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“Neal!” Peter shouts, spotting his friend after the team had arrested their suspects. They heard gunshots over the coms and stormed the building. Peter rushes over to Neal, who’s sitting on the ground.
“I’m fine, I swear,” Neal waves Peter’s concern off, taking Peter’s offered hand to help him stand. Peter pulls harder than Neal expected and Neal grunts, hand going to a spot high on his left side.
Peter glares at him, “I’m fine!” Neal protests.
“You’re not , let me see it,” he demands, moving Neal’s hand. “Medic!” He shouts as soon as he sees the damage.
Jones runs over while Diana calls for an ambulance. Jones looks, “Tell them to hurry!” He demands.
Diana nods. “Why?” Peter questions. “How bad is it?”
“The wound itself isn’t that bad, it’s the location that’s bad. There’ll be internal bleeding, probably irreparable damage to his spleen.”
Neal groans, “There isn’t.”
“Neal-” Jones starts.
“There is no damage to my spleen because I don’t have one,” he gestures to the large scar that the bullet is basically in the middle of. “I lost-well no, more like it was stolen- my spleen as a teenager. Why do you think I’m so worried about germs? Or come up with excuses to not be there when people are sick? My immune system can’t handle it. There’s no internal damage, I just need to be stitched up. The bullet went through,” Neal explains.
“What do you mean ‘more like stolen’? Your spleen was stolen?!” Peter demands.
Neal shrugs as best as he can, glad that he’d been cleared to tell Jones, Diana, and Peter who he actually was, “I was working on something, nothing technically illegal,” he assures Peter, “when I ended up, unintentionally, with this group, a very illegal group, that I couldn’t leave without bad consequences. The leader of the group was obsessed with my family, my father and I specifically, and when I tried to get out, he took my spleen,” Neal chuckles without much humor, “My friends called him my ‘creepy grandfather stalker’ since he’s old and technically my little brother’s grandfather.”
Neal then groans, head thumping back against the wall he’s leaning against, “I’m going to have to call Dick.”
“Who?” Jones, Diana (who’d come back after calling the ambulance and heard the majority of the story), and Peter ask simultaneously.
“My mother-hen of an older brother,” Neal complains. “Can one of you hand me my phone?” The three agents pause for a moment before Diana and Peter begin digging into Neal’s pockets to find his phone.