#and eliot is not far behind

[planetarywho]

Why do I hate myself to the point of deciding to rewatch The Magicians? I know what it did to me the first time around, why do I go back?

[yardsards]

the trouble with moving in with someone who's lived in that house for a long time before you is having to constantly figure out "is this thing like that On Purpose or can i fix it?" like. is that bowl of weird liquid in the microwave load-bearing or did you just forget it and can i go ahead and dump it out?

[greyhavensking]

just rewatched the season 4 finale of the magicians for the first time since it aired and, uh. wow. no, yeah, that is just as bad as I remember

[riverofrainbows]

Eliot Spencer. Listen to me i am obsessed with the man. He is so incredibly stereotypically masculine, and hardcore so, yet at the same time really isn't in ways that would be damning for the 2000s and early 2010s. Long hair, not unusually tall, the most emotionally aware one and most in tune with his emotions on the whole team. (Not that the others don't also have points in that area, but they're all terrible at it in some way and Eliot scores by far the most points.) He has a hobby that's not James Bond like (cooking), and he gets to be goofy while being unquestioned as the most badass guy in the room. And yes he makes inappropriate jokes about lesbians and goes all no homo at physical affection from other men, and younger people probably don't find him quite as monumental as i do in terms of masculinity. But his behaviour never reflects those jokes or the no homo, and he was the red blooded american former military guy character on a big network tv show in the year 2009. For which he was a severely mild case. He treats the other characters as people and not stereotypes, in the way the whole show does, and he has long hair he puts up in ponytails and half buns that have his side bangs falling out (you need to understand what big of a deal the manbun was in like 2013, so much so that they had to invent a word). He's emotional and doesn't actually mean his gruffness most of the time, and doesn't thinks himself above certain tasks or people. He wears ridiculous little outfits without putting up a show about his threatened masculinity, and he's the most emotionally intelligent one outside of cons. He wears little jewellery in his hair sometimes, and little braids even (yes braided hair was a no go), he plays guitar and sings earnest love songs not just to try to get laid (love songs would only be permissible in the immediate context of romance), and whenever they have a young woman as a client, that reminds him of home i presume, he works with so much effort and respect for them as the one he's in service to, and respects their opinion strongly. He wears glasses, and reads books and is way too nerdy for an action hero type of the 2010s. He is great with kids, and unironically so (there were multiple big shows and movies about the topic of "men needing to deal with children on their own" with the entire premise of that being ridiculous and them being naturally bad at it). He's the most stereotypically action hero type masculine guy on the show, and he does get strive or posture for power or dominance in their team, is content with a contributing role and trusting on the expertise of the others, and he is not portrayed as the most valuable one or as that behaviour being beneath him. He undresses so he and the woman he's fighting with are on equal ground reading undress. He is shorter than the others and continuously portrayed as the most dangerous one in any room, and height differences afe never deemphasised via cinematography (seriously, to be regarded as sufficiently masculine in western films they either get really tall actors or employ a variety of camera angles and boxes to give that impression. But just think of Eliot in the pilot when rescuing Hardison in the first break in, standing behind the group of security guys who all look way taller than him and more physically impressive with weapons and all. And then Eliot just in a t-shirt with no weapon but himself.) He has long hair (again, mainstream sufficiently masculine guys didn't do that back then, or now if we think of it (not that long at least)).

The show and all it's characters were a goddamn marvel back in 2009, and sadly in many ways still are today, 15 years later.

And he heals my little broken heart regarding gender stereotypes and masculinity, my heart that grew up in the 2000s and has so much difficulty accepting that my gender is valid. Bless him for it.

[lindseymcdonaldseyelashes]

By now, the authorities have surely caught on and noticed that where there's suspicious activity, a Brick & Basil food truck is never far behind. The problem is that it's a legitimate business and that's there's so damn many of them. Plus, they're all managed by veterans who know how to handle themselves. In the training manuals, on top of proper care of the vehicles, and sanitation guidelines, and delicious recipes, Eliot has left them very clear instructions on how to get out of a bind if they're ever pulled over without just cause. Many cops have already (deservedly) lost their jobs over unlawful search and seizure related to the chain, so the ones that know what's good for them don't even try anymore.

[gnar-slabdash]

I suddenly woke up stupid early on my day off with multiple weird random aches and pains and a revelation about the Leverage chess metaphors.

They’re all wrong.

Look, I obviously adore the white knight/black king motif, and it works really well for that very specific discussion of Nate’s shift in morality and position at the opening of the series. But the show as well as I and other fans have then tried to take that equation and apply it to other jobs and to the crew as a whole. This is fun and awesome, but I believe you’re going to get it wrong every time if you start from the white knight/black king line. 

Because in all other situations, Nate is not the king.

Couple important things about kings in chess: 1. They don’t move much. They can only move one space at a time, and for most of the game they stay in their own little box, well guarded by other pieces. This is because 2. When the king is checkmated (threatened with capture and no possible escape), it’s game over. There is no more hope. This is the sole requirement for losing the game. No matter who else is in play, if the king is down, you lose.

This is NOT how Nate operates. Yeah, he makes the plans, but he doesn’t just hide in the office while everybody else carries them out. He’s almost always right up in there playing the most obnoxious guy you’ve ever met or smashing windows or something. And if Nate gets captured, it’s not game over, in fact, it often isn’t even a PROBLEM. Let’s look at a few times that happens, just for fun: - In The King George Job, Nate’s getting beat up and Eliot slightly panics and is about to run to help, when Sophie says “NOPE, don’t do that, I can fix this without blowing our cover” and saunters in at her leisure. The jig isn’t up and she’s not even particularly concerned about him getting punched. I love it. - In the Maltese Falcon Job, Nate sacrifices himself to save the team. This is a classic thing to do in chess and chess metaphors, but, I cannot stress this enough, you cannot sacrifice your king. That’s just called LOSING. -In The Long Goodbye Job of course the whole con is structured around Nate getting caught. I guess this one kind of makes sense because the whole point is to look like they HAVE completely lost, but then at the end it appears that Nate’s going to secret prison and everyone else is escaping WITH the black book, so they STILL would be losing Nate but winning the job. 

So if Nate isn’t the king, who is?

Hardison.

Let’s look at our points about kings again:

1. Doesn’t move as far or as quickly: Yes, Hardison ALSO gets out there and participates in the cons, everybody does. But Hardison does stay in the background more often, because that’s where his power is. He does the behind the scenes tech stuff and the remote stuff, he can wreck your shop without showing up through the power of the internet. He also does the forgeries of identities and objects, which are also done in his own space. At the same time, he has less physical power and less range -- you don’t want him in a fistfight, or a gunfight, and his grifts are notorious for being a little. . . uh. . . interesting. So he has limited physical range and power but at the same time. . . .

2. The game is over if you lose him. That far-reaching behind the scenes power is absolutely vital for 90% of the jobs. He does the massive amounts of research and hacking legwork needed just to START a job, even before you get to actually completing the job. You are pretty much dead in the water without Hardison. But that’s just from a practical standpoint. Losing Hardison is also a crisis from an emotional standpoint. He’s our moral compass and our sweet baby brother and when Hardison gets in trouble there is no “well he’ll be fine for a few minutes” and no “well he kinda had it coming.” No, when Hardison is in trouble everything else grinds to a halt and everyone comes running. (See: The Experimental Job, The Grave Danger Job, The Long Goodbye Job.)

So like, yes Nate is in charge. But the king isn’t in charge on a chessboard, the king is just a piece with a very unique role, which Hardison fills much better than Nate does. So, now that we have our real king, who are our other pieces?

Queen: Parker. This has nothing to do with her dating Hardison. The thing about the queen is she can do a little bit of everything -- she can move in any direction, making her the most dangerous piece on the board. Parker’s whole character arc is about learning all the different roles and how to access the whole playing field. She’s the only one who plans and executes an entire episode-length job by herself (okay, with a little help from her girlfriend). Plus, the other cool thing about a queen is she has a built-in transformation story -- a pawn that crosses the board can become a queen, which Parker mimics by initially being dismissed as “the crazy one” and ultimately becoming the mastermind.

Knight: Sophie. I know, I wanted Eliot to be the horsie too, but this makes more sense. The knight’s deal is that it’s sneaky -- it’s the only piece that can turn corners -- and it can jump over obstacles. Sophie’s whole philosophy of grifting is that she shouldn’t need to know about safes or security systems, she should be able to bypass (jump over) all that by insinuating herself with the mark (being sneaky by playing a character to get behind enemy lines)

Rook: Eliot. This is the straightforward one -- it goes in a straight line. It also literally represents the castle walls. It’s also so, so fucking helpful to have around, I fucking hate losing my rooks. It’s your solid right hand man, basically. Is this a little reductive of Eliot? Absolutely, but I’m jamming five complex characters into five predetermined boxes, it’s not all gonna be nuanced. And I think Mr. Punchy would like being seen as the fortress that everybody depends on, and to let all the nuance go under the radar. That’s where he likes it. 

Bishop: Finally, here’s where Nate is hiding. While the rook can only go straight (lol), the bishop can only go diagonally. Nothing can be straightforward for the bishop, he always has to come at things from an angle. Like, you know, constantly looking at all the different angles of a situation and finding the right angle to come at a mark from. Also, the bishops sit right in the middle right next to the king and queen. I don’t know that this is historically accurate, but when my dad taught me to play he told me that was because the bishops were important councilors to the rulers, they were the ones who had important wisdom that would tell them the best plan of attack. So the king here isn’t necessarily the one making the plans -- that’s the bishop. And finally, apparently the bishop is called lots of different things in other languages, but we’re operating in English, which means it makes Nate a priest, and that makes me happy.

[heartofgold-info]

About Heart of Gold

Hello everyone! Thanks so much for your patience and your questions about the current status of Heart of Gold. It’s been an extremely busy time since we finished volume 2, with ups and downs in our private and professional lives. And sitting down to write this wasn’t easy, but we’ve been sitting on this far too long than we’d have liked, and we apologize for letting you all wait. Well, to get straight to the point: Heart of Gold is on an indefinite hiatus. There’s a chance we will return to this project, but right now we are focusing on other areas. More under the cut below!

Longform comics without a publisher and large funding behind it run at the risk of burnout, and we can now say we’re unfortunately no strangers to that. We’ve had incredible support from our readers and our patrons, much more than we could’ve ever imagined.

