#her big argument is that hardison left the van

[thesaintofnevergettingitright]

I am once again getting emotional about Eliot Spencer and the ways he both gives and receives love.

[andthentheresanne]

Fic: raised on the edge of the devil’s backbone

Title: raised on the edge of the devil’s backbone Fandoms: Overwatch & Leverage Characters/Pairings: Jesse McCree, The Leverage OT3 (Parker/Eliot/Hardison) Summary: Jesse grew up on fairy tales where the bad guys are good guys and all justice needs is a little leverage. He hasn't believed in fairy tales for a long time.

They hadn’t meant to leave their children a war, the three of them, but that's the way the world crumbled.

--

Aka the Leverage/Overwatch crossover that no one actually asked for.  

Blame a re-watch of Leverage, McCree starring in my other current WIP, and a certain line about a huckleberry.

(I'm aware the timeline doesn't quite work out (as far as I can tell), but I'm not one to let a plot weasel go to waste.)

--

The stories that his folks told him and his sisters, growing up, Jesse knew that they were nothing more than bedtime stories. Fairy tales to try and convince a couple of kids that the world was not always as bad as it had once been. Or rather, that it had, but that there had been heroes once. That someone had cared enough to do something. That before the world had fallen apart, there had been heroes, and champions, and people willing to do what was right.

His mother and fathers had thought the world of the three of them, their kids. They never told the kids which one of them was whose--it didn't matter, they were family. Sophia had gotten their mother’s blonde hair, curling out in a frizz. Maggie never freckled, saw systems with her startlingly blue eyes like a game she could beat. All three of them got their mother’s light fingers, their fathers’ quick minds, their own unique talents. All with that big heart lying under everything that would’ve buried it deep beneath the simple business of trying to survive in a world gone mad.

They hadn’t meant to leave their children a war. Jesse once remembered a whispered argument, or so it had sounded, between his folks, late at night when the kids were all in bed, supposedly. His mother, insisting they could have done more. Papa reassuring her in hushed tones, Dad gripping the back of the chair like it could give answers if he squeezed hard enough.

His mother’s final foray into blaming herself in some way was met with Dad thumping the palm of his hand onto the back of the chair. “Gonna check on the kids,” Dad muttered to the other two as he walked toward where Jesse had been hiding on the stairs.

Dad hadn’t been fooled for a second at Jesse’s curled-up form under the blankets, feigning sleep. He’d heard the thumping of little feet trying to not thump. Unlike his sisters he hadn’t quite learned that skill yet. Dad sat down on his bed, ruffling his hair with a fond hand. “Hey, kiddo. What’re you doing up at this hour?”

Jesse had given up the play-acting immediately, sitting up in bed, giving a shrug. “Dunno. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Were you eavesdropping?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t even think of denying it. “Mom says it’s how you learn things sometimes.”

Dad laughed, but it didn’t sound like the kind of laugh you gave when you were happy. “There is that.”

Jesse twisted up his mouth in a frown, not understanding most of what he’d heard. “What’d mom mean? When she, when she was talking about stopping the robots?”

His father’s calloused hand stroked through Jesse’s hair as he thought, soothing. “There are a lotta woulda, coulda, shouldas in this world. Your mom’s just thinking about one of those. That’s all.”

Jesse didn’t understand it, but couldn’t figure out how to get around that not-understanding in his head, so he let it go. Years later, when he was older, there were so many questions he regretted not asking, but back then he was a child, and if Dad said it was so, then it was so.

Jesse once remembered a time when he thought his parents had stolen the stars to hang in the sky, believed his mother when she said the moon was the greatest heist she just hadn’t pulled yet, thought his fathers could protect him and his sisters from the rest of the world.

That had been a long time ago.

He always knew his parents were criminals of some kind, but then, who wasn’t, in this new world? There were the criminals and the dead, eventually. Even if some of those crimes were small, petty things, things that a court, if things still worked the way they once had, wouldn’t even bother with. Neglect and little cruelties that leaked through into his sheltered world on occasion. He was the youngest, the baby, but he had a good eye. Jesse never missed much, growing up.

Jesse feels like his world should have been shattered in a single moment or maybe night of high drama, fleeing and blood and darkness. Something suitably dramatic, like something out of one of his parents’ stories. But instead their safety had seeped away, drips and drabs and long nights sleeping in the back of Papa’s van as his folks drove.

