White Collar Fic: Safety Net

[nefhiriel]

Safety Net
Rating: PG (whump)
Characters: Neal, Peter, Elizabeth, Mozzie, June
Summary: Sometimes friends can get you into trouble, but the important thing is that in the end they're there to pick you back up.
A/N: Written for vesperwhisper, for collarcorner's ficswap. Hope I've managed to make you a cuppa what you like! :3 Thanks to imbecamiel for the encouragement and beta'ing.

***

“I really wish I'd brought an umbrella.”

Neal's pointed words echoed down the narrow stairway. He was breathing heavily, more from adrenaline than exertion. He was a strong runner, and so far he'd only had to sprint down several flights of stairs. It was the angry report of a handgun being fired, and the whir-and-splinter of bullets-the unmistakable sensation of several close calls-that had sent his breathing into an inefficient pattern of shallow gulps.

If the gunfire hadn't informed Peter it was time to put in an appearance, then Neal's liberal use of the activation word-“umbrella”-should've sent backup in five minutes ago. Then again, maybe Greer had only gone berserk thirty seconds ago, and Peter and Diana were just exiting the van now. Neal felt justifiably impatient.

He reached the landing and firmly blotted out panic with dispassionate rational thought. Without slowing, he forced himself take more air into his lungs with each inhalation.

There were footsteps pounding the stairs above. Neal prepared to plunge down the next flight of stairs. But then there were footsteps pounding from below, and the raised voices weren't the welcome sound of rescue.

He pivoted, noting the bold red “6” on the door as he hastily pulled it open, surging into the dim hallway. Options were getting scarce. Elevator-out of commission. Stairs-out of the question. That left...

“Fire escape,” he breathed. Then, for the benefit of the mic, he lifted the watch at his wrist closer to his mouth and repeated the words emphatically. But even as he said it, his mind was scrambling to supply solid facts instead of frenzied assumptions. He'd been in similar situations before. Situations where you couldn't afford to either delay or make snap decisions. You could only afford to make the right decision, and fast. It required a contradictory measure of hasty clear-mindedness: a trained impulse to act only when his instincts told him he'd found his answer, but to do so then without hesitation.

South. The fire escape was on the south side of the building. He'd seen it on his way in, without really seeing it, automatically cataloging it as a possible escape route.

It took several more precious seconds to regain a sense of direction, and come to the gut verdict that he was facing west. He turned left. The room was empty, like the rest of the unoccupied, moldy-smelling building. There was only one window, with grimy rivulets making tracks down the glass. The lock was rusty, and the window would hardly budge enough for Neal to stick his upper body through. But it was enough. He saw that the fire escape was three windows away, to his right.

He could hear the calls coming from the stairway as he fled further down the hall. The banging of the door spurred him on as he struggled with the lock on the second window. It wasn't much more cooperative than the first. He wriggled through the space its opening allowed, wincing as he broke his fall onto the metal platform with his hands. The rain was instantly drenching.

He was about to turn and close the window again, in the hopes that it would cover his tracks. But Greer's loud curse informed him that the man was too near-possibly in the room he'd just left, or in the hallway immediately without-and he scrambled to his feet, beginning a rapid descent.

Suddenly Greer was shouting from above. Neal ignored him, the meaning of his words swallowed by the sound of rain. That was, presuming Greer was being coherent to begin with.

The bullets were harder to ignore. Greer's shot pinged off the metal railing beside him, and Neal jerked away reflexively. As a result, his next step landed awkwardly, sending him stumbling gracelessly forward with continued momentum.

That flight of stairs he took extra rapidly-and he met the grating below face-first. For a mind-reeling moment there was simply no air to be had. Then there was air returning, and pain discovered, and a belated yelp was pummeled out of him by surprise.

Regardless, his brain instantly demanded that he get back up and move. The fire spreading across his chest argued to the contrary, but the angry vibrations of heavy footfalls rattling the metal framework encouraged him to seek a compromise. Pushing himself up with his arms, he gained his knees, squinting through the water now streaming down his face. He groped for the cold, rain-slicked handrail to pull himself upright, and stumbled for the next flight of stairs. He managed it, miraculously and clumsily, left arm hugging his ribs.

Another landing. Another flight of stairs. Greer's oaths getting nearer. The gun fired again, pain searing Neal's arm, and he sucked in a sharp breath, spluttering on rainwater. He forced clumsy feet to keep finding the next stair, and then the next.

Then, abruptly, he found himself the last landing, staring down the square opening in the grating, this time at a vertical ladder. He didn't have the luxury of time to stop and examine the extent of the damage to his throbbing shoulder. Depending on adrenaline to numb his body's complaints, he began white-knuckling his way down the slippery rungs.

