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Bring on the Wonder	By : Azuriel Category: G through L > Leverage Views: 498 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I am in no way connected to the Leverage series. I own nothing in that universe. Therefore I cannot and am not making any money off of this story.

Chapter List
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Nate and Elliot had taken a meeting with a man who was a miner, and had lost several friends in an accident two years prior. His concern was that even though the owner of the mine had been given money to improve safety inside the mine, it hadn't actually been done.

After Hardison did his thing they all gathered for the briefing. “Well, it turns out Blackwell did use the money for safety measures, or one big safety measure,” Hardison said as he put everything up on the screen. “She's named Debra Pierce.”

“West Virginia Attorney General,” Sophie read the woman's title out loud.

“Um, thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision removing limits on corporate campaign contributions, Blackwell was able to sink all of his safety money into Pierce's political action committee.”

“So instead of making the mines safer, he just hired himself an Attorney General,” Elliot added.

“Makes sense,” Will commented. “From a selfish asshole who only cares about money point of view,” he added quickly. “So, the usual.”

“Well, he's getting his money's worth,” Hardison continued with the briefing. “Since the explosion two years ago Blackwell has received nearly four hundred citations for unsafe working conditions.”

“Well, even he can't just make four hundred citations disappear. Can he?” Sophie was surprised and concerned about such a high number.

“No, but he can bury them,” Nate responded.

“The Attorney General can allow him to appeal as much as he wants, and he doesn't have to pay a cent until things are settled. Depending on how close their relationship is, it could go on forever,” Will explained.

Elliot crossed his arms and shook his head. “We can't go after Blackwell with an AG in his back pocket.”

“No, but we can take down both of them.” The wheels were already turning in Nate's head. “What we do is we get Blackwell to give us the money from the PAC, and then once that money is transferred, we flag both of them for misuse of campaign funds.”

“The Skagway shuffle,” Sophie smirked when she caught on to what he was thinking.

Nate nodded in confirmation. “Yeah. That's what I was thinking.”

Hardison rolled his eyes. “See, now y'all are just making stuff up.”

“It's like the fiddle game,” Sophie explained. “Only underground.”

“Is Eliot gonna be the fiddle again?” Parker asked.

“No,” Sophie and Nate answered in unison.

“Can I be the fiddle?”

“No,” Sophie answered again. “The mine is the fiddle. We convince him that he's got something valuable in his mine, then we sell him a process to mine it, and then we take all his money.”

“You could've just said we're gonna salt the mine,” Will sighed. “The the whole fiddle thing could've been avoided.”

The first step was to send Elliot and Will into the mine as new miners. The client, Troy, was tasked with showing them around. “Is this really a two person job?” there was a slight whine in Will's voice as they were shown around.

“Yes,” Elliot answered sharply. “I'm not done supervising you yet.”

“This here is section B,” Troy said as he led them into a deeper part of the mine.

“Section B,” Elliot repeated and made a mental note of where they were. “Basically, I just need you to point me out a direction where I can be out of the way.”

“Well, that's no problem. That'd be section C,” Troy responded. “Hey, Cory! Come here!” he called to a young man who had just entered the section. “He's a good kid. He'll show you around. Listen, be careful back there. That section's been abandoned for years, and them old wooden mine supports are unstable.”

“I've seen worse,” Will casually commented as Cory came over.

“Yeah, boss?” Cory said as he set down his lunchbox.

“This here is Eric and Chris,” Troy motioned to Elliot and Will. “I need you to show them to section C so they can do some dust readings.” He handed Cory a few instruments.

“This way,” Cory motioned for the guys to follow him. “So, what did you two do to get stuck with busy work?” he tried to make casual conversation.

“Us? We're the new guys,” Elliot answered. “What's your story?”

“I'm the young guy.”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Why aren't you in school?”

“School doesn't pay the mortgage.”

“You're a little young to have a wife and kid, aren't you?”

Cory paused for a moment. “It's my mom and my sister. My dad was in the explosion two years ago.”

“Yeah, we heard about that,” Will joined the conversation. “And we're sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks,” Cory gave them a small smile. “How old are you? You don't look much older than me.”

“A few years older. And I did take a few classes, it just wasn't for me. So, what are we doing?”

“Weren't you paying attention when we got our marching orders?” Elliot's tone was a bit sharp as he headed over to an intercom.

