Chapter Text
Sunset on Summerville
I could tell you I would kill
For one more sunbeam spotlight still of your summer sunrise smile
Peter hears the front door open as he is shaving the bathroom mirror, and he rolls his eyes. Neal isn’t normally so early, Peter is at least typically dressed by his arrival, but Peter isn’t surprised by his unannounced arrivals any more. “Go ahead Neal, walk right in, make yourself at home! Have my wife make you coffee! I’m taking away your spare key once I get down there.”
“Not Neal!” A voice that is, indeed, not Neal’s yells back. “But I’ve come to talk about him!”
Peter quickly finishes shaving, nicking himself a few times in the rush, then he gets half dressed. His tie and suit jacket are on his arm as he goes down the stairs still buttoning his shirt. He turns the corner to see Mozzie at his dining table talking with his wife.
“Why are you here? What’s going on with Neal? Is he planning to do something?” Peter demands, crossing the room in just a few short strides.
“If he was planning something, I wouldn’t tell you.” Mozzie says as he sets his coffee mug down. “But he’s not. Suit, that’s the problem.”
Now Peter is fully confused. He finishes buttoning his shirt before sitting down, saying, “I thought I told you to come to me if there was something to fix. If he’s not doing anything, isn’t that a good thing?”
“No. Not Neal.” Mozzie turns in his seat to sit sideways, body facing Peter. “Not doing anything isn’t like Neal. Neal is always doing something. But lately he’s just been…” Mozzie trails off, leaving Peter to fill in the dead air. “I’m just…really starting to worry about him, Suit. This Kate stuff is running a heavier toll on him than he’s been letting on, even to me, which means that if the walls around his emotional walls are starting to crack, I deeply fear how much he’s holding back.”
Peter sighs and rests his elbows on the table as he contemplates the situation. If he was honest, he had been seeing it in Neal too. Neal had been losing some of his spark, little by little. What used to be a bonfire of personality, charm and snark and boldness that all billowed from him, was becoming more of a campfire of smiles and half-hearted wit that Neal had to stoke constantly. What used to be banter and consultations over coffee on the balcony had turned into Neal waiting at June’s front door with a thermos then being quiet through the ride unless prompted by Peter. The cocky attitude in the conference room had turned into reserved responses, and the bullpen felt weirdly silent with Neal doing his work dutifully rather than chatting with the probies.
“Right. He has been…down recently, but there’s only so much I can do to help. He’s already turned down going to see a psychologist, and I’m doing the best I can to figure out what happened to Kate, but—”
“See, and here’s where I step in.” Mozzie says, now with a devilish gleam in his eyes. “He has that new anklet, yes? The one that you can unlock with a key?”
Peter squints his eyes, radars already going off in his gut. “I’m not letting Neal off his anklet.”
Mozzie visibly pouts. “I was just thinking a weekend in Atlantic City could—”
“Nope. It’s not happening. I’m not freely letting Neal run.”
“It’s only running if he doesn’t come back,” Mozzie says with a small shrug. “And you know he would.”
Peter didn’t know that, and he certainly couldn’t take Mozzie’s word for it. “No Atlantic City.”
“Fine, fine.” Mozzie concedes as he sits back properly in his seat, only to lean over and pull out a bag that had been on the floor on his other side. “I had a backup idea that I thought you might be more interested in, although it will be a little more…personal for you.”
Neal walks into the FBI headquarters at 9:18. He knows he’s toeing the line a little too closely. His contracted work hours for the FBI are 9-5, although it had its fair amount of deviation for the later hours. When he first started, Peter used to call him if his ass wasn’t at his desk at 8:59:59, but ever since…it seemed Peter cut him some slack, allowing him to drag his feet a little on the mornings Peter didn’t pick him up. Neal recognizes it was special treatment at best, pity at worst, so most of the time he didn't let himself lollygag too much. 9:15 was typically the latest he’d allow, but that morning he felt pretty damn pitiful, so here he was. At least Peter hadn’t called to question him yet.
Maybe because Peter was too distracted by looking through Neal’s desk drawers.
“If I had known I was going to have company, I would’ve tidied up.” Neal teases half-heartedly as he lays his hat down on top of Socrates.
Peter closes the tie drawer he’d been looking through without even the decency to look chagrined. “You seriously just have an entire drawer of ties? Why?”
“Never know what might happen on the job, I guess. Gotta have all my bases covered.” Also Neal wasn’t really an agent so he didn’t have all the gear and supplies everyone else did, and for some reason having the desk half empty all the time was more stressful than filling it with thousands of dollars worth of ties. “Can I ask what you’re doing at my desk Peter?”