Halfway down, he felt the bolts that kept the ladder fastened to the side of the building begin to give. Simultaneously, he heard Greer's bellow directly above him and looked up. While Greer's words continued to be overwhelmed by the sound of rain, the gun aimed at him was translation enough.

Reactionary backpedaling, plus a slippery ladder, was an equation doomed for catastrophe. Add unreliable bolts to make things interesting and a free ride with gravity, ending in a breath-stopping conversation with the ground, was all yours. As he impacted, Neal felt his left leg take the brunt of the inertia, the foot torquing out at an unnatural angle, the anklet's restricting band contributing to the awkwardness of the landing. The result was screaming pain that made his vision dim and his muscles paralyze. He was lying on the unforgiving pavement, soaked through, and for the moment incapable of caring about anything outside his radius of agony.

Then Peter was screaming something against the rain, too, and there was gunfire. Relief, however, was an emotion that merely blipped as a feeble consideration at the back of his mind, flat-lining as he focused instead on expanding his lungs with air. It was a fight against the immobilizing pain of each angry stab radiating up his leg.

He swore aloud when a hand touched his shoulder, interrupting the rhythm of precisely enforced inhalations and exhalations. He'd been beginning to pull himself together, and now the hand had to go and ruin things, making him jerk away in surprise, only to bemoan his own actions when they elicited a punishing spasm from left leg that seemed to travel like an electric current straight up his spinal column.

He must have cried out, or otherwise managed to draw attention to himself, because someone was shushing him. Peter was shushing him. But not, Neal thought, as if he actually meant it. It sounded more like he didn't know what else to say.

As if to belatedly accommodate him, the rain was lessening. Neal squinted up, blinking away the occasional spatter on his face. He realized he was on his back, Peter's hand under his neck, and Peter's face hovering above him.

“What took you so long?” would've been the easiest cliché to brandish. Instead, Neal opted for the blunt and obvious, croaking, “That hurt.”

Peter laughed: the sound of released tension. “We'll have the trampoline ready next time,” he joked weakly.

“Greer?” Neal economized on words, trusting Peter to fill in the blanks.

“Dead.” Apparently, Peter was being thrifty with his own words. “An ambulance is on its way.” His gaze scanned Neal. “Where are you hurt?”

Neal wanted to backtrack, to demand the details that surrounded Greer's new status. He also felt in a frame of mind to tirade over the fact that by all rights it should be obvious exactly what the source of his pain was, without the need for an explanation. But at least Peter's question told him that his leg was still attached, and presumably not twisted around quite backwards.

In the end, all these irrational, internal rantings came out almost meekly. “My leg. Left...leg. And ribs, and shoulder,” he added as an afterthought.

Peter nodded, and he patted Neal's thigh tentatively in token reassurance. The wince in his eyes was not lost on Neal, as his attention was drawn, and temporarily kept, by Neal's left leg. Maybe it wasn't so firmly attached, after all. “The EMTs will be here any minute. We'll just...wait for them.”

Not-quite-panic was growing in Neal's pain-hazed brain. He tried an experimental wiggle of the toes on his left foot, instantly regretted it, and tattled on himself with a stuttering gasp that ended in a whimper.

Peter scolded him, colorfully, and this time he meant it. “Neal,” he growled. “Hold still until they get here.”

Neal focused on his breathing again, but felt the inane need to keep Peter talking. Or to talk at Peter. Any kind of aimless prattle was better than lying there stupidly like a fledging bird who'd jumped too early from the nest, and wound up splattered on the sidewalk. “Think...the anklet might be a little...worse for wear, too,” he panted. Neal didn't pretend to be too remorseful. He could feel plastic biting into the skin around his ankle, and wondered if the tracker had managed to shatter and cut him through the sock.

He didn't really expect Peter to take his complaint seriously. But Peter instantly turned to make a closer inspection. Neal felt him lift the hem of his pants leg, and tried to raise his own head from the ground enough to peer down at his feet. Not that he could see anything past Peter's hunched-over back.

Peter muttered a discrete oath of dissatisfaction at whatever he saw.

“My foot's still there, right?” Neal joked, too urgently.

“Yeah. It's still there.” The absent-minded consideration in Peter's tone wasn't exactly the kind of overwhelmingly positive affirmation Neal had wanted to hear. He continued in the same vein of squarely honest bedside manners, “I'm going to have to get the tracker off before that ankle swells up and it does any damage.”

Peter's touch on his ankle made Neal yelp in indignation. “A little warning, huh?”

“Relax.”

