, and the one time they accidentally brought in a fake had been terrible for their professional reputation.  Better to delay the delivery a few days, pay to fly Marco into town, and have it authenticated under the table before they staked their names on it.

No forgeries needed for the job Fenestre hires him for, though, just a lot of mockery from Rachel and a tidy break-and-enter. 

Of course, then they get double-crossed, blown up, caught, and popped in a hospital, and Jake groans before he orders Tobias to steal him a phone.  He gets Ax on the phone with Marco, who comes and flashes a badge and walks right out the door with the lot of them, and then they go find a Cassie for a little revenge.