Work Text:
Neal isn’t normally late to work. On the rare occasion that he is, it’s only by a minute or two.
Currently, it’s nearly an hour past when Neal was supposed to be at the office and Peter is at June’s, tracking him down. His tracking data says that he’s still here, but Peter doesn’t believe that Mozzie doesn’t have the resources to fudge the data.
Truthfully, Peter doesn’t expect Neal to be up to something. In all likelihood, he probably slept in or isn’t feeling well, but it’s always good to be cautious when it comes to Neal.
Peter stands at the top of the stairs and knocks on the door. After a few minutes pass with no response, he knocks again, this time louder. Neal doesn’t answer.
He sighs and pulls out his key. It’s a requirement that Peter has a key to Neal’s apartment, but he’s never had to use it.
The apartment is dark and quiet. The curtains are covering the French doors, only allowing a single ray of light through. If Peter didn’t know any better, he’d say the place was abandoned.
“Neal?” he calls. When he receives no response, he moves into the hallway. Sticking his head into the bathroom, he flips the light on. Neal isn’t in there. He steps back and walks further down the hallway. Peter opens the door to the closet and steps inside.
Neal is a veritable neat freak, so his closet, of course, reflects that. Everything is hung up and organized, his shoes are all on the rack as opposed to scattered on the floor, and his ties are in their own drawer. There’s nowhere for Neal to hide, so Peter shuts off the light and closes the door.
As he walks back to the kitchen, he pulls out his phone. His finger is hovering over the Marshal’s number, but he hesitates. If Neal did run, he deserves to be caught. Peter isn’t second guessing that. Still, part of him doubts that Neal ran.
It just doesn’t feel right. When Neal runs, Peter knows he ran. Something about this is different, and though he can’t pinpoint what, he’s sure of it.
The kitchen is unchanged. The curtains still cover the doors, and the room is still quiet. The bed is unmade, which is the only thing out of place in the apartment. Peter has rarely made it to Neal’s apartment while he’s still sleeping. Usually, the apartment and Neal are both completely presentable when Peter arrives in the morning. The fact that the bed is unmade is strange to say the least.
Peter opens the drawers of the nightstand and searches for Neal’s phone. He finds it in the second drawer. When he picks it up, the first thing he sees is the multitude of texts from Peter. Under the many notifications from Peter, there’s one from someone named Roy. Peter assumes that’s Mozzie’s new alias for the week and moves on.
Peter turns around to head to the balcony when he hears a soft noise from the other side of the bed. Immediately, he cranes his head to see, and his heart stops when he does.
It’s not Neal. It’s a black and white, person-shaped lump, curled into itself. Peter can’t see his face, but he seems short enough to be a child. He’s wearing a suit, but it’s a far cry from the kind Neal wears. This one is caked with mud and blood.
Okay. There’s a (possibly injured) kid in Neal’s apartment, and Neal is nowhere in sight. That’s… okay.
“Uh.” Peter moves forward, careful not to startle the kid. The kid has his arms wrapped around his torso, and Peter can’t tell if he’s hurt or if he’s trying to protect himself from a blow. “Kid?”
The kid doesn’t budge. Though he just heard the boy make a noise a second ago, Peter thinks for a horrifying second that the kid might be dead. He almost reaches his hand out to check, but the kid heaves a particularly deep breath, and Peter’s heart falls into its normal rhythm.
Having Neal here to explain this would be really nice. Peter has been flipping between calling an ambulance or the cops for the past few minutes.
The kid is still, the only movement being the slight up-and-down motion of his shoulders as he breathes. Peter wants to check him over for any injuries, but he doesn’t know if he can get the boy to listen.
After weighing his options, Peter decides to chance it. He reaches a hand out and, this time, makes contact. His hand brushes against the boy’s jacket. Suddenly, the world is spinning and Peter lands rather harshly on his back, knocking the air out of his lungs.
When Peter gets his bearings, he realizes with a start that the boy is now standing over top of him. His eyes are locked on some far off point in space, and Peter doesn’t know how to react. Is he supposed to cuff him? Peter doesn’t think that would end well.
Peter stands up, ignoring the pain in his ribs and the shock of being flipped by a boy no older than fifteen. This will be a fun story to tell El.
The boy doesn’t react. Peter frowns. “What the hell was that?”
Nothing. Not even a blink.
Peter sighs and pulls out his phone. Wherever Neal is, he needs to get back here immediately. He opens his contacts and finds Neal’s name. Before he can press call, he hears the door open, and he spins around, ready to berate Neal. When he sees who it is, his lecture turns into a groan.
“Suit? Why are you here? Where is… oh no.” Mozzie’s eyes are trained on the boy. His reaction sparks some hope that he might be able to shed some light on the boy’s identity.
“Do you know who he is?” Peter asks.
At first, Mozzie doesn’t respond. He walks up to the boy, studying his every atom as if he can’t believe he’s standing here. Peter is confused, but watches the scene with rapt attention.
Mozzie’s eyes drift over the boy’s suit, his face, his hands and wind up locked on his eyes. “Jason?”
Predictably, the boy doesn’t respond. His eyes drill holes through the wall. Peter notes, however, that he does allow Mozzie to get close. Mozzie is standing inches from the boy, and he doesn’t seem to care. Peter wisely keeps his distance. His ribs are still sore, and he expects that they will probably bruise.
“Who is he, Mozzie?”
Mozzie doesn’t meet Peter eyes. “There is someone I need to call.”
Peter never finds out the woman’s name. She gives off criminal vibes, but Peter doesn’t really care about that right now. He just wants answers.