“I was.” Neal clenched his teeth. He felt vulnerable, nauseated, humiliated, and prepared to bite someone's head off at the slightest provocation.

Peter sat back on his haunches, reaching up to swipe at the beads of water tracking down his face. “I think I'll wait until you've had something for the pain.”

Neal let his head loll back against the cool cement. Peter would get no argument from him there.

“Peter?” he rasped, as the encouraging wail of an ambulance could faintly be heard. “I really...really wish I'd brought that umbrella.” The attempt at humor wasn't quite successful. He sounded far too plaintively serious about it, for one thing.

Peter just gave his shoulder a light squeeze, and Neal realized that with Peter leaning over him he was already effectively sheltered from the storm.

***

“Stop hovering, Moz.”

Mozzie sat as directed, but looked just as restless perched on the edge of the chair as he had looked hovering next to the couch.

They were silent for several minutes before Mozzie began to blurt: “I could-”

“-If you so much as try to fluff my pillow, I swear I'll break your arm.”

Instead of retaliating against Neal's curt interruption, Mozzie looked down at his knees. “You, ah...need something for the pain?”

“What I need is for you to...” Neal broke off, shaking his head in exasperation. “What's gotten into you? I broke my leg, not my neck. The bullet wound was superficial-if a scratch can even be called a 'wound.'”

“And don't forget the broken ribs.” Mozzie made it sound almost like a reprimand.

Neal turned his head on the pillow enough to give him a look full of incredulity. “Right-I'd almost forgotten. They only hurt when I breathe.”

Mozzie didn't look up. “Pain pill? I can get you a glass of milk.”

“What you can do is sit there, and tell me why you've been going around walking on egg shells ever since I came home from the ER last night. I'm not going to be running any marathons any time soon, but I'm not on my deathbed.”

“Couch. Death couch,” Mozzie corrected humbly.

“Mozzie.” Neal fought the rising exasperation. “What's going on? If you don't tell me, I'm going to get up and kick your-”

“-No!” Mozzie's alarm seemed to have less to do with the actual threat, and more to do with desperation to keep Neal on his death couch. He made a calming, palms-out gesture that was clearly meant to keep Neal where he was, Jedi mind-trick style. “Just...relax, Neal.”

“Then tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Are you seriously trying to con me, Moz? Come on. You look...” Neal frowned, examining Mozzie and his averted gaze and realizing aloud, “You look guilty.” Either that, or ashamed, which made just as little sense. Mozzie took pride in his “trade.” Guilt was a new look for him. Whatever he'd done...

“Fine. If you must know...” Mozzie looked up with the dignified resolve of a self-condemned man making his confession. “I'm responsible for your near-death.”

“Don't you think you're exaggerating just a little? I mean, it wasn't like-”

“-You had a maniac shooting at you with intent to kill?”

“Alright. I'll give you that.”

Mozzie dropped his face into his palm with a groan of misery. “It could've just as easily been your neck you landed on, instead of your ankle.”

“But it wasn't.”

Mozzie wasn't consoled. “God, Neal...”

“Would you mind telling me exactly why this is all your fault? Because I'm fairly sure it was Greer chasing me. And I've got to tell you, Moz, if you start taking credit for every freak accident I get caught up in, this could get pretty old, pretty fast, for both of us.” He already had Peter “sneaking” guilt-laced glances of concern at him, because clearly he should've known Greer was about to snap, and thus should have refused to let Neal make the meet.

“But it wasn't a freak accident.” Mozzie wasn't wringing his hands yet, but the restraint looked like it was by force of will only. “I've met Greer before.”

“Okay...”

“He hates my guts. By extension and association, I'm presuming he hates yours.” He grimaced. “Hated.”

“What did you do? Steal his girlfriend?”

“Worse,” Mozzie confessed gravely. “His Matisse. You and I were working together at the time-on an unrelated project. But Greer must've seen you with me, and assumed the theft was a joint operation too.”

“Ah.” Neal was beginning to see the picture. The painting, that was. Come to think of it, Greer's face had looked vaguely familiar. Neal had thought it was merely “I may have seen his picture somewhere” recollection, though he couldn’t pinpoint where at the time.

Mozzie waited a minute before erupting with clear outrage: “Ah? That's all you have to say? Ah?”

Neal turned his head again to look directly at him. “We both have our enemies from the past, Moz. If you're looking for absolution, you can have it.”

Mozzie opened his mouth, paused, and then shook his head. “You're not making this easy.”

Actually, that was exactly what Neal had thought he was doing. He leaned head back against the pillow, chuckling. “What do you want me to say, Moz? I'll never forgive you? Get out of my sight?”

“That would be a start.”

