Chapter Text
Peter raked a hand through his hair, frustration bleeding from the motion as his fingernails tore at his scalp.
El was going to kill him, he thought. No, he knew. His lovely, wonderful wife who he most definitely would never deserve in a million years was going to string him up by his underwear and leave him for the crows.
She’d spent the past week making preparations for a special date night for the two of them. There was this new caterer that she’d been hiring more and more, and with some sort of event that she was planning happening this upcoming week, she and Peter would get to try out the meal selection she’d decided on.
They hadn’t had a date night in what had seemed like forever, so he knew that El would be devastated– not that she’d ever let her disappointment show, she was too good for that– if he turned up late, the catering food that she’d been so excited for Peter to try cold and needing a microwave to taste edible.
Peter hated when she had to microwave dinner for him after he got home late. He didn’t mind the taste by any means, but El prided herself on her cooking, and insisted that anything microwaved just didn’t taste as good. So when he got home late, and saw that tiredness in her eyes and the tightness in her neck, Peter always felt guilty that he couldn’t eat El’s food, praise her work, in a way that his wife deserved.
He’d spent the week getting ahead on all the mortgage fraud paperwork just so he wouldn’t have to stay late tonight, as he usually ended up doing on Fridays. Unfortunately, as always, there was still some sort of paperwork and stupid filing that had turned up last minute. He had only a half hour left until the unofficial end of the workday (the actual workday had ended around thirty minutes ago), when all that paperwork would need to be finished and sent out so the rest of the bureaucracy could keep running as unsmoothly as it always did.
But this damn filing cabinet—
“Damnit!” Peter cursed under his breath as he jerked at the drawer again, but it just wouldn’t open. He usually tried to avoid using foul language, but El was going to be so disappointed if he was late for the fifth Friday in a row . . .
“Peter?” He looked up to find Neal, prim and proper in his suit as always, looking at him strangely. Something Peter could’ve sworn was fondness was playing at the edges of his mouth. “Everything okay?”
Peter wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about their new resident CI. Peter had been chasing the ghost of a conman for the better part of five years; he liked to think that he probably knew the enigma that was Neal Caffrey better than most people. Unfortunately, knowing him better than most people did not mean knowing him well. Neal Caffrey was still an enigma.
He could lose a tail better than anyone Peter had ever met, regularly flirted with danger like he still did with half of the White Collar office, passed out lollipops to federal agents, and sent expensive wine baskets to the doors of FBI surveillance vans.
Sure, Peter had caught him. But he still found himself wondering if he’d actually caught Caffrey, or if Caffrey had wanted to be caught.
After all, Neal had spent two years locked up in Sing Sing only to break free in a single afternoon after receiving a mysterious letter. Peter found him twelve hours later, in the most emotional state he’d ever seen the normally collected conman in, and yet Peter still couldn’t tell you if it was an act or not.
He hadn’t put up a fight when Peter had taken him back to Sing Sing, but he had come back two weeks later from what Peter later found out was one of the greatest heartbreaks of his life with a fully thought-out, detailed plan to become Peter’s CI after catching half of a federal agent’s comment about a case Peter had been stuck on for a bit.
Neal hadn’t broken any rules yet; he’d found loopholes, sure enough, but Peter really hadn’t been expecting anything else from the man he probably knew almost as well as he knew El.
But Peter was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Neal to slip up and show him that this was all just another elaborate con only to disappear into a crowd and for Peter to never see him again.
Peter huffed. “I’m fine. Just this damn–” Peter gave his not-working key another harsh jiggle in the lock. “—filing cabinet,” he complained, before sighing and jerking his key out yet again.
Neal’s brow smoothed out as he considered the problem. “I see,” he hummed. “I might be able to help with that,” he offered.
Peter stood, his knees creaking as he rose from the crouch he’d been settled in for the past five minutes. He lightly kicked the filing cabinet as he straightened. “I doubt it,” he said. “I think the locks were just changed earlier this week, when we were checking out that museum. Looks like they forgot to update the rest of us,” he added wryly.
