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Peter had never quite got the hang of Neal Caffrey.
When he was chasing the man he had made a lot more sense: pretty conman who uses looks and wiles to catch a mark, then uses cleverness and athletic ability to steal from them. When he’s not playing with forgery with the casual attention of a soccer mom who also goes to life-drawing classes, which was frankly infuriating to Peter’s sense of fairness.
Neal Caffrey in the abstract was exciting and a little bit wild, and probably never slept if everything attributed to him was true. Peter suspected he actually had a very whimsical sense of creating his own crime-based PR, a devious mind, and lots of willing contacts to spread the myth of Caffrey across the grifting grapevine.
Neal Caffrey in the flesh was… strange. Not quite what he had expected.
He was too broad, for one thing. He was just as athletic and physically cunning as Peter expected, but just a little bit more of a bruiser than he’d have thought. The suits disguise it, probably. Make him look slimmer and less threatening. And something in his body language too; a way to make himself look earnest, and physically unassuming.
Neal in reality was quicker to anger, and more deeply sarcastic than Peter would have ever guessed from Neal on paper. Perhaps that was the influence of four years in prison. You put in a romantic boy running across the world having adventures, and you get out a man who doesn’t skip arm-day, or leg-day, can physically defend himself, and won’t wait to be jumped first.
Neal’s cynicism, after prison, was soul deep, with a spattering of romantic intention as a gloss of something subtle and disconcerting right on top. It’s disarming, to watch Neal charm and flirt and ingratiate himself in the eyes of a mark or a witness, and then see that mood flick away as soon as they reached the car, watching Neal’s distain settle over everything like a sudden blast of flame that curls the edges of the romantic whimsey that was laid out before the mark.
It’s unsettling, how Neal doesn’t match what Peter thought he would.
But people change, and reality is always far messier and more complex.
Peter has no idea how he would change in four years of prison, so it makes sense that the idea of Neal Caffrey doesn’t match reality.
But then—
Something— Was different.
Peter wasn’t sure what happened, but that day he went to June’s place to pick Neal up, and things were… changed? Unsettled. He wasn’t sure what it could be, but something felt a little off.
Perhaps he’d just eaten something strange for dinner; El had brought little prawn parcels home from a work function, so he probably had just slept badly.
Peter knocked on Neal’s apartment door, a bit short and sharp, and came in to see him—to see Neal—and it was sort of like he was in two places at once. He was standing near the kitchen sink, making coffee; or maybe she was still lying in bed, barely awake.
Neal always set him into a spiral of mental gymnastics, for no reason at all.
Peter blinked a few times, shaking his head, and hoping there was enough of June’s coffee for him too.
How silly, to have mistaken Neal’s boyfriend (smugly covered in hickies, and only wearing low-slung pyjama pants) for Neal, lounging in bed.
Neal was just like she was the last time Peter saw her on Friday evening, two days ago: romantic and disconcerting and cynical. A bigger presence than anyone would expect of Neal from her stats on paper. She’s only 5’2”, but she had a great presence of hair, and a fierceness of personality that was hard to shake. An unsettled violence lingered in her grin, just like usual.
“Is she—?” Peter asked June, while he sipped the coffee she poured for him as they waited for Neal to get into one of her amazing suits which made her shoulders look so broad and powerful and delicate all at once. Those suits, those he remembers so well. Not that he doesn’t love how El dresses, but he can’t imagine how amazing El would look in Neal’s tailoring.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” June said. “There was a bit of shouting in the morning, but I’m sure it was just a lover’s spat. Neal and—uh—”
June paused, like something was right on the tip of her tongue.
“Her lover, yes? The—we knew about that one, didn’t we? I can’t quite—”
“Jason,” June said with surety. “Neal brought home a lovely lady with the most intense black eyes. Jason’s her name.”
“Hmm,” Peter said, thinking. But he remembered now. Neal was very surprising compared to her paper file, with a boyfriend called Jason. A big man, with shoulders so impressive he could probably lift Peter in one hand, and Jones in the other.