But unfortunately, as it is with webcomics, creativity and funding burns quicker than one might hope, and we ended up deciding to explore other avenues. We’ve always wanted to find our footing in illustration, and ultimately find a healthy balance between work and life without overextending ourselves. The workload of a comic can easily be underestimated, and boy, did we underestimate!

So right now, we’re focusing on growing artistically while also recovering from burnout; on finding ourselves a bit and what we want to create in this world to make it a kinder place.

We’ve been so grateful for every lovely bit of fanart, comment and financial support we've received from our readers. What started as a passion project found its way to people that returned the love we have for this project, manyfold. Thanks for sharing the excitement for HoG with us, it truly meant and still means the world to us.

We hope you’ll look forward to other projects we’ll be working on in the future, be it of our own creation or in collaboration with clients!

- Eliot & Viv

PS: As for printing plans for Heart of Gold volume 2: There's still plans! Just as mentioned above, no time or space (like, literally. we're drowning in books) to take care of it right now. But we'd love nothing more than to have a companion for volume 1.

[leverage-ot3]

time for the obligatory post about what episodes I want to see in the upcoming leverage season(s)

(for reference, I made this similar post in 2020 after the reboot was announced. I'm pasting some from that post bc I still want them to happen lol)

new ideas:

I mentioned a date night episode in the last post (apollo really did bless me with foresight for the date night job on that one) but for considerment: ot3 date night. possibly their first date night after they all get together. breanna and sophie know it's happening (harry is, like, peripherally aware) and some crime hijinks are going down and the three of them are frantically trying to stop bad things from happening that are going to interfere with the date. I want to see them going through it behind the metaphorical curtain. I want to see breanna fighting for her life trying to out-hack the hacker that is going to ruin their ten-part itineraried date. harry has to get in a fistfight and eliot is so proud about it when he finds out after everything is over

tree law episode. harry has been frothing at the mouth about it since it was made. his life has been moving him towards this penultimate moment. breanna thinks it's HILARIOUS and cheers him on 100% of the way. she is VERY enthusiastic about this con

I'm not going to mention certain things because I've seen jrogers posting on bluesky social and I know he might be already writing some of those plots

con that the food trucks have plot-relevance. like, one of his food truck stations is being harassed /victimized by, like, a local gang or something that takes advantage of food truck/cart workers and the team steps in. the actual (veteran) food truck workers get involved in the con. leverage international might just have gained a few retainer members

quinn should come back for an episode. I know the actor is friends with ckane. they should make it happen because it would be iconic and I said so

on a similar note, ckane is friends with jensen ackles and. guys. wouldn't it- wouldn't it be extremely funny if a flame from eliot's past named sean sylvester who is a rugged drifter with a questionable past

episode where tara or maggie (or BOTH, can you imagine how powerful that would be???) come back and there is slight flirting with sophie possibly??? that or very obvious chemistry from a past tryst. sophie has slept with both of them, I know it in my heart of hearts. bonus points if tara and maggie fall in love (I think it would be funny. maggie's taste in men is canonically atrocious, I think she deserves someone like tara at this point)

I just want a lot of side characters to come back, okay? sue me I miss them

gonna put the rest under the cut since this post has become obscenely long

not episode-specific, but I want more mentions of the korean leverage team. and all the other teams too! we know that in canon there is the south korean one, the nigerian one, and one in london (I think that's it for mentions so far, but correct me if I'm wrong!)

episodes addressing issues with american imperialism and its effects on minorities and marginalized communities, specifically within this country (there aren't a lot of episodes where they are actively out of country)

dear fucking god take a more abolitionist stance on policing I'm begging. would it KILL you to not be weird about cops? pls just punch some more cops. take down white supremacist cops, I'm sure you can scrounge something up bffrrn

women's rights episodes. I know it's kind of recent, but episodes about accessibility of stuff like birth control, abortion access, etc. y'all are capable of making excellent episodes on that I know it

more climate crisis-related episodes. god knows you're feeling it in the deep south

taking down a corrupt megachurch pastor (although lbr, there is no ethical megachurch anything and you can fight me on this)

something to do with ace rights bc I think it would be really cool to see the team advocate for that stuff, especially since breanna is canon ace

helping a polycule that is being victimized by X organization/entity (maybe a housing association or medical or something???). breanna is bombastic side-eyeing the ot3 the entire time. it is making hardison sweat. sophie thinks it's hilarious

taking down 'writers' that use ai and self-publish AND/OR people that take original/fan works off of like ao3 and wattpad and publish them for personal profits without the author's consent. breanna would have a field day with this (god herself could try to convince me that girl does not read/write fanfic and I wouldn't believe it)

episode about underfunded public schools. we saw corrupt private schools in the fairy godparents job but I want an episode that would make abbot elementary writers proud

episode addressing native/indigenous. eliot is from oklahoma, I'm sure he is well aware of the health/job/economic/etc disparities on reservations. I will email jrogers about it myself if I have to- it anyone can get people going about native rights through a tv show it would be leverage.

I sent an ask to wil wheaton once asking if he was open to returning to leverage and I think he said he would be down for it. but chaos either has to be a reluctant ally to leverage international and is being handled by quinn as a hitter OR he is just. in jail. bc he sucks.

bpas and/or pfas episode. breanna has mentioned microplastics before but I want more

the team tears the shit out of conversion therapy camp owners and plants the seeds for legislation that will punish parents that try to send their kids to those hellscapes

while we're at it, I'd love to see an ep where they tackle the trans bathroom issue. god knows the news doesn't talk about it nearly enough

something to do with foster care. they end up starting some sort of foster care network that past clients/allies can take part in. maybe a mentorship program for kids that want to do what they do one day (they are very reluctant to encourage kids to participate in crime BUT if that is the avenue that they are going to inevitably go towards, they guide them in the right direction). nana makes an appearance (*insert 'everybody liked that' meme*)

prison industrial complex episode. I KNOW we had the jailhouse job BUT we really need this in our year of 2024

another episode on corrupt influencers. maybe influencer parents? dear god pls take them down a notch

ep where there is an underlying message that tells you how to avoid becoming victim to scams or something, or like is a tutorial for how to identify scams you might fall victim to (sorry, I just have to say this after two separate people tried to pig butcher me in less than two (2) weeks))

not to say I want them to do an ep calling out cop city, but it would feel really good to watch the leverage team rip that concept to SHREDS

the minimum wage job. need I say more? we deserve the catharsis

pls go after goodwill execs, esp the ones in the pnw that have their sector as for-profit and have become millionaires+ because of it while paying their staff (especially disabled staff) fucking pennies

while we're on the topic, pls call out salvation army (the corporation)

I can probably go on for like five hours so I'll stop here

ep that we get to see harry and his daughter bond :)

job where they get to lower the price of insulin (and other drugs)

actually, you know what? an episode where the crew annihilates big pharma and terrible insurance companies

I think that breanna should be able to go off about mass/over consumption as a treat. I 100% believe she has Thoughts about it. like, she will absolutely call out the corporations that are responsible for these trends, but also she should be allowed to mention our tendency for overconsumption as a society. obviously there are a few corporations that are doing most of the world's pollution/ecological damage, but we should be doing our part too and I KNOW it would be in-character for her to go off on it

I bet she has a LOT to say about influencers, tbh. obviously not all influencers are bad, but there are sooooo many problematic ones and problems within the influencer industry

sizing discrimination in the modeling/clothing industry. let eliot talk about how there are no perfect bodies. also while I'm on the subject, can we PLS have more body-diverse background actors on the show? I know this is nitpicky but I'd really love to see some more people that look like me, even if they are just in the background

a thinly veiled writers' rights episode (I'm looking at you media execs and the stupid amount of time it took for you to comply to the WGA demands)

something to do with media companies making entire movies/tv shows and then fucking cancelling them/not releasing them and using them as tax write-offs. every time it happens it baffles me. that is cartoonishly stupid villain shit. I can't imagine lovingly working on a project for a year plus and then the company just going, nah, we aren't going to release it because you suck and it's a good business move

ai art and ai in general. please. let it BURN

okay now I'm done

ideas from the previous post that I still want:

comicon job. I said it before and I will say it again- we deserve it!!! come on, it's the age of the geek after all!!! (in the last post I also said a ren faire ep, but I will let the card game job count for that)

summer camp ep? I saw a tumblr fic about it and I think it could be cute. it could kinda be like the fairy godparents job- eliot in charge of some type of sports (archery, fencing, etc), hardison would be in charge of arts and crafts (this boy might be a genius with tech and in general tbh, but the show did such a good job of showing that he’s also very talented with the arts- sculpting the statue for the miracle job, forging the old diary in the king george job, etc), parker would LOVE to be in charge of a high ropes course. breanna would totally be down for some sort of nerdy kid robotics or simple, traditional camp games (can't go wrong with the classics. everyone loves making bracelets!) I feel like it's too stereotypical to have sophie have kids put on a play but we all know that's exactly what she would do. idk for harry? I think he has the same traditional camp activities vibe as breanna. he's in it for the nostalgia. OR something to do with videogames

please, please, please, please, please make an episode where they take down a cult, im begging. that would be such a good episode. definitely a mindfuck episode like the experimental job (4x11). I’ve seen a few posts about a job dealing with a cult (here’s one) and I think it would be really interesting 

MORE STERLING being DONE with leverage shenanigans!!! give me feral!sterling like in the frame-up job (5x10)!!! give me sterling that protests every step of the way but conveniently looks away and “whoops, the team just disappeared, I have no idea how that happened!!! diddly dang darn it, they got away again!!! sorry guys!!!” bonus points if mcsweeten is there too and also participates in intervening hijinks

the team takes down a circus that is still using and abusing wild animals!!! because first I’d LOVE to see acrobat!parker swinging up in the air like a pro and being in her element, but also because those places are the fucking worst and need to Go Down. give me eliot having to pose as an animal trainer with deep sympathy for the animals being abused, quietly talking soothing words to them when he thinks no one is around (correction: hardison is, in fact, around, and filming his boyfriend’s softness to save for later). give me charismatic hardison playing the role of ringmaster, running and flaunting about and being passive-aggressive to the circus master. give me eliot freeing the animals from their chains when they are finally able to shut the place down and relocate the animals to sanctuaries (his hands shaking just a little as twists the key in the lock, because he too was once an abused, caged animal in his own right and he knows how liberating it is to finally be free). 