“Sort of,” Will answered. “But I got a little distracted by memories of shiny things.”

“Why am I not surprised....” Elliot sighed as he put Hardison's device inside the intercom. Since their usual method of communication wouldn't work so far underground Hardison had to come up with a solution. Their signal would be able to connect to the device, which was connected to Hardison's computer.

“How long have you two known each other?” Cory asked curiously. “At least a little while by the way you talk to each other.”

“We knew each other a long time ago,” Will answered. “He used to work for my dad.”

“Oh, doing what?”

“Um, my dad owned a few mines.”

“Owned?” Cory was surprised. “What the hell you doing here then?”

“His dad isn't a good guy,” Elliot answered the question as they started throwing the dust mix on the walls. “I ended up quitting after only a few years.”

“And I was kicked out for not being the son he wanted,” Will explained in a partial truth. “And when I was looking for work I ran into Eric again. He's a sucker for stray puppies,” he gave Elliot a little side eye because he knew what was going through the other man's mind.

“I'm sorry,” Cory mumbled softly. “This looks different than usual,” he changed the subject and commented on the dust.

“It does, huh?” Elliot said in a tone that would catch Hardison's attention.

Will shrugged at the comment. “Maybe a little different than the usual stuff. I just thought it was different because this is a coal mine instead of uh, copper.”

“Look here, bro,” Hardison spoke up. “Limestone dust laced with coltan is gonna look different than plain old limestone dust. I appreciate your faith in me, but I do not have the power to change the chemical composition of minerals.”

“Lab geeks must have come up with something new,” Elliot shrugged.

“Lab geeks do that,” Will nodded in agreement.

They kept talking to Cory while they did what they needed to do. Sophie and Hardison had already started to play their roles as mine inspectors, and Nate had gone into the office a few minutes later to try to buy the mine to grab the owner's attention. Hardison had of course created an online bread crumb trail to help him come to the desired conclusion once he started looking.

“Section C is prepped,” Elliot mumbled quietly so Cory wouldn't hear when they finished with the dusting.

“Okay, you can surface now,” Nate responded.

“Nah. I don't want to leave these guys two short for the day. We'll stay until the shift ends.”

Will blinked at that. “I missed the part where you asked me if I wanted to stay.”

Elliot rolled his eyes at the comment. “You'll be fine. While this is the first time you've done any actual work in a mine, this isn't the first time you've spent an afternoon in one.”

“Yeah, but that was a lot more fun,” Will responded before he playfully pinched Elliot's ass. Cory happened to see and stared at them for a moment while he processed it all. “What?” Will met his gaze for a moment before moving on to another section.

Cory shook his head as they walked. “Just... Be careful when the other guys are around.”

While they were in the next section they overheard a conversation about the scoop being broken down again. “That could be your future,” Elliot commented to Cory. “Get into mechanics. It's faster. It's safer. It's the future.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Cory responded.

As soon as Sophie and Hardison finished their part Sophie met Nate at a local cafe. The owner was already sitting in the corner and watching the two because his curiosity had been piqued. The idea was for the owner to discover that Sophie was working for Nate.

Nate soon left so that the owner, Mr. Blackwell, could approach and confront Sophie. It was then that she confessed everything about being after coltan, and that they had found it in the mine. Mr. Blackwell then told her that he wanted to buy her special process for extracting the mineral.

Sophie and Hardison returned to the mine the next day so that they could demonstrate their technique using the detection device Hardison had rigged up. They had looked into how much money he had, and Sophie told him that she'd need an upfront payment that would force him to use the PAC money he'd given to the district attorney. Mr. Blackwell took the bait and invited her to a fundraiser for the district attorney he was throwing.

Parker had been sent to the district attorney's office to become her new assistant and con her into thinking the upcoming election was in the bag so she wouldn't be opposed to Blackwell using the PAC funds for coltan mining. After being given some instruction by Sophie, Parker was doing a surprisingly good job.

She alerted the team when Blackwell had come to the office to discuss money. Unfortunately the district attorney did object, and pushed Blackwell into thinking outside the box. That led to him deciding to use the payroll money instead.

“Well, that's a great day's work,” Sophie mumbled after the meeting was done. “Blackwell's shutting down the mine and using the payroll money to pay us.”

“So we've just bankrupted an entire town,” Parker sounded just as frustrated.

