Leverage: The Rules

All characters, no pairings.

A/N: This was taken from several similar stories from different fandoms. To my knowledge, Leverage does not have one yet. I thought it deserved a turn.

WILL EVENTUALLY HAVE SPOILERS FOR ALL EPISODES!!!! In this chapter: The Homecoming Job.

Nate walked into the office the day after delivering the money to Corporal Perry. He went to the kitchen to grab a beer, then wandered into the meeting room to check to see if any of the thieves had arrived yet.

Hardison and Parker were missing, but Sophie and Eliot were in their offices. As he passed through the hall to his own room, Nate noticed Eliot laughing to himself. That was frightening enough, coming from that one. But Sophie had a grin on her face that Nate recognized all too well.

That was her regular, bona fide, cat-ate-the-canary, thief look.

Sophie had a look on her face that she only got after a successful con.

Eliot was laughing.

In Nate's book, those two things could not add up to anything good.

There was nothing at the end of the hall to explain the situation to Nate, and he didn't really want to ask Eliot or Sophie. So, ignoring his confusion, he went into his office and sat down.

Maybe fifteen minutes went by, while Nate surfed the internet for news about their scam –of which there was plenty –and tried not to think about what his coworkers were up to, before he heard the door bang.

After that, it couldn't have been a full minute before Hardison's anguished cry was heard. Nate bolted up out of his seat and slammed the door opened, rushing outside to the hacker's aid. Sophie and Eliot followed more slowly, grinning at each other.

It wasn't until Nate nearly tripped over a sofa that he noticed what Hardison was staring at, now more angrily than anguished.

Written on one wall was a careful, neat heading.

The Rules

Underneath that was what, apparently, was the first rule.

1. Never again shall Nathan Ford wear a lei.

"Who wrote this?" Nate demanded, turning to glare at the thieves. Parker, oddly enough, had appeared out of nowhere, so the entire team was assembled.

Everyone shrugged innocently. Nate looked first to Sophie, who was most likely to comment on his costume for their con at the storage facility.

"I just noticed it when I came in," she answered in a sweet voice that clearly asked how he could possibly blame her. "I had nothing to do with it."

Nate turned next to Eliot, who was there –and laughing –earlier on. But the shorter man just shook his head.

"Wasn't me," was all he said.

His next guess was Parker, who gave him a wide-eyed look of total blamelessness. "Who, me?" she asked. "No!" she laughed loudly. "Don't be silly."

Nate turned his eyes on Hardison, but the hacker gave him a hurt look, hauntingly similar to Sophie's. "Man, I'm as surprised as you are," he answered. "What, you think I made that very manly noise for something I knew was going to happen? There's a reason I'm not the grifter here, you know."

"Why did you squeal like that?" Eliot wanted to know. "Kinda loud, since it wasn't even about you."

"I didn't squeal?"

"Then why did you shriek in such a manly way?" Parker questioned. Hardison looked at her suspiciously, but there was no trace of mockery in her expression, so he decided to answer her.

"Someone wrote on the wall," he explained sheepishly. "That's not going to wash off, you know."

Parker nodded calmly, and pulled a Sharpie out of her pocket. She smiled at the others as she stepped forward, and wrote very carefully on the wall underneath the first rule.

2. Don't write on the walls.

And then she turned around to face Hardison, smiling brightly. "There!" she exclaimed. "Now nobody will mess up your nice walls again."

"Isn't that a little contradictory?" Hardison asked hesitantly. "I mean, you're writing on the walls to tell people not to write on the walls.

But Sophie had a solution. Calmly, she stepped forward and plucked the pen out of Parker's hand. Her handwriting was smoother and more fancy than Parker's and the mystery writer's, more like cursive than the blonde's bold print or the bland, unrevealing script above it.

Of course, they were all criminals. Any one of them could easily disguise their handwriting.

Sophie, however, wasn't even trying as she wrote rule 2.5.

2.5. Unless you're writing a rule.

"Are we seriously keeping these things?" Hardison demanded, looking more to Nate than Sophie.

Their leader seemed to consider this for a moment, but it was the grifter who answered for him. "Why not?" she replied. "Four thieves and an honest man, all working in the same building? We're going to need some ground rules."

Nate nodded in agreement. "Why not?" he echoed.

"You think we'll actually keep them?" Eliot asked sarcastically.

It hadn't occurred to Nate until then that the group might not abide by the rules written on the walls. But they were thieves, after all. Following the rules wasn't exactly their forte.

But Parker had a solution. Taking her pen back from Sophie, she wrote on the wall one more time for the day.

3. You have to follow the rules.