Peter stands back up, picking up a file from Neal’s desk and holding it out to Neal. “What do you know about Dietrich Zimmermann?”
Neal raises an eyebrow as he takes the folder. “Revolutionary tech and security engineer? In charge of designing some of the most impressive modern security systems with intricate software with the digital equivalence of Fort Knox, as well as multi-layered physical safes and vaults with multi-layered, complex physical locks that claim to be entirely pick-proof. A hell of a double sword when it comes to the thieving world.
Neal flips the folder open, revealing paperwork that basically covers everything he just said, making his knowledge feel redundant. He adds, “Also has a cat named Kevin. Who names a cat Kevin?”
“It’s definitely no Satchmo or Bugsy Seigel.” Peter says with a shrug. “What do you know about his home upstate?”
Neal flips the folder open, revealing, unsurprisingly, photos of Mr. Zimmermann's home upstate. “Over a million dollar estate, near Cayuga Lake?”
“That’s the one. He wants us to come check it out. Ran it by Hughes already, got everything sorted.”
“He- what? Why? What was stolen?” Neal says as he feels a rush go through him. The thrill of a heist combined with the rush of a chase, all combined with permission to get out of the city? It was a perfect combination of all the things he loved in one case.
“Nothing. He’s sent you an invitation to test his new security system.” Peter’s words pop the brief bubble of excitement Neal had. “Apparently your reputation exceeds you, and while you’re working with the FBI, you’re a pretty safe way of testing the designs.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Neal closes the folder and tosses it onto his desk. He tries to make his way around it to his seat, but Peter catches his arm, shooting him a confused look. “Isn’t this…cool or something? For you? Zimmermann asking you to come, doing all the breaking and entering you want without any of the legal consequences?”
“Yup. Living the dream, aren’t I? The pet criminal. Put me on a stage and watch me perform my wiles and tricks.” Neal gently pulls his arm and, after a second, Peter relents. Neal doesn’t look up to see his expression that time because he knows he’s said too much. “It’s…cool Peter. It is. Zimmerman’s home vault is usually a prototype for new features, I’m sure it’ll be a fun challenge.”
“I…yeah. That’s, uh, that’s what I thought.” Neal could tell by the hesitancy in Peter’s voice now that the answer he had provided struck a nerve, so he looked through the stack of cold cases on his desk to continue to avoid looking up at Peter again. “Well…I’ve already got everything set up, if you wanted to go. Do you…want to go?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Neal—” Peter takes a breath, probably tamping down the emotion that had taken over his voice. However, he does lean over Neal’s desk to stage whisper. “Of course you have a choice. You always have a choice.”
If Neal was a little more cruel, he would’ve interjected his thoughts. Choice A: Do as the FBI (Peter) tells him to do. Choice B: Prison. Although, maybe he didn’t even need to be cruel. Peter reminded him enough that those were his options, after all.
“Why don’t you take the morning to think about it, then we can talk it over more at lunch?” Peter continues. I’ll make whatever call you want me to make when we get back.”
“Yeah, okay.” Neal says, flipping through a folder. When Peter doesn’t make any moves, doesn’t pull away, Neal forces himself to look up. Peter’s face is desperately trying to remain neutral, but his brown eyes are always a dead giveaway. The worry is back. So, Neal forces the binds back around himself and smiles. “Wanna do Chinese or Italian?”
The day is relatively slow, so Peter grabs Neal and takes him to lunch at noon on the dot. Since it’s slow as well, they do Italian. Peter also hopes the carbs will serve as a little bit of comfort food for the sour mood Neal had found himself in ever since Peter told him the (what he thought was) good news.
“So, Zimmermann.” Peter says, once their drink orders had been placed and their fresh bread had been brought. “Care to explain your…apprehension?”
Neal takes a long drink of his water, buying himself a few extra seconds of thought, before he says, “I didn’t mean to sound apprehensive, I just got excited for a case.” He shrugs with a small smile on his face. Maybe it was the soft lighting highlighting the dark circles under his eyes, the dryness of his lips, but Peter could clearly see the mask Neal was putting on. “Zimmermann being robbed would’ve been a lot of fun to solve. Less fun to drive three hours only to put on a show of trying to break in and then drive three hours back.”
“Well, that’s one thing you’re wrong about.” Peter sits up a little straighter, his own excitement starting to build. Neal quirks an eyebrow in intrigue. “We’re scheduled to meet with Zimmermann Saturday morning, but…his place is only an hour away from where my parent’s house is. Well, technically it’s now mine and El’s vacation house, with my mom now in Florida. I thought maybe we could take a half day off work, drive up Friday and stay through Sunday?”
Neal tears a small bite off the bread and pops it into his mouth. “You want to take me on a weekend getaway?”
