Hardison was the first to run across videos of “the chocolate guy.” When he excitedly shoved his phone under Eliot’s nose (while Eliot was cooking, as if he didn’t have to keep an eye on the pan on the stove to keep it from burning), Eliot pasted on a resigned smile and obediently watched whatever Hardison was so excited about this time.
His eyebrows climbed higher and higher as the concoction progressed to become an incredibly realistic ornate compass. (Hardison was the one who had to pause the video and ask if the stuff on the stove was supposed to be starting to smoke like that.) After salvaging his recipe, Eliot oh-so-casually asked who the video was of and if there were any more.
Parker required no convincing to be interested. Any chef described as “the chocolate guy” was worth checking out in her book, although after the first few she insisted on having cookies or something around when watching, because her mouth was watering by the end of every video.
Which was why, some months later when Nate and Sophie dropped by for a visit, Nate was flummoxed to have a large model ship set in front of him on a platter after dinner.
Eliot presented it with a grin and a flourish. Parker hovered over his shoulder, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Sophie tried and failed to cover her smirk across the table, eyes sparkling with glee. Hardison was filming.
Nate shot a suspicious look at all of them. “…What’s this?”
“Dessert,” said Eliot, innocently.
Nate took a second look at the ship, baffled. It looked like one of his models, albeit perhaps slightly smoother and glossier in places than usual. The majority of the ship was a deep brown with a subtle grain and accents of a paler wood. The daintily carved figurehead of a woman had Sophie’s face, and the name painted in gold on the side was “Leverage.” The rigging…wait.
Nate leaned closer to peer at it. The rigging looked right at first glance, and second, but upon closer inspection the lines were too smooth and they appeared to be fused rather than knotted together.
His brow furrowed.
The sails…weren’t fabric. They had a subtle texture resembling woven threads, but a look at the edges revealed that the furled sheets were a little too thick and solid to match the “weave.”
Nate sat back, frowning. The others were still grinning at him.
“OK, I give up. How is a model ship ‘dessert’?”
Eliot pulled out a large knife and sliced cleanly through the deck, placing the prow of the ship onto a smaller dessert plate and revealing the layers of decadent fillings inside.
“Like that.”
“You…Youmadethis?”
“We all made it!” Parker burst out, in a rush. “Eliot made the hull and all the fillings and flavorings, and Hardison cast the masts and stuff out of chocolate and molded all the details, and I assembled all the finicky stuff!”
“And ate slightly excessive quantities of chocolate while working,” chuckled Hardison, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder.
Nate shook his head. He shot Sophie a vaguely accusatory look. “You knew.”
“I did show you those videos Hardison sent months ago, you know” she said. Her amusement faded into a fond smile. “Happy birthday, Nate.”
Hardison relates to everybody in their own language. With Eliot he’s combative, because that’s how Eliot is comfortable communicating. With Parker he’s rarely direct and never pushy, instead he takes her metaphors and runs with them, because that’s how she’s comfortable communicating. With Nate he often just skips talking and does the thing, but when he does talk he’s direct and uses facts. With Sophie it’s not word choice that matters because she knows how easy it is to speak false words, it’s body language. This is a tribute to his open, caring personality of course, but I think it’s also a tribute to how he grew up: we don’t know how many foster kids he grew up with, either in Nana’s house or before that, but it’s suggested that it’s a lot and the few things we know about Nana’s house are that it was full of love and that it’s interdenominational. Hardison learned to speak other people’s languages, especially their love languages, their trauma avoidances, their silences, because that’s how he was raised.
The crossover we all needed but time robbed us of. They’re very, very similar shows. Me and my brother love both and talk about this way too much. Here’s what we’ve come up with:
We like the idea of these two crews running into each other and then trying to outdo one another, think “The Two Live Crew Job”. That’s never gonna work though. They’re both so good that they would stalemate each other forever. At some point Nate and Hannibal just keep coming up with more and more elaborate and impossible plans until the rest of their crews just stop and sit around thinking “this is ridiculous”. Sophie and Face have go to them and convince them that it would be much better to work together.