Mozzie won’t tell him where Neal is. Mozzie won’t tell him who the boy is. Mozzie won’t tell him anything, and it’s starting to grate on him.
The mysterious woman stands in front of the boy, hand on his cheek. She speaks to him softly, but Peter notices the accent. Try as he might, he can’t place it.
Before too long, she turns to Mozzie. “I can fix this, but I will have to call him.”
Mozzie’s eyes widen. “No! You know he doesn’t--”
“I am aware. Still, I have no idea how this happened, and he is a detective. The world’s greatest, as a matter of fact. I am calling him.”
Mozzie slumps. Peter doesn’t bother to ask who or what they’re talking about. From what he’s seen of the woman, she’s just as secretive as Mozzie. Maybe even more so, with the way she won’t even tell Peter her name. At least Mozzie has an alias.
She leaves the room, leaving Peter alone with Mozzie and a catatonic teenage boy. Peter avoids the eerie gaze and non-responsiveness of the boy and directs his attention to Mozzie. “Okay, time for some answers.”
Mozzie doesn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know how much I can tell you.”
“What does that mean? What’s going on? Is Neal involved?”
“Yes, actually.” Mozzie has a strange look on his face. “But I shouldn’t be talking about it.”
Peter sighs. Getting information out of Mozzie that he doesn’t want to share is like pulling teeth. “Mozzie, I came here looking for Neal and found a teenage boy covered in bruises and blood. You know how that looks. Not saying anything at all is more incriminating than whatever you’re hiding might be.”
Mozzie shifts his weight. Peter has never seen him so conflicted. Maybe it’s because he never considered that Mozzie might second guess his decisions for a federal agent. “Mozzie.” Peter levels a pointed look at him, and Mozzie’s resolve breaks.
“Fine,” he says, frantic. “But don’t expect this to be a regular thing. I’m only telling you because you’re already here, and it affects Neal’s deal with you.”
Peter nods, frowning.
Mozzie gestures toward the boy, who has drifted from the kitchen back to the living room. He’s sitting on the couch, staring at nothing. “That is Neal.”
Peter raises an eyebrow. He glances back at the boy and tries to decipher whether Mozzie is joking. The longer he looks, the more he notices. The slope of his nose, the shade of blue in his eyes, the arch of his lip—it all matches Neal.
Okay, so the kid looks like Neal. That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe Neal has a son he’s never told him about and he and Mozzie are just messing with him.
That doesn’t seem likely. Neal hasn’t answered his phone, and his tracking data says that he’s been here since last night. Plus, Neal knows the consequences of breaking his deal, so he wouldn’t carry on a joke for this long when he’s supposed to be at work.
But how? Could it have been some alien tech that Neal had stumbled across that turned him into a kid? Peter knows they live among gods and aliens, but he doesn’t understand why something from that world would target Neal.
Distantly, Peter remembers what Mozzie had said when he walked in. “You called him Jason.”
Mozzie winces. “I really shouldn’t.”
“Look, Neal isn’t in trouble. I just need to know what’s going on. If he gets mad at you, just tell him I gave you no choice.”
He doesn’t look reassured, but he seems to decide that cooperating will only help. “I can’t believe I’m helping a suit,” he says, spitting the word like it’s something awful. Peter ignores it. “I called him Jason because that’s his name. Jason Todd. You can figure out the rest from there, I’m sure.”
Mozzie says it like he should recognize the name. Peter racks his brain, trying to recall if he’s heard it before. After a few moments of contemplation, he comes up with nothing.
Peter had always known that Neal Caffery wasn’t his real name. When someone has no history or a very foggy one, it’s generally a red flag. Because of that lack of knowledge, Peter had imagined many backgrounds and childhoods for Neal, and none of them had ever seemed to fit. Nothing seemed right, almost like Neal just popped into existence one day and started conning and thieving.
Peter had tried to imagine Neal as a child in the arms of his mother, and the mental image seemed incongruent. He tried to think of a place Neal could have grown up, but he draws a blank every time. For all he knows, Neal never was a child.
But he had been, and the proof is right in front of him. Neal had been artificially deaged, leaving him a teenager that apparently knows how to flip a grown man twice his weight. Peter doesn’t know what to do with the fact that he won’t talk or meet his eyes.
“I don’t recognize the name. Enlighten me.”
Mozzie groans. “So much for your government surveillance.”
“Mozzie,” Peter says, exasperated.
“Jason Todd died. There, I told you. I’m going to go now.”
Mozzie walks through the open door, closing it behind him, and Peter is in such shock that he lets him go.
Within three days, Neal is back to normal. Peter doesn’t know what Mozzie and the mysterious woman pulled to achieve it, but he walks up to Neal’s apartment one day and finds an adult Neal at the kitchen table, holding his head in his hands. He glances up when Peter enters, seemingly unbothered by Peter’s refusal to knock.
“I thought you were still pint-sized.”
Neal snorts. “Not quite.”
Peter walks over to the table and sits down across from him. He looks normal, if a bit tired. There are no signs of the bruises that were there days ago, which would make sense. Peter wants to ask what caused them, but he puts that off for a moment. There are other more pertinent things he needs to ask.
“You know we need to talk, right?”
Neal sighs and sits back in his chair. “Mozzie told me that you know.” Peter can't really tell how Neal feels about it. He's even more unreadable now than he normally is.
“I don’t, though. Mozzie just told me that you died, but he didn’t really elaborate.”
“Great,” Neal says. “Guess that means I have to explain.”
Peter nods, giving Neal a smug grin. “It does.”
Neal groans.