Leverage AU where the first episode never happens but Nate becomes a vigilante anyway, on his own. (at first)
Nathan Ford, IYS, has a reputation in the grifter’s world. An honest man, they say—a man who will do the right thing more often than not, who can be trusted to honor his word. And there’s a respect attached to that, because even if he’s wearing the wrong color hat, he’s at least committed to it, good at it.
But a reputation also means that he’s known, and the shit that went down with his son is common knowledge, at least in the right circles. It means that even those in the thieving community are just a little pissed off for his sake.
So they—“take pity” isn’t quite the phrase. That underestimates him and overestimates your average criminal’s benevolence. But there’s a group of them who suspect he didn’t hunt them as fiercely as he could have, who know turned the other way because sometimes the law and ethics don’t quite overlap. And what else are they supposed to do, when they hear that The Nate Ford has flipped, and is attempting to carry off major cons that require at least a team of five?
They do try to stay in the shadows at first. As a favor, to his pride. (And if there’s anything Nate still has a lot of, it’s pride.)
”What the fuck,” Eliot snarls at a whisper, trying to stuff himself into a utilities closet and almost tripping over some asshole crouched on the floor with a laptop perched on his knees. “Shut up,” the geek hisses. “I’ve got five seconds to override the security system before Ford turns a corner—”
“Eliot Spencer,” Eliot grunts after Ford has turned the corner and they’re in the clear.“Hardison,” the geek says with a grin. They shake hands awkwardly, given that there’s a mop-bucket between them.)
They don’t mean to keep working together, but it’s easier, nicer to have someone who will bring the coffee, rig the building with spy tech or fight off the ex-Mossad guys who turn up. Someone to complain with, about Nate Ford’s persistent insanity, how they enable it, and deliberately not talk about why they keep coming back, all the same.
(Eliot is slowly colonizing Hardison’s Nana’s kitchen. He calls her “ma’am” in that Oklahoma drawl and she goes fluttery, it makes Hardison roll his eyes, and bite down on a smile.)
Three of Nate’s jobs later, the security system suddenly goes offline and there’s a sound like a delighted scream. Both Hardison and Eliot freeze. “You saw that, right?” Hardison asks, staring out the window, eyes wide. “Blonde girl just went hurtling off the side of the building, tell me you saw that.”
(It takes a few more jobs before they can coax her into sitting down for a meeting at the nearby diner.)
Her name is Parker. She’s cagey as hell, but she eats an impressive amount of pancakes, and apparently loves jumping off buildings. And jewelry. Not for wearing, just for stealing.
“Awesome,” Hardison breathes, grinning at her. She lights up in the reflection of it, the moon to his sun.
(Which makes Eliot—- well. he’s never liked metaphors.)
A couple others come and go, cycling through the group (”No, Parker, we are not calling ourselves ‘Fordites’, we’re not a cult.”) but it’s mostly it’s just the three of them, following Nate’s plans from the shadows. Making them work.
“Oh no,” Sophie Devereaux—she’s not going by that name yet, but eventually—says, when she sees their little cabal of part-time Robin Hoods. “This won’t do.”
Hardison, Eliot, and Parker trail behind her into the bar, and then watch, wide-eyed, as Sophie Devereaux gives Nathan Ford the haranguing of his life. He’s drunk, they’re pretty sure, but his eyebrows creep up inch by inch until she finishes with a beautifully enunciated, “SO THERE.”
Nate eyes the three of them, who are trying to look very busy studying the floor, their hands, or the walls of the bar. “So you have names?” he asks, probably just to make Sophie splutter.
It’s strange, to be in the same room as he does this, the four of them arrayed around him. To actually have him catch Parker’s eye and smile, very slightly, as he says, “we provide….leverage.”