Of course, when they do combine forces they are unstoppable. I don’t know who they’re taking down, but it’d have to massive. What’s really fun to think about though is each member with their counterpart, like so:
Hitter: B.A. Baracus and Eliot Spencer. There’s an episode of The A-Team where B.A. keeps trying to beat up this one guy while the others are off doing something else but he just won’t go down. This is what fighting Eliot Spencer is like. In the initial encounter when they’re rivals these two fight but can’t beat each other. After a while they agree to take a breather and sit down and start talking all casual about mundane stuff. When there’s a lull in the conversation Eliot asks “you ready to go again?” and B.A. is just like “yeah, I guess we should” and proceed to beat the living daylights out of each other (it’s not personal, just business)… Until Nate and Hannibal call a truce to which Eliot and B.A. get very annoyed and are like “you couldn’t have said that an hour ago?!”. They both sit through the first joint team meeting seething while icing various body parts. After the team-up they take on a small army, and each keeps score to see who can knock-out the most bad guys.
Hacker: Alec Hardison and Frankie Santana. So, the A-Team didn’t have a hacker, but Santana (go watch season 5 if you don’t remember him) is closest thing, and will fill that role for the purpose of this crossover. Unfortunately, this means we can’t really compare their skills, but I can say that they’d get along great, which is wonderful because Hardison needs a hacker friend.
Grifter: Faceman Peck and Sophie Devereaux. This has to be my favorite pairing. They figure out the other is a grifter in like 0.0004 seconds but keep playing the game anyway. And when they join forces… I have a clear image of Face in a white 3-piece suit with a black bowtie and Sophie in a beautiful white dress with gold jewelry walking into a fancy gala being like Sophie: “you take the women, I’ll take the men.” Face: “Let’s do it.” By the time they’re done every millionaire in the place has been picked clean. They’re having a lot of fun seeing who got the biggest haul “I got $20 million!” “I got a yacht!” “They’re naming a building after me!” Until Nate and Hannibal tell them to give it back and come on. There is much sighing, groaning, and rolling of eyes.
Wildcard: Parker and H.M. Murdock. Yeah, so Murdock is not a thief and Parker is not a pilot, but I think “wildcard” sums them up nicely. To be honest, I don’t have the imagination to figure out what these two would get up to. I know that Parker would 100% go along with whatever Murdock has going on whether it be one of his weird organizations or his French documentary (Parker: “you’re ruining the shot, Hardison!” Hardison: “what? Babe, the man doesn’t even have a camera!” Parker: “ugh, now we have to do it all over again!”). At some point Parker definitely repels off of Murdock’s helicopter.
Mastermind: Nate Ford and Hannibal Smith. They get on each other’s nerves at first, both very competitive but equally matched. Thank goodness for grifters who can talk some sense into them. Once they start to work together they actually find they enjoy it and are impressed by the other. This episode ends with Hannibal lighting a cigar and Nate pouring a drink, Hannibal delivers his famous line “I love it when a plan comes together”, then Hannibal gives Nate the cigar at the same time Nate slides the drink over to Hannibal. Fade to black.
Thing is, other combinations are fun, too.
Sophie and Hannibal would discuss acting and argue about whether theater or movies are better.
Hardison and B.A. would start talking about the cool things they’ve invented for their teams but then it just becomes a deep discussion about the love they have for their vans. B.A. is secretly inspired to name his van ala Lucille, he tells no one. Murdock somehow knows anyway.
Eliot and Face would talk pick-up lines and sports cars and the like.
Santana thinks Murdock is a lot of fun and Parker would be no different. He’d enjoy learning thieving and Parker loves to teach it.
This leaves Murdock and Nate… While these two have next to nothing in common there are few things more funny than a confused/annoyed Nate and Murdock is definitely the person to provoke such a response.
Seriously though, have you ever just watched The A-Team and saw a scene and was like “if you put Leverage characters here instead nothing would change”? If I had a time machine I would be wildly irresponsible and make this happen, which is probably why I don’t have one…
I’m surprised I never see more fics/ficlets/prompts/just plain posts about these two universes. They’re canonicallyconnected! (There are Stargate symbols on the wall in Lattimer’s vault in “The Last Dam Job”, the producers confirm it too). It’s actually the main reason I started watching Leverage and my need for a crossover has only grown since. Here’s a few thoughts I’ve had:
I 100% believe that Eliot was a member of an SG team. When Aimee said “it’s like you dropped off the face of the earth”, well, he did. They only take the best of the best and that’s Eliot. He’s fully aware of the existence of the Stargate program and aliens, etc.
