The Wanda Falbo Job

[merryghoul]

Title: The Wanda Falbo Job | AO3
au_bingo square: fae/faries
comment_fic prompt: Leverage; Hardison /or& any; Hardison is a fairy. With sparkles and wings and everything.
Rating: G
Word Count: 561
Character(s): Hardison, Nate
Summary: The con's stranger than the teammate.
A/N: My first attempt at writing Leverage. Hope it's okay.

 

Hardison adjusts a very small microphone on his shirt, a modified Fashionista Ken shirt with holes for his almost butterfly wings cut out from it.

“Can y’all hear me alright?”

The rest of the team agrees in their typical discordant manner.

Hardison points towards the monitors. A stream of magical sparkles flies out of his hand. On the monitors is a woman dressed in a conservative black dress. He flies towards the screen.

“This is Wanda Falbo. Miss Falbo is a word fairy. She sounds cool, right? A fairy that likes to use words to teach kids how to read.”

More sparkles fly out of Hardison’s hand. On screen Wanda Falbo drives up to an open food market in a car. Her theme song is playing.

“Gotta admit, the woman does have a catchy theme song. That was from Miss Falbo’s last known appearance on Sesame Street, January 18, 2000. Since then, Miss Falbo’s come across some hard times.” Hardison shoots more sparkles on the monitor. “This was recorded in a hotel in New York a couple of weeks ago.”

Wanda, caught on closed circuit television, walks up to a man. The man pulls out his wallet. Wanda spells out “wallet” on with her wand. The man opens his wallet and presents Wanda with a few bills. Wanda spells out “money” with the wand. She grabs the money, runs to her car and drives off.

Hardison shoots more sparkles on the monitor to stop the video. “For the past eleven years Wanda Falbo’s been pulling cons on New York City tourists visiting hotels. She pulls up to a hotel and pretends to use the bathrooms in the lobbies. Once she sees a mark, she steps up to them, performs her word magic and runs off with their money.”

Nate sits back in his chair and puts his hands behind his back. “This is the strangest con we’re about to be involved in.”

“Nate, I was thinking I could pretend to be Princess Pea’s cousin.”

“Who?”

“Princess Pea. She’s a character on the PBS show Super Why!”

The team is even more lost before Hardison briefed them on the con.

“It’s a show that teaches kids how to read with these cute CGI fairy tale characters?”

The team is eerily quiet at this point.

Hardison shoots sparkles at the monitors again. A brief clip of Princess Pea turning into her super hero alter ego, Princess Presto, plays on the monitors before Hardison stops it.

“Anyway, I was thinking I could be Princess Pea’s cousin. Um…you can call me Prince Peri. I can transform my body and make it human-sized and hide my wings. I can look like I could be one of Wanda’s marks, you know, with the accent and all. When she comes to rob me, I ask her for a job, and together the two of us can drive around New York while the rest of us plan to trap her so the police can arrest her. Is that cool?”

Nate sighs. “That is the dumbest idea for a con I’ve ever heard. I’ll think of something better than this, but right now, I need a drink.”

Nate goes to the bar and looks at various spirits.

Hardison flies around the monitors. “So…who wants to play Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with me? It has dragons in it. Huh?”