Another first for me - Leverage fic. Like Firefly, I've been loving this show for a while and the fight!bingo is the perfect excuse to start tinkering with some fic for it. This is to fill 'guns' on my card.
I don't often write 'real world' stuff though (soooo difficult not to give the bad guys super powers, or stick them in a space ship somewhere...) so be gentle!
“I thought you hated guns?”
He didn't look up at the seven men standing around him in a wide circle.
“This isn't a gun. This is a piece of history.”
Hardison scoffed over the comms and he wanted to snarl at the hacker.
“This, Hardison, is the first truly revolving pistol. This is the gun that made Samuel Colt famous. This gun changed the world.”
“Oh, so now it's a gun?”
He growled, wished the hacker was there in the room with him, just so he could aim the revolver right between the hacker's eyes.
Of course, if Hardison was there, they'd probably both be dead already.
“Tell your little geek friend to open the doors.”
“Greek? Did he say Greek?! Do I sound Greek to you?”
“He's working on it,” he bit out, still staring down at the ancient weapon. The cold, blunt schnick of half a dozen semi-automatic pistols being cocked echoed as he settled his weight, eased back a step.
“Work faster, geek,” the ring-leader called. “Or when we're done with this one, we will feed you to the dogs. One piece at a time.”
“Dogs? I really don't like dogs, Elliot. I have allergies. Bad allergies man.”
“Ja by som kanál,” he began, low and soft and they all leaned forward to listen.
“I get all, all sneezy and there's cryin', it's not pretty, man. Not pretty.”
“Shut up, Hardison,” he muttered, looked up at the seven men surrounding him without lifting his head. He did 'that thing' with his eyes, still not sure what it was (he'd practiced in the mirror, late at night in his apartment, and all he ever saw were the ghosts that haunt him) and they paled but didn't move. Professional. He could respect that.
He'd still kill them to get out though, if he had to.
“Ktorý sa vzteklým psom z mojich najväčších nepriatel'ov,” he finished, and the leader's face twisted up in fury.
“Elliot? Did you just insult them in some, some... what language was that, anyway?”
“Slovak,” he replied.
“Slovak? How did you even know that?”
“Pistols cocking. Grand Power K100 mark 6. Only manufactured in Slovakia.”
“You can tell that from the sound of them getting ready to kill you?”
“It's a very distinctive sound!”
“You have a better plan than insulting them, right?”
He really didn't. He was alone, armed with only the ancient, priceless revolver they came here to steal and there were half a dozen thugs aiming semi-automatic pistols at him, out of easy reach. He looked up at the security camera, knew Hardison was watching him over the feed he hacked into when they were scoping the place for the heist.
“'cause if you don't, they gonna kill you and then they gonna come down here and kill me and I don't wanna die today, Elliot.”
“None of us are dying today,” he growled.
“I don't wanna die period.”
“I disagree,” the ringleader said. “I think, once your geek friend has opened the doors, I'm going to kill you anyway.”
He cocked the hammer on his pistol, slow and deliberate. Threatening, but Elliot's faced down bigger thugs with bigger guns and he just smiled grimly.
“Elliot?”
“Shut up, Hardison,” he said, rolled his shoulders and flexed his knees, bouncing a little. He met their eyes, one at a time and the leader frowned, switched to his mother tongue.
“Sa nebojí?” he asks.
Elliot shrugged.
“Jeden múdry muž kedysi povedal mi, nemáme sa čoho báť okrem strachu samotného.”
He could hear Hardison muttering over the comms, “Wait, I can... if I run that through a translation algorithm... what did he say again? Did he say mush?” He tuned out the hacker's monologue, watched the ringleader smile.
“It will be a shame to kill you, I think.”
“Like I said,” Elliot answered, and he exploded into motion without finishing, tossing the antique gun high into the air. Half the mercenaries tracked it, the other half scrambled to follow him as he dove forward, tucked his shoulder down as he hit the deck. The first round of bullets tore the air apart an inch above his head, so close it ruffled his hair (over the comms, Hardison squawked loudly) and he transferred the momentum of his dive into a smooth roll that brought him to his knees right between two of the mercenaries. They doubled over around the fists he plowed into their stomachs, folded to the floor as he stood and shifted his weight onto his left leg, pivoted and drove his right foot up and out, into the chest of the new man closing in on him, already looking for the next target. The thug flew back, landed in a groaning heap and didn't move again but thick arms closed around Elliot's chest, crushed him in a bear hug and lifted him clear off the ground. His own arms were trapped, pinned against his side, so he snapped his head back once, felt bone and cartilage break and the mercenary holding him yelped loudly. The arms around him slackened but didn't let go and he craned his neck back to see the man holding him. It was the big one, bald head gleaming under the lights of the museum, blood flowing freely from his flattened nose down over his chin. He looked a little dazed but he smirked at the hitter. From the corner of his eye, Elliot saw another thug taking aim at him so he let his body go limp, twisted as he fell to put the one holding him in the line of fire and the mercenary jerked and grunted as the shot slammed into his back.