While serving there he got involved with Maybourne’s team, he thought it was in the best interest of his country. He was one of the very few who didn’t get caught. I like to think he still has a few souvenirs from his time off-world, several highly classified things he really shouldn’t have. I don’t believe he left the base empty-handed. It’d make sense if he had a Goa’uld healing device, but that would mean at some point he ended up with naquadah in his blood, which given all the crazy things that have happened to him in his life wouldn’t be too surprising, but that’s a whole different story…
Eliot never mentions any of this to the rest of the team, not only would this put them in danger but earth being at war with ancient, parasitical aliens is pretty heavy knowledge. This is a lot of fun when SG-1 shows up…
In a crossover with SG-1 and the OG Leverage for me it would have to consist of Cameron Mitchell (the timeline puts it after O’Neill was promoted), Samantha Carter, Daniel Jackson, and Teal’c. I can’t figure out a scenario where Vala is included and doesn’t let it slip to the Leverage crew that aliens and spae travel are a thing.
There are two scenarios in which I can think of where these two would meet: First, the Leverage crew uncover something in a job that Eliot recognizes as alien (either an artifact, or maybe even a Goa’uld, that’d be fascinating if he did have naquadah and was able to spot the Goa’uld), he tries to deal with it without letting the team know but finally has to tell Nate they need to call the Air Force, it takes a lot of convincing especially since he can’t actually say why. Second, SG-1 shows up to a job the Leverage crew is already doing. Eliot recognizes them, they recognize him. Sam might even pull her gun. He gets them away from the Leverage crew to see what’s going on, meanwhile Hardison is running their faces through one of his ID programs and now everyone is wondering why Eliot is talking to “two USAF colonels, some loser who should be on Ancient Aliens, and some guy who… doesn’t exist?”.
Whatever the case, it’s inevitable that these two have to work together. Only thing is, the Leverage crew can’t know SG-1 is here because aliens and SG-1 can’t know that the Leverage crew is here because crime. The only one who can and does know everything is Eliot, who is the constant go-between for both of these teams, and also very tired. He definitely knows the Goa’uld language and uses it to talk to Daniel and Teal’c about the more… classifieddetails of the job when the others are around. Yet again Hardison is confused when he tries to figure out what they’re speaking only to find out that it doesn’t exist.
Parker is strangely good at guessing things. She immediately 100% believes that Teal’c is an alien. Nate, Sophie, and Hardison assure her he can’t be, even though they’re not completely sure themselves, this whole thing is too weird.
I can’t really figure out the rest of it, which is why I’m writing it this way instead of in an actual fic, but this is… something. Not sure what. This is really the most realistic version I’ve thought up. Headcannon where the Leverage crew actually do find out include (this is not any specific sequence or headcannon, just ideas):
The crew ends up on a small ship (maybe Eliot used rings to get them out of a dangerous situation or something) and Hardison and Sophie are visibly and audibly freakingout. Nate is trying to remain calm and failing, it’s not as intense as Hardison and Sophie, but he’s definitely freaked out. Eliot, of course, just rolls his eyes and yells at them to calm down as he goes to figure out the controls. Space ain’t nothing when you’ve been there hundreds of times. Then there’s Parker… Her reaction is basically to look out a window, smile, and call it “Cool!”. Everyone is a little taken aback by how she can just be okay with this?
Upon finding out about aliens and space travel Hardison is excited, terrified, and absolutely furiousat Eliot for never telling him about it. There’s a headcannon I have of those two somehow getting transported to another planet and not knowing it at first and trying to figure out where they are. It takes Eliot a while to convince Hardison that they’re on another planet, because “yeah, it looks like Canada, that’s just what alien planets look like!”.
Sophie trying to grift aliens… The game has changed and she is lovingit! A whole new universe of challenges. Seeing that would be a thing of beauty.
All of it just causes Nate to drink more, unfortunately. It’s a lot to take in. But if Eliot had to tell just one member of the team about it (both to stop them from asking him to explain what’s going on and why can’t he tell them? and to convince them of the amount of danger they’re all in) it’d be Nate. He’d come away from that conversation very visibly shaken and tell the crew that Eliot’s right, they don’t need to know, at which point they accept it and back off.