Another chuckle was on the rise, but Neal forced it back down. Mozzie's misery was clearly heartfelt.
“You couldn't have known.”

“No.”

“I don't blame you.”

“Okay.”

“As penance you can restock my wine cellar.”

“Ha.”

Neal raised an eyebrow. “No, seriously.”

Mozzie pretended to huff a put-upon sigh. “Fine. Deal.”

After that things returned to normal between them. Or at least to that relative state of “normal” that was just obscurely achievable in any equation that involved Mozzie.

Around five o'clock Elizabeth arrived with take-out. Good, Italian take-out-not pizza-that made Mozzie instantly brighten.

“Mrs. Suit,” he said, removing the cover from a tinfoil pan to reveal Shrimp Primavera, “you are a goddess among women.”

Elizabeth smiled an easy, expressive smile, returning with amusement: “And you are a flatterer among the starving, Moz.”

Having limped to the dining room table with the aid of his crutches and the enticement of the smell of wine sauce, Neal docilely allowed Elizabeth to pamper him by giving him first dibs on selection as she and Mozzie began to dole out the food.

June, who had already brought to the table glasses and trivets and to place the food on, now returned bearing a pitcher. She and Elizabeth had been going about things in a seamless manner that suggested they'd been in cahoots all along.

“Grape juice?” Mozzie commented pointedly, horror only barely politely concealed.

June gave him a stern look. “Unless I am mistaken, pain medication and alcohol do not generally mix well.” Implied in her tone was a warning against the ill-mannered idea of insisting upon a luxury the “invalid” in their presence was forbidden.

“I haven't taken anything since this morning,” Neal interjected. All eyes turned on him: three variations of distinct disapproval. “What? It doesn't hurt.”

June sighed a grandmotherly sigh of equal parts exasperation and partiality. She left the pitcher on the table, returning several minutes later with a bottle of wine, already uncorked. He must've smiled a bit too smugly, because she immediately stipulated: “One glass. You may need those prescribed pills later this evening.”

The meal thus saved from catastrophe, Mozzie prepared to devour with a will. He scowled when the doorbell rang, heralding Peter's arrival. Judging by his surprised expression as he was ushered into the feast, he had not been in cahoots. Which didn't mean he missed a beat when offered a large slice of lasagna.

“Companionable” might have fit the general atmosphere-except there was Mozzie, whose prowess with a non sequitur was such that a conversation that included him never suffered from normalcy. But they were decidedly comfortable. The conversation wasn't the sort of stiff, superficial kind you pulled out for company. Elizabeth and June laughed easily. Mozzie ranted steadily, almost cheerfully, about several prime conspiracy theories, making it impossible for any awkward silence to creep in.

Peter rolled his eyes occasionally, also without heat, as he contentedly consumed his piece of lasagna and started in on a second. As for Neal, he found himself falling asleep-not that he noticed until June said, “Neal, dear, you look exhausted,” and he realized that he was.

With that, the party began to break up. Absolved and pleasantly buzzed, Mozzie indicated the need to leave so he could get a decent night's sleep before tomorrow's “crucial business meeting,” and June showed him to the door. Neal could hear them in the hall arranging their next game of Parcheesi. Elizabeth mentioned needing to hurry home to let Satchmo out, but first stopped to say goodnight to Neal, armed with a glass of orange juice and one of the pain pills.

Neal looked over the rim of the glass at Peter, who stood watching him with open disgruntlement.

“What?”

“If I'd tried what she just tried, I'd have a fight on my hands.”

Neal smiled sweetly. “You never offer me orange juice with my pain pills.”

“So orange juice is the key, huh?”

“Nope.”

“No?”

“Being Elizabeth is the key.”

“Watch it. She's my Elizabeth.”

“Be nice, hun!” Elizabeth called from the hall.

“Yeah, be nice, Peter,” Neal agreed. “Elizabeth says.”

Peter sat with an aloof look of warning, adult to toddler. “How's the leg?”

“You're not going to be getting an anklet on it any time soon.”

“Don't look so hopeful. You've got two legs.”

Neal arranged his features into the perfect composition of hurt and reproach. “I don't even get a day off? For nearly being killed in the line of action? All things considered...”

“I didn't put it on while you were in the ER, or last night while you were unconscious, now did I?”

“You're all heart, Peter.”

Peter reached into the pocket of his overcoat, draped over the arm of the chair, and pulled out the new tracker in question. “Only the latest and greatest.”

“You shouldn't have bothered. Really.” Neal shifted uncomfortably, and the wince his aching ribs gave cause to wasn't acting. But, taking in Peter's expression of hesitancy by means of a sidelong glance, Neal saw that the scales were beginning to tip in his favor.

