The Whip Lash Job, Leverage, R

[phantisma]

Fandom: Leverage
Title: The Whip Lash Job
Charcater: Eliot, Nate, Hardison, mentions of Sophie & Parker
Rating: R
Word Count: 621
Summary: While Eliot is off working a solo job, Nate & the crew bite off a bit more than they can chew.

A/Ns & Warnings: So that second card for angst_bingo Yeah...badfalcon picked the Leverage fandom for five prompts from that card. This is the first of those five prompts. Written for my second card for angst_bingo.





Nate didn't tell him exactly what had gone wrong, just told him to get home. Fast. Eliot left off the job he'd been working and headed back to Boston.

They were supposed to be taking a break.

Not that Eliot ever really did. He took a job south of Boston because he needed something to do. He'd been out of touch a few days and came back to a string of messages about some job they decided to do without him, and then the last call had been Nate, furious and worried and when Eliot called him back, all he would say was "We need you. Now."

So here he was, bursting into the loft, not really sure what to expect.

He stopped just inside the door, blinking as Nate lifted his head and pulled an ice pack away from his spectacularly bruised face. Hardison groaned and lifted a hand but didn't otherwise move.

"Sophie? Parker?"

"Sophie's upstairs." Nate growled, lifting a glass and draining it. "Parker is…we're not sure."

"You're not…what?" Eliot asked, his stomach tightening with something like fear. He isn't sure when that had started, when he'd started to care so damn much, but he didn't like what it was doing to him.

Nate stood, dropping the ice pack and heading for his bottle. "There were…unexpected consequences."

"What does that mean?" Eliot growled. "You couldn't wait? I would have been home tomorrow."

"We didn't think we'd need you." Nate said. "It should have been a simple job."

"I told him to wait." Hardison said, attempting to sit up. He held his shoulder and his stomach and made faces like it hurt. "I told him I didn't have all the information."

"They were hurting people." Nate said, pointing at Eliot. "And you weren't answering your phone."

"I was working a fucking job, Nate. I told you when I left that I'd be out of touch for a few days. What couldn't wait?"

"Maxwell Bromwell." Nate said without looking at him.

The name was a physical blow, a memory out of his past made manifest to yank him back a step and make him shake his head. "Please tell me you didn't just say Maxwell Bromwell." Eliot huffed, shaking his head against memories he'd buried under layers and layers of denial and bodies and time.

They were both looking at him now, even as he turned away. Not Bromwell. He forced himself to breathe while he shoved the memory away.

"Eliot? I take it you've heard of Bromwell?"

"You could say that." Eliot responded, backing away from Nate who was approaching him. "He's not a guy you take on without knowing…" He shook his head, then stopped as the implication dawned on him. "Are you saying Bromwell has Parker?"

Nate shrugged. "We don't know. We lost contact with her before our end went very wrong."

"Oh, this isn't good." Eliot shook his head. Parker was…Bromwell would hurt her and abuse her and break her. He closed his eyes as memory swelled of the last time he'd tangled with Bromwell. "He runs slaves, Nate. Human beings broken and sold and used as fucking slaves."

"Which is why we couldn't wait." Nate answered.

Eliot shook his head. "No, which is exactly why you wait. His organization is bigger than the mob and twice as deadly. You tangle with him and lose, you have to possible outcomes, you're dead or you're on some ship somewhere getting beaten down on the first step to breaking you down."

He went to the couch and gestured at the screen. "Run it Hardison."

"We..ah…"

"Damnit Hardison, show me what you've got and tell me everything about what you did. I need to see how bad it is."