“Worse. He's not just shutting down the mine. He's blowing it up,” Nate broke it to them.

“That does sound worse,” Parker sighed.

“You know, working in insurance, I've seen this play a thousand times. And now that we've convinced him he has coltan, his mine is worth more dead than alive.”

“Yeah, but he's not gonna have time to get a bomb and plant it in the mine by tomorrow.”

“Well, his mine is practically a bomb already. I mean, you could throw a lit cigarette there, and that thing would blow.”

“Yeah, with the conditions down there it wouldn't take much. One small device placed in the right spot would set off a chain reaction,” Will joined the conversation.

“Okay, Will, do you have any thoughts on what we should do?” Nate asked.

“Well, a major plot twist might do the trick. Men like that don't tend to react well when they find out they're being conned.”

“Right you are,” Nate agreed.

“You're testing him,” Sophie turned to Nate when the others had left.

“Maybe. Do you want me to stop?”

Sophie took a long sip of her drink. “No. Just don't go back to jerking his chain. The friction between you two is finally starting to ease. Let's not go back to it.”

The next day Nate went to the mine with Hardison, Elliot, and Will. “Okay, I'm gonna call Blackwell and draw him here. I mean, he's not gonna blow up the mine while he's in it, is he?” he said while he grabbed his phone.

“That will give me enough time to find the bomb,” Elliot said as he started preparing to go in.

“Oh, yeah. Plenty of time,” Hardison nodded. “Meanwhile, I'll be here, in the van, as far away from the mine as possible. My dude. Go with god.” He held a hand out to Elliot.

Elliot glared back. “What are you doing?”

“For morale, man!”

“We'll be fine,” Will insisted.

“Of course you'll be fine, you're staying with Hardison,” Elliot ordered.

“Um, no,” Will argued. “Don't start with this protective crap. Either I'm your partner all the time, or not at all.”

“Elliot,” Nate's tone was laced with annoyance. “Let's just get this show in the road.”

While Elliot and Will made their way down into the mine to find the bomb, Nate made his call. As soon as Blackwell left, it was time for Sophie to spook the district attorney. They needed her to move the PAC money into the account Hardison had set up.

Parker had been taking notes the entire time she was in the office, but the things she found weird were things like having a sweet tooth and mixing black pens with blue pens. Eventually Parker remembered a meeting between Blackwell and the district attorney that involved a lot of heavy breathing.

“Hardison, do you still have the audio file saved?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah. But there's like a hundred hours of it. I haven't listened to it all yet,” Hardison responded.

“Just pull up the files from Thursday afternoon.”

“Between 3:26 and 4:15.” Parker added.

“Hold on,” Hardison started pulling up the file. The sound of two people having sex soon filled the van. “No! Ew! Old people!” He quickly turned the audio off.

“I second that,” Will chimed in.

Sophie huffed. “Just wait until you get a decade or two older.” She turned her attention back to Parker. “Parker, they're not working out. They're, you know...”

Parker froze, still not sure what Sophie was talking about. “Sex, Parker! They're knocking boots,” Hardison shouted.

“Oh. Yeah. Can you use that?”

“With that, I can make her do anything I want.”

Elliot and Will were down in the mine doing what they needed to do. “I'm switching out the oxygen meter,” Elliot reported as he switched out the old equipment with something Hardison found.

“Alright, man. Look, I've hacked into their monitoring system to detect peaks in any heat or methane levels to show us where Clark planted the bomb,” Hardison said as he pulled up the data.

“Where's it at?”

“No idea. This thing runs like an Atari. It's great if you want to play Frogger, but to find a bomb?”

Elliot grumbled a few choice words under his breath. “While you're playing video games I'm gonna still be looking for the bomb. If you decide to be helpful, let me know.” He used a piece of chalk to draw an X on the support beam near the replaced oxygen meter.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Will asked as his eyes scanned around for something out of place.

Elliot shrugged. “We do risky things, but I'm gonna do my best to make sure everything goes as planned. Don't you trust me?”

“Of course I trust you. It's just that... Well, my good luck has to run out at some point, right? And I've seen a lot of things go horribly wrong in mines.”

“Hey,” Elliot wrapped his arms around Will's waist and pinned him against the wall. “As long as I'm around, you're gonna be fine.” He placed a tender kiss on the other man's lips. “And you have one hell of a guardian angel somewhere who is probably an alcoholic now.”