[fablesrose]

Hiiiii! Your leverage rewrite is giving me Eliot Spencer BRAINROT and I saw your requests were open, so I was wondering if you would be interested in writing something about the reader getting a bit beat up on a job, and falling asleep on Eliot while recovering? I don’t mind if it’s a oneshot, or if you want to put it in the rewrite or something. Thanks regardless, I love your writing so much!

Hi!!! Thank you so much, you can't even believe how much that means to me! I'm glad someone else is in the Eliot brainrot with me! I'm so sorry it took so long to post this, ever since you sent this I have been thinking about it and what I wanted to do with it and I finally got it on paper. Hope you like it!

Stay With Me

Eliot Spencer x Reader Words: 2.4k

As far as jobs went, this one wasn’t too bad. The ultimate goal was to steal some files for our client to prove gross misconduct. They would then go to the press or police, probably both, knowing how these types of jobs usually went. We were approaching the end game when some guards started to catch on. Parker and Hardison needed some more time and everyone else was preoccupied. So, it fell on me to be a distraction.

I quickly made my way through the building, dodging guards along the way until I made it to where Hardison and Parker were holed up, collecting files. 

“What are you doing here?” Hardison asked when he saw me step into the room. “You’re supposed to be keeping the guards away from us!”

“And I’m working on it!” I replied. 

Parker didn’t acknowledge me as she sorted through the physical files that she pulled from a cracked safe. 

“Parker, hand me a file we don’t need,” I asked and she quickly handed one over without looking at me. I grabbed it and turned back to Hardison, “Do you have a spare flash drive that has stuff that isn't important or nothing at all?”

He looked at me with a puzzled expression before pulling one out of his bag, “What are you doing?” 

I pocketed it quickly before answering, “Well the guards are coming to this room, they know something is up. What do you think they’re gonna do when they see someone walking out of the room carrying a file?”

Hardison started to nod along, “they’re gonna go after you and not bother to check the room.”

“Yup!” I called as I approached the door to leave. 

“What about the flash drive?”

I faced him before stepping over the threshold, “If I get caught, give them something to find.” I winked before stepping backwards into the hall. 

Just in time too. As the door latched, a group of three guards stepped around the corner. They made eye contact with me and I froze momentarily. 

“Hey!” One of them yelled at me.

I quickly dashed down the hall in the opposite direction. As I turned a corner, I looked back to see that all of them were hot on my heels and passed the room without a second thought. The one who yelled at me was talking through his radio to the other guards, directing them to my approximate location to try and head me off. It worked alright. Now to test my navigation and escape abilities. 

One thing I was blessed with was a pretty good memory and an interest in architecture. I liked reviewing blueprints and with the help of Parker, I was able to remember the layout of the current building. We were also able to identify interesting weak points and possible escape routes. This wasn’t the time to doubt my memory or my speed, so I just kept running. 

The original guards chasing me had fallen further and further behind, but I could still hear them behind me, so I couldn’t slow down. I turned another corner to find a lone guard running towards me. 

Change of plan. 

He got within a couple of yards when I threw the file I had in my hand in his face. It caused him to stumble just enough for me to get a head start down a different hallway. I finally made it to a stairwell and started making my way down. I had a large enough head start that I had almost thought I had lost them as I approached the bottom. I was proven wrong when a stairwell door above me burst open and sounds of shouting echoed down the stairs. I didn’t wait to see which direction they went before I burst through a door myself into the basement of the building. 

“Y/n,” Eliot said through comms, “Where are you? You still dealing with guards?”

“Yeah,” I panted, continuing to run and navigate the twisting hallways, “I’m doing okay, I’m in the basement heading to the north east corner where there should be-”

I turned yet another corner where the largest man I had ever seen stood barely three feet away.  He was dressed in a guard uniform and had his arm outstretched right in front of me. I couldn’t finish my sentence to Eliot before the guard clotheslined me, landing me flat on my back and knocking the rest of my breath out of my lungs.

I groaned, trying to scramble to my feet. “Where the hell did you come from?” I gasped, trying to catch my breath and run away.

The guard didn’t say anything as he grabbed my arm in a tight grip, pulling me to my feet. 

I wriggled and thrashed, trying to land a blow anywhere I could to break free, but the guard still didn’t budge. “Where do they keep you? In a cage?” I yelled exasperatedly, still not finding any opening. 

The guard didn’t seem to like the insinuation and with a grunt threw me against the wall. My shoulder and hip hit first, but it didn’t completely stop the momentum of my head from hitting the wall. A jolt of pain shot through my whole body before dulling to a throbbing ache. The only thing I could seem to do was curl into a ball, hoping it would make my body feel better. 

It sounded like someone was talking to me through the earpiece, but I couldn’t focus on it or decipher who was saying what. A slight whimper escaped my lips as I tried to raise my head. 

The guard approached me and started to rustle through the pockets of my jacket. He stuck his hand into the pocket where the dud flash drive was and I mustered all the strength I could into my less injured arm and launched it at his face. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going for, a punch, slap, or scratch his eyes out, but I made forceful contact and I did feel my nails catch skin. 

The guard stumbled back, holding his face and swore loudly, the first word I had heard him utter. 

“He speaks,” I said with a pained chuckle from the floor. 

That comment also wasn’t appreciated as the guard gave me a swift kick to the gut. I simply gasped, not being able to muster up a sound to voice the pain. I wasn’t even sure if I could breathe anymore. My eyes screwed shut and I rested my head against the floor, not wanting to muster the strength to hold it up anymore. I was expecting the guard to come back and start searching me again, or even some more pain, but it didn’t come. 

I pried one eye open to see Eliot standing a few paces down the hall.

“Don’t touch her!” He growled, taking calculated steps towards the guard. 

The guard grunted, “Make me. I’ll snap you like a twig, too.”

I saw Eliot’s lips twitch into a smile before taking a fighting stance. The fight didn’t last long once the guard made the first move. He did get a couple hits on Eliot, but not enough to slow him down and knock him out. The guard hit the ground with a large thud that I could have sworn shook the ground. 

During the fight, I was able to maneuver myself into a sitting position against the wall. I started to try and use it to stand up when Eliot quickly approached me and gently helped me to my feet. He pulled my arm over his shoulder and wrapped his arm around my waist, carrying most of my weight as we walked down the hallway. 

“Where are the rest of the guards? Do we have to hurry out of here?” I asked slowly, trying to keep the ache out of my voice and calculate how to get out. I couldn’t use my previous route with how injured and sluggish I was now. 

“On a wild goose chase,” Eliot replied, not hesitating in his steps back toward the stairwell. 

“I’m not the goose, am I?” I asked humorously, but trying to keep laughing to a minimum. I had a feeling it would hurt if I tried.

Eliot chucked though. “No, I got them out of the picture so we can get out of here.”

My mind started running in circles trying to decide what he did, but eventually I half whispered to myself, “you know what? I don’t even want to know.”

When we got to the stairs I sighed heavily, anticipating how much effort it would take to climb them. 

Eliot looked at me and could see the dread in my face. “Here, sweetheart, I’ve gotcha.” He bent down and lifted my feet, putting me in a bridal carry and started up the stairs. 

“You don’t have to do that Eliot, don’t tire yourself out for no reason,” I said, but rested my head on his shoulder, feeling oh so tired. 

“I can carry you one flight of stairs, sweetheart, don’t worry about it.”

Another sigh escaped my lips involuntarily, “I’m so tired. I want to take a nap.”

Eliot purposefully jostled me a little bit, “Stay with me, sweetheart. Don’t fall asleep before I get you out of here and see if you have a concussion. It sounded like you hit that wall pretty hard.”

I groaned just remembering that initial pain, “Don’t remind me.”

When we reached the ground floor Eliot gently placed me back on my feet to seem a bit less conspicuous when walking through the building. This floor had a lot of offices and employees milling around. When I was distracting the guards I considered it a hazard, they could have slowed me down trying to not run into them. Now as we carefully walked through, Eliot still supporting much of my weight, the employees provided a bit of cover until we reached a side door to exit into the parking lot and the van. 

Eliot loaded me into the back and sat in front of me as Nate drove off, leaving the company and its guards far behind us. Eliot took a flashlight from Hardison and shined it in my eyes. 

“Your pupils look okay, responding well to light and are the same size,” he said almost distractedly as if talking to himself even though he was addressing me. 

 I simply blinked slowly and watched him think for a moment before he turned back towards me. 

“I’m gonna ask you some questions to test your memory, okay?”

“Okay.”

“What’s your name and birthday?”

I recited it quickly in the same pattern I always did when asked.

“Good,” he praised, “now what building were we just in?”

“Jackass Incorporated,” I replied. I paused before adding on sarcastically, “Oh sorry, I meant Jackson Inc.”

I finally got Eliot to crack a smile, “Glad to hear another confirmation that your sense of humor is intact. Last thing, say the months of the year in reverse order.”

This question took a little more time as I paused every few months to think, making sure I was right. When I finally landed on January I asked, “How’d I do doc?”

His eyebrows furrowed and his nose scrunched slightly, “I’m still nervous that you got a concussion.”

I sighed, “So no nap?”

He smiled grimly, “Not yet.”

The over hour drive home was relatively quiet, but the team kept me awake by talking to me. We finally made it back to Nate’s apartment. Normally we would be celebrating afterwards, but all I wanted to do was go home, and voiced as such. Eliot left no room for argument when he said he would drive me home, still not convinced of my cognitive capabilities. Frankly, I didn’t even want to argue with him, both because it was no use, and I didn’t mind the free ride home. 

He kept talking to me when driving, making sure I stayed awake. We finally pulled up to my place and Eliot insisted that he walk me in. Again, I didn’t put up a fight. 

“Do you have any other injuries that we need to take care of?” he asked once the door closed behind us. 

“It took you this long to ask?” 

He gave me a small glare, “I figured you would have told me if anything hurt more than you could handle, but I’m just double checking.”

