Work Text:
A pandemic.
Yeah. No one had expected that one.
When Neal said that he was leaving, Peter didn’t know what to say.
“Your radius,” he had said.
“It’s being relocated so my medical needs can be accommodated by those who know how.”
“Why are you leaving?” he had asked.
“I’m immunocompromised and it’s not safe for me to stay.”
“Stay with me and El,” he had tried.
“It’ll be okay. I’ll be back.”
So, now Neal has a new radius and according to his tracking data, he has not left it in months.
The White Collar team is on their usual Zoom call, discussing their latest projects and cases when it all starts.
“—which I’m suspecting is going to become even more prevalent with the decline in employment.”
Everyone nods in agreement.
Neal sips at his coffee. “I can already start seeing a pattern in my cases.”
Peter raises an eyebrow. “Can you expand on that?”
Neal nods and sets his mug down. “Well—”
There’s a loud crash in the background of Neal’s side accompanied with what looks suspiciously like a man getting thrown through Neal’s living room window.
“Hey babe!” the man with an odd distorted voice says from off screen.
“On a call!” Neal says, not paying any mind to him.
“Oops. Sorry.” The man stands and reveals FBI’s Most Wanted murderer and crime lord Red Hood. “I’m gonna go take a shower.”
“We’re out of conditioner!” Neal shouts over his shoulder.
“There’s some under the sink!” Red Hood replies as he heads into the other room. “If you looked anywhere except right in front of your face, maybe you’d see it!”
“Oh, fuck you!”
“Love you too, baby!”
Neal turns back to his camera. “Anyways, though we can expect more fraud to occur, we should also expect more existing fraud to be uncovered…”
A frankly giant woman enters Neal’s apartment through the broken window.
“Greetings, friend!” she says in a booming voice. “I’ve seemed to have left my cell phone here after our last ‘movie night.’”
She goes to the couch and rummages through the pillows.
“Ignore her,” Neal says. “So, I think we should keep an eye out for old cold cases because we may be able to—”
Behind him, the woman lifts the couch above her head with one hand
Everyone’s jaws drop.
“I have found it!” she announces.
“That’s great!” Neal says before continuing his sentence.
She then jumps out of the window.
At this point, no one has heard a single thing Neal has said.
“Uh, Neal?” Jones says.
“Yes?” Neal replies, completely unaware of the pure bewilderment of his coworkers.
“What…”
As he’s about to continue, someone flies through the window.
The man is huge and his features are pallid, almost grey. His features are twisted. He almost emulates a monstrous version of Supernatural.
“Pup pup!” the man roars, his voice filled with anguish.
Neal rubs his temples. “Jesus Chr— Bizarro!”
The man looks at Neal with wide eyes.
“Pup Pup had to dry because you dropped him in the sink. Remember?”
The man makes a small “ah” sound and flies over to the kitchen. When he’s back in frame, he is cuddling a small doll.
“Thank you Little Red Him,” the man says.
“No problem.”
And with that, the man flies out of the window.
Neal turns back to the call. “Where was I? Oh. And with our cold cases…”
There’s a knock at the door.
“One second,” Neal says.
The whole white collar team watches with morbid curiosity of who it could possibly be.
In the corner of the screen, they see Neal open the door to reveal a little girl.
“Uh, hey Lian,” Neal says.
“Daddy’s being stupid so I’m here to get Uncle Jay to make him less stupid,” the little girl says.
“Did you tell him you’re coming here?” Neal asks.
She shakes her head.
“Okay. Okay, I… I’m gonna call him—”
“No!”
“—and I’ll make sure Jay makes him a little less stupid.” He crouches down. “I don’t know how well he can do that, though. Jay’s pretty stupid too.”
She giggles.
“Why don’t you take a seat?” Neal says. “You can play on my tablet.”
She cheers and heads to the couch, placing a blanket down before she sits.
Neal hands her a tablet and takes a long deep breath. He pulls out a phone that is definitely not FBI regulated and types quickly into it.
“Hey Roy. Uh huh. She’s with me. I don’t know what you did but she is not happy. Uh huh. Yup. I can watch her until you can pick her up. Ten minutes? Okay. Yup. Okay. See you then.”