Elliot snatched a glance up, saw the revolver just reaching the apex of it's trajectory. He raked his heel down the thug's shin, worked one arm free and jabbed the elbow back. The thug finally released him, collapsed to the ground, clutching at his shoulder.
“That's four,” Elliot muttered, crouched for a split second to take in the rest of them. The ringleader, just beginning to shout in fury, ordering the remaining two mercenaries to fire. They were too far away for him to take them out before they could shoot him, so he threw himself sideways and snatched the antique revolver out of the air as he dove behind the plinth it had been displayed on before they arrived to steal it.
Bullets hit the concrete, shattered the glass case on top and shards of both ricocheted around him as he covered his face. The plinth was too small to offer real cover, and a shard sliced across the back of his left hand a moment before a bullet scored a line of fire through his right bicep. He snarled in pain, waited for the pistols to run out but the mercenaries were just as professional as he noted earlier, and they were pacing their shots, giving each other time to reload. Worse, the plinth was being whittled away, cheap concrete cracking and shattering under the hail of lead.
“Dammit.”
The air was thick with dust, reeking of cordite and laced through it, the metallic tang of blood. He yanked at his shirt, tore a strip from the hem and wound it around his arm, tying it with a sharp twist.
His hands left bloodstains on the shards of concrete as he fumbled through them and he grinned as his fingers closed around a large chunk.
Perfect.
“Hardison,” he growled, kicking off his shoes. “Count of three, kill the lights.”
“Right, right, uh... is that a slow three or a fast three?”
“Hardison.”
“Okay okay okay. In three, two, boom.”
The museum was plunged into darkness, lit only by the muzzle flashes. They were expecting him to run for cover from either side of the plinth, so he swarmed up over the top of it, hurled the chunk of concrete with a sharp snap of his arm. One man grunted, collapsed back and dropped like a stone as Elliot sprinted forward, shattered glass slicing at the soles of his feet. He shoved the pain away, ducked and drove a shoulder into the gut of the mercenary on his left. The butt of the Slovak's pistol slammed down on his back and he yelled as he twisted, forced the big man back until he stumbled and then the hitter leaned back, spun into a roundhouse kick that scythed the thug's feet from under him and brought him crashing down. His head cracked hard against the floor and he went still.
“That's six,” Elliot growled, turned to the ringleader and looked straight down the muzzle of the bald man's pistol.
“Sorry. As I thought, it is a shame to kill you. Maybe you could come work for me?”
“Elliot!”
Hardison was freaking out over the comms, his usually deep voice cracking and Elliot knew the hacker was watching him stand helplessly in front of the ringleader's gun.
“Elliot, we're going to get you out of there, alright? You just gotta give us some time.”
Nate, now, and the mastermind sounded out of breath as well as worried. He must have run from the safe house three blocks away, where he was waiting to play his role in the last part of the con, and Elliot wondered if Sophie and Parker followed him, if they were all watching him through the hacked security feed.
“There's no more time, Nate. This is it.”
It wasn't hard to sound apologetic, he knew what his simple pronouncement would do to them but more importantly, he knew how it sounded to the Slovak. He stared levelly at the mercenary and tried to look resigned. The big man just looked smug.
“Maybe not. The rabid dog will always bite the hand that feeds it.”
He smiled coldly and pulled the trigger.
“That's why I hate guns,” Elliot said into the silence, reached out and locked his fingers around the still-hot barrel of the empty gun. He yanked it towards his chest, threw a punch that connected solidly with the mercenary's jaw as he stumbled forward and it knocked him cold. “Too easy to lose count.”
He let himself limp a little as he collected his boots, left a smeared trail of gory footprints behind him as he headed for the door. On the other side, he leaned back against it for a moment.
“Hardison. Lock it down.”
“I'm all over it baby. That place is locked up tighter than a nun's bustier. We got cops on the way, we got the fire department...what? What are y'all lookin' at me like that for?”
Elliot grinned.
“No one's dying today,” he murmured, tugged the antique revolver from his waistband and spun it around his fingers as he limped out of the building.
:: :: ::
Ta for readin!
All translations are courtesy of t'interweb, so if I mortally offended anyone's grandmother, I claim no responsibilty.
Ja by som kanál, ktorý sa vzteklým psom z mojich najväčších nepriatel'ov = I would not feed you to the dog of my enemy
Sa nebojíš? = You are not afraid?
Jeden múdry muž kedysi povedal mi, nemáme sa čoho báť okrem strachu samotného. = A wise man once told me we have nothing to fear except fear itself.