I smiled, showing I was kidding, “Uh huh, sure. But no, nothing feels broken, everything seems to be in working order. If anything, mostly bruises.” I patted myself down gently, finding some tender spots, particularly around my ribs where the guard kicked me. Then remembered where my head hit the wall, “Hey Eliot, would you mind checking my scalp? I don’t think I broke skin, but…”

He nodded wordlessly and pulled me towards the couch and sat me down. He sat beside me so I turned away from him so he could see the place where my head hit the wall. He gently started to comb his fingers through my hair. His fingers immediately brushed against the spot where I hit and I flinched.

“Sorry, sweetheart. I don’t feel a cut though,” he whispered to me. Even after checking the area, he continued to card my hair through his fingers. 

It felt even better than I expected and a sigh escaped my lips. My head tilted back as his fingertips explored my scalp beyond the sore spot. My eyes drifted closed and that urge to sleep washed over me again. 

“Can I fall asleep now?” I mumbled, mostly to myself. 

Eliot sighed and stopped his movements, “Yeah, I’ve kept you up for a couple of hours now, you should be okay. I should go and let you sleep.” He started to remove his hand and shifted to stand. 

I turned back around to face him and grabbed his hand, “Stay with me? I hear I’m supposed to be monitored for at least twelve hours for a possible concussion…” My eyes were fixed on our hands being clasped, but I eventually lifted my gaze to his own to find that he was transfixed on me. 

His lips curled into a smile as he shifted, leaning back into the couch, “Yeah, I think I can do that sweetheart.” He gently grabbed my shoulders and pulled me down to lay on his lap. He resumed running his fingers through my hair and across my scalp. 

I grabbed his unoccupied hand and held it to my chest, occasionally squeezing it in gratitude. It didn’t take long for the sounds of our consistent breathing to drift me off to sleep.

[asterlark]

just rewatched the broken wing job recently and am thinking about how in the grave danger job we see parker admitting she needs hardison, and then in the broken wing job we see her acknowledge (just to herself, but still) that she also needs to be needed. she wants to be integral to the team, wants them to miss her, to not function without her. which is just so real and so emblematic of an assortment of insecurities in parker that i don't think we talk about enough: being left behind, forgotten, not useful or needed, left out of the group (hashtag relatable autism things).

(sidenote- this is the first in a series of season 5 episodes that don't feature the full crew tackling a job, which really shows how far they've come as a team that they can work so effectively in smaller numbers. it also shows their trust in each other to do their own jobs well, and to adapt when needed. i just think it's neat)

this episode is great for a lot of reasons, one of them being that we learn a lot about how parker functions when she needs help from others- that is to say, not well, at least not at first. after a conversation with eliot (and it feels significant that it's eliot, not sophie, that she talks to here when she's freaking out; the trust and intimacy there is palpable), she realizes she has to adapt and change her typical planning process to successfully catch the thieves.

the plot device of having her do a job by herself + needing to team up with amy is so clever because it also serves as a great vehicle for character development. what does parker want in this episode? she wants something to do, she wants to not be injured, she wants to not have to lean on anyone or ask for help, she wants to feel needed. enter Thieves, who are the type that will get someone hurt in their process. suddenly she has a job, people to protect, but she can't do it on her own. she is needed, but she also needs. she has to adapt, and change- and we see her do this not just by asking for amy's help, but by calling the team and asking for their help too.

by the end of the episode, she has grown enough to have asked several people for help in her plan, and has adapted to her limitations and turned them into advantages, as eliot advises her to do. but when nate asks, she says nothing about the job she did- which i think is interesting. i think it's because she doesn't want them to worry about her or berate her for trying to take down two thieves with guns while healing a torn ACL. it's also probably partially because when she asks about japan, the team says it was normal and boring, to spare her feelings about being left out. so when they ask her, she says nothing.

she's not stupid, though, and neither are the team- nate notices the bullet holes in the wall, and i'm sure the others do too at some point. (plus the pub staff is probably not gonna just leave out the fact that there was a fire alarm and several gunshots and a wounded cop in the pub while they were gone?) parker knows it's only a matter of time before they're aware she's lying. this is a great example of how much the team trusts each other! they notice that parker is not telling the full truth, but since things seem to be resolved, they trust her to have handled it. and she trusts them not to push her on her lie, just as she's not pushing them for info on the japan job.

this team is not without its secrets, but in this case i think it's more about trusting each other to speak up when it's needed. almost all of them got a call from parker this episode, so at this point they know she can and will ask them for help when she needs to. they give each other space to have lives away from each other, but they also trust that if there's a problem, it will be brought up and dealt with. which is so far from the juror no.6 job in season 1 when parker was doing things without thinking of/ informing the crew, or even the inside job in season 3 when she took on an impossible job on her own without telling them. they've grown so much by season 5, and it shows.

anyway. ramble over, i just love this show and this episode in particular and will always thank the leverage writers for giving us a parker-centric ep with strong character development!!!

[b1adie]

With everything going on with Niosi, I'm having trouble reconciling my feelings of the situation with HSR. I'm a relatively new player and while I'm enjoying it, this whole situation makes the experience a bitter and sour one, especially since I'm finishing up the Trailblazer Xianzhou quest.

I was so hyped for Penacony and beyond, to the extent that I was willing to spoil myself because I really enjoy the characters and was looking forward to the story.

I'm really hoping that Mihoyo addresses the issue with a fix soon so that I can enjoy the story. But if it's not fixed, I'm not comfortable supporting or playing a game that allows these kinds of people. I'll probably end up weaning myself off of it and uninstall.

(I don't have enough memory on my device to download an alternate language.)

the backlash on twt is still pretty strong even today. the last time this happened with a va (in genshin) it apparently took 10 days for them to make a post addressing it and saying they were changing actors and as far as i remember it was. im not sure how to phrase this, i guess it was “less of a big deal” than with chris (BY WHICH i dont mean that eliot gindi’s actions were any more acceptable, i just mean that i saw less people overall talking about it) but it DID get done. i’m still confident that they’re doing something, and that like last time, they’re getting things sorted out behind the scenes before publicly saying anything.

but yk, this is also different bc with the previous case i mentioned, all the stuff that came out about the actor was new. with chris, this stuff has been known for years now, so….?

and ofc, do whatever makes you most comfortable. the character chris voices is not even in the game yet, he’s supposed to appear in the quest next update and be available to pull the update after that, and if you’re excited about penacony you can play the whole thing without even having to see that character. but i don’t blame you at all for feeling soured about it.

like i said, i’m still hopeful they’ll do something, but if they DO end up never addressing it and just releasing the character… i’m not really sure i’ll be able to look past that, either. its more about the principle of playing a game by a company that allows people like this to work for them. if they really, really have the nerve to not say anything before the update drops, that’s kind of the nail in the coffin.

[jomiddlemarch]

Each be other’s comfort kind

In some ways, Jem found being married to Mary née Vance was the easiest thing in the world.

To begin with, if he ever referred to her as Mary née Vance, she cuffed him lightly on the shoulder before she rolled her eyes and then drew him back down for a kiss. 

He’d learned the only place to refer to her as Mary née Vance was their bed.

Which he must refer to simply as their bed, not their marriage-bed or anything of a similar high-falutin’ tone which she would accept from his mother and tolerate from Rilla and would otherwise laugh at almost merrily.

As someone not much given to flights of fancy well before the War had made him watch his friends and fellow soldiers gassed and killed, his brother gone without the chance of a farewell, his mind and body scarred in ways he knew as a physician would never fully heal, he found Mary’s unmitigated pragmatism as refreshing as water in the desert.

It also put his father at ease, as Dad said Mary reminded him not a little of his own mother, though Mary was notably less concerned with the vast quantity of pie the Doctors Blythe could consume of an evening, and her piecrust was arguably the equal of Susan Baker’s, though they’d all agreed not to utter such heresy at Ingleside.

In the privacy of their non-marriage, most ordinary bed, with its soft white linens and goose-feather pillows, Jem was free to tell Mary her pastry was actually better than Susan’s, as she had a lighter hand and her piecrust never once reflected any sense of consternation or outrage over some doings in Glen St. Mary, which could not be said of Susan’s best tarts.

Mary was practical and matter of fact. She had a good head for accounts and was far more intelligent that he, any of the Blythes or Merediths (with the exception of Carl) had ever given her credit for. It was easy to discuss the running of his practice and the economic advantages posed by a move to one of the larger towns, the intellectual stimulation offered by hospital work.

Mary did not worry about leaving Mrs. Marshall Elliott behind and she did listen when Jem spoke of his mother’s broken heart with oblique allusions to Walter’s death and more direct remarks about Shirley’s move to Montreal. Even more, she was willing to allow his mother precedence in ways Faith Meredith would never have countenanced. 

(Who knew what Faith would truly have countenanced? She’d eloped with Bertie Shakespeare Drew shortly after their mutual return from England and had immediately bobbed the golden-brown hair Walter had once referred to as her crowning glory in a sonnet Jem was never meant to see.)

Mary was patient and funny, an impossibly good mimic. She had a seemingly infinite supply of riddles and could curse a blue streak with the fishermen down in the harbor, who respected Young Doctor Blythe all the more for his sharp-tongued wife.

She complained very little, never as much as she ought about what mattered most, and only to the degree she would amuse him about things that didn’t matter at all. 

She was never troubled by his nightmares, by being woken by Jem clutching her tightly, his tears falling onto her neck, salt on his lips when he kissed her.

Mary liked to be read to of an evening, but not poetry. She liked Dickens, which didn’t surprise him, and Eliot, which did. She liked mysteries the best, pulp, which made him chuckle, and Lupin instead of Holmes, but she didn’t press him on nights when anything French was the door opened to memories he couldn’t bear.

She was warm, save for her cold feet. She’d tuck them against his shins and it wasn’t like anything else in the whole world.

She was reliable, steady, quick to take his side. Quick to see his side, even before he did. 

She was pretty and she didn’t count it worth much, without any of the vanity of any of the Blythe women.

She was eminently, exceptionally lovable—except that she was difficult to love.

She shrugged off praise.

She didn’t care for ornaments or nosegays, perfume or sweets or what Rilla called a stunning new cloche just the exact color of blackberry fool. 

She looked after him and their home so well, there was little left for him to do.

He was at a loss, one she was aware of and found entertaining, when Rilla remarked one day how much Rosemary Meredith’s new cat reminded her of Mary.

Then he knew.

Mary liked to have a cup of tea made just so, with plenty of milk.