Peter remembered it all very well. Of course he did.
“Neal!” he yelled up the stairs. “Mortgage fraud won’t solve itself!”
Then Neal was there, right in front of them both. Beautiful. Such high cheekbones. So much black hair, almost blue in some lights it was so glossy. Peter felt like he was seeing Neal for the first time.
But he always felt like that. Like he was being smacked in the face with Neal’s Nealness. Conwoman and grifter and possibly-more-clever-than-he-was (but he didn’t really want to figure that one out for sure).
“Don’t wait up,” she said, as she kissed June on the cheek, stealing the last swig of her coffee, “I think I’ll be out late.”
“It’s only mortgage fraud,” Peter said, rolling his eyes.
“My favourite type of case,” she said with a menacing grin. “You know how I am about property rights.”
Peter huffed, because he didn’t like to laugh at Neal’s jokes too often.
“—when it comes to real estate,” she corrected.
Peter followed Neal out to the car, wondering what had happened to the lovely sunny day it had been when he’d entered June’s house. It must have turned darkly overcast in a few minutes, with some weird reflections that made it seem like a glorious miasma of darkness and smut floated around Neal like air pollution hanging in mist.
Peter had probably been projecting when he’d assumed that Neal hated mortgage fraud cases (because Peter certainly did).
Neal really was very knowledgable and interested in real estate fraud. She was practically vibrating with the need to take down the scheme that Pullman & Barrow, (a very dodgy real estate development firm), seemed to be perpetrating in NYC. They were operating across jurisdictions, as they’d been running schemes in NY (the rest of the state, with lower property values), and over in New Jersey as well. Cross-state schemes like this usually ended up in the FBI, but Peter really wished that the Newark office had been given this one.
Neal sunk her teeth (which glinted just a little too sharp, a trick of the light) into the whole case.
It wasn’t that strange, Peter supposed. She liked real estate, as much as she had an eye for architecture. She could talk about the golden ages of Art Deco and Art Nouveau in American buildings for hours, which Peter had probably tuned out previously. Perhaps she had talked about it with El; El adores Art Deco design. Had Neal talked about which famous Art Deco buildings had the best climbing holds? That seemed familiar. Something about Gotham having the most cat burglar-friendly design, with only a strong stomach needed to climb even their skyscrapers.
In Peter’s opinion, mortgage fraud cases really were the worst. After being exposed to years of this perpetual headache, and the acres of paperwork and ledger comparisons that a complicated mortgage case entailed, he felt justified in his opinion. Cases he’d closed four years ago were still working their way through the courts, as well. It was a long-form nightmare, like being eaten alive by a copy machine, where you were doing the same thing every day for what felt like years.
He looked over at Neal, who was working furiously, and fast. Enthusiastically.
She’d burn out. They all did.
But until she did, Peter could use her enthusiasm. He poured her a fresh coffee and set it down on the edge of her desk, because that kind of focus needed to be rewarded.
Then he went back up to his office, and dealt with his court-appearance calendar and SAC duties.
Neal, Jones, and Diana could deal with Pullman & Barrow, at least today. It’s not like they were getting anywhere fast.
Bloody mortgage fraud. Why couldn’t fat cats with too much money just let people keep their fucking homes?
“Boss?” Diana said, appearing at Peter’s door just as he was contemplating facing the office coffee pot, because paperwork about justifying overtime expenditure was even less interesting than mortgage fraud. At least if he was out in the bullpen he’d be chasing a puzzle.
“Yes?”
“Neal’s got something.”
Peter wasn’t particularly surprised by that, since Neal always had something. Usually something expensive that belonged to someone dangerous.
“What’s she done now?”
“No, Boss, she’s got something on Pullman.”
Peter pushed himself up, clapping his hands together in satisfaction. Now the day was looking up.
Peter took over the conference room, and sat back as Neal laid out a twisted thread of connections which tangled up half a dozen shell companies, Pullman’s mistress, 254 repossessed houses in Gotham City, and four Cayman bank accounts.
Damn.
Neal really was worth keeping around, not just for the painting work.