He remembers his folks arguing long and low with Sophia, that night she left. That she felt she could make a difference in this fight, and wasn’t that what they had always taught her? And Dad’s eyes seemed so far away and Mom seemed like she was gonna cry and Pops circled back to the arguments he’d pulled out forty minutes before.

In the end, she had left with one of Dad’s friends, Mom whispering advice into her hair and Pops reassuring her that if she changed her mind, at any moment, they’d be there, all she had to do was say the word, and…

“You’re really going?”

Sophia crouched, ruffling his hair. Jesse swiped it back into place. “I got to, baby bro.”

Jesse crossed his arms, half-self-consciously trying to mimic one of Dad’s poses. She just laughed, gathering him into a hug. “Don’t give me that look. I’ll keep in touch. And I’ll be back.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

Jesse learned later not to make promises he couldn’t keep. He never blamed her for that one, but it had still hurt. Never officially declared, of course. Things had been too chaotic, by then. But Pops had looked and looked, and every time Dad would come back without Sophia and it seemed like something in Mom went behind a locked door, after that. A door he didn’t know how to open, even with all his parents had taught him.

Maggie hadn’t even been a victim of the war, not really. First responders went into dangerous and deadly situations all the time, Jesse knew that. That building could have collapsed on anyone. Jesse knew, but it didn’t make it any better.

Not for his folks, either. They clung to him tighter, but got more distant, Jesse the one thing they hadn’t lost yet, besides each other. They whispered in secrets to each other more often, Dad going hard-eyed and tight-lipped whenever Jesse was around. No more easily-forgiven eavesdropping in those days. The other problem was that the tighter they held onto Jesse, the more his budding teenage rebellion grew. He stopped trying to listen in, stopped trying to get behind those doors and walls all three of his parents had hidden themselves behind, and so he drifted away.

He remembers the last time he saw them, though maybe not exactly as it happened. He isn’t sure how much of a teenage asshole he was. A fair bit of one, he knows, from the way Pops had rolled his eyes, from Mom’s pained smile. He remembers Dad was serious, drilling Jesse on where the emergency cash was, how to get out, what to do, when, how, Jesse playing along in pre-teen irony.

Dad caught the irony, of course. Did that thing where he looked like four different things tried to come out of his mouth at once, and finally gave up, grabbing Jesse in a crushing hug. “Dad!”

Despite protest, Dad hadn’t let him go for a good long moment. “Hold down the fort for us.” Abruptly he released Jesse, bracing him, then turned and grabbed up his duffel in one swift motion.

Pops watched him go, then pulled Jesse into a hug too, far less over-bearing than Dad’s had been. “What your dad said.”

Jesse was a little unnerved now, the weirdness of the situation seeping through his ironic detachment. “Y-yeah, of course, Pops.”

Then it was mom’s turn for a brisk squeeze of a hug and she was leaving too. House to himself for a weekend, that’s what they had told him. He had believed them.

“We’ll be back,” Mom nodded firmly, then shut the door behind her.

At least she hadn’t promised, Jesse thought later. After.

Jesse was never sure what happened to them, still isn’t. Heard rumors, of course. He could have found out, he was sure, sifted through everything and found the truth hidden among the lies. But he chose to believe the stories he’d heard, the ones that sounded like a fairytale, full of justice and honor and a little bit of payback. He’d been worried, then scared, then everything his folks had taught him had kicked in. Before he knew it he was going down the only path open to him, the one to survival.

Later on, after the blood on his hands and a second chance, Jesse still chose to believe in something. Maybe it wasn’t your traditional fairy story, but a man had to have something to cling to. And what Jesse knew was that maybe there was justice to be found in the world, and maybe there wasn’t, but you couldn’t do a damn thing without leverage

[distinctivelibrarians]

Soft Leverage prompt: Eliot had a nasty surprise/close call and is a bit rattled. Cue intervention by (character of your choice).

Thank you for the prompt! Sorry I didn’t get this out as quickly as I said I would, but I finally like what I’ve got!

I will admit, this did kind of wander away from “soft” and more into “hurt/comfort”, but I hope you still like it!

