Work Text:
“He loves me” Dick tore off a corner from the form he was supposed to be working on, “he loves me not” another rip.
“He loves me.”
Rip.
“He loves me not.”
Rip.
“He loves-”
“Oh for god’s sake Neal, will you please stop it.”
The sudden sound of Peter’s voice startled Dick back into the present.
He sent one of his patented Neal smirks the agent’s way, “Hey Peter, what’s up?”
“Neal, look I know you don’t like the paperwork, but we do need to make sure that everything is filed properly. At the very least please tell me that the forms you’ve taken to systematically destroying were at least set for the shredder?”
Dick had in fact made sure of it, but Neal would never admit that “Whatever helps you sleep at night Peter.”
“Neal, don’t make this any harder than it needs to be, please. I promised El I’d be home for dinner tonight and that’s not going to happen if you keep messing around. I’d offer to let you fill out the expense reports, but the powers that be are still feeling tetchy about letting you on FBI networks after that stunt you pulled.”
Dick straightened up in his chair, he knew his handler had a point. Besides, it wasn’t as if he didn’t have Wally waiting for him back at June’s. It almost made him regret having shown off his digital skills a little, almost.
Their case had already run them far longer than anyone on the team had liked, Peter had started slipping back into the same sort of obsessive habits he’d supposedly had while tracking Neal Caffrey. Then, after well over a month of cat and mouse games, of always arriving at the scene just slightly too late, Dick had gotten frustrated enough that he’d taken the situation into his own hands.
He still had time left to do at the FBI, his mission wasn’t finished yet, so he couldn’t go all out the way he desperately wished he could. He might not have been the kind of tech prodigy that Babs was, or that Tim was shaping up to be with Oracle’s guidance, but he definitely wasn’t shabby.
The database that their crew had been using to coordinate their heists hadn’t posed much of a challenge. Not when he realized that it ran on a similar line of encryption that Two-Face’s gang often liked using when they were trying to keep the Bats out.
It hadn’t been until after he told the team what he’d learned and how he’d found it that he remembered that Neal Caffrey wasn’t supposed to like computers at all. Let alone have the sorts of skills needed to find and exploit security loopholes.
He’d nearly been dragged in front of a parole board for his actions, even if it’d led to the team finally being able to apprehend the ring that had been giving them the runabout. In the end however, he’d been spared the stress of wondering if his cover would survive when Hughes and Peter decided that while they were certainly upset, he’d hidden this particular skillset from them, it was still in line with the non-violent image they had of Neal and was removed enough from the kinds of crimes he’d been suspected and ‘convicted’ of that they could let it go. But it had been made very clear that he was not to touch any FBI issued devices for the foreseeable future or at least until he had re-earned the trust of his handler.
Dick nodded, “I get it Peter. Now, you can stand there staring at me to make me do my work, or you can go back and do the expense reports while I get to actually filing these alright? And then both of us can go home at a reasonable hour.”
“Thank you, Neal. Honestly, if we put our heads down it’ll take an hour, hour and a half at most.” Peter replied, before starting towards his office, stopping before he made it too far from Dick’s desk like he’d suddenly thought of something.
“Neal?”
“Yes Peter?”
“Do you want to join me and El for dinner? I can’t imagine you’re looking forward to going home and-”
“It’s alright Peter. Thanks for the offer but you don’t have to worry about me. I’ve got plans for company. Don’t let me interrupt your date night.”
With a small smile and a nod Peter continued on his way, made it to his office, and pulled the door shut behind him.
Dick knew what Peter had assumed. He’d have probably guessed (incorrectly) that Mozzie would be over. But Dick didn’t mind. He’d rather Peter assume that than have to explain to his handler that Neal Caffrey had friends who Neal had no way of ever having met. Or explain that Neal ‘chronic and incorrigible flirt’ Caffrey had been in a committed relationship for longer than the name had existed (and again, that said partner was someone who Neal Caffrey had absolutely no reason whatsoever to know)/
So, considering that, Dick was happy to let his handler assume things for now. Maybe someday he’d be able to tell the truth, explain why he’d infiltrated the FBI, what other skills he’d never told them about. Watch as Peter had to process that the criminal that he’d so proudly caught and then befriended was never real to begin with.
But for now, he had to do the file sorting, and then Wally was waiting for him back at June’s.