Good Guys and Nice Guys

"Why the hell is everyone so sure I've never killed anyone?"

A/N: Nate is one scary mofo. I mean, yeah, brain the size of a planet, breaking mobsters' fingers, that too. But I just rewatched The Studio Job, and, PEOPLE. Either he knocked out two giant enforcers—on his own—while wearing a cowboy hat—or, if as he says, they fought each other, he CONVINCED two strangers to fight each other into unconsciousness. Either he beat them down or he TALKED them into unconsciousness. Nate is one scary scary dude.

To be honest, Nate didn't really look very impressive.

Yeah, he was a tall guy, and not bad-looking, but he was also on the far side of 40, a little soft around the edges, with grey in the dark curls that were currently giving Einstein a run for his money in the coiffure-craziness quotient. The mook, on the other hand, was build like a brick shithouse, hair shaved off to reveal the tattoo on his scalp.

That being said, Nate seemed pretty comfortable in his position kneeling on the guy's neck, and it wasn't really right to menace a man with his own gun like that. Not very sportsman-like.

"Uh, Nate, are you sure-"

"Yes, Hardison," he said. "They need this guy. I'm sure that they will realize that if I put a hole in his head it would make it a little difficult to use him."

"Um, y-" Hardison's mouth opened and closed. "That's n— I just...uh."

"I think Hardison's worried about the guys with machine guns covering the rest of us," Parker said helpfully.

"Oh." Nate made a show of looking over the scene, as though his sharp blue eyes hadn't taken it all in already. "Well, don't worry. Even if they shoot all of us, there's no way they can do it and end up with this guy still alive. So Grimes over there would lose either way."

"Comforting," Sophie breathed, as the villain in question glared at Nate with laserlike force.

"I know you, Nathan Ford," he said menacingly. (to people used to Eliot Spencer's definition of the term it was a little underwhelming) "Wannabe-hero type. You're a lot of things, Ford, crazy bastard not the least, but you're not a killer."

Nate rolled his eyes heavenward, gesturing broadly with the hand that wasn't currently pressing a muzzle-shaped imprint into his captive's head. "Why the hell does everyone assume I've never killed anyone?" He looked over at his crew. "C'mon, guys, help me out here. You know better, right?"

They had the sense not to weaken his stance by debating.

Well, most of them.

"Not really," Parker said thoughtfully. "You're the good guy, Nate. You aren't a killer type."

"It's not like I've made a career out of it," he said with exasperation. The guy he was sitting on started to stir, and he shifted to lean on his throat briefly, the lack of bloodflow sending him back into unconsciousness. Nate looked at Grimes, ignoring everyone else in the room. "Look, ok, first time, I was fifteen. Three guys came after me to send a message, only two of them ran out."

"Self defense," Grimes said dismissively. "Doesn't mean you can kill someone in cold blood."

"The crowbar was heat of the moment, self-defense," he admitted, while his team looked at each other and mouthed 'crowbar?' (Except Eliot, whose expression was more of a 'huh'.) "But the cover-up? That was definitely cold-blooded." He looked nostalgic. "It was pretty good, actually. Pinned it on the other two guys who came after me. They were arrested about four hours later."

"Now that's just unsettlin'," Hardison said as quietly as possible. Parker pursed her lips in thought and then smiled.

"I like it. It's efficient."

"Thank you, Parker," Nate said easily, and smiled at the array of hardware aimed at him. "Lots of people may call me the good guy, but very rarely do they call me a nice guy, Grimes. You know what else they call me?" Expression unchanging, he gently patted the bald head of his captive. "Effective."

For a long, long, minute they stared at each other.

Not five minutes after the gang had cleared out, and after leaving Baldie on the cement behind them, Leverage consulting etc. were piled into Lucille IV, watching narrowly as Nate buckled himself into the driver's seat. He checked the mirrors, and met their eyes with the same bland smile. "Problem?" he asked.

"Dude. The hell?"

"I coulda taken 'em, Nate."

"A crowbar?"

"That was great."

Every eye switched to Parker. "What?" she continued defensively. "It was. Nate scared the crap out of those guys, and we didn't have to do anything. And then Nate didn't even shoot him."

"It wasn't necessary," he said with a shrug. "We've retreated to our corners, now we'll regroup and try this again tomorrow." He made a face. "Only, you know, with less military-grade hardware."

"Were you seriously going to shoot him?" Hardison asked cautiously.

"Of course not," Nate soothed. "That would have removed the leverage, and they would have had no reason not to pump us all full of bullets. It would have been stupid to shoot him."

Parker scuttled forward and stuck her face right in his. "But you could have?"

He blinked at her, looking rumpled and pleasant and not at all like a psychopath, and turned the key in the ignition. "Enough lollygagging, let's go steal us a dinosaur."