Original Author's Note

anytime I see a conspiracy wall™ in a show/movie I wonder who put that wall together and how long it took them. irl it was probably a set dresser + 4-5 production assistants, but in universe, Sophie definitely made the guys do it as a "bonding exercise" that Nate somehow managed to worm his way out of

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” Hardison says. His collapsible printer, set up on a table in the corner, whirs and spits out another stack of papers. It’s mostly news articles—relevant to the dozen-or-so conspiracy theories he’s researched for the con, of course—interspersed with photos. It’s easy enough to find material, once you plug the right search terms into a homebrew algorithm. People on the internet are crazy. He grabs the new stack and deposits it on the floor.

“You would,” Eliot says. He grabs five pieces of paper off the pile and cuts into all of them at once.

“Hey, hey, hey! Have care, please, with the prop photos—” Hardison says. Eliot gives him a Menacing Glare. “This isn’t Chinese paper cutting. We are constructing a narrative.”

“Bullshit,” Eliot growls. If Hardison didn’t know him so well, he’d think the man was actually angry. “This is busy work.”

“It’s set design,” Sophie says from the other room, where she and Parker are reviewing the fine points of grifting. “If we want to get Monica Hunter on the hook, it’s really important. Everything has to look the part at a glance. That includes you, Parker.”

“I can’t move in these,” Parker says with a huff. A few seconds later she walks through the open doorway, tottering slightly in a pencil skirt and two-inch heels. Sophie follows her.

“Yes, you can. You’ve done it before.”

Parker swipes a printout from the pile on Hardison’s desk and lifts it in front of her face. Her eyes go comically wide. “Eliot! Look at this!” She waves at Eliot. He squints at the paper, then frowns deeper.

“Yeah, so?”

“It’s Area 51.”

“Focus, Parker.” Sophie lays a gentle hand on Parker’s shoulder and guides her away from Hardison’s desk.

“That’s just an Air Force base, Parker, it’s not—” Eliot gives up with a faint growl and goes back to cutting out blurry satellite photos. Hardison puts the finishing touches on the online profile he’s set up for Parker’s alias. Cindy McAllen majored in journalism at the University of Maryland, graduated magna cum laude, and worked at a handful of local news outlets before her current job. She even has a Twitter account.

“Nate, don’t forget to get some string,” Hardison says. He has a stack of old paper maps next to his computer, with random locations circled and outlined in red sharpie. They just need to be arranged, as soon as Nate gets his hands on some corkboards.

“And don’t just get it in red, either,” Sophie adds. “We want this to look as realistic as possible.”

“Yep, got it,” Nate says, from—somewhere. Hardison doesn’t actually know where Sophie sent him. He’s supposed to be picking up extra furnishings for their conspiracy-theorist apartment; Hardison thinks Sophie might have just wanted him out of her hair. They’re all still on comms, but it’s been a quiet afternoon.

“Now, remember,” Sophie says to Parker, “You want to engage her without attracting too much of her attention. You’re interesting, but still the least interesting thing about this story.”

“But I have to convince her to follow me,” Parker says, frowning.

“Not exactly,” Sophie says. “It’s all about suggestion, remember? You give her just enough information to make her curious, and she’ll follow you all on her own.”

“How do I know if she’s curious?”

“She’s gonna catch you lifting her press pass,” Eliot says. “She’ll probably be a little curious right off the bat.”

“Yes, thank you, Eliot,” Sophie says, and then, turning to Parker, “You’ll see her watching you very intently, especially after she asks you a question. Make sure you never give her all the information you have; she’ll pick up on that, and wonder what you’re hiding.”

“I’m just saying, it ain’t gonna be too hard to hook her,” Eliot says. “She’s a reporter. They’re nosy.”

The printer whirs again. Hardison crosses the room to pick up the new stack of papers. These are from his personal archives, as opposed to the internet at large.

“Thank you, Eliot, but I think I’ve got this,” Sophie says. Under her breath, she adds: “As if Nate wasn’t bad enough.”

Eliot blinks, a little affronted. Sophie focuses on Parker again; Hardison keeps watching Eliot, just to see what he’ll do. In the months—just over a year now—since they met, Hardison has learned to identify the exact expression Eliot makes when he decides he is going to cause trouble.

Eliot clears his throat. “At least Nate never makes us do set design.”

Sophie gasps in what might or might not be genuine offense. Parker’s eyes go wide again. Hardison hears a distinct snort from Nate’s end of the comms.

“Well, maybe that’s why all of Nate’s cons end up going pear-shaped,” Sophie says, which is all Nate needs to start in with his own blistering retort.

Eliot chuckles and pulls his earpiece out, pocketing it for later. Hardison tunes into the argument for a second—“and just last week I seem to remember you calling me obsessive, so I don’t know what you want from me”—and then follows suit. With Sophie distracted, Parker wanders back over to the conspiracy corner and grabs another paper from the desk.

“What about this?” she says, plopping down on the floor next to Eliot. “Is this Area 51?”

“Parker, I keep telling you, that’s not—” Eliot glances at the paper and stops talking. He frowns, then takes the printout from her.

“What’s wrong?” Hardison says, at the look of intense concentration on Eliot’s face.

“It’s the aliens,” Parker says, gleeful.

Eliot turns the printout so Hardison can see. It looks like just another slightly blurry satellite photo of a military base next to a lake. “Hardison, why do you have a satellite picture of Groom Lake, Nevada?”

Hardison grins. “Oh, that? Yeah, I got a little bored the summer of junior year. Retasked a CIA satellite to see what was going down.” He shrugs, like it’s no big deal. Eliot just stares at him. “It’s what I do.”

Parker grins. “Told you it was real.”

Eliot opens his mouth as if to answer, then closes it again.

“Parker, we’re not done,” Sophie says from the doorway. She seems to have won her argument with Nate. Parker rolls her eyes, hops up onto her feet, and achieves a split second of balance before her feet go out from under her and she falls flat on her face. Sophie groans. “Parker, I know you did that on purpose!”

⁂

Original Author's Note

Groom Lake is one of the official names for area 51 (the other being Homey Airport). I figured that's the name Eliot would use. while it's a lot easier to get satellite images of Area 51/groom lake nowadays (seriously, you can just look it up on g*ogle maps), the base wasn't officially declassified by the CIA until 2013, and s2 of Leverage takes place in 2009. at this point, Hardison getting images of area 51 would probably still be a big deal. (I did research for this fic, can you tell?)