Diana, however, seemed to be having a bad day. Barely paying attention to the paperwork, her eyes very clearly on Neal’s hands instead of the files spread across the table.
Diana really wasn’t being herself at all. Could he ask El what was wrong? Well, could he ask El to ask Diana what was wrong? No, she’d call him sexist. They’d both call him sexist, and then Neal would, and it would be a whole mess of domestic threats and feeling like a heel.
Well, the day had gone well, so he could try some interpersonal management after the meeting broke up.
“Diana,” Peter asked, cautiously, “is everything okay? At home? Here at work? You seem distracted.”
Diana just waved a hand over at Neal, who was back at her desk and working diligently. It was a bit of a startling sight, because Neal was very fickle about where she applied her attention, but nothing to be concerned about.
“Neal’s done something?”
“God, no, Boss. It’s just—Neal. In all her Nealness.”
Peter looked over. She was just as Neal as she had been yesterday. Infuriating and competent and far too pretty in a suit.
“Has she been bothering you? I know you’ve usually been patient—well, not patient, more like efficient—” Diana grinned, “but if brushing off her flirting isn’t working anymore, and if something’s changed I want to know.”
Diana was practically staring at Neal now. Or perhaps not staring at her. Staring through her, like she’s trying to see the mystery behind that amazing hair and perfect skin. Sometimes Peter loses minutes in the same way.
“No, Neal’s been actually working all day. I wish she’d flirt with me. I’d bury myself in—Fuck, sorry, Boss. Let’s pretend I didn’t say that.”
“You’re feeling—neglected? because Neal hasn’t been flirting?”
“Damn it, something like that. This is mortifying enough without my boss asking about it. Leave me to crumble in peace.”
Peter really didn’t want to deal with the interpersonal drama between his CI and his subordinates, but he had some duty of care to consider if Diana’s level of distraction would be dangerous in the field.
“Is everything okay with Christie?”
“Christie’s great. We’re great. Nothing’s wrong.”
“But you—want Neal to be flirting with you?”
Diana turned to look at Peter, raising an eyebrow like he had asked a stupid question.
“Christie understands. She likes women in suits. But who doesn’t?”
That was a sentiment that Peter could sort of understand, if not embrace himself.
Peter watched Neal at her desk. Diving through those files they’d been sent from Gotham with a vizor he really—well, Neal did look very good in a suit.
Diana turned to Jones as soon as Peter had finished looming over them and returned to his office.
She was just so distracted today. It was like she’d never seen how amazingly hot Neal was. Which considering it was Neal was like suddenly being slapped upside the head with something really damn obvious, like water being wet, or Neal Caffrey being the hottest human in existence. She’d have thought she would have processed the insane hotness that was Neal Caffrey by now. Diana had certainly had late night moan sessions about Neal’s incessant flirting with Christie, but apparently it was all just lurking slightly out of sight, like her professional boundaries finally cracked today.
“Is it just me, or is Neal seven thousand times hotter than she was yesterday?”
Jones laughed out loud, and Neal turned at the sound, smiling that mysterious damn smile which promised something dangerous and deadly and fun all at once.
Neal hit her with a wink, before turning back to her papers, and fuck, Diana was going to lose it. She was going to crawl over there and get under Neal’s too small desk and bury her face between her thighs. It would be the last thing she ever did as an FBI agent, and she would probably be arrested besides, but it would be worth it.
“Do you think Peter would arrest Neal for manslaughter if I die between her thighs.”
“Diana!” Jones hissed, and she didn’t really know why he looked so scandalized. She’d listened to Jones talk for hours about how strong Neal was, and how much he wanted to be held down and take whatever Neal gave him.
Which was a good thought. Could Diana take whatever Neal wanted from her? Probably not. The woman was unnaturally flexible and energetic at the best of times, but God, Diana would like to try to wear her out. Or to be worn out by her, and fall asleep with their hair sweaty and tangled.
Fuck. She was so distracted and unprofessional today, but ladies in suits being amazingly competent was a very real weakness.
