Chapter Text
Claire loves rocks, to the point where Alfred has put a limit on how many rocks she can bring into the manor each day. The once healthy coping method of collecting rocks became an unhealthy one when Dick and Claire came back to patrol and when she was emptying her pockets the family discovered that she had stashed over 100 of them throughout her suit. That was the moment that the rock limit for Claire was set. So Claire began to hide them on the other vigilantes each night, as a loophole for Bruce’s and Alfred's rules. Now the limit was 5 per person in the manor, per night. The compromise was a hard one to reach.
Now that she was spending her weekends with Dick in New York, while on his undercover assignment, the rock limit only applied to the manor, so most of Claire's precious crystals and stones have found homes in June's house or Neal's apartment.
Peter is endlessly confused by the amount of rocks he finds during each inspection. Each time he asks Neal he refuses to elaborate on the strange obsession. Dick tries in a true bat-Fashion to answer in the most comical and different way each time Peter asks. His favorites include…
“The Rocks keep the demons away.”
“I sometimes eat them as a treat”
“A genie tricked me”
“A penguin keeps trying to earn my love back.”
Peter questioned the Penguin statement. Neal shrugged and said “when in Gotham avoid the crime bosses” this obviously left Peter with more questions than answers. But the rock problem officially came to a boiling point when Peter had to pick up Neal on a weekend for a case that had gone into overtime.
The case in question took Peter away from his precious weekend of spending time with his lovely wife and watching the Baseball games on the DVR that were previously missed due to other long work days. That dream was abruptly ruined when the coffee kicked in and the crime scene in front of the pair came into their sight ahead on the road. The Met Cloisters museum had a break in that was stopped before anything could be taken, but the perpetrators had gotten away with chaos made with the distraction of a fake bomb.
Neal and Peter walked in-step up to the front entrance. As they passed an information table Dick swiped a brochure. He began to skim through the pamphlet when he saw something in his peripherals, turning to look, only to come up with an empty hallway to his right, and a hall full of the FBI to the left.
Peter, not noticing Neal pausing in the middle of his step, continued over to the police tape and began to duck under it. A city officer, in charge of securing the scene, stopped Peter. “Can I see some identification sir?”
Peter reached into his jacket pocket, only to come up empty handed. Digging further he discovered two round flat rocks in his badges place. “Neal…” Peter all but growled out. Dick popped up behind the agent. “Yes Peter?” Dick replied, Peter held up his hand and showed Neal the rocks. While the men began to bicker over the missing badge, the officer looked awkwardly between the Agent and CI. That made the Officer the only one to notice a young female, maybe 16 or 17 years old, sneak up from behind and pull out an FBI badge of one Peter Burke, and handed it over. The officer warily took it from her.
The officer raised his eyebrows at the teen, and she responded with a shrug.
Dick had known who stole his friend's badge, he knew from the moment he recognized who he saw in the corner of his eye what was going to happen. Dick did not know however why Claire came over early this weekend. But based on the two rocks in Agent Burke's pockets, he knew Claire approved of the man.
Finally Peter looked away from Neal and their short lived argument, and saw what the officer was holding, then he followed the other man's gaze over to a new person, who once Neal acknowledged the teen, she then stepped closer to the CI and thunked her head into Dicks arm, asking in her own way for a hug. Dick latched onto Claire and pulled her into an octopus hug.
“Neal, who is this? And where did she get my badge?” Peter's eyebrows were raised so high on his face, they were becoming a part of his fading hairline.
Claire Mimicked Peter's posture, and copied his wild gestures during his new interrogation. During this she took the opportunity to step closer to Peter, and a few more rocks found their way into his pants pockets.
“Well Peter! Didn’t I tell you that many of my amazing talents are found throughout the Caffrey family tree?”
Nothing could ever take Peter by surprise anymore. From this point forward, nothing that Neal ever did or says could top the fact that Caffrey has an unknown family, of an unknown size that all share their criminal ways.
Neal Had to be a part of a crime family. How has this never pinged the FBI radar?
While these thoughts were racing through Peter's head, the scene could be described in detail. But an easier way is to compare Peters reaction to the recent viral videos of Mitch McConnell freezing.
The officer spoke up and broke Peter from the shock. “Sir if this is your badge you are welcome to view the scene, but the museum requested that your CI not be allowed in.” the officer gulped, “and this young woman must stay out as well.”
Peter nodded, and motioned Neal to stay put. “You catch up with-”
“Claire” Dick provided
“-Claire, and you better give me a good reason for her presence here when I get back.” Peter pointed to the pair and signaled that he would be watching them. Only to pause before he crossed the room, sighed, felt his pockets and walked back to Claire.
He took multiple small stones out of his pockets, Claire held out her hand and Peter returned the stones. Then turned abruptly and left before they could be slid into another pocket of Peter’s.
“Damn Caffrey, he is going to be the death of me, and my career.”