#meanwhile the siblings are just excited to meet a ton of heroes

[hypewinter]

The Young Justice learns about a new experiment going on at Cadmus once again involving cloning and decides to go rescue the clones. They expertly break into the facility avoiding all alarms only to find out that they trigger anyway. Instead of a voice coming on over the intercoms announcing intruders though, it instead announces an escape. What?

The team continues navigating the base until they come across two kids. The older boy can't be older than 8 while the girl being tugged along behind him looks around 5. The boy narrows his eyes and his body tenses up.

"You're definitely not guards. Who are you?" He questions.

It's Superboy who steps up and says "We're the Young Justice. We came here to rescue you."

The boy doesn't seem to believe them but the girl immediately gets excited. Apparently she couldn't wait to meet real life superheroes. Especially Superboy. That means whatever Cadmus was doing with the kids, they'd already implanted knowledge of the outside world in them. That didn't bode well.

The team decides to push that to the back of their minds for now and focus on the mission. They manage to convince the boy (with the help of the girl) to come with them and they get the two out of the facility. Of course this is after they take all the information they can from the servers (Thanks Robin).

As they get both kids to the medical wing on the Watchtower, the boy introduces himself as Danny and the little girl as his sister Ellie. Connor's never seen clones with such a close bond before and he can admit he's a little jealous that he and Match don't have that kind of relationship. Still he's just happy they rescued the two.

Now to find out who they're clones of and what Cadmus wanted to use them for.

#dp x dc #dc x dp #winter's tales #danny and ellie decided to reincarnate together #they end up becoming clones #no ellie will never let danny live this down #this is mainly fluff #but the pair will unwittingly trauma dump #a lot #and everyone around them is gonna get real concerned #just what was cadmus doing to these babies!? #a second more destructive mission might be in order #meanwhile the siblings are just excited to meet a ton of heroes #that's the whole reason they picked this world after all #so yeah they're living in paradise while everyone else is constantly stressing out #over the terrible experiences they've had when they're still so young #and they say it like it's perfectly normal! #someone get dinah on the phone

[sovinly]

That's such an interesting fic meme idea! I'd like the Leverage OT3 version of Let Us Speak of a Letter, please

Ohhh, that’s such an interesting premise!

Hardison is the one who wakes up in a strange city and a strange time. And, because Alec is Alec, there are no doubts about that - those phones, those cars, they’re not anything like he knows, and the newspapers confirm it, he is definitely a bit more than a decade into the future. Some sort of conspiracy? Future!Alec has made some sort of time travel tech? He doesn’t know, but that’s kind of lower on the priority list.

Look, he’s consumed a ton of scifi and fantasy and comics, being thrown forward into a possible timeline is something Alec’s wrapped his head around and imagined a hundred times.

He’s also not at all surprised to crack open his wallet and find a bunch of fake IDs - Alec already has a couple, even if they aren’t quite as good as these. Future!Alec has an FBI badge, which seems heart-poundingly risky but also rad as hell. The idea that he’s still a hacker, well, that’s not weird at all, even if Alec himself is still learning a lot of things.

The weird thing is. Well, the weird thing is mostly that he owns (co-owns?) a brewpub. That he has - friends?

Because Eliot and Parker are definitely dating one another, it’s obvious in the way their eyes dart like some of his foster siblings do but not at one another like threats, the way they’re casually physical with one another.

Seeing Alec seems to throw them for a loop. Eliot scowls as he figures out what’s going on, arms crossed defensively across his built chest, and Alec’s heart seizes with the instinct of meeting too many angry jocks, but Eliot just points viciously at the couch and then, a few minutes later, drops a sandwich in front of him. Parker edges around Alec, peering at him with discomfort and something unhappy, intense, but she also calls him Alec (Eliot says, immediate and familiar, “Hardison”). Whatever, it’s a damn comfortable couch and a damn tasty sandwich.

Which is to say, Alec isn’t wrestling with who he is, but. It takes him most of the week to realize that Future!Alec is dating them too. That he must love them, that they must love him. That he has a safe place of his own, that he has a place of his own, warm and comfortable and high tech and thoughtful in the way Alec is scared to show anyone he can be. There’s an easy generosity to what Alec knows is his own work, the way there is to Eliot’s cooking, to whatever it is that occupies Parker’s attention on her fancy phone.

Alec knows his Nana loves him, but. But he’s not used to anyone wanting him, choosing him, making space for him. That’s the fear that grips him deep in the night, that he drowns in the blue light of the computer screen, that he’ll always be alone (Nana’s medical bills are starting to mount, she’s old and Alec knows it).

The future, with its WoW expansions and pending Star Wars (with a black man! A black man as a hero! Alec’s future self had damn well better be appropriately excited) and its technological advances, is pretty great, and he delights in exploring it, in letting Parker and Eliot share Portland with him. Alec doesn’t tell them that he’s figured it out, because, well, he can acknowledge it’s weird, he’s read fanfic, okay, he knows that meeting your lover as a kid is squicky as hell, but knowing that future him is loved so deeply and known so well... it heals some cracks deep down, quiet little hurts that Alec hardly dares to acknowledge.

And meanwhile. Meanwhile. Parker calls Sophie and barely has to say anything, because she mostly only likes talking through things like this with Alec, who is not Alec right now. Sophie, though, is kind, and doesn’t once offer to come sweeping in, which Parker appreciates. Parker is so used to feeling like a cornered animal, so used to looking past Eliot’s terrified snarl, that she never really realized how much Alec hurt too, because he’s got the hunted look at the corners of his eyes, not easy with them and their home. Anything that isn’t Alec’s, he barely touches, like he’s still expecting to be uprooted in a moment. It makes a keening noise build up in Parker’s throat, one she can’t let out.

And meanwhile, meanwhile. Fae magic has a distinctive feel. Eliot isn’t amused. He does his best. Eliot gets on with teenagers, but this is Hardison. And seeing Hardison wary of him again is painful, and even when he relaxes, Eliot feels like there’s no way he can be delicate enough about this. Parker is edgy about this, too, he knows, and Eliot doesn’t know how to be the glue here, has always appreciated Hardison, but missing him and how he balances them both strikes Eliot deeply. He just... does his best, and tries to be as honest as he can. It’s Eliot who meets the faerie (he thinks Parker has an idea of what’s going on, but she all but bares her teeth about the Otherworldly, so he doesn’t ask), Eliot who pours a glass of milk and crosses his arm, and doesn’t buy any of the fucking bullshit about why.

There’s no challenge, no trial this time. Yet. Eliot isn’t holding is breath. (He is, though, feeling like his chest is tightening as he waits, waits, waits, each hour immeasurable.)

Alec wakes up himself again, still bubbly with the giddiness of knowing there’s magic (that this future felt like magic), and fuck faeries, man. He goes to them, and kisses them, and he’s home.

He has a home. They have a home.

(Those cracked and burned places, already scarred, start grow a little greener still.)

#sovin writes things #long post #deaging cw #i don't think i have a tag for them? #or character tags whoops #leverage ot3 #leverage #i love them all so much #more nice things for hardison 2k17 #anyway! #thank you so much for the fascinating prompt to explore :D #yuri-puppies