(warnings: referenced graphic violence, blood, and panic attacks. nothing “on screen” but just to be safe)

(ao3)

Hardison wondered, as he sat on the couch, counting the thump-thump-thumps of the knife hitting the cutting board, if they made cutting boards that could actually handle the wear and tear of living with Eliot Spencer. Because he’s pretty sure the one they had right now wasn’t going to make it through the night, the way Eliot was going at it.

He’d been in the kitchen for two hours now. He hadn’t noticed Parker leaving (Hardison didn’t blame her one bit for that. She’d given him a look, big worried eyes and a questioning frown—she’d stay if he needed, if they needed, but stuff like this still made her fidgety in the worst way and after everything today? Hardison had just shaken his head and out she’d gone). Hell, Hardison’s pretty sure that short of an actual earthquake tearing through the apartment, Eliot wasn’t in a state to notice shit.

But, Hardison had let him stew for awhile now—if he had to listen to that cutting board much longer, he was going to throw something—and if he left it too long, Eliot would get too far in his own head and that was the last thing they needed after today.

Because today? Today had been an absolute disaster.

Files destroyed before they got there. Wild goose chase. Back up they hadn’t known was coming. A bad guy way too satisfied that he’d gotten the drop on them and determined to gloat over it personally.

Fifteen minutes where neither Hardison nor Parker could hear Eliot over the comms. Fifteen minutes where they hadn’t been able to go find their hitter because they’d been caught and dragged away.

Eliot bloody, roughed up, and absolutely furious, crashing through the door at the last second. Seeing a gun pointed in Hardison’s direction. Everything getting a little...tangled after that. But ending with Hardison and Parker being hauled up and out, job be damned.

(Not completely, not really. They had enough to bring the man down, had enough to nail him to the wall just fine. But they’d need to go at his network, the people that helped build him up, at another time. A new game plan entirely, and that would have to wait.)

Eliot hadn’t been okay, in the van, while they were tearing out of the lot they’d parked in—he’d hidden it well, but Hardison had seen his hands shaking, had seen him curl his hands in the fabric of his jeans hard enough to turn his knuckles white to get them to stop. He hadn’t been okay, two hours later, when they knew they’d made an escape, and they had confirmation that the police and the local FBI were systematically tearing the place apart, and had their guy in custody—it had taken way too long to get Eliot to focus, to get him to actually listen to the news. He hadn’t been okay at the hospital—oh, sure, the nurses in the ER patched him up fine, though they were...more than a little concerned about the amount of dried blood. Eliot told them he always did bleed easy. Hardison knew most of it wasn’t his (but, nothing was broken, no concussion...he’d be nursing bruised ribs for a little while, and taking care of some stitches, maybe keeping an eye on what looked like a recently dislocated shoulder, but that was it. Thankfully).

And he definitely hadn’t been okay when they’d gotten home. But instead of actually letting Hardison or Parker do anything, he’d waved them off and disappeared into the bathroom, the sound of the shower starting up a couple minutes later. After that, he’d shuffled to the kitchen, and that’s where he’d stayed.

Hardison leaned in the doorway for a moment, just watching, trying to get an idea where the man was at. Sometimes, this shit just had to work its course and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

Eliot either didn’t notice him standing there watching, or didn’t care. His back was to Hardison, stiff and straight and looking all kinds of painful, the only parts of him moving were his hands, steadily chopping...looked like bell peppers now. When Hardison had last checked, it had been carrots.

Hardison was pretty sure, if he looked in the fridge, everything that could be chopped and diced probably was at this point. And he knew Eliot would be pissed about it in the morning, would end up hauling everything down to the brewpub to use, go grocery shopping to fill up their fridge again. (...Maybe the day after, given just how rough he looked.)

“...Eliot?” It wasn’t quite a whisper—he needed to be heard over that damn thumping—but it was low. Careful. Eliot stopped. For a second. Before resuming his cutting. But that was all Hardison needed really, so he slipped over, bare feet scuffing against the tile best they could. Eliot knew where he was just fine, but still. Better safe than sorry.

Eliot didn’t stop, didn’t turn to look at him, but he also didn’t turn to stop him. So when Hardison pressed carefully up against his back, one hand wrapping around the other man’s waist and the other reaching out to catch the wrist of the hand holding the knife, he wasn’t too surprised when Eliot kind of just. Slumped. The knife was taken from unresisting fingers and set aside before Hardison wrapped that arm around him too, pulling him close and burying his face in the crook of Eliot’s neck.