She liked to end the day sitting with her stocking feet tucked up under her.

She liked to have her hair stroked, even if his hand trembled, which stopped much sooner when he was paying all his attention to the silkiness of her fair hair and the delicate skin at her temple, her throat.

She liked to sleep early on cold winter nights.

And sometimes, when they were together in the shadows, she liked to be called Puss. She liked it exceedingly well.

[lemissingmask]

[ID: Sketch of Redemption-era Eliot Spencer lying on the floor on his back with his back arched and neck muscles tensed, grimacing as a collar around his neck lights up, giving him an electric shock. End ID]

-

Day 8: alt. Electrocution

Eliot being tortured with a shock collar as a cheeky little bonus for Day 8

Ficlet below the cut

“Move and we shoot.”

The voice was nearly as cold as the barrel of the gun pressed against Harry’s head.

Eliot froze.

He was several metres away, where he had guided the fight to keep Harry out of it.

And now he was too far away to get to him, to do his thing and make this guy with a gun go away.

“Frank,” Eliot didn’t growl, but his voice was hard and even more threatening than this Frank guy with a gun’s was, “Let ‘im go.”

“You don’t get to make demands here, Spencer,” Frank replied, “Now stay still.  You know I won’t hesitate.”

Eliot glared, but he obeyed, staying perfectly motionless with his eyes on Harry.

Of the four other goons who had attacked them, two were unconscious, and one had blood pouring liberally from his nose. The remaining one, apparently following some signal from this Frank guy, moved closer to Eliot, smirking when his adversary did nothing but glare.

"Right ear," Frank said, "Comm unit. Take it out and smash it."

The gun shoved against Harry's head.

"You too, Wilson."

Harry slowly raised his hand, extracted the earbud and held it out. Frank took it, dropped it, and stamped, presumably crushing the comm as thoroughly as the other hitter had crushed Eliot's a short distance away.

"Phone," Frank demanded, and as he accepted Harry's phone, instructed his colleague, "Check him for phone and weapons. Spencer usually has a knife or two stashed somewhere."

And Eliot did.

As Harry watched, still held in place by the gun to his head, the other hitter retrieved a pocket knife, a multitool and too throwing knives from Eliot, as well as his phone. He tossed all this away, shot the phone with a loud crack that made Harry jump and Frank laugh.

By now, one of the others had woken up and the nosebleed of the other guy had been stemmed enough for him to get involved, which he did with evident relish.

"Get the collar on him," Frank ordered, the hand not holding the gun coming to grip Harry's arm, twisting it up behind him, "Watch closely, Wilson. This is the fun bit."

As if Harry had a choice but to watch.

Eliot remained fixed in place, his attention on Frank and Harry, as two of the other men roughly fixed a rigid collar around his neck, yanking his hair out the way and making a point of briefly choking him as they pulled the contraption on. And, it was a contraption. Not just a collar. There was a box on one side of it with a little red light.

Smacking Eliot unnecessarily on the back of the head as they finished, the other hitters stepped back, one pulled out his phone, and then, suddenly, Eliot tensed, teeth gritting, and dropped to his knees, as the collar light turned blue.

Harry instinctively made a move like he might run forward, try to help, but the grip on his arm grew tighter and more painful and the gun knocked against his head.

"Shock collar," Frank said with a smile as the light turned red and Eliot was left breathing heavily on the floor, "Made special just for Spencer."

The light went on again, longer, bringing Eliot all the way to the floor.

"Do exactly as your told, or we'll see how long it takes for that thing to kill him."

With those words, the gun was removed, but almost immediately, there was darkness. A rough, imperfect, darkness. A bag thrown over his head, and two strong forms on either side were half-dragging Harry away.

Out of the building, into a vehicle, the same guys who had been dragging him pressed close on either side.

They didn't drive for very long - not more than an hour, but long enough and with enough turns that it wouldn't be easy for the others to track them from their last location. And they had to be on the way by now. Hardison and Breanna would have used the earbud GPS before they were destroyed, or maybe be tracking their phones.

There would be a Brick and Basil truck en route to where they had just been, and hopefully soon after to wherever they were going now.

When they finally stopped, Harry was manhandled once more, bringing him across a hard floor, into another building, an elevator, and then, at last, into a wooden chair.

The bag was whipped off, and across from him, behind a large, fake mahogany desk, was a man he knew perfectly well.

"Austin," Harry greeted, adopting the false pleasantry he always did with clients, "I'd love to say it was a pleasure, but..."

He nodded to the goons stood either side, taking that motion as a chance to look for Eliot.

Not in this room. A small office with two doors, the desk, some chairs, a mini fridge, and a large conference TV screen.

A bit of a downgrade from this former client's upmarket business address with its tropical fish tank and wet bar.

"Harry Wilson," the man smiled coldly, "You're a hard man to find."

Harry shrugged noncommittally, "What do you want, Austin?"

"I need you to do a job for me. I have a certain legal matter that needs taking care of, and the lawyer I had hired is, quite frankly, not worth the air he breaths. I need you to make an airtight case for me and present it in court," he pushed a pile of documents across the desk, "Everything you need is here. You have three days. This office..."

"No," Harry cut him off. He had worked for this guy before. He had helped him cover his tracks after he destroyed the lives of several of his workers and interns, leading to the suicide of one. This man was one of the long list of regrets burdening Harry's mind. He was two bullet points on the redemption list.

Harry would not work for him again.

"I expected you may say that," Austin stood, walked around the desk towards the screen. The goons rotated Harry's chair, forcing him to turn to watch.

"That's why I have invested in this incentive."

He used a small remote to turn the screen on, and after a second of blackness, a video feed was displayed, showing Eliot with his hands handcuffed to a metal loop fixed to the floor. It looked like a basement, but it was difficult to tell.

Austin pulled out his phone, and a few seconds later, that collar glowed blue again, electrocuting Eliot as he knelt chained to the floor.

And not just a short warning. It didn't stop. Austin wasn't going to stop unless-

"Okay!" Harry yelled, and the collar turned red, leaving Eliot unmoving on the floor, "Okay. I'll do it."

Austin smiled, "Good man. Now, as I was saying, those are the files. There's paper, pens and so on in the desk drawers. Water and food in the fridge. Bathroom through that door. You have three days."

He moved towards the door, the goons following.

"Oh, and if you fail to deliver..."

On the screen, Eliot was subjected to another shock, his body tensing, but nothing more. Harry wasn't even sure he was conscious.

"These gentlemen," Austin nodded to the goons, "Will wait outside. Their colleagues will be with Spencer."

He left, the door was locked, and the screen was left turned on, Eliot still not moving.

Harry spent about an hour searching the office and bathroom for anything that could be useful to escape. Weapons, air vent...anything.

But, predictably, there was nothing. And, even if there had been something, if Harry made an attempt, there were still those other hitters with Eliot, and no way Harry could get there in time to save him.

Harry was just going to have to play along for now. Get to work, start building a case...as a last resort, he would do what Austin asked. He would pull out all the past evil lawyer tricks, hopefully then get Eliot and himself back to safety, and Leverage could deal with the aftermath.

But that was a worst case.

Hardison, Breanna, Parker and Sophie would definitely find them before that. They had three days, and a collective set of skills beyond anything Harry had known or imagined before meeting them.

Three days was more than enough time for Leverage to track people down.

Harry kept this in mind as he spent the first day, working at the case, trying to ignore the itching of his conscience.

There was one moment, towards the end of that day, that robbed Harry of all his forced focus.

He hadn’t expected to see Eliot being treated well, but without cause - Harry had been doing as he had been told - two of the hitters from before had entered the room to amuse themselves.

Harry had no way to contact anyone. He couldn’t get to Austin to convince him to make them stop, refusing to work unless they did. But he didn’t really have the leverage. They were hurting Eliot, but not killing him, and it was within Austin’s power to let them do so.

Harry watched until the hitters disappeared from view and Eliot was left unconscious on the floor, blood pooling beneath his head from the repeated blows they’d delivered to his face.

And, facing the screen so he could see when Eliot woke up, Harry turned on the desk lamp and resumed the arduous task of figuring out how to help the rich and powerful crush those they had wronged.

He had no awareness of falling asleep. At some point, near midnight, he lay his head on his arms, just to try and let his eyes rest…just a bit.

He woke to a hand on his shoulder, a whispered voice in his ear.

“Harry.”

It was Eliot, crouched beside his chair, watching him with evident concern.

The collar was still on, and in places it was shining with blood that seemed to come from Eliot's lip and cheek. The handcuffs were on, but the chain between them broken, links draping on Harry’s shoulder.

"Harry," he repeated as Harry was still registering the situation and deciding whether or not it was a dream, "You alright?"

The hand on his arm was very real. Strong and familiar. And Harry probably couldn't accurately dream the fine details of the collar that he could see now up close.

Harry broke into a smile, "Better now. You're a good person to be kidnapped with."

That drew a small laugh from the hitter, his teeth showing bloody, "Ain't my first rodeo. You good to go?”

Harry nodded and quickly began gathering up all the documents on the case - it could come in handy later.

“What’s that?” Eliot nodded to the folder.

“The reason we’re here,” Harry replied, “And better off in our hands than his.”

“Former client?”

Harry wasn’t sure how Eliot knew, but they didn’t really have time to get into that, so he just nodded and followed Eliot towards the door.

"We have an exit?"

"We're gonna make one."

"What about..."

The collar.

Eliot had stood and moved to the door already, was looking out into the corridor.

"Looks like only some of the guards can set it off," Eliot replied quietly, "Took out the four who grabbed us. Hopefully we don' run into any others, but if we do..."

He paused, looking back at Harry.

"If we do an' I'm incapacitated, you gotta run."

"I can't just leave..."

"Yeah you can," Eliot tapped his arm and moved towards the door, not allowing any further arguments.

Harry followed closely, trusting Eliot to know when to freeze and when to move, and they managed to get into a stairwell without meeting any guards. Their luck ended there, but only for a moment or two. Only for as long as it took for Eliot to disarm and knock out the three guards they met as they moved down ten flights of stairs, and out into a carport.

No one there. Cameras, but no people, and no cars.

"What now?" Harry whispered, "You know where we are?"

"No. We gotta get somewhere crowded. Somewhere with people," Eliot replied, "We can lift a phone an' call the others."

