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Of course it’s real estate fraud.
It’s always the boring things that go completely wrong.
They’re checking out an art studio that has documents not matching up when it happens. Neal is heckling the art in quiet murmurs to Peter that he has to try very hard not to react to and approaches a piece on the wall.
She notices that there’s something off about the painting. She mentions that the casing is uneven, as if there’s some sort of hinge.
She goes to pull at it and is suddenly engulfed in a bright beam of light.
As the blinding light disappears, Neal goes crashing to the floor.
“Neal!” Peter shouts, rushing to his side. Belatedly, he realizes he just ran into the aim of that strange beam, but his focus is on Neal and protecting her from whatever just happened and may happen again.
Peter frowns as he looks at her closer. She seems… younger. Not that the woman has aged poorly. In fact, not at all. But her features seemed smoothed out. Blemishes and spots and wrinkles suddenly vanished from her face.
He puts two fingers to her neck and sighs in relief as he feels the steady thrum of her heartbeat.
Peter turns around and sees that the owner of the shop is nowhere to be found.
Peter searches for the owner for a few futile minutes before giving up and beginning to pace. He feels an uneasy anxiety bubbling deep in his gut every time he sneaks a look at Neal.
He’s about to check her pulse again when she lets out a rattled cough.
Neal blinks slowly awake. “Ugh, I hate being knocked out.” She looks around in confusion. “Oh my God. Where’s my wheelchair?” She continues to look around, holding herself up with just her arms. “What kind of asshole steals a paraplegic’s wheelchair?” She flops back to the ground, her arms stretched out on the floor. “Oh yeah, she can’t walk! It’s not like she can run after us! Let’s steal her freaking wheelchair!”
“Neal?” Peter says, interrupting her litany of complaints.
Neal looks up. “Uh. Hi?”
“Do you remember who I am?” Peter asks slowly.
“Uh, I don’t. Sorry.” Neal smiles apologetically but Peter can see that she’s scrutinizing him.
“My name is Agent Peter Burke. I’m with the FBI. You’ve been hit by an unidentified weapon that has tampered with your memory.” And age, he doesn’t say.
“I see,” Neal says, her lips pursing. “And I assume I’m also with the FBI?”
“You would be right,” Peter says.
“Hm.” She drums her fingers on her thigh. “Am I some sort of technical consultant?”
This is not what Peter expects her to ask. “Uh, you’re some sort of consultant.”
“Hm,” she repeats. Her face scrunches as she thinks. “Did this assailant with the memory tampering weapon steal my wheelchair?”
“You… you didn’t have a wheelchair,” Peter says.
She shoots him a perplexed look. “Then how did I get here?”
“By… walking?” Peter says, feeling lost.
“I can’t walk,” she says with a snort, as if that's an obvious. Like it isn’t a groundbreaking, image shattering peek into Neal’s past.
“I’ll get someone to bring over a wheelchair for you,” Peter says. “It probably won’t be as nice as yours, though.”
“Thanks,” she says, her smile soft and genuine.
It takes an extra fifteen minutes for them to scrounge something up for Neal, and as they wait, Peter gets to know the woman who was Neal before she was Neal.
Apparently, she was in school to become a librarian, engaged to a childhood friend whose father she worked for, the daughter of a police commissioner, and, oh yeah, paralyzed from the waist down.
She mentions it casually, just a simple fact of her life that she’s come to accept and take in stride. She said it was a spinal injury and she’ll never walk again.
Which just leaves Peter with so many questions.
It’s obvious that she’s not faking it. And if she is, he doesn’t understand why she would.
But then how can the Neal Caffrey he knows walk?
It’s imperative to being an art thief. It’s even more imperative to just being Neal Caffrey. He’s seen her walk, run, jump, do impressive acrobatics.
This Neal can’t even wiggle her toes.
He feels wrong as he tries to make sense of it all. Not only is it obviously a close guarded secret, but it almost feels presumptuous of him to feel entitled to any sort of answers.
If she wanted him to know, he would’ve known by now.
So he doesn't ask.
He ends up taking Neal back to June’s. Even though June’s isn’t anything familiar to Neal, it’s better than dragging her to the office and having the gawking eyes of their coworkers aimed at her.
The first thing Neal notices as they make their way up to her flat is the wheelchair hidden beneath a large quilt in the corner.
“My wheelchair!” she cheers.
And Peter feels his heart stutter.
Neal still has a wheelchair.
Does that mean she—
"A little help?" she says.
"Oh!" Peter exclaims. "Of course."
