Authors Note: Watched Leverage season one episode one after not having seen it for a while and it posed the question why did they listen to Nathan Ford without question? I don't own Leverage or the character's I just borrow them from time to time. This is the edited version of the story so no worries people all I did was fixed grammar and punctuation mistakes.

Parker

The first time Parker ever heard of Nathan Ford she had just begun to steal independently. She must've been about 16 or 17 years old when she heard about him taking down thee Sophie Devereaux in Paris. If she hadn't heard around the underground sect that Nathan Ford was somebody to stay away from, well who his father was definitely would have made her steer clear.

So when Dudemich approached her for the job she took it to see if this Nathan Ford guy was really something worth being respected and scared of. Parker is women enough to say she can be a bit reckless at times. She jumps off 30 and 60 story building and elevator shafts without blinking. Those are her roller coasters her adrenaline highs. Parker likes to thieve that's what she has control over.

Having grown up in and out of the foster care system and running away from an abusive home has made Parker very good at reading people. So when they bump into each other at the warehouse and she has her gun pointed at Nathan , Hardison, and Eliot pissed about not having gotten the money owed to her ( which is really a cover for having somebody take the control from up under her feet) she lets Nathan take the gun away.

She read him and he was broken just like she was, in a different way but broken all the same. He understood her need to be in high places, her naivety about the proper educate among "normally" people and he treated her like a human being and not a crazy person. So Parker let Nate be in control because she respected him and whether he knew it or not Nate had become the father figure she has wanted and need so badly.

Hardison

Alec Hardison preferred brains over brawns so it was safe to say he wasn't much for hand to hand combat. He knew who Nathan Ford was a second before they meet. He goggled him and found out what was already common knowledge. Hardison didn't need to look any further he knew Nathan's reputation as an insurance agent and knew he'd find a way to track him down if he pushed too far.

Hardison might be a technology genius but he was no mastermind. He wasn't taking chances. Let it be said in simplest terms that Hardison had nothing but respect for Nathan Ford. If he was Robin Nathan Ford was Batman. Hardison will never admit that when Nathan took the gun from him he was relieved. He'd never shot a person in his life. Also he was slightly scared of that Eliot guy.

Nobody knew his past but what they did know was he was good at kicking bad guy butt. That day in the warehouse Nate had saved him from getting a royal butt whipping and getting blown up all in under an hour if that didn't call for a bit of respect Hardison didn't know what did. Nathan Ford was a super hero for the small people and Hardison was all but willing to be his sidekick. That why Hardison let Nate be in charge it's a given he is a mastermind after all.

Eliot

Eliot Spencer had done many things in his life a quarter of which he wasn't exactly proud of. So in order to set a line from himself he had a set of morals he lived by no matter what.

Never kill unless he necessarily had to.

Treat others how you would want to be treated.

Never trust anybody till they proven themselves worthy of being trusted.

When he first meet Nathan he didn't trust him which isn't saying much about Eliot because he hardly trust anybody. Nathan reminded him to much of the man he use to work for. Working everything from behind the shadows like a puppet master. At least that's how Eliot thought it was in the beginning. Nathan Ford was not scared of Eliot which was saying something. Eliot rarely encountered anybody who wasn't scared of him. Not to mention that he saved all their collective butts back at the warehouse. Eliot will admit it hadn't cross his mind it might have been a set-up till Nathan pointed it out. He had earned his respect and maybe a little bit of his trust. He did tell them to run a few time while they were too busy bickering.

So after a year of working with the team himself, Hardison, Parker, and Nate he grew to trust him. Sophie he still didn't trust she was way to selfish and had too many aliases. Eliot wonder if she knew who she was half of the time. But if Nate said she was the best he would take his word for it. The team had become a family and he'd fight tooth and nail to keep his family safe.

Eliot knew the one thing that every member had in common was they all work solo because of the need for control over their life. All their collective pasts had them in out of control situations that they had no hand in. It only made sense they would grow up wanting to have control and feel like they had power over themselves. Eliot was a wolf tightly locked down and every time he went into hitter mode that wolf would get a chance to come out. It always lurked just beneath the surface.

As for why Eliot trusted Nate …well they had the wolf in common. While he was a nice guy overall and the rest of the team believed so as well. Eliot knew better, Nate was after all Jimmy Fords son. He knew that the death of his son Sam really broke the chain on the wolf lurking inside just beneath the surface. He seen it every time someone brought up Sam's death and that scared him. Eliot let Nate be in control because unlike him who was a vicious wolf for all to see Nate was his conning Alpha and he was confident in his ability to tear people to shreds without ever having to physically touch them. Eliot's smart enough to know people are more scared of the unknown then what they can see.

End Note: I was looking this over and notice sill little mistakes and it bugged me so I had to edit it right away. As for my other story's I will hopefully have time over the Thanksgiving break to update and add chapters to the continuing ones that I'm doing. So please be patience with me. As always please R&R.