"I don't think we need to," Harry smiled as he saw a familiar set of headlights approaching from the other direction. Eliot turned and broke into his own smile, bloody toothed, but just as relieved as Harry's.

As if summoned by willpower alone, a Brick and Basil truck stopped just outside the building. Harry wouldn’t be surprised if there had been some sort of planned dramatic entrance that culminated in such a welcome and timely appearance.

But they didn’t exit immediately in a dramatic, heroic manner. They were still inside the truck, probably planning their entrance, hadn't seen Harry and Eliot, based on the various screams, gasps, and almost punch that were thrown their way when Eliot opened the back doors.

"And here we busted our asses trying to get here quick as hell," Hardison complained teasingly, grabbing Eliot into a hug as they entered, "Coulda stayed in bed."

"Everyone okay?" Sophie asked, looking them both over, "Breanna? Can we get whatever that is off Eliot?"

"On it..." she immediately began inspecting the collar, while Parker picked the handcuffs, muttering something about more lock picking practice, and keeping hold of Eliot's hand for longer than necessary.

Harry was grateful for the cup of coffee Sophie produced and shoved into his hands, ushering him into the front with her so Hardison could set off driving, getting them the hell out of there.

"Who took you?" she asked.

"Former client," Harry said, drinking the coffee down more quickly than he should, "Wanted me to do a case for him, and used Eliot as leverage."

"Someone we need to take out?" Hardison asked.

Harry considered.

The court case would probably lead to twenty five years in jail if Austin lost...the man was practically already taken out as it was. Provided he lost the case. Harry knew who the prosecution team were, he knew the case, he had more than enough information in the folder alone…

Harry smiled, "I think I will take him out myself."

And he would make sure the team, especially Eliot, were at the trial. After all, they needed The Gloat.

-

[thekiltongrammarwriter]

Could you please write a Cara Ward x reader where reader comforts Cara after Elliot is found out and arrested?? :) -☀️

Shattered Reflections

Pairing: Cara Ward x fem reader

Summary: you knew Cara wanted to be alone, most likely needed to be alone. But she had been alone for nearly a week now, and you were starting to worry. You hadn’t seen her at school, hadn’t gotten any messages back on your mobile and when Pip had mentioned with shaky trembling hands that Cara had yet to answer her back you knew it was up to you to go after her. Cara needed time, but she also needed looking after and while you knew Naomi was the best elder sister a young girl could ask for, you also knew she was fighting her own battles. There was only so much she could do. And as much as you were thankful for Cara’s grandparents all they could do was hold her close and provided a safety net. What could you provide?

Authors note: Absolutely adore Cara and wanted to get this anon this fic as fast as possible! I hope you enjoy it! It’s not nearly as long as my other ficts but I promise I am working on some long ones. I didn’t quite get to write cara as her humorous self in this so I look forward to that.

Warnings: Mentions of Sal singh’s death, Eliot ward mentions, emotional trauma, angry Cara ward, lovesick cara ward, just cara ward 😭🫶

The rain came down in a relentless torrent, each drop a whispered accusation against the world. Cara Ward stood at the edge of Mill End Road her knuckles white as she clutched her fingers together. The wind howled, tugging at her coat, urging her to step back from the end of the drive. Her drive . Number 42, Mill End Road Wendover. But she couldn’t—not when her entire existence teetered on the edge of revelation.

The headlines had screamed it—the truth that had been hidden for years. Elliot Ward, loved by the town, the man who had cradled her in his arms after her mother’s death, was no hero. He was a villain, a puppet master pulling strings in the shadows. Andie Bell’s disappearance, Sal Singh’s death—it all led back to him.

Cara’s heart pounded, the rhythm of betrayal echoing through her veins. She had loved her father, trusted him implicitly. He had been her anchor, the one who wiped away her tears and whispered bedtime stories. But now, the same hands that had held her were stained with blood, and the lullabies he sang were a haunting melody.

The rain soaked through her clothes, chilling her to the bone. She closed her eyes, picturing her mother’s face—the woman who had died years ago , leaving behind a void that even time couldn’t fill. Her mother had believed in Elliot, had loved him fiercely. And now, Cara wondered if that love had been misplaced, if she had known what he had been capable of.

The rain began to stifle her, freeze her fingertips to bits. But she didn’t care, didn’t move an inch. “Does pip know your out here? She’s been calling, left a dozen messages. In all honesty I think she’s going mad not hearing from you”. Cara didn’t need to turn to know whose voice it was. The soft cadence that flew through the air was filled with childhood memories. Games of what’s the time Mr wolf. Of sleepovers that lasted far into the night and often consisted of pip telling some random facts as you giggled alongside Cara and her impressions of her year 4 teacher Mrs Linton.

She should have known you would be the first person to find her. She had snuck out late into the night, her grandparents too old and deaf to notice and Naomi dealing with her own grief locked away to bother checking wether Cara was asleep. It would only a matter of time now before Naomi would peek her head into the room and notice her gone. Cara wondered if you had texted Naomi, been sent as some sort of lookout. But Cara didn’t need a look out what she needed was her mum. And she was long gone now, departed from this earth, the only sign that she had ever lived being the bones that laid beneath the church cemetery. Cara almost chuckled sardonically, what a morbid thought, but she was use to them by now.

“I read her message and I’m not responding” Cara spoke, her voice frigid and lacking her usual gusto. You could feel your heart shatter as you eyed the girl. Her back to you, but you could still feel her. Could still feel the storm that raged in her chest like a hurricane. You had been left shocked after finding out about Mr Ward. He had always been kind to you. Ever since you had gone home with Cara one afternoon after primary school, and Mr Ward and greeted you with a small smile and a hoard of fatherly jokes that made Cara hide her face in the backseat and Naomi have a laugh.

“I didn’t expect you would” your voice was soft over the rain, you knew Cara wanted to be alone, most likely needed to be alone. But she had been alone for nearly a week now, and you were starting to worry. You hadn’t seen her at school, hadn’t gotten any messages back on your mobile and when Pip had mentioned with shaky trembling hands that Cara had yet to answer her back you knew it was up to you to go after her. Cara needed time, but she also needed looking after and while you knew Naomi was the best elder sister a young girl could ask for, you also knew she was fighting her own battles. There was only so much she could do. And as much as you were thankful for Cara’s grandparents all they could do was hold her close and provided a safety net.

What could you provide?

You sighed, your lips feeling chapped even though you had applied some clear cherry lip lacquer. A nervous habit you had contracted after years of being by Cara’s side. You can remember a young seven year old Cara who use to swear that lip lacquer was safe to eat and often would lick of the residue from her lips with a giggling smile.

“I’m not here to make you talk Car” you began, wringing your hands, “if I’m honest….I’m here because I couldn’t stand the thought of you being alone. Ever since I can remember we’ve been as thick as thief’s and-I care about you. A great deal. And I know I could never take away your pain or make it go away, but what I can do is be your side. Even if you howl at me and throw me away. I know your angry. I’m angry. Your father…” your voice trembled. You could see Cara’s shoulders shaking as you mentioned Elliot. Her shoulders moving in a rapid movement, her soft sobs leaving her.

“Your father deserves what he got. I know you feel that way too, but I also know you are his daughter. His flesh and blood and while you can’t look at him and call him that you can’t quite forget”.

“My father murdered a young boy y/n” cara spoke, her voice angry and brittle, “he murdered him and then made Sal take the blame. After he knew what he had done with Andie! He knew what he was doing was wrong but because of his stupid negligence and horny disgrace of a man he did it anyway!!” She barked out.

“Mum would have been-“ cara could feel her tongue halt, what would she have been? Appalled? Hurt? Betrayed?

Cara sucked in a breathe, the rain easing just enough that she could eye you as she finally turned. She hadn’t smiled for days, hadn’t felt the urge. Almost as if joy or happiness had been washed away from her. Like a toy being stripped of all of its parts until only the core remained. But here, watching you, with your sweet kind eyes and hair that flew down to your shoulders dripping with rain that puddles onto your cheeks and onto your lips. Cara could almost feel the way her eyes tilted to watch the raindrops fall down those lips, and she allowed herself too. As a distraction, as a treat, and perhaps some part of her had yearned to reach out and press those soft lips against hers, to feel the supple smile against her own, she reckoned they were smooth, flexible. Warm. Hot. Searing.

She was sure you could take it away. The pain. You took her quiet as a sign, moving closer until your watered down trainers were inches from her own and your eyes bore into her oak eyes. “Why’d you come here Car?”. To anybody else it would seem like a stupid question, a question that if anybody else asked would have made her livid. But you, you had phrased it like you were interested, like you wanted to be inside her head, to know why she had chose this house. Cara knew you knew, but she also knew you were always one for listening. The observant one since childhood.

Cara eyed her fingers which were frozen from the rain, “it was the first place I thought of, of where my family was happy. Yes mum was sick here, those memories hurt too, but it’s a bittersweet type of hurt” Cara spoke, “I came here because I wanted to see my home. The home my father hid that poor girl in. My mother would have knifed him most likely” Cara spoke, a laugh falling of her lips. “She was a Firey woman. Always making jests when the time didn’t permit it”.

Like someone you knew.

You listened, intently. Sitting beside Cara as she spoke. Her memories, her fears, her anger. You sat and listened. You knew it would take time, but you were more than happy to give her your time.

“Can I ask you something?” Cara had spoken. You nodded, a soft smirk taking over your lips. “You can always ask me something car”.

“Even if I ask you to help me murder my father and burry the evidence?”.

You blanched, and once you watched Cara’s face thick was amusement did you laugh, your cheeks red.

“Anything but that ward”.

A soft smile filled Cara’s features, a small one at most. But you were glad for it. Cara’s smile had inched down and you watched as her brows remained forward, her deep dark honey eyes now focused on your mouth.

“If I kiss you will you move away?”.

The words had made your heart beat. Made your stomach jolt and your head shake. Vigorously. You couldn’t lie and say that ever since Cara had told you and Pip you had been aware of your own sexuality. But you were far to shy to ask.

Cara was soft as her nose brushed yours, her hot breathe feeling warm from the way your cold limbs felt. Her lips were cold, freezing. But that didn’t matter because you could feel the way your chest ached. Your fingers wound in her hair, pulling her without meaning too. A soft gasp fell into your lips as Cara without thought backed you up against the wall, her eyes dark.