Parker handles any strange situation well, so aliens are no big deal. I bet at one point someone (not Eliot) brings up Atlantis and she theorizes that “it’s probably actually a spaceship that flew off to another galaxy!”. Nate, Sophie, and Hardison just rolls their eyes or shoot her a weird look or something because what a stretch! But Eliot nearly chokes on his drink! He has to regain his cool really quickly because now everyone is looking at him, but how can she possibly know that?? He wonders if she ever stole classified material, but nope, Parker just made the most random guess possible and nailed it because Parker.
OH! And one more thing! One night in Nate’s apartment when they’re all getting ready for dinner Hardison has it on this weird cheesy scifi show and is all like “look at this garbage!”, Eliot takes a look and is like “wait, what??” and sits down and starts watching. Dinner is now going to be late because this is hilarious! It gets canceled after one episode but he makes sure to catch the TV movie as soon as it airs. This is how Eliot Spencer became a “Wormhole X-Treme” fan and no one has a clue why.
If anyone else has a Stargate/Leverage headcannon, please, please, pleaseshare it!! Charater interactions, different senarios, ANYTHING! And let’s all hope that, even though Stargate hasn’t been around for a while, Leverage Redemption will throw us fathful fans a bone with some kind of reference!
Gif 1: Hardison sits at a table in an upscale hotel room, focusing on his laptop (off screen). The camera pans around him as in a circle, and a pile of cotton rags are revealed on the table next to him.
Gif 2: Hardison stands next to a table holding his open laptop (running code in the background) and what looks like various cleaning supplies. He is hanging a sheet of yellowed paper from a laundry line with clothespins strung up about chest height.
Gif 3: Hardison is sitting at a table wearing clear plastic safety glasses and holding an aged-looking book open with latex gloves on his hands. The camera is at first focused on his hands gently opening the book (the spine is opposite him so he opens the cover away from himself) and then pans up to his face, which is focused on the book.
Bonus Gif: Hardison is sitting on a wooden bench in an auction house. He is slightly hunched over, but leans up and back as he lets out a “WOO!” of celebration, holding his right fist up in a faux guard position as his left punches the air. As he finishes the gesture, his left arm comes up to rest along the back of the bench and he begins to look around, realizing he’s just said that out loud.
Hardison was the first to run across videos of “the chocolate guy.” When he excitedly shoved his phone under Eliot’s nose (while Eliot was cooking, as if he didn’t have to keep an eye on the pan on the stove to keep it from burning), Eliot pasted on a resigned smile and obediently watched whatever Hardison was so excited about this time.
His eyebrows climbed higher and higher as the concoction progressed to become an incredibly realistic ornate compass. (Hardison was the one who had to pause the video and ask if the stuff on the stove was supposed to be starting to smoke like that.) After salvaging his recipe, Eliot oh-so-casually asked who the video was of and if there were any more.
Parker required no convincing to be interested. Any chef described as “the chocolate guy” was worth checking out in her book, although after the first few she insisted on having cookies or something around when watching, because her mouth was watering by the end of every video.
Which was why, some months later when Nate and Sophie dropped by for a visit, Nate was flummoxed to have a large model ship set in front of him on a platter after dinner.
Eliot presented it with a grin and a flourish. Parker hovered over his shoulder, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Sophie tried and failed to cover her smirk across the table, eyes sparkling with glee. Hardison was filming.
Nate shot a suspicious look at all of them. “…What’s this?”
“Dessert,” said Eliot, innocently.
Nate took a second look at the ship, baffled. It looked like one of his models, albeit perhaps slightly smoother and glossier in places than usual. The majority of the ship was a deep brown with a subtle grain and accents of a paler wood. The daintily carved figurehead of a woman had Sophie’s face, and the name painted in gold on the side was “Leverage.” The rigging…wait.
Nate leaned closer to peer at it. The rigging looked right at first glance, and second, but upon closer inspection the lines were too smooth and they appeared to be fused rather than knotted together.
His brow furrowed.