Diana texted Christie a series of horny emojis when she got back to her desk.
She needed to lay the groundwork to make sure Christie came home ready to rail her. She obviously needed it.
Tyler was pretty happy at his job. He was a junior agent at the NYC white collar FBI offices, which was intellectually challenging, and sexy enough to tell someone on a first date. Best of all, it meant he didn’t get shot at, which was most of what he’d been looking for when he decided to specialize.
He was a bit less satisfied on a personal level. He was a city boy at heart, but NYC wasn’t Metropolis, and it had been a bit of a learning curve. For one thing, he hadn’t seen a Super since last time he went back to his parents for Thanksgiving, and considering the state of crime in NYC, they really needed some more benevolent aliens.
The real downside of NYC was that he’d picked up the nickname Metropolis from their resident CI, and it had stuck so very thoroughly that aside from his 83-yr-old neighbour who he helped with groceries, he’d been called Metropolis from almost everyone in his life for months now.
Caffrey was a nightmare, really, and Metro—Tyler—was sure he wasn’t nearly as non-violent and sort-of-reformed as everyone else in the department thought he was.
“Metropolis,” Caffrey had said with a roll of his eyes, when Tyler had been introduced to Caffrey for the first time.
“Oh. That’s not on your file,” Tyler had said, because only Gothamites picked up on a Metropolis accent with so much scorn so quickly. “I’m sure it’s not down that you’re a Gothamite.”
Caffrey shrugged, and Tyler swore his shoulders were six foot wide in that moment. He was going to be crushed by a conman who only faked being non-violent. He was obviously at the very least a bruiser for one of the mid-level Gotham rogues, if not one of their weirdly personable mass murderers. Tyler could see it in his eyes. In his smile, when Caffrey said ‘Metropolis’, in a voice that mocked with every syllable.
It didn’t make any sense.
There was no way a Gothamite was non-violent. That’s not how the city worked.
“Who are you going to tell? Peter? Tell him that you figured out a big mystery about Neal Caffrey, because he called you ‘Metropolis’. You guys can’t find your arse with a map, unless Superman pats you on it to say ‘well done’. “
“You are a Gothamite!”
Caffrey had just smirked. And he was right, too. No one believed Tyler. But that’s because none of them were Metropolitans. They didn’t get it.
Tyler knew Caffrey was from Gotham, and Caffrey knew he knew, and got everyone in the office to call him Metropolis as the first name they think of him, and now he wasn’t trying to be normal around Tyler.
Caffrey was a walking, talking, flirting disaster of a Gothamite. Oozing with that creepy sinking blackness of being a Gothamite, and frankly Tyler was surprised that he didn’t set off the biohazard contamination sensors when he was lead through security.
He had to be radioactive, or poisonous, or something eldritch, with that amount of Gotham stink on him.
Tyler had taken it on as a personal duty to be paying attention to Caffrey, since everyone else seemed to be charmed by him. Caffrey never passed up an opportunity to tease Tyler for being a weakling, not quite worth bothering with, not quite up to the task.
But today—today Caffrey was even more weird.
Tyler can’t—
Caffrey is—there’s something wrong. Something so very wrong. It’s like the whole office has been skittered sideways and a little to the left and tilted through a funhouse mirror.
Tyler had been mistaken. He’d thought that Caffrey was wrong before, but now she’s eldritch. Spilling out and making it so the whole office is wrong. Damaged.
Tyler remembers thinking that Caffrey was the most obvious Gothamite he’d ever seen aside from Batman (well, he only saw Batman in low res newsreels, but everyone knew he moved perfectly silently, flicking from shadow to shadow; when he spoke at press conferences beside Superman even Superman’s colours looked dulled).
But now Caffrey was—It was—she’d dialled being a Gothamite up to 11 and then plugged in extra speakers, and how does no one else notice how wrong she is?
Tyler made eye contact, which felt something like looking into a void filled with the skittering eye-covered insects of his nightmares, and something like looking at his own grave from the inside.
The moment he looked into her eyes was the longest in his life.