“I love you”.

The words were rushed, but you could have cried.

“I love you Cara Ward” you spoke, and Cara only brought you close, finally hugging you. “Please don’t leave. I don’t think I could get through this without you” she confessed. You held tight, “but you could. You could Cara.”

Cara pulled away, hands holding tightly onto yours.

“I wish I could” was her broken response. You only held her as she cried, cradling her head and kissing her skin. Cara clung tightly, like in an instant you would fade. Like all the people in her life. But as long as she had you, her tether she would be strong. She had too be. Even if it broke her.

You must have both stood out in the rain for hours, and once the rain grew too cold to Handel you pulled Cara to her feet, swiping the rain of her cheeks with a soft hand. Cara leaned in, breathing you in as she peered into your eyes.

You knew she was thankful. Could feel it in the eager way she kissed you, like you were oxygen and she hadn’t breathed in years. Cara’s kisses were soft as they plunged against yours. And you felt lightheaded as her fingers trailed down to your cheek, caressing like you were the most precious jewl.

“You’ve got me bloody falling for you y/n” she uttered, pulling away. But right when Cara was about to pull you into her to utterly ravish you a vibrating pocket halted you.

You could see the flash of annoyance on her features, but Cara relented when she eyed the screen. Pippa. You smiled, encouraged her. “She’s been waiting by the phone like mad Cara. She would have ringed more but she was at hospital”.

Cara’s eyebrows rose, “why was pip at the hospital?”.

You only pointed to the phone, “I’m sure pip will tell you all about it sweet girl”. The pet name made blush appear on the girls cheeks but you only bumped her waist, “go on”.

[lokiondisneyplus]

The first scene filmed for Season 2 of Marvel Studios’ Loki was the one from Episode 6, specifically when Loki time slips back into the Time Variance Authority to speak to Mobius. It’s a mirror of the scene directly pulled from the first episode of the first season, where Mobius has brought Loki to a time theater to interrogate him about some of his past transgressions. Loki, way back when, does not want to partake in any of this and threatens to burn the place to the ground. But now, at the end of Season 2, the scene takes on a different tone as Loki has returned here to ask for help, and essentially say goodbye to his best friend.

While getting ready to film this scene on set on Day 1, in a behind-the-scenes interview, Tom Hiddleston reflected on what a full circle moment it was for him and the character.

“Loki has to go back, right back to the beginning of the story, to see if he can find an answer to a question in his mind,” He explains. “He needs to go back to where it all began. It reminds me of that T. S. Eliot poem, the “Four Quartets,” ‘and the end of all of our, oh no we shall not cease, we shall not cease from exploration and the end of all of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’”

All season long, Loki has been on a mission — across the timelines — to try and save the TVA and his friends. It hasn’t worked out in his favor so far. He’s eventually faced with an impossible task and begins to slowly realize what he must do, but not before slipping back to talk to Mobius one last time. He wants to say goodbye. 

“I think structurally we felt as soon as Loki gets back into the Temporal Core control room, the story's got to pick up, and you're going to move into this fully different thing. There's no time to stop down and have that sort of goodbye with Mobius,” Executive Producer Kevin Wright explains to Marvel.com. “When you start talking about, OK, we need to carve out some way that we can get somewhere and have a goodbye with Mobius. And Mobius doesn't know it's a goodbye. Literally, in his timeline, he's just meeting this guy. But to Loki, this is the goodbye.”

Head Writer Eric Martin viewed the scene as one last time for these characters to have one of their tried-and-true conversations across a table. “Loki already knows what he's going to do. He already knows what he has to do. So, when you sit down to write that, it's just like, all right, we have to have him express where he is right now and get what he needs out of Mobius, but he's engaging emotionally, too.”

As Wright notes, unlike the scene in Season 1 Episode 1, the script is flipped on the integration this time, as it’s Loki who’s asking Mobius all sorts of questions. It’s at this point that Loki, and viewers, learn Mobius’ own origin story with the TVA and some of the hard choices he’s had to make over the years. Loki, staring down his own hard choice, needs to hear some of these things himself.

“That was always really important, revealing more about Mobius than maybe we ever realized in two seasons, what his past was, and it was sort of then a flip of that season one interrogation, where it was so antagonistic, and this time it's Loki going back to try to get advice on how to handle a really difficult situation,” Wright continues. “This Mobius doesn't even realize that's the conversation he's having.”

The two men talk for a bit, but it can’t last forever. Loki asks about what it’s like to make hard decisions, and eventually, Mobius tells Loki exactly what he needs to hear: “Most purpose is more burden than glory, trust me you never want to be the guy who avoids it because you can’t live with the burden.”

With tears in his eyes, Loki shakes Mobius’ hand and says thank you before he slips away, again. If you’re emotional, know that that emotion you’re seeing between the two men on screen is real.

“It's a special thing, because Tom and Owen, they have a real connection on screen,” Martin adds. “That chemistry is there. It's there in person. They work so well together. I think it's touching for everybody on set because you're just feeling a little bit of magic. It's the last magic that everybody will see.”

Hiddleston knows that what he’s got with Wilson as a scene partner is special, and that’s what makes this goodbye so much harder. “Owen is kind of elevated the whole series, he’s so intelligent and imaginative and witty. Mobius and Loki are kind of an odd couple but, they found a friendship. They make each other better.”

[dystopicjumpsuit]

Stars Beyond Number - Chapter 1

Remember Us

Rating: T (rating varies by chapter; mature content will be tagged; regardless of rating, minors DNI)

Pairings: Echo x Riyo Chuchi; Gregor x OFC Cerra Kilian

Wordcount: 2.8k

Warnings: minor angst

Suggested Listening:

Summary: Soldiers. Heroes. Deserters. Traitors. They've been called many things. As the Galactic Empire rises from the ashes of the Republic, a small group of clone troopers and their allies will find a new identity: Rebels.

Echo, Rex, and Gregor are on a mission to save as many of their brothers as they can. The task is daunting, and their friends are few. But from these small and desperate beginnings will come a spark of resistance that will set the galaxy ablaze.

A/N: This story shares continuity with Martyrs and Kings and "Do It Again," but all three fics can be read as stand-alones.

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Remember us—if at all—not as lost violent souls, but only as the hollow men.

—T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

The Marauder pushed off the landing platform with a roar of thrusters and rose through the underworld portal until it disappeared in the swirl of air speeder and starship traffic. The repair shop where Rex had set up his base of operations was deep in the lower levels of Coruscant, and Echo knew the ship would keep ascending long after he lost sight of it before it reached the surface. His decision to part ways with the Batch had seemed very straightforward and logical as he’d discussed it with Hunter, Wrecker, and Tech, but in the face of Omega’s tearful farewell, his resolve had nearly crumbled.

He knew that the rest of the Batch would never let any harm come to the girl; her safety was their only priority. But Echo needed to do more to help his fellow clones, and with Rex, he would finally be in a position to do so. And so he merely watched as the ship departed, bearing his brothers and sister back to Ord Mantell and Cid’s endlessly questionable jobs.

He turned to rejoin Rex and Senator Chuchi. They had been conversing discreetly, giving him privacy and space as he said his goodbyes. The senator watched him now, her luminous eyes soft.

“It’s very brave of you, Echo, to stay behind and join our network after everything you’ve been through,” she said.

“Thank you, Senator,” he said, “but I’ve never been one to back down from a fight.”

“Please, call me Riyo,” she said.

Echo nodded as Rex clapped him on the shoulder.

“Come on, brother,” his old captain said. “I’ll show you around.”

The tour didn’t take long. The repair shop apparently belonged to Trace Martez, the young thief Echo had encountered on Corellia. Rex had taken over the shop when Coruscant got a little too hot for the Martez sisters’ comfort. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement: Rex needed a home base, and Trace needed someone to make sure the shop didn’t fall victim to the seedier elements of the underworld. Rex had set up a kitchen, a temporary barracks, and a small training gym at the back of the shop. There was a tiny room that served as a makeshift office and command center, and finally a communal refresher with two open shower stalls, an enclosed toilet, and a small sink. The garage contained few creature comforts; mostly they just used crates for furniture, though there was a broken-down old sofa with a holotable set up in front of it.

The accommodations were spare and shabby, which was familiar to Echo, but he was struck by how out-of-place Riyo looked in the shop. With her elegant clothing and elaborate hairstyle, she looked far too delicate and fine for her surroundings. Still, she didn’t display either judgment or discomfort at the sparseness of the shop. Echo stole occasional glances at her, admiring the soft curves of her face, the graceful line of her throat, the way her wide, intelligent eyes took in everything around her, missing not a single detail. He wondered how to describe the exact shade of her hair. Was it mauve? Or maybe violet was more accurate. Her gaze shifted to him, and he looked away quickly.

The unmistakable whine of a speeder bike landing on the platform outside interrupted his train of thought, and soon footsteps echoed through the shop.

“Rex? You here?” a woman’s voice called.

“Back here, Cerra,” Rex replied. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

The woman strode into view, faltering a little when she spotted Echo.

“Echo, I’d like you to meet Cerra Kilian,” Rex said. “She handles logistics. Very good at getting things clones aren’t supposed to have.”

“Nice to meet you, Cerra,” Echo said.

The woman clasped Echo’s hand in a reserved greeting and nodded at Riyo. “A pleasure, Echo. Senator, it’s good to see you again.”

“And you as well, Cerra,” Riyo replied.

The contrast between the two women could not have been more stark. Riyo was lovely, with her wide, golden eyes, azure skin, and glossy lavender—no, lilac—hair. Everything about her was soft and feminine and fragile, almost ethereal. Cerra was taller and more solid, her face more angular, and everything about her spoke of practical decisions, from her buzzed head, to her faded mechanic’s coveralls and sturdy boots. More striking, though, was the difference in their expressions. While Riyo’s face was gentle and easy to read, Cerra’s guarded eyes revealed nothing of her thoughts. 

“Got a lead on that electro capsule the clone assassin used,” Cerra said.

“What did you learn?” Rex asked.

“It isn’t underworld tech,” Cerra said. “At least, not as far as any of my contacts could tell. More likely military-grade.”

“Then it probably was Rampart’s work,” Rex said grimly. 