He hangs up and takes a seat in front of his camera again.
“Neal,” Peter says.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. So, the most frequent cases I’ve see rising again are—”
A small hooded figure sneaks in through Neal’s window. Before anyone can process the sight or warn Neal, the hooded figure pulls out a katana and shoves it through Neal’s chair, poking out beside his torso.
Neal sighs, as if this is a simple inconvenience. “I said I’m sorry!”
“That last piece of cake was for me!” the hooded figure screeches, the voice surprisingly pubescent.
“You didn’t sticky note claim it! You know that you have to sticky note claim it if you don’t want someone to—”
“I did sticky note claim it! There was a sticky note beneath the plate and—”
“Why the fuck would you put the sticky note under the plate? That makes no sense—”
“Did you not feel it when you picked up the plate?!”
“Obviously not!”
“I will rip your teeth from your skull—”
“Oh, I dare you—”
“Why you!”
On the Zoom call, everyone erupts into chaos in panicked concern as the teen launches at Neal and sends him flying onto the ground off screen.
And then, to everyone’s surprise, Batman comes in through the widow.
The fighting sounds from off screen halt.
“Uh oh. You’re in deep shit now,” Neal says.
“Please tell me he didn’t impale you,” Batman says.
“Barely grazed,” Neal says.
Batman grins widely. “Aw, Little D. You’re making progress!”
“-tt- It is not an offense worthy of impalement,” the teen says.
“Everything used to be offenses worthy of impalement!” Batman says cheerfully. “Improvement.”
“Just get him outta here,” Neal says.
And with that, the hooded teen and freaking Batman, jump out of the window.
Neal pulls himself off the ground and sits back down.
Before he can say anything, there’s another knock at the door.
“Think that’s your dad, Li,” Neal says, getting up from his chair.
When he opens it, there’s a frantic man dripping wet with slightly singed skin.
“What happened to you?” Neal asks.
“Explosion. Harbor,” the man says flatly.
“Ah,” Neal says, as if that’s an explanation.
“Li,” the man says, “you can’t just do that. You can’t just run away when you’re unhappy with me.”
“You missed my concert for a stupid robot invasion!” she pouts.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know I can’t promise to make it to the next one, but I’ll make it up to you.”
She looks at him with puppy eyes. “Like… flying with Kori?”
He sighs. “Flying over one of Uncle Dick’s giant nets and not for long.”
“But I’m still gonna get to fly?” she asks.
He hesitates, but nods.
She smiles but it quickly disappears as she crosses her arms over her chest and her brows scrunch. “Uncle Jay is still gonna give you a talking to.”
He laughs. “I’m sure he will.” He grabs her hand. “Now c’mon. Let’s go home.”
And with that, they’re gone.
When Neal returns, it’s completely silent. This time, no one says anything, just waiting for the next interruption.
And the next, and last interruption, suddenly appears with a gust of wind, sending the papers on Neal’s desk flying to the floor.
“Oops,” the man — holy shit is that Superboy — says. “Sorry about that, knickknack.” He presses a kiss to Neal’s head. “Where’s Jay?”
“In the shower,” Neal replies.
“Ooo la la,” Superboy says, waggling his brows. “Maybe I’ll just have to join him.” He gives Neal a saucy wink.
The door opens and reveals a man in just a towel wrapped around his waist and that is definitely Red Hood, holy shit we know what Red Hood looks like.
“Hey, doll,” Red Hood says to Superboy.
Superboy flies over and shoves Red Hood against a wall, kissing him hard which quickly dissolves into an uncomfortably passionate makeout session.
Which like, yes, it’s uncomfortable, but also they can’t stop looking because that’s a national icon kissing a man who is notorious for his duffel bag of decapitated human heads that also, oh yeah, apparently lives with Neal.
Neal turns back to the camera, shifting his computer so they’re off screen.
“You gonna join us, rolypoly?” they hear Superboy ask.
“Can’t! I’m working!” Neal replies.
“Boring!” The Red Hood says. His voice drops low and sultry. “Later, then.”
Neal takes a long sip from his mug. “So, anyways, if we look back on what occurred in the 2008 recession—”
“Uh, Neal?” Peter says.
Neal looks up. “Yes?”
“What the f—”