Despite the cloud clearly hanging over Neal, Peter still laughs. “Yeah, I guess so. Something like that anyway.” Peter grabs for his own bread and dips it in the olive oil. “I just thought it was a good chance to get out of the city. A little fresh air, not having to hear sirens once an hour, exist in a space that’s not so…crowded.” He lets Neal think over the words as he chews his bite. He can practically see the gears turning in Caffrey’s mind.
“What’s the catch?” He’s finally asked.
“Catch?”
“Yeah, like…There’s no way they’re letting me off my anklet to simply go visit this guy’s house and stay in your childhood home.”
“Ah, that catch.” Peter grabs for his own water now. It’s not that the terms of the deal were terrible , but… “So. Your anklet radius would be changed. We have strict travel times, where we have to check in at my parent’s house by 8 p.m. Friday night, and you have to be back in the city by 8 p.m. Sunday night. There will be a 6 hour window Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., that allows us to travel to Zimmermann’s and back. Other than that, you have to be within a 50 foot radius of my parent’s house the entire time. So…no room to really explore or anything. No museum trips or going out to eat.”
Neal hums in thought before looking back at his menu, considering. “I mean, I’m sure just getting to see the great Agent Peter Burke’s childhood home would offer enough exploration for me.”
“That’s what I thought you’d think.” Peter muses. “You’re still a guest, so you can’t go rifling through drawers, but…It’s some nice property. Big back yard, trees, a nice grill I got my dad a few years ago. You could pack some of that fancy wine of yours and I’ll cook us some nice steaks?”
“Sounds awfully considerate of you, Peter.”
They’re briefly interrupted by the waiter coming with their drinks and taking their food order. He removes their menus as well, so Neal goes back to tearing small pieces of the bread.
Peter gestures to Neal’s movement before asking, “Why are you so nervous about this? ”
Neal looks down, catching his anxious fidgeting, and quickly sets the bread back on its plate. “I’m not nervous, ” He argues, grabbing the cotton napkin wrapped around their silverware, then takes his time smoothing it across his lap. Peter waits patiently for him to speak again. “You really don’t have to pity me like this Peter.”
“Pity?” Peter huffs out, incredulous, before he can even stop himself. “Neal, I’m not pitying—”
“Of course you are Peter, you have been for months.” Neal argues emphatically, not leaving any space for Peter to rebuttal. “And I do take advantage of it, sometimes. I come in a little late, taking my time to get coffee or whatever, and sometimes I leave early because I’m bored, and you let me. You’re already helping me with…everything, even though it’s risky for you to do so, and it’s just…” Neal stops and takes a deep breath. “I do appreciate the kindness of this offer, but it is too much. You don’t have to do all of this.”
Peter wants to argue that it isn’t pity, but it was . Neal had fully called him on it. The next tactic was brutal honesty. “Fine, okay. Maybe I am pitying you, but I think what happened to you, to Kate , earns itself some damn pity. And when other agents go through tragedy like you have, hell even half of what you have, they get bereavement leave. You got thrown back in prison, all because the FBI agent who was vouching for you disappeared into smoke.”
Neal’s eyes flick away for a second, small creases in his forehead appearing and then gone just as fast. The subtlest inclination of a flinch from someone who had mastered the ability to hide them. Peter presses on, “You’ve been doing a goddamn incredible job at pressing forward Neal, but it’s clear how much all of this is taking a toll on you.”
“Peter I’m—”
“If you tell me you’re fine I’ll stab you with the bread knife.” Peter says, grabbing the device for extra emphasis. “None of what happened would leave anyone fine , you’re just really good at putting on a brave face and getting the work done. Hell Neal, even the work you did before all of this…went down should’ve earned you some kind of reward. It’s all so impressive. You’re impressive. But you’re also still human. You deserve a break . Hell, you deserve more than that, but the best strings I can pull managed to get you two and a half days. Of course, you don’t have to take it. I’m not forcing you to do this. You have final call. I just think the closest thing you can get to a vacation while under this agreement we have is more than warranted, even if it’s half spurred on by pity.” Peter sets the knife back down and leans back in his seat. “That’s my argument, anyway.”
Neal keeps his eyes down as he considers. Sometimes Peter hated that the kid managed to keep such a good poker face, dutifully neutral, besides maybe an extra shine along his eyelids. But even hiding his emotions, Neal looked tired . Maybe Peter shouldn’t have let Neal decide, just put him in the Taurus Friday afternoon and took him regardless.
Thankfully, before Peter could contemplate if it really would be kidnapping if Neal was technically his ward, Neal looked up with a small smile. Hesitant, but still a smile. “So…just how many embarrassing childhood photos are around that place?”