The sails…weren’t fabric. They had a subtle texture resembling woven threads, but a look at the edges revealed that the furled sheets were a little too thick and solid to match the “weave.”
Nate sat back, frowning. The others were still grinning at him.
“OK, I give up. How is a model ship ‘dessert’?”
Eliot pulled out a large knife and sliced cleanly through the deck, placing the prow of the ship onto a smaller dessert plate and revealing the layers of decadent fillings inside.
“Like that.”
“You…Youmadethis?”
“We all made it!” Parker burst out, in a rush. “Eliot made the hull and all the fillings and flavorings, and Hardison cast the masts and stuff out of chocolate and molded all the details, and I assembled all the finicky stuff!”
“And ate slightly excessive quantities of chocolate while working,” chuckled Hardison, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder.
Nate shook his head. He shot Sophie a vaguely accusatory look. “You knew.”
“I did show you those videos Hardison sent months ago, you know” she said. Her amusement faded into a fond smile. “Happy birthday, Nate.”
[id: 3 screenshots from the show leverage and leverage: redemption: Hardison as Wade Perkins from the 3 days of the hunter job, Eliot as Willie Riker from the first contact job and Parker as Dire Wrath from The Bucket Job. End id.]
bitches will be like “my ot3 ” and it’s a woman who could murder them, a guy who hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in six years, and another guy who almost got both of the other two murdered. it’s me i’m bitches
mcsweeten being in leverage redemption and still having not a clue that parker and hardison are, in fact, not federal agents and are actually world-class criminals
or at some point between the finale and now he did find out, and then some government official gets wind of one of their heists and is jabbing their finger at a blurry image of parker and hardison mid-thievery and with a completely straight face, mcsweeten explains that guys, those are agents hagen and thomas and they are working on an undercover op and were in no way at all involved of what is inconveniencing the government now
and the government official keeps trying to explain they are criminals but mcsweeten just pulls up their dossiers and credentials and he can literally see the vein throbbing in the man’s forehead but he just smiles says that he has personally worked with agent hagen and would trust her with his life
Ok but consider this the team comes clean and Mcsweeten takes it hard and says he needs some times alone . After a few days they go to check on him and find his apartment empty. Panicking they go to the FBI and find out that his office is empty too. After some discrete probing from Sophie they discover that Mcsweeten never existed . Apparently this was a brilliantly crafted false personality used by a mysterious spy who has managed to infiltrate the highest levels of the FBI
The team stunned and with their professional pride hurt decade to join in on the task force designed to hunt Mcsweeten . They finally track him down and burst into the warehouse only see … a surprise party with every member of the task force they thoguht they left in the dust and Mcsweeten who goes “I loved your prank where you tried to make me think you were criminals so I decided to play one on you as well. Thgouht it would be great for team building !”
And the episode just ends with the team unable to decide if Mcsweeten is really that oblivious or if he really is playing a massive prank on them
sterling is so funny because the leverage crew gives him endless grief and they snark at him and he snarks back but god forbid some other department wants to jail them or something because excuse me that’s his group of bothersome thieves and no one can touch them except him
#idk I just want sterling to be at the ot3s wedding as a joke invite but when he’s asked if he’s going he snatches the invitation and is like #NONE OF YOUR BUISNESS and then proceeds to get a thoughtful wedding gift #or a joke one your choice
The wedding gift is the location and specs of an obscenely high-tech kitchen gadget that actually does something really useful. He doesn’t give them the item, of course–if they want it, they have to come steal it from him. Said gadget is inside multiple nested safes (some computerized, some purely mechanical), inside a secure vault, inside a building with a good security system. There are a handful of not-particularly-assiduous guards (you know, just enough for Eliot to feel like he’s needed, without him having to actually work on his honeymoon). There are elaborate gratuitous laser grids both inside and outside of the vault. Each one has a conspicuously laser-free area just large enough to hold two deck chairs and a mini-cooler of beer and orange soda.
In the innermost safe, next to the gadget, are three feedback forms and a pre-addressed, stamped envelope so they can critique the security measures at their leisure. Mr. Quinn is waiting to “catch” them on the way out to ensure Eliot gets one satisfying, low-stakes fight out of this job. (There are, again, two convenient deck chairs nearby, but this time the cooler is stocked with orange soda and chocolate milk.)
