I don't own Leverage. If I did it would still be on the air. I write only for fun and for absolutely NO profit! This was part of my entry in the Leverageland Big Bang over at LiveJournal.

As an insurance investigator Nate Ford had had no equal. He had been unsurpassed in his skill in not only retrieving his art but in actually catching the thief responsible for the crime. Nate could not have foreseen the events that would lead to the end of both his career and his marriage. He also could not have imagined the depths that grief would plunge him. It had been in his grief that he had taken the job from Victor Dubenich, but that job had changed his life. He had again crossed paths with a group of the most skilled criminals he had ever had the pleasure of trying to catch. He had taken four distinctive personalities and had merged them into an unbeatable team. Though, in all of the years he had worked with his team at Leverage, Inc., Nate had never sat down and thought about how this team of strangers became his family. He had definitely had a rocky beginning with each one of them, and could never have envisioned that over a decade later he would be the crazy father to a dysfunctional family of thieves. Each one of them was unique in their own right, and sitting at a small corner table in the brew pub, Nate pondered his team and his original meeting with each of them.

When Nate met Hardison, the hacker was 16 years old and rapidly becoming a menace to anyone in the data protection industry. IYS' first actual contact with the hacker came when he hacked his way into their database to alter the records of Minnie Simmons, also known as Nana. Nate had been sitting in his cubicle when a commotion in the IT department had drawn him out of his space and down the hall. Standing there with the growing crowd, he had been amazed watching as the information on the screen changed right in front of the eyes of the crowd of IT technicians and management who had been asked to witness the spectacle.

Nate had actually had the pleasure of meeting Alec Hardison about 3 years later. The hacker had graduated from insurance fraud to bank theft, and Nate had been prepared this time with a hired gun… a hacker who had been able to track Hardison to the basement of his Nana's house. Nate had stood at the window and had watched as the teenager had waited on his Nana hand and foot. Rather than barging in and arresting Hardison at that moment he paused. He knew, from her insurance records, that Nana had a limited lime left to live. Nate vowed that he would give Hardison that much time, and then the young man was going down. Prison would be harsh, but Nate was sure that it was the only thing that would save Hardison from falling deeper into the world of crime. Unfortunately, by the time he arrived to Nana's wake with the police, Hardison had disappeared and and left no virtual footprints for anyone to follow. With Mrs. Simmons gone, it seemed that Hardison had no Achilles heel to exploit which made finding him almost impossible. Nate settled in, he knew that all criminals eventually made a mistake, and he knew that he would get another chance at Alec Hardison he just had to be patient and patience was something that Nate Ford excelled at.

When Nate met Parker he decided instantly that the girl was certifiably insane. All it had taken was Parker's first leap from the top of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. She had managed to enter the headquarters of a major investment firm who had recently taken payment from a client in raw, uncut diamonds. Parker had been able to enter the building, steal the diamonds, and finally to avoid capture (since Nate and the rest of the security forces were hot on her trail, evade capture by leaping off of the top of the building with some kind of harness rig. He had watched her fall, her joyous scream following in her wake and had shaken his head in wonder. He had immediately made a note in her file that she was crazy and to use extreme caution when trying to apprehend her. Not only was Parker insane, Nate decided, she was also fearless. It was an unfortunate combination in his mind. One never knew what an insane creature would do when cornered, so as far as Nate was concerned, care should be taken when trying to approach her.

Much to his chagrin, he had never gotten another shot at Parker. She was too elusive, and her planning too meticulous for the insurance companies to get there until well after the fact. To add to his problems, she didn't seem to have any friends or any former partners Nate could look into. He didn't know who had trained the thief, but he definitely wanted find out. Parker, who had looked young from the brief moment Nate had seen her, was too skilled not to have had some intensive training. What Nate wasn't certain about was where that mentor was and how to get to them. Looking for a weakness like that was going to be his only shot at catching up to Parker once again. He knew that she didn't seem to make any personal connections of any kind, so he really didn't know if that would be a weakness he could exploit. Nate decided that however small the chance, he was willing to explore whether or not it would give him another opportunity to capture Parker.