Heartbeats extending into eons.
She was ripping something from him. A poetic man might have called it innocence, but Tyler had to cheat on his poetry assignments in high school.
Something was escaping out of him.
She smiled at him. Sweet and cunning, just like usual, but something sharp snapped off in his mind and he couldn’t see anymore.
Tyler woke with his legs propped on an office chair, Agent Jones doing a vitals check on him.
“You fainted, Metropolis,” he said. No nonsense. Precise. Jones was okay.
Tyler blinked.
“Did she give my heart back?”
“Yeah, that sounds like this is beyond my—the EMTs will be here soon, Metropolis, don’t you worry at all. Caffrey caught your head on the way down, so you haven’t knocked anything loose.”
“I don’t want Gotham to have my heart. Or my head.”
“That’s okay. We know Metropolis is your one true love. The Metropolis Meteors can’t do without your support.”
Tyler nodded, shivering.
He wondered if he’d ever feel warm again.
He put in a transfer back to Metropolis using the hospital wifi.
Diana focused on her own work for a few hours after Metropolis had fainted, and been taken to hospital. At least Jones had taken care of him, and Diana had been able to focus on her computer screen. Well, and also look past it to Neal’s desk, where the woman was still being so breathtakingly efficient as she worked through more of the files from the Gotham, putting together the case against Pullman & Barrow’s scheme as it was run in New Jersey.
Diana left her to it, and worked on the files from Rochester, NY. There was bad days of regular paperwork, and then there was the cryptic puzzle that was Gotham paperwork, which seemed like it needed to be read under a blacklight after sacrificing a goat to make any sense of it.
Neal could take control of the Gothamite accounting books, and with Diana’s thanks. Gothamite things required you to look at them from a particularly kaleidoscopic angle which Neal was good at it.
Huh. Maybe Metropolis was right, and Neal was from Gotham. It’d explain how she was always pretty good at anything which crossed over with that particular vibe.
Just before three Neal smiled up at Diana, their eyes meeting, and Diana had never felt so utterly intimidated by her before. She was smiling viciously, with an edge of violence in her eyes.
Fuck.
She wanted Neal to look like that while she tangled her hands in that lush black hair, and dragged their mouths together.
Diana wasn’t sure if she was more embarrassed than horny, but she had a bit more sympathy for Jones’s occasional moments of panicked eyes when Neal did something particularly spectacular and Jones was distracted.
“Peter! Jones!” Neal called, as she walked towards them from her desk. When she was right beside her, she said, “Diana,” in a slow and sultry tone.
“What have you got, Neal?” Peter asked, looking over from the balcony above her. Diana checked her screen to make sure it hadn’t gone to screen saver with her level of distraction.
“I’ve got everything, Peter.”
Diana bit her lip. Why did Neal have to say it like that?
“Names. Addresses. Receipts. A current location for their point man, Jeremy Barrow.”
“We’ve got enough to pick him up?”
Neal smirked, and it promised that she could pick him up in multiple pieces, like a jigsaw.
Jones nodded. “I’ve got a decent hold on the local cases, as well. I think we’ve got most of the case tied up. Or as much as we can before arrests.”
Peter’s face brightened. He really did hate mortgage fraud cases, for someone who had considered being an accountant.
“I’m driving,” Peter announced, like there was any other option.
The four of them ended up in a perfectly normal office in midtown, but as soon as they got there Neal broke away, (Peter half-heartedly calling after her), with that expression she usually had when doing something ill-advised for the adrenaline rush. She was probably climbing the lift shaft, or maybe the outside of the building, although it had looked like sheer glass when Diana glanced up at it when they arrived.
The three agents got slowed down by the security, while Neal disappeared into the shadows, like she usually did, but rarely in a brightly lit foyer with white tiles and silver reflections everywhere.
By the time they made it to the offices of Pullman & Barrow, Barrow was staring out over the city, his face—haunted. His eyes a little blank.
Pullman had tears streaming down his face as he pulled paper files from filing cabinets.