She talks him through how to help her move, and Peter does his best to not be too much.
“Do I have a computer?” she asks as she settles into her wheelchair.
Peter does a double take at the question. “Uh, yes, you do.” Peter takes her to the modest setup in her bedroom. “Why do you need one?”
“Just need to check some things,” she replies, not elaborating past that.
She wheels over to the computer, and Peter watches with fascination as her fingers dance across the keys at rapid speeds, bringing up screens that move so fast, he can’t catch what they say.
Her brows are furrowed in concentration, her tongue sticking out as she types. She scoffs.
“What?” Peter asks.
“My fiance and I aren’t engaged nor married,” she says bluntly. “I mean, the lack of ring on my finger was telling but I thought it might have to do with the job.”
“Oh,” Peter says awkwardly. “I’m… sorry?”
She waves her hand. “It’s on brand.” She types quickly again and her jaw drops. “Kori and then Wally? That man has a redhead problem.” She continues to type, letting out tiny huffs of laughter as she types. Then, a song begins to play through her speakers.
With an almost dance-like ease, she pulls out a headset and plugs it in. She grins. “Hey, Boy Wonder.” Her smile doesn’t fade as she listens to whatever this “Boy Wonder” says. “How’s the Gotham furry community going?”
Peter’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Oh yeah? There any new additions to the LARPing campaign?” She nods and then whistles low. “Five. Wow. B really needs to cool it before this becomes a hoarding problem. Maybe get to some AA meetings.”
Peter thinks he hears the person on the other side of the call say “Adopters Anonymous” but he can’t be sure.
"So, why does the FBI say I can walk? Huh. Really? Well, that kind of technology is convenient but feels a bit... fixy. You know? I never thought I'd do that. I've accepted it." She closes her eyes and sighs. "Of course it was for B. When are convoluted things that push my morals and comfort not for B?"
She sticks a pen in her mouth and chews at the cap. “Hey! Don’t call me Barbie. You know Jason’s the only one who can… could…” The bright glee suddenly drains from Neal’s face and her face goes blank, jaw tense and eyes far away. Suddenly, she sucks in a sharp breath. “What. What do you mea— what? No. No, he’s not.” She’s shaking her head, tears pooling in her eyes. “Dick this isn’t funny. You can’t just—” She gasps. “Jason?” she whispers.
She lets out a startled, teary laugh. “Even as a zombie you’re a little shit.” She smiles softer. “Are you okay? Are you…” she trails off. Her face goes stony. “Yeah. I get that. That’s alright. I understand.” She chuckles again. “It’s so great to hear you again, kid.” She laughs. “You think I care that you’re twenty five? Nope. You’ll forever be the little kid that tried to bribe me for extra dessert with a ‘Stop Jason From Doing Something Stupid’ coupon.” She laughs again. “I know it worked, but still.” She sighs happily. “Okay. Pass the phone over to the Dickhead. ”
There’s a pause. “Nothing’s normal for your family, is it?” She bites her lip as she grins. “Yeah, I know. I’m glad I’m still stuck with you all.” She makes a sound of offense. “You’re one to talk. Uh huh. Yeah. Laugh it up.” She shakes her head fondly. “So you’re sending Z to handle this, right? Good, good. Alright. And in the meantime, will you send me the parameters for this whole FBI thing? Uh huh. Uh huh. Yup. Love you. Bye.”
And with that, she takes off her headset and slouches in her chair.
“So, was that the not fiance?” Peter questions.
She nods. “Yeah. That was him.”
“Sounds nice.”
She snorts. “That’s one way to describe him.”
Peter stands there, hands hanging awkwardly at his side as he stares at the woman he’s realizing he didn’t know at all. “Look, Neal. I—” Peter’s phone buzzes. “Sorry. I have to take this.” He flips his phone open. “Peter Burke.”
“Hey, boss,” Diana says. “We just got contacted by a Justice League representative that apparently wants to see Neal.”
Peter’s eyes widen and then narrow at Neal. “Is that so?”
“Should we send her to June’s?”
Neal gives him a thumbs up.
“Yeah,” Peter says. “Send her over.” He turns to Neal who is giving him an innocent look. “Did you have something to do with this?”
Her feigned innocence grows smug. “With what?”
Peter sighs exasperatedly. “You’ve always been Neal Caffrey, huh?”
She raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know. Have I?”
“You may not have always been Neal Caffrey, but want to know what you’ve always been?”
She grins. “What?”
“A pain in my ass.”