Will raised an eyebrow at the last sentence. “Boy, you really know how to charm a guy.”

“You know I'm teasing,” Elliot said before pinching Will's ass and stepping back.

“And you know I'm a sucker for that kind of teasing.”

Elliot smirked. “I know.”

“Hey, you two do realize we can hear you, right?” they heard Hardison's voice.

“Deal with it,” Will responded. “Because we could pull a Blackwell.”

“I'm not doing that,” Elliot shook his head. “Section C is good to go by the way.”

They moved out of that section and kept looking for the bomb. While they did that Nate was taking Blackwell to section C to show him that Sophie was playing him.

“Wait a minute. I think I got something,” they heard Hardison's voice after a few minutes. “There are anomalies in the levels in the northeast quadrant.”

“Speak English!” Elliot snapped.

“Turn right. Find bomb.”

“No need for that,” Will chided. “Oh,” he stopped when they turned the corner and saw a familiar lunchbox sitting on the floor.

“He's here,” Elliot sighed.

“Who?” Hardison asked.

“Cory.”

“Cory? Unless that's a cute little name you got for the bomb, I'm compelled to remind you of your mission. Find the bomb. Dismantle. Save lives.”

Will turned to Elliot. “Look. I'll find the bomb. You find Cory and get him out of here.”

“Yeah, but you-” Elliot started to argue.

“I can handle it,” Will interrupted. “You want me to trust you. Learn to trust me. I know you're gonna be distracted until you know Cory is okay. It's who you are.”

“Alright,” Elliot sighed and left to find Cory.

A few minutes later while Nate was with Blackwell in section C Hardison set off his controlled explosion. “Nate, are you there?” Hardison called out after the dust settled. There was no answer. “Elliot?”

“I'm here,” Elliot responded.

“Will?”

“I'm fine,” Will answered in a slightly fearful tone.

“Are you fine?” Elliot asked in concern.

“About as fine as I'm going to be during an explosion in a mine.”

“Guys, I've lost Nate,” Hardison also sounded concerned.

“What do you mean you've lost Nate?” Sophie joined the conversation, also worried.

“I don't know. His comm is down. You need to get down here.”

“I'm sure it's fine,” Will tried to calm everyone else down. “The idea was to make Blackwell think his bomb had gone off and they were trapped, right? It just might take a minute for communications to come back.”

“I hope you're right,” Elliot said as he moved through the tunnels. “I think I found Cory. You got the real bomb yet?”

“Yep, already disarmed.”

“Thanks for keeping me informed of that,” Hardison's tone was sarcastic.

“You said turn right, find bomb. That's exactly what I did.”

“Good work,” Elliot was pleased. “Now what you gotta do is slip it into Blackwell's pocket as he's leaving the mine. It's like picking a pocket, but in reverse.”

“Really?” Will made a sarcastic remark. “I never would have thought of that.”

“Don't be a wise ass. Get the job done and get out.”

It was shortly after that they could hear Nate working over Blackwell. “Okay, Nate, whatever you did you just got your comm back up, so listen,” Hardison started catching him up. “I've wired your comm transmission to the PA system. All you have to do is get that confession, and Eliot will come get you.”

Without missing a beat Nate did just that. Since Blackwell thought they were gonners he confessed everything, and it played over the speaker system. District Attorney Pierce was even standing outside with the sheriff because her intention had been to get him to arrest Sophie for trying to steal her PAC money.

Elliot had been heading back to section C with Cory to rescue Nate and Blackwell when they ran into Clark. Elliot sent Cory back to the surface while he squared off with Clark.

Will had been trying to join back up with Elliot when Cory almost ran past him. When Cory saw Will he stopped, panting heavily. “I don't know what's going on, but there was an explosion, and...”

“Go,” Will waved Cory back toward the entrance. “I got this, okay?” When he found Elliot and Clark, Elliot was yanking on a pick axe stuck in the wall while Clark advanced on him with another axe ready to kill Elliot.

Will grabbed yet another axe he saw lying on the ground and and swung hard at Clark's back, impaling him in the center of his spine.

“What the hell are you doing?” Elliot shouted as Clark fell to the ground, blood pooling around his lifeless body.

Will stood there like a child caught sneaking candy. “I saw him advancing on you to go for the kill and I panicked,” he confessed. “It's fine, we can pin this on Blackwell too, make it look like he was tying up loose ends.”