“Don’t worry,” Neal said, “I didn’t let anyone touch their computers. They got a heads up from security, though.”
The other office members were corralled in the centre of the room, their cellphones in a pile on one of the desks. They were all standing, except for one of the older women who had been allowed a swivel chair from one of the desks.
“I didn’t do anything wrong—“ one of the younger workers said, as Diana moved towards the group of them.
“You are stealing from the weak with words and paperwork, tricks and lies,” Neal said, glancing over her shoulder at the group. Her hair was like black fire. Something alive, that could consume things if they felt in.
“You’re melodramatic for a cop,” the same office worker said.
“You have no idea,” Peter agreed, bending over Barrow’s desk.
Barrow just sat there, face blank, until Peter grabbed hold of the arms of his chair and pushed him out of the way of the desk.
Sometimes the really rich bastards who had been successful at their cons for decades were so very sure they’d never get caught that the shock set in before the denials and claims of innocence.
That was a little creepy, though, Diana thought, staring straight ahead wherever Peter moved him.
He was almost shivering. They’d probably have to call in paramedics if he didn’t snap out of it soon.
Neal was in his sightline, and Diana glanced back at her.
She was smiling at Barrow. Soft and welcoming and so many lies all tangled together. Barrow’s facial muscles were getting even more slack, his whole face empty, not just his eyes. Like there was nothing else left of him.
Diana stepped between Neal and Barrow, breaking their eye-contact, and raised an eyebrow.
Neal laughed, and then moved to prowl around the room, moving from shadow to shadow.
She stopped near an oil painting of a dark city scape in the rain, showing off some of Gotham’s distinctive Art Deco skyline.
Neal kept twisting her head, tilting it as she examined small reflections off the varnish and examined the paint strokes.
It was an unsettling painting, almost seven feet long and four high. It stretched across some strange amalgamation of impressionism and surrealism, so Diana couldn’t tell if something was meant to be real, or if it was just a reflection in a puddle, or a ghastly monster rising from the city’s depths. It was deep, and uncanny. Diana couldn’t look away, but didn’t quite want to focus on any particular part of it either.
“This is mine,” Neal announced, making to take the painting off the wall, though it was too big to be handled by one person.
“That is a genuine de Graff, from 1936. I’ve got provenance papers,” said Barrow’s PA.
Neal laughed, high and a little uncanny, running her finger just along the bottom edge with a possessive and confident flair.
“We’ll see.”
Diana kept glancing back at the painting, and Neal standing possessively beside it while Peter read them their rights, and got everything in order.
She always looked magnificent, but her hair matched that corner of the painting so masterfully that sometimes it seemed like she’d sunk into it, or stepped out of it.
It was almost like staring too long at a Dali and then being confused that clocks were ordered shapes the next time you saw one.
Neal beside that painting looked like some of the lines of her face got twisted. A little sharper. Perhaps they were protruding, or maybe falling deeper into the painting, depending on Diana’s angle as she moved around the room.
Neal was a truly skilled conwoman, if she could successfully act her way into a painting.
Most of the office workers were sent home within half an hour, since they didn’t have them in the arrest warrant, and then it was just Diana and Neal.
Neal stepped out of the painting as Jones and Peter led Barrow and Pullman out of the office, both of them sobbing now.
“Was that really one of your forgeries, Neal?” Diana asked as she was packing up some of the files while Peter supervised the transfer of custody of the leaders downstairs. “The painting of Gotham?”
Neal turned to her, eyes dark and glittering. Smug.
“Well, it was certainly acquired from a family called Ludwig, who wouldn’t have parted with it voluntarily. Does it matter if I painted it?”
“We’ll take the painting, too,” Diana said with a sigh.
Neal winked, with a little flicker of tongue just visible on her upper lip.
Diana wanted to be pressed up against that painting, melting into it while Neal ravaged her.
Fuck. It was unreasonable how hot Neal was when being a criminal.
Christie would know if she asked her to wear a hat in bed. Damn.
June welcomed Neal home, taking her hat as she came in. She was glowing with self-satisfaction after her day at the office.