But, instead of doing what any self-respecting con man would do, Neal reached down to snatch the blankets back, offering his uninjured leg with a martyred sigh. It wasn't Peter who was going soft around here.

“Neal...”

“Come on, Peter. Clap me in irons.”

“You know that I don't enjoy this.”

Neal grinned. “You live for this.”

Peter came forward to fasten the anklet, shaking his head, though he did smile just slightly at the joke. “So it gives me peace of mind. You can't say I'm paranoid without cause, buddy. But, I have to say, this time...” he glanced aside at Neal with something like apology, “I would've given you another night off.”

“I'd say the thought counts...” Neal trailed off meaningfully, moving his freshly tracker-secured ankle and scowling. “I notice you waited until Elizabeth left.”

“I choose life.”

“That's almost devious of you, Peter,” Neal allowed.

“There's nothing devious about surviving.”

“Yeah,” Neal nodded, understandingly, twitching the blankets back over his legs, “she definitely would've killed you.”

Peter “ha”d at the idea, reseating himself with a sigh. “So, how you holding up?”

A few years ago, Neal might've laughed aloud at the canned sound of Peter's question. That was what people said in feel-good chick flicks-cue the scene of over-studied and oh-so-casual concern. It had subtlety written all over it in a way that was anything but subtle.

Now, however, Neal merely had a private inward chuckle, and turned his face so he could study Peter better. As usual, it wasn't hard to gauge his mood. Concerned with a good chance of guilt. After weathering hurricane Mozzie, Neal wasn't ready to start over with Peter. It was time to do what Peter was incapable of doing with any mastery: blatant misdirection.

Neal closed his eyes against the just-manageable throb behind his eyes, breathing magnanimously, “Yeah, I forgive you. Just don't let it become a habit.”

“You, wearing the tracker?” Peter returned incredulously.

“Me, being shot.”

“Shot at, Neal.”

Neal continued undaunted. “Technically, being grazed by a bullet is still not what I'd call being missed. And that's not even to mention the fact that I was forced to leap from the fire escape.”

“You fell from the fire escape.”

Neal controlled a grimace. No matter how many stunts he'd pulled off successfully in the past, Peter was never going to let him live down that less than graceful swan dive. “I'd call it more of a rapid descent.” With an unexpectedly grand finale.

“So rapid, in fact, you broke your ankle.”

“Yeah, and it was excruciating, too. Thanks for the concern, Peter. I appreciate you staying behind to mock me.”

“What? You going to tell Elizabeth on me?”

“I might.”

Peter leaned forward to pat him condescendingly on the knee. “I'm sure she'll get you an ice pack.”

“She'll sock you in the shoulder is what she'll do, and then she’ll get me an ice pack.”

“Pain killers really do turn you into a six-year-old.”

Neal huffed. “And what's your excuse?”

“I am always the adult in these conversations.”

“If you have to point out your own maturity...”

Peter shook his head, amusement outweighing exasperation. But only by an increment. “Sounds like junior needs his beauty sleep.”

“Neal? Beauty sleep?” June inquired, entering the room. She paused to give Neal a maternal kiss on the forehead. “Never. But you do look as if you could use the rest, dear.”

“Would be asleep by now,” Neal mumbled, “but Peter stayed behind to ridicule me.”

June “hmm”d, sparing a look of faux admonition for Peter, before enjoining Neal, “I'll be on second floor if you need anything, Neal-or you, Peter.”

Neal let his eyes drift shut as he listened to her retreating footsteps. He could “hear” Peter scrutinizing him, and couldn't help adding to his petulance. “You know, Peter...everyone else has given up.” He gave a small, modest shrug of his shoulders, and let a smirk tug at his lips, all the while keeping his eyes closed. “They love me.”

Peter chuckled, loudly. “Oh, I love you, buddy. Like Monday morning, or like being held up in traffic for two hours-or like the flu season. You're inevitable.”

“Flu season, huh? I'm touched.”

“Alright,” Peter admitted grudging, “so you're not quite that bad. Most of the time.”

“Peter,” Neal enthused, with a half-stiffed yawn, “I think we just had a moment. That, I'm definitely telling Elizabeth.”

“Shut up and go to sleep,” Peter said gruffly.

Neal listened to the sounds of him standing. “Is this the part where you kiss me on the forehead, and tuck me in while I feign unconsciousness?”

“And look angelic, right?”

Neal smiled, not quite angelically, and let himself begin to drift. Sleep was easily found, but not quite before he'd felt the slight pressure and warmth of a hand lingering briefly on his shoulder.