Elliot shook his head. “But that's not what we do. We get the bad guys busted for crimes they actually committed, and we don't kill anyone in the process.”

“Well it's done now, and it can't be undone,” Sophie spoke softly. “Might as well, but take this as a learning experience. Don't panic and do something rash.”

Neither man said a word as they headed to where Nate and Blackwell were trapped. Elliot held out his hand for the bomb, which Will handed over. Then Elliot started digging through the falling rubble. “Clark!” they heard Blackwell call it.

“Mr. Blackwell! It's Eric!” Elliot shouted back as he made a small hole. “I'm almost through! Can you squeeze?”

“Yeah, I can get through,” Mr. Blackwell forced his way through. Elliot helped pull him out while at the same time planting the bomb in his jacket pocket.

The sheriff was waiting when Mr. Blackwell emerged from the mine coughing up dust. “Mr. Blackwell! Stop right there.”

“What? What the hell are you talking about?” Mr. Blackwell growled as his hands were pulled behind his back. “No, wait a minute, now. I'm the victim here! Now, Mr. Gibson was responsible for that explosion. He was trying to take my mine. He planted that bomb.”

The officer patting him down found the bomb in his pocket. “This bomb?”

They watched as he was led to a patrol car and put in the back with Pierce, who was irate. “Pierce transferred all the PAC funds into Parker's account,” Sophie showed Nate the account information on her phone.

“Nicely done,” Hardison smiled at Parker.

Parker blushed slightly. “Well, I had a little help from Sophie. But, yeah, I nailed it. I'm a grifter. I grift.”

“You do know you don't get to keep the money, right?” Nate reminded her.

Parker's grin turned into a sad frown. “Don't ruin it.”

Cory came over to Will and Elliot. “Who are you?”

“We're friends of Troy. We came here to make the mine safe,” Elliot answered.

“So you're leaving?” Cory was disappointed.

Elliot glanced over at Will for a moment. “That's part of making the mine safe. Look, um, if anyone asks, you never saw Clark down there. We never saw Clark down there.”

Cory suddenly seemed uneasy. “Did something happen to Clark?”

“You could say that, but I don't want you to worry about it. Better to not get yourself involved. Just keep reminding yourself that you got a bunch of good ol' boys here to watch your back for you. You remember what I told you. Use that head. Keep you safe.”

“I will,” Cory nodded.

“Good.” Elliot reached out to shake his hand.

“Yeah, I need to have a little chat with you,” Nate grabbed Will's attention.

“You know what,” Sophie stepped in. “I'll handle this. You just go tell the sheriff what we need him to hear.”

“Okay,” Nate stepped back.

Two days later Nate was able to meet with Troy and give him the good news that Troy was going to be the new manager of the mine. They also gave him the safety grant they had stolen back.

After that was done Nate met Sophie in the cafe again. “It's handled,” Sophie said as Nate sat down.

“I hope so,” Nate responded. “As much as Blackwell is a lying worm, I didn't like pinning a murder on him.”

“Neither did I, but we did what he needed to.”

“Yeah,” Nate sighed as he picked up his menu. “I said from the beginning that this couldn't turn into a problem. It's a problem now.”

“I know, and we had a good talk. Old habits and pattern can be hard to break. All of us have had the same struggle at some point.”

“But he's the only one who killed a man.” Nate saw the look in Sophie's eyes as she leaned back in the booth. “What exactly did you expect?”

“I...” Sophie shook her head. “I didn't know what to expect. Nate, he's broken. He's much better with people than Parker, but in similar ways something inside him is broken.”

“And you feel responsible.”

“Of course I do! I brought him into this world and I left him with a monster.”

Nate took Sophie's hand in his. “You'll drive yourself crazy if you keep second guessing yourself. You made a choice, and Wiltshire wasn't gonna let him go.”

Sophie's shoulders drooped. “And of course you're right. I also had a chat with Elliot. Parker has come a long way, so what's broken can be fixed with time and guidance. And really, all things considered, he's been doing well with us.”

“I know, he was protecting Elliot. And with Parker and Hardison becoming sweet on each other, I'm not sure how long we're gonna keep working.”

“Don't be so pessimistic. What's happening is human nature. Like I said, it's handled. Elliot and I will make sure it doesn't happen again.”

“I hope you're right.”
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