A/N: Written for a challenge called Lie to Me.
Disclaimer: I own nothing...
"… I am not a thief…" –Nate Ford, The Beantown Bailout Job
Eliot
To this day Eliot still stands by what he said on their first case together, that he trusts Nate because he's an honest man. It's obvious that the only reason everyone stayed to work through that case was because of Nate, and how time and again Nate has been the glue that turned a group of thieves only familiar with working alone and relying on no one into a team.
It doesn't bother Eliot that they only take on certain cases that meet Nate's criteria. There would always be guys for him to fight, and the whole Robin Hood thing meant they could still do what they do best and steal to help others, but the problem was that Nate never really looked through the same lenses as the rest of the team and saw their efforts for what they really were.
Nate never seems to have a problem getting retribution for the victims, something he no doubt uses as a rationalization, but the hitter noticed something else. Nate was more himself during cons, like this was what he was made to be doing. Nate might say he's not a thief like the rest of them, but that was his view and really it doesn't really matter how Nate sees himself, because honest men can be liars and they sure as hell can be thieves.
Parker
She knows there's something wrong with her, some screw got knocked loose along the path of broken foster homes andArchie's resolute teaching on becoming the best thief in the world. It left her distant from human emotion. Then Nate gave her somewhere to belong; the one person that had gotten the closest to ever catching her was now the first person she trusted.
Parker may not be the best at reading people's emotions and interpreting what people say at face value, but she can see what they do and what their actions lead to. Watching people was something Parker enjoyed. Whether it was from the top of a building, in an air duct, or walking around town. Just watching could tell you a lot about a person like which pocket their wallet was, but being with the team has taught her to see people differently including those around her.
She sees Nate, sees his actions and hears his words and Parker knows one thing is true. She's a little less crazy these days and that's because she has found people like her. They're the good guys now she likes to say, but good guys that steal. Nate's way of stealing was something completely new to her, she used to steal for money, but now guided by Nate they became thieves for justice.
Hardison
Computers never lie. People, but never the machine can mask the coding. The stability that his computers provided was something that was comforting to know that even when the man you look up to daily can say to your face that he was basically better than you, that he wasn't a thief when the evidence of his crimes can easily be found in his records, technology functioned at face value.
Nate's misjudgment of himself was understandable, because people usually turn to denial when it comes to dealing with personal things. Something that didn't sit right about the comparison of Nate's words and actions went back to something his Nana taught him when he was young; if you can teach someone to do something then you've mastered it yourself.
Nate became that father figure for him and helped Hardison to be more focused on cases and even how to use his power of words to win an impossible court case. Teaching someone to be a better thief only means they are more skilled at it than you are and one of these days Nate was going to have to deal with this pretense hopefully before any one else decides they should leave the team.
Sophie
It hurts that the person you care about looks at you like a second-class citizen in comparison to him. Their journey together had always been complicated from their good guy chases the criminal even through working together there was this connection beneath the surface waiting to break free.
Sophie wasn't naive and knew that she could never put herself out there for an actual relationship when one part of the pair refused to face reality. It was part of the reason she had to leave the team for a while, because she had to protect herself.
She should have known better, because the moment she got that phone call from Tara she immediately set about returning to help the team and to help Nate. Maybe this time it would be different. She had grown over her time away and maybe she would be strong enough to be there for him, but only if he comes to terms with the kind of man he really is.
It wasn't just her she was thinking about when returning and Sophie had grown to care about everyone on that team and if Nate didn't change things around this time it wouldn't be long before the others left too.
Nate
His father was a criminal, and the one thing Nate Ford knew growing up was that he swore to never be like him. To avoid this fate he used the rationalization that doing the right thing for the wrong reasons wasn't the same thing as being a thief and that the end justifies the means.
He was the one that was supposed to keep this team going and working together despite everyone's independent nature coming into the whole thing. Now it was his job to protect them from his actions. It was time for him to pay the consequences of his behaviors and more than that it was time for him to change the man he told himself he was, because the honest man routine wasn't going to be an option anymore.
In that moment, bleeding and handcuffed to a ship he knew it was time to face the truth and finally admit what he had been denying for over two years, "My name is Nate Ford, and I'm a thief."
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