Neal chuckled. “We both know locks aren’t much of a problem for me, Peter,” the conman said, causing Peter to sigh. Not a direct admission of guilt, so he couldn’t really do anything about it and get the man on more than just bond forgery.
“Neal–” He warned, though it probably sounded more like he was scolding a small child.
“My offer has a limited warranty,” Neal only replied. “Going once, going twice—”
“Fine,” Peter groaned, holding out the key. “See what you can do,” he said with a nod.
Neal scoffed at the key. “Thanks, but no thanks,” he said, reaching in his hair and pulling out what looked to be—
“Is that a bobby pin?” Peter asked. Why did Neal have bobby pins in his hair?
“Yep,” Neal grinned, the motion smooth, practiced, and only a little bit fake at the edges. “A wise person once told me it’s a good idea to keep them on you at all times,” he said.
“That someone wouldn’t happen to be El, would it?” Peter asked. He was well aware of the fact that ever since Neal had joined White Collar about a month ago, the con still hadn’t let go of his little habit of dropping by and visiting his wife. Peter probably should have been more worried about that then he was, with the sort of man Neal was, but he found that he wasn’t really worried about it at all.
Neal chuckled as he knelt in front of the filing cabinet and began to mess with the lock, his tongue sticking out slightly from around his teeth as he worked at it. Peter was interested to note the brief look of concentration on the normally unserious man’s face that disappeared as quickly as he unlocked the cabinet.
“For once, this wise person was not El,” Neal conceded as he gave the drawer a jiggle and pulled it out. “Here you go,” he smiled.
“You do know that breaking into FBI property is a federal offence, right?” Peter asked wryly, like he hadn’t been the one to ask Neal to do so, watching all the while.
“So is allegedly watching it happen,” Neal winked as he stepped aside. Peter began to search through the folders for what he was looking for, discreetly blocking Neal’s line of vision to the file names. “Besides, it’s not like it was actually locked. It was just stuck. One could say I was actually fixing federal property,” he said. “Allegedly,” he added a belated second later.
Peter heaved another sigh as he searched quicker through the files. Not all of them were in order, and he was currently cursing the bloodline of whoever was responsible. “Damnit,” he cursed under his breath again just as Neal was starting to turn back. “Where is it?”
“What are you looking for?” Neal asked curiously, earning a stern look from Peter. “Right, right. Important FBI stuff,” he said with his palms up. “But what’s the rush? Hot date with El tonight?”
“Actually,” Peter said with a hint of triumph as he pulled out the files he needed. “Yes! And yes, I do. Unfortunately,” he said as he stood up, kicking the filing cabinet closed with more than a hint of spite, “It looks like I’ll be late.”
Neal hummed apologetically. “Tough luck.”
“Worst part is,” Peter said as they started making their way out of the storage room (Why was Neal in here in the first place?), “It’s just last-minute, lost mortgage fraud,” he complained.
“Mortgage fraud?” Neal asked, and Peter nodded. “Let me get this straight. You’re missing your super hot date with El . . . for mortgage fraud?”
“Unfortunately.”
Neal sighed. “Give it here,” he said, holding a hand out.
Peter looked at him quizzically. “What for?” he asked suspiciously.
Neal rolled his eyes, the action making him look years younger than the probably-30 that his driver license had him as. “Relax, Peter. If it’s just mortgage fraud, give it to me so you can be on time for your date.”
Peter looked at Neal for a long time. “But you hate mortgage fraud,” he said slowly.
Neal huffed. “Yes, and? I’ve also probably made you late for I don’t know how many dates with El over the last, what, seven years? I think I owe you one.”
Peter didn’t really know what to say, so he just handed over the paperwork. “Thank you,” he finally replied as they got back to their desks, remembering what El would tell him about his manners.
Peter grabbed his coat and left the CI filling out the paperwork behind him. He was looking forward to his date with El.