The corner of Nate's mouth curls up into the shadow of a smile as Sophie stalks away, the bell above the door jangling in concert with her displeasure. Alone, he doesn't move, instead continues to sit quietly at the bar. He slowly twists the cup round and round, cool moisture coating his fingers as the ice begins to melt. His eyes catch on the wet trail his motions leave on the counter, the gleam of the overhead lights reflecting in the thin streaks of water.
He can't bring himself to be angry or frustrated with Sophie for not seeing the bigger picture. It doesn't happen very often. In the beginning he'd been disconcerted by how easily she seemed to see through him, seen their shared past as more of a threat than a reassurance. She'd known too much, seen too much, slipped past his boundaries and saw him when, more often than not, Nate couldn't work up the nerve to look in the mirror.
It was almost refreshing to see her go so wide off the mark. As much as Sophie saw him, understood him, there were some things she still didn't understand. Or maybe she wasn't willing to.
Yes, what he'd done to Hardison had been deliberate but it hadn't been about driving his team away, It isn't like it used to be, when he had to pretend to be whole, as if the loss of his son wasn't still raw and seeping. Pretend that he wasn't happiest when it was just him and the bottle.
No, the broken edges of who he used to be are just as sharp, brittle and cracked, but now he doesn't have to hide. His team, his people, they know who he is now and still they follow him. As far as he's concerned, they aren't going anywhere he can't keep an eye on them now.
What he did wasn't about hurting Hardison. Or rather, his pain hadn't been the outcome Nate was looking for. After all, important lessons hurt. How else were people supposed to remember them?
Had he been too harsh? Maybe. But he'd wanted to get this right the first time. Better to leave Hardison with a smarting ego and hurt feelings than the alternative.
Because when it comes down to it, Hardison doesn't have what it takes to run his own crew.
When pressed, Nate had told Hardison it was because he wasn't able to push people. Which is true. Hardison can't and won't hurt those he cares about, not for a job, not for himself, not for anything. And that's good, is a rare quality of its own that Nate hopes Hardison is able to recognize one day. But that's not the only quality Hardison is missing.
They call him the 'mastermind', the man with the plan, the one who saw them separately and united them into something greater. He's the one in charge because he sees human nature as a twisted maze of decisions and impulses, is able to look at the marks and break them down into desires and fears, weaknesses and strengths. Every outcome is calculated and discarded until he finds the one that suits his purpose. He's the one who sees and knows everything, but that's not why he's the leader.
Hardison could learn to do that. He's one of the most brilliant and creative people Nate has ever met. He very well could lead his own crew one day, and he might even be good at it, but he wouldn't be a great.
Not like Nate, who doesn't have lines he won't cross if it means getting his people home safe. He uses them, pushes them, makes them dance like puppets on a string, whatever it takes to get the job done. And when things go south, nothing will stop him from making sure every one of them comes back to him.
He's the one calling the shots because he's broken.
Sam's death broke him, left him bleeding on the inside where grief and loss punched a whole straight through him. Worse than that was the guilt, like acid in the raw wounds of his grief, because no matter what people said, he knew he should have done more to save his son. When it came down to the line, he had failed, and it had cost him his son as well as his sanity.
It's that knowledge, and with it the lingering echo of grief and rage and a loss so sharp sometimes he wakes up and feels like he has a knife pressing against his lungs, that makes him the best one to call the shots. Because Nate managed to claw his way back from the edge of the abyss, brought the shattered pieces of himself into some semblance of a whole. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that Nate won't do to keep from feeling that kind of loss again.
Thanks to them; Sophie, Parker, Hardison, Eliot, his people, he has a purpose. They are his family and Nate will not lose them. He will bring them back regardless of what is asked of him. He will hurt people, he will destroy things, he will wreck the world as long as that means they will come back to him.
Nate smiles down into his glass, a soft twist of his mouth that is cold and hard and shattered, and beneath all that, sad. Because he is broken, and broken people don't have boundaries they can't cross.
He might have put himself back together, but that doesn't mean all the pieces are there. Some of them were lost, crushed beneath the wild torrent of his initial grief as it consumed him, others burned away by days and nights of nightmares chased by the wet burn of alcohol.
Nate had walked away a changed man, one who could set aside all that made him good and send his people into danger, or drag them back. His people were honorable, as he'd told the Italian. He wasn't, not anymore.
Nate lifts the cup and presses the chill, wet glass against his forehead. So no, Hardison doesn't have what it takes to run his own crew. To be the best, he'd have to suffer crippling loss and somehow claw his way back to sanity. To be driven, unstoppable if that's what his people needed, regardless of who he hurt on the way.
Hardison couldn't do it.
But Parker can.
It's a thought that recently took root and has been growing at the base of his brain. He's poked and prodded at it, always thinking and now watching. Parker isn't all broken and sharp, jagged edges the way he is, his wounds still raw and aching with every breath, knocking the wind out him when he catches the sound of a boy's laugh in the distance. Instead Parker is healed over scars, awkward and brilliant as she watches the world with bright eyes, no longer hurting but also not quite sane.
Nate's gut twists as it always does when he thinks about Parker's life, and takes another sip. The ice clicks against his teeth and sends little shocks of cold up into his gums, but the burn of the alcohol makes it easy to ignore.
He'd felt the pieces click into place when that scumbag Rand had prodded out the secrets of Parker's past. He'd collected snippets of the big picture from things she'd said. Foster care, boosting cars, juvie, and then Archie. He'd filled out the edges, but he'd been lacking the center, until Rand. The loss of someone she'd felt responsible for, believing that her brother's death was her fault. Parker too had been broken, still was when they first started working together, but has been learning how to grow around the old scars.
She could lead her own crew, one day. Not now, though. She is still learning how to care about things other than money or jewels, but the potential is there. Nate can see it in the way she watches Hardison and Eliot, going to Sophie for advice, even paying more attention to the victims.
So he'll wait. He'll do what he can to teach her without tipping his hand, and for now he seems to have solved the Hardison issue. Other than that, he'll keep doing what he's always done. Keeping an eye on the bigger picture, pushing the buttons and enduring the looks and muttered resentments when his people grow frustrated.
All part of the job.