As much as he'd like to brag and say he had, Nate had never officially met Eliot Spencer before the job for Victor Dubenich. He counted himself lucky that he had been in the same room with the infamous hitter/retrieval specialist. Eliot was a dangerous man, and in the brief time Nate had spent in his company he knew that provoking such a man would not be a smart move. By the time Nate encountered Eliot for the first time he had moved beyond being just a hitter and had begun working as a retrieval specialist. Nate could remember the first time he laid eyes upon Eliot, and it had been when IYS had finally arrived at one of their biggest clients' residences with the ransom money for their kidnapped daughter. Nate had walked in, briefcase in hand, expecting to be the hero; only to find both parents embracing their daughter while a stern man looked on from the shadows. He was horrified to see his client then hand that man a large stack of bills from the very case Nate held.

After that meeting Nate had done his homework on Eliot Spencer. He had not really been surprised at what the man's official file held, but it was what his various street contacts told him that was of the most interest. Eliot Spencer had apparently worked for many dangerous men, but it was his work for Damien Moreau that really interested the insurance investigator. As far as Nate could ascertain, Spencer had worked for Moreau the longest, and if the rumors were correct, the two men had been close friends for his tenure with Moreau's organization. The Damien Moreau angle might be one Nate could use if he decided to go after Eliot, but as he made the notes into his files he really thought about the man he'd be tracking. Nate was not a reckless man by any stretch of the imagination, and using a man as ruthless as Damien Moreau to track another ruthless man would probably be the dumbest thing he'd ever tried in his entire career at IYS. Even though catching Eliot Spencer would be a huge feather in his cap, Nate tried to decide if going after the hitter was worth the inherent risk the task carried. All of Nate's research had shown that Eliot would fight if cornered, and all data indicated that when Spencer fought people got hurt. Nate had a family to return to, so death was not a risk he was willing to take, not then anyway.

Nate met Sophie when he caught a glimpse of her in a museum in Prague. It had to have been at least 10 years before Leverage, Inc. had come together. He had been there checking on security for the museum, and had been surprised to be there just in time for an art theft. Sophie had definitely been a master thief. She had managed to steal the item and had left the museum without even activating an alarm. It had been a revelation to Nate, and he vowed that he would catch Sophie. She had been a rather crafty adversary, and it had taken another two years before he had actually caught her in Damascus. Well, he might have caught her, but that hadn't meant that the grafter and art thief had actually gone to jail. She had managed to sweet talk the museum guard charged with monitoring her and had been able to walk right out of the museum before Interpol could come and take her into custody.

In the years since that he had seen her in Paris and in Tuscany. They had flitted in and out of each other's lives over the years. The thing between them had been something on the periphery of his real life with Maggie, but Nate had always felt the attraction building between him and Sophie. Since he had been a married man he had never acted upon it, but their quasi-relationship had been almost comforting when things with Sam had started to get really bad. It had finally taken his life falling apart in the most spectacular manner to bring Sophie back in to his life to stay. Since the team had formed, she had been an unwavering advocate, standing right by his side. She had been one of the few people (Eliot being another) who would tell him when he was being an ass and get away with it.

It had taken another couple of years to finally admit that what-ever it was they had worked. Nate loved Sophie. It was not the crazy, passionate love of his youth, but it was something more substantial and lasting. They had become partners in every sense of the word, and when he had asked her to marry him… Nate had never been more serious about anything in his life. He realized that they would have to leave the team behind to have any chance of a normal life, but Nate was finally ready to spend the second half of his life with the woman who was his match in every way possible. What did it matter if he didn't remember her real name?

Nate took a long drink from the glass in his hand and smiled. Who could have known that this band of misfits would end up being his second shot at having a family? They each had their strengths and weaknesses, and Nate (using all of the research he'd acquired during his tenure at IYS) knew the best way to use each of them. Because of them he'd had his revenge against Ian Blackpoole, and as a team they had been able to secure justice for so many needy clients. Nate knew that his team cared deeply for each other and for him, so he felt proud that their team had transformed from four individuals and their leader into a machine that worked seamlessly without incident. Well… they worked without too many incidents. Nate had prayed every day to die after Sam's passing, and he'd tried to use alcohol to speed the process. Now he thanked God every day that he hadn't answered those prayers. Nate had been given a second chance at happiness all thanks to a man named Victor Dubenich. Nate pursed his lips and gave a small smile. He knew where he could find Victor Dubenich and Jack Lattimer… perhaps he and Sophie should take flowers by the river on their way out of the country for their honeymoon.

fin