“Hard to say,” Cerra said. “We know somebody was pulling Rampart’s strings. I’ll keep looking.”

“I hope I don’t sound selfish, but I can’t help wondering. Do you think I might still be in danger?” Riyo asked.

Cerra looked at Rex, wordlessly deferring to him.

“It’s difficult to say,” Rex said. “For now, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for your guards to take additional precautions.”

“I can take a look at their security protocols and offer a few suggestions, if you’d like,” Echo offered.

“Thank you,” Riyo said, gazing up at him with gratitude in her eyes. “I would imagine that someone as accomplished at infiltration as an ARC Trooper would be the best person to find weaknesses in security.”

“Former ARC Trooper,” Echo said, wondering what else Rex had told her about him.

“I don’t think anyone could forget ARC training,” Rex said with a quiet laugh. 

Cerra’s eyes flickered to the front entrance of the repair shop, and Echo turned automatically, preparing for a threat. Instead, he recognized a familiar face.

“Didn’t realize we were having a party,” Gregor said as he strode into the room and clasped Echo’s forearm in greeting. “Good to have you with us, Echo.”

The commando nodded at Rex and Riyo, then draped his arm casually over Cerra’s shoulders and handed her a travel cup. The woman pushed him off with an indistinct grumble, but she took the cup with the barest hint of a smile.

“I got some intel on a clone in the 41st Elite Corps who wants to get out. Name’s Fireball, do you know him?” Gregor asked.

“I’ve met him,” Rex said. “Good man. Good soldier.”

“Is the 41st still on Kashyyyk?” Echo asked. “I was there recently. Rex, it could get ugly.”

“It’ll take some time to plan,” Rex said noncommittally.

“That’s not the only thing we’ll need to plan,” Gregor said. “If we’re going to be extracting clones, we’re going to need a way to get the inhibitor chips out of their heads. AZI took mine out on Ord Mantell, but we don’t have a medical droid of our own.”

“Karthon chop fields,” Cerra said. Riyo and the three clones all turned to her. “I’ve been looking into it. My source says there are at least three downed Venators slated for decommissioning on Karthon. We can pull the surgical pod from one of the med bays and set it up here.”

“It’s risky,” Rex said.

“Not as risky as Lotho Minor or Bracca, now that the Empire has stepped up security after your adventure there last year,” Cerra said. “I can get it, but I’ll need help. Gregor, you in?”

“I’d like Echo to go with you on this one,” Rex interjected.

Cerra didn’t react except to nod. “It’s going to take a few days to get the supplies together.”

Over the next few days, Echo began to get a feel for the small group living in the repair shop. Rex was right: his organization was spread thin. Echo wasn’t exactly sure how many others were involved, but at the moment, the only people besides himself who were at the garage were Rex, Cerra, and Gregor. Any others were either deployed on missions or based elsewhere. The three of them were run ragged. Rex looked even more exhausted than he had during the war. Cerra was quiet and remote, keeping to herself and rarely instigating conversations. Gregor was the only one who still seemed to have a sense of humor. 

In addition to running missions with Rex, Gregor was the self-appointed quartermaster and chef of the group. He was a surprisingly good cook, and when Echo complimented the food, the commando grinned.

“It’s nice to be the one in charge of the kitchen instead of just washing dishes,” he said.

“If I start cooking, does that mean I can skip dish duty?” Cerra asked.

“No thanks, I’ve tasted your cooking,” Gregor laughed, his eyes bright.

“Rude, but fair,” Cerra acknowledged.

It was the night before Echo was due to travel to Karthon with Cerra. The group sprawled around the holotable, chatting quietly as they ate Gregor’s spicy yobshrimp stew. Echo was jittery. He wasn’t nervous about the mission itself; he’d completed hundreds of missions. But they were always with his brothers or a Jedi. This was his first time with a civilian. Still, Rex obviously trusted Cerra enough to send her after the surgical pod, so Echo tried to quiet his nerves.

“I can take KP tonight,” Echo offered, looking for a distraction.

“You’re on,” Cerra said immediately.

“Sucker,” Gregor giggled.

The kitchen was a spectacular mess, and it took some time for Echo to finish cleaning up. By the time he did, he could hear music blasting from the training gym, and he went to investigate.

Gregor leaned against the wall, his arms crossed, as he watched Rex spar with Cerra. Her face was flushed with exertion, and beads of sweat speckled her forehead and dripped down her temples. Echo could tell that Rex was holding back, though Cerra had surprisingly good form. She clearly had training, but it wasn’t enough against an opponent who was taller, stronger, heavier, and had been trained literally from birth to be a killing machine. Gregor occasionally tossed out a dispassionate suggestion or command, focusing on techniques specifically for fighting a larger combatant.

“Pull guard, Cerra, just like we practiced,” the commando coached.

Cerra grabbed Rex’s forearm and took him to the ground, locking her legs around his waist. Echo immediately recognized the move; he’d practiced it often enough during ARC training. He hadn’t sparred with anyone in ages, and he wondered if his prosthetic legs were agile enough to do it. He suspected so; though they were not quite as dexterous as his legs had formerly been, they made up for it in durability and strength. A single kick would be strong enough to snap a limb or break a spine.

“That’s better, Cerra,” Rex praised. 

“Next time, rotate your foot to the outside,” Gregor said, unimpressed. “Unless you want to break your own ankle or get your leg pinned.”

Cerra slapped Rex on the back of the head. “Stop taking it easy on me.”

He grinned down at her. “Sorry, kid. Gotta walk before you can run.”

“First of all, I’m twice your age, and secondly, a real opponent won’t pull their punches,” she said.

“That’s why you have a blaster,” Rex replied calmly. “Want to go again?”

She nodded, but Gregor intervened. “You need to rest up for tomorrow’s mission.”

Cerra released Rex immediately, and he stood to his feet, then extended a hand and pulled her up from the mat. She was breathing hard, and Gregor tossed her a towel to dry off. She spotted Echo and acknowledged him with a jerk of her chin.

“Maybe Echo can teach me some sweet ARC moves while we’re en route to Karthon,” she said.

“Didn’t Fives show you any?” Gregor asked.

Rex winced, but Cerra mopped her face and arms with the towel.

“A few,” she said.

“You knew Fives?” Echo asked, surprised.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m going to hop in the shower.”

“I can’t believe we’re taking that rust-bucket to Karthon,” Echo said.

The rickety shuttle was practically an antique. The sublight drive rattled alarmingly when it started up, and even the hydraulic struts for the ramp only worked about half the time.

“It’s old, but it still has some tricks thanks to Trace,” Rex said. “It’ll get you there and back. Besides, it’s the only ship we have with a cargo hold big enough to transport the surgical pod.”

“She’ll fly all right,” Cerra said as she joined them. “Not fast. Hopefully she won’t leak like a sieve.”

Rex was holding two travel mugs of caf, and he handed one to Cerra.

“You’re a god among men,” she said, taking a blissful sip.

“Is the other one for me?” Echo asked.

“Kark no,” Rex said, chugging half the liquid in one go. “Get your own.”

Cerra strode up the ramp and flopped into the co-pilot’s seat. “Don’t worry, Echo, we can stop at Starcups on the way out.”

Echo pulled a face. “Starcups barely qualifies as caf. More like syrup and blue milk that once heard a rumor about caf.”

“Still gets the job done,” Cerra shrugged. “Let’s roll.”

In the slow, dilapidated old shuttle, it was a full day’s jump to Karthon. Cerra was mostly silent once they entered hyperspace, tinkering with the electronic guts of a clone armor cuirass that she’d modified heavily. Echo, accustomed to Wrecker and Omega’s raucous banter and Tech’s spontaneous infodumps, found the silence deafening. He wished Gregor had come with them on the mission. The commando’s relaxed attitude and cheerful personality seemed to pull Cerra out of her shell in a way that Echo had not yet figured out how to do. He was no sparkling conversationalist, but he didn’t enjoy silence and solitude—not any more. 

It had only been a few days, but he missed the Batch. He missed Tech’s monologues as they copiloted the Marauder on long hyperspace jumps. He missed Omega’s endless questions and cheerful commentary. He thought of the way the tears had welled in her eyes as she hugged him goodbye, and his chest ached at the memory.

The cuirass sparked, and Cerra flinched and cursed.

“Need a hand?” Echo offered.

Cerra sighed and dragged a hand across her eyes. “I think I fried one of the connectors when I heated the plastoid to reshape the chestplate. The control unit fits, but I can’t get it to sync with the HUD.”

She passed the cuirass to Echo, who inspected it closely. She was right; there was a tiny scorch mark on one of the connectors.

“We’ll have to salvage another chestplate to get replacements,” he said. “Decent chance we’ll find some on Karthon.”

“At least it’ll give me some protection for now,” she said. “I’ll just have to go without a helmet until I can get it fixed.”

“I can help with the modifications, if you’d like,” Echo offered. “I have some experience with armor mods.”

“So I see,” she said, eyeing his custom suit. “I figured your armor wasn’t exactly off the rack.”

Echo chuckled. “Not exactly. My squadmate Tech helped me with my first set of armor after Skako Minor, but this set I modified myself. I added some extra features. Aside from the obvious.” He gestured to his scomp.

“What kind of features?” she asked.

“Electrical surge prevention,” he said.

She nodded. “Kix told me you got a hell of a jolt at Anaxes.”

“You knew Kix as well as Fives?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “He’s gone, too.”

Darkness flickered across her face, but she took a deep breath and her usual stoicism slid back into place. Echo reached out to lay his hand on her shoulder, but something about her posture made him think she wouldn’t appreciate the gesture. He faltered and dropped his hand back to his side. After a time, he broke the silence.

“So,” he said. “How well did you know Fives?”

“Pretty well,” she said flatly. “So how about those sweet ARC moves?”

He wanted to push, wanted to know more. Rex had given him the bare-bones account of Fives’s death, but there never seemed to be enough time to actually process it. Cerra was the only person in Echo’s life other than Rex who had known his twin, but her walls seemed to be made of durasteel, reinforced with beskar. And the last thing he wanted to do was scug her off right before he headed into a mission, trusting her to have his back.

“Rex went through ARC training, too, you know,” Echo pointed out. “He knows all those moves. But I can show you a trick or two that I learned from Clone Force 99.”

---

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