“That boyfriend of yours has been doing improbable amounts of exercise all day,” June said, like she was telling a secret.
“He’s always been quite energetic,” Neal agreed.
“He was doing lunges in the upstairs hallway, and lifting things which shouldn’t be lifted. I set him to work helping me move around all the furniture in the rose study, just so I could watch him work.”
“I’m glad you’ve been entertaining him. It’s been a while since he’s had a day off.”
“I do hope I haven’t worn him out for your purposes.”
Neal laughed, her hair bouncing with the movement.
“He’s very resilient, and always willing to give me his all. Usually for a few hours before he starts begging.”
June bit her lip, because that sounded very intriguing indeed. Young people had so much energy, it was a marvel to watch.
“Jason is a lovely boy,” June agreed. “You should keep him.”
“Oh yes. He’s been mine for years.”
June followed Neal to the internal stairs up to her apartment.
“I don’t suppose you could hide all his t-shirts the next time he has a day off?”
Neal smiled conspiratorially, and winked.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
June watched as Neal’s girlfriend left the next day. She was so pretty, and vibrated with something fierce, so very well-matched to those moods that Neal sometimes got into, when it felt like he was more likely to do violence than smile his way out of a situation.
There was something about her that June couldn’t quite remember clearly enough to articulate. She was a little hard to look at, in some way that she couldn’t quite place.
Maybe June was just feeling nostalgic, and a little self-pitying, as she looked at the exuberance of youth (especially after hearing some of what they got up to in the night).
Diana readjusted her computer screen so it wasn’t providing the little slice of easy view to Neal’s desk. Why on earth had she wanted to keep an eye on Neal all of yesterday? Neal had been incredible when they went to Pullman & Barrow’s offices, but why had she been just looking over every other minutes when they were in the office?
Why had she been so horny for Neal?
They probably all need a relaxing weekend.
That had been such a strange day. What an absolutely strange day, even discounting Tyler’s sudden collapse in the bullpen.
She hadn’t had such a strong moment of gay panic since she watched Magic Mike and been inexplicably attracted to one of the extremely pretty men (at least the actor was gay, so it made her feel a little less weird to be ogling him). It’s not like she wanted to do anything about it, but Matt Bomer was very pretty.
Was it still gay panic if she had a moment of inexplicably straight attraction? Or was it straight panic? Well, she was panicking about her gay credentials, so gay panic still seemed like the right choice, linguistically.
Diana looked over at Neal’s desk again. Those huge, muscular shoulders that looked surprisingly neat as an illusion caused by the slim cut of his suits. He was nice to look at, in the same way as a neo-classical sculpture. He had impressive muscles, and a very nice cut to his jaw, but she was firmly gay today. Those thighs could crush her, but today she wasn’t really very interested in being crushed, as much as she vividly remembered wanting to be ruined against that strange painting in the office yesterday.
He was definitely still Jones’s not-so-secret type, but she must have been ridiculously horny to have been so thoroughly distracted by Neal yesterday.
Maybe it was just that time of the month. Biology could be weird that way.
The genuine de Graff (or perhaps the genuine Caffrey) painting they had confiscated from the Pullman & Barrow offices went missing within the week.
Diana knew that Neal had done it, but his tracking data showed him in all the normal places, and nowhere near the off-site FBI storage locker.
“Couldn’t you have just forged another copy?” Diana asked Neal, once Peter had left off steam and huffed off to his own office to try and figure out how Neal had managed it without even knowing what off-site FBI storage location it had been kept in.
“It’s got sentimental meaning.” Neal said, his green eyes glowing bright.
Diana remembered how Neal had seemed to sink into that mass of dark paint, and could just about remember seeing the glow of his eyes against the black.
“My girlfriend likes originals.”
“You said you’d forged it?”
“Hmmm, I’m sure I didn’t.” Neal said. “I’d never admit to a felony like that in front of an astute FBI agent.”
Diana spent twenty minutes looking over photographs of the now lost de Graff.
It really was one of the most Neal paintings she’d ever seen.