He could feel Eliot’s breathing (tense, shallow, too tightly controlled), could feel the minute shaking that he hadn’t been able to see. But he didn’t push Hardison away. If anything, that sharp, brittle line of his back folded after a couple moments, pressed back into Hardison more easily, fitting them together in a way that actually felt comfortable (instead of desperate).

Hardison doesn’t know how long they stood there—long enough that their breathing was easier, and close to, but not quite, in sync, with how tightly pressed together they were—but eventually Eliot let go of his death grip on the counter (Hardison hadn’t wanted to say anything about that because, frankly, Eliot letting him this close, this soon? Victory all on its own), and gently pulled Hardison’s hands away.

He’s pretty sure he made some kind of argumentative sound at that—he didn’t want to let go yet—because Eliot shook his head, catching one of his hands and bringing it up to his lips to brush a kiss over his knuckles. And Eliot still wouldn’t look him in the eyes, but it was enough for now, so Hardison didn’t fight it. Didn’t seem to matter much anyway since Eliot didn’t let go of his hand, instead using that hold to lead him back out to the living room.

They got to in front of the sofa, but Hardison’s pretty sure that’s where Eliot’s plan kind of just stopped, because he didn’t make any kind of move to sit down or head further, down the hall. So, Hardison made the decision for them, dropping down on the sofa and dragging Eliot down too.

There was a couple grunts (one or two curses), elbows and knees digging into tender places for a moment, before they ended up settled, Eliot leaning back against the arm of the couch, Hardison sitting between his legs and leaning against his chest. Hadn’t been what he’d been going for, but when Eliot wrapped his arms around his shoulders, pulled him close, he found he didn’t much care. This would do just fine.

They were quiet for a long while after that. The apartment around them was dark—the only light coming from the kitchen and the window. The kitchen’s light stretched and faded out around them, melting into inky shadow in the corners, the back of the couch blocking and shadowing them. What light coming from the window mainly painted the ceiling in weak streaks of gold from the streetlamps outside and the occasional too-bright white of headlights, climbing up the wall before disappearing entirely as whatever car it was turned off their road.

Overall, the apartment had a faintly...unreal quality too it, and Hardison kind of wanted to blame it on the lights rather than the emotional crash both of them were definitely dealing with right now.

Sure, he’d needed to get Eliot out of his head—he knew the man too well to be comfortable leaving him alone to deal with what was essentially the tail end of a panic attack, pared and cut down until it was functional and could be worked around without compromising his ability to fight, to run—but Hardison had had a gun pointed at his head roughly seven hours ago. And…

Oh. God.

He’d had a gun pointed at his head. He’d seen the man’s finger inching towards the damn trigger. And he’d had no idea what the hell they were going to do because they hadn’t heard from Eliot in too long and Parker could get them out of so many goddamn places but this wasn’t one of them and-

Eliot’s hand clamped around the back of his neck, pulling him, somehow, closer than he’d been and back to the present, and maybe his fingers were curled tight enough to hurt in Eliot’s shirt, but he could breathe. He could breathe.

Hardison was okay. Parker was okay. Eliot had gotten them out, like he always did. And that was enough for today.

He groaned, shifting enough to press his face into Eliot’s chest, grumbling slightly at the rough, rusted out sound he’s pretty sure Eliot wanted to be a laugh (points for trying though). He feels Eliot press a kiss to the top of his head, and he has to shift slightly to free a hand to swat at him (Eliot still hadn’t let go of his other hand), but Eliot just laughs at him again—sounding a lot less...broken this time.

They don't talk. Not then—they’re both still too raw around the edges for that—but they do settle easier after that, pressed close there in the dark, watching the occasional streaks of light make their ways down the walls, taking comfort in just. Hearing the other breathe, for a little while.

(Parker joins them a couple hours later, sitting on the arm of couch behind Eliot’s head, one hand threaded through his hair, the other reaching over to curl in Hardison’s shirt at his shoulder. The breaths they both take after that are easy enough that maybe, just maybe, they’ll be able to get some sleep tonight.)