Fic: The Proper Skill Set - White Collar/NCIS, Neal Caffrey/Tony DiNozzo, PG-13 (1/?)
Title: The Proper Skill Set
Author: nevcolleil
Fandom(s): White Collar/NCIS (AU)
Pairing: Neal Caffrey/Anthony DiNozzo
Rating: PG-13
Word Count (this part): 3463
Summary: When Neal met Tony. Part of the universe glimpsed in this drabble I wrote and also for tigriswolf who prompted the pairing.
It’s not like he goes into it planning for a long haul.
They meet at one of his stepmother’s “social engagements.” (That’s stepmother number 4. Or 5.) Dad asked Tony to go in his stead so Tony agreed. Partly it’s to get out of the house and stop feeling sorry for himself; partly it’s because he still feels guilty that step mom number 3 (?) tried to sleep with him - and for, like, half a second Tony considered it. (He’s had a tough year; his mind hasn’t been in the best place.)
It isn’t going badly. Dad can’t pick a wife to save his alimony payments but he sure can pick a tailor; Tony is looking good in his new tux and heads are turning.
That’s the start of the trouble.
The wine’s flowing freely, so Tony’s feeling good too. The limp is barely noticeable as a result. He’s grown his hair out a little since “taking a break” from his classes, but someone still recognizes him.
“Hey, aren’t you- You are. Honey, this here’s the best quarterback Boston U’s had in the last twenty years! It’s a shame about the knee, son.”
Things begin to go downhill.
At first, Tony manages to be discreet. There is always someone just out of sight that Tony has glimpsed and must hurry to catch up with. His stepmother has lost her purse and/or an irreplaceable item of jewelry.
But by the time Tony finds himself in the coatroom, it would be obvious to anyone who was looking… if anyone knew where to find him… that he is hiding from his would-be admirers.
It is also obvious that the guy “Mom’s” friend, Barb, hired to check coats is robbing all of her friends.
He doesn’t see Tony. Which might not say anything about his skills - after all, who expects a grown man to be hiding in the coat closet? That could account for his being painfully obvious about his criminal activities.
Or it could be that Tony’s just really good at spotting criminal activities. He’s never told anyone, but he’s been thinking for a while about becoming a cop once he’s through with school. (If he gets through with school.) Wouldn’t that piss the old man off?
“It’s a fake, you know.”
Coat check/robber guy jumps, like, a foot in the air when Tony speaks. Tony’s got just enough liquour in him to giggle at that without embarrassment.
The guy looks at Tony and the laughter catches somehow between Tony’s chest and his throat. He coughs to dislodge it. Barb knows how to pick ‘em. Although, if it were up to Tony… A guy with eyes like that? And those features? The last place Tony would want him is in the closet.
And that is a funny thought for so many reasons, so Tony giggles again.
“Uh… What are you talking ab-”
Tony tsk‘s. “Grovener’s watch. Cal never wears the real stuff out of the house. You think a guy’s gonna leave a real fifty thousand dollar watch in his coat pocket and just hand his coat off?”
The guy smirks. He raises a brow in a way that should probably strike Tony as snooty, but really just looks mischievous and cute. Tony gets the feeling that several of Barb’s guests tonight have handed off valuables that he would not leave in his coat pocket, but that they apparently felt no qualms about.
“Okay, alright. But Cal wouldn’t, trust me. And, ironically, he’s the first one that’ll make a fuss if it goes missing, so I wouldn’t bother.”
The guy just looks at him. Tony looks back. He can practically see the thoughts in the guy’s head - is this some strange, new police technique? Hide out in closets waiting for thieves to try to loot the contents and trick them into revealing themselves?
The guy decides that’s probably unlikely. He pulls Cal Grovener’s knock-off Rolex out of some pocket inside his jacket and puts it back where he got it.
Tony smiles.
“I knew it wasn’t real,” the guy says. “But I like to be thorough.”
“Guess that means you won’t take some time out to have a drink with me?”
Tony holds up the wine bottle he brought with him into the closet. Coat check/robber guy grins and winks.
“Thanks for your help,” he says and slips out the closet door.
Tony sighs. “Of course it does.” The first guy he sees all night who, a, doesn’t live on college football and, b, is really, really hot isn’t interested in having a drink with him.
Oh. And is a criminal. That’s bad too.
Tony kills the bottle of wine and has Stepmom number… whatever… call her driver around to take him home before other people start checking out and notice what Coat Guy got up to.
Tony’s too drunk to remember what the specifics of ’aiding and abetting’ might be but he figures he probably shouldn’t be around to possibly find out.
They meet again a couple of months later. Tony sees him from across the bistro and does a double take. Guy with looks like that… You look at least twice.
But Tony doesn’t just look because the guy is hot. He looks because there’s this niggling little something at the back of Tony’s brain that says he recognizes Hottie, and not from the pages of GQ - though the guy looks like he could do some serious modeling.
It’s Coat Check/Robber guy. Tony figures it out by the time CC pulls a chair away from Tony’s table, turns it, and straddles it.
Tony matches his grin with a smirk. The brunchers all around them are looking, wondering who the hell would sit like that in a place like this. Tony likes CC’s style.
At least until the guy talks.
Tony’d been debating how best to start a conversation with someone he’s watched pick-pocket his previous stepmother’s close friends when Coat Check says, “Last time we saw each other, you didn’t tell me you’re a local celebrity.”
Tony’s interest dims. (It doesn’t die, mind you - those eyes really are something.) But it dims.
“Yeah, well. Not much of a celebrity anymore.” Tony motions for a waiter. “I don’t play ball now.”
He expects CC to backtrack when he sees the displeasure on Tony’s face - or maybe obliviously prattle on about Tony’s exploits on the field before “The Incident” - the usual. But the guy blinks. He doesn’t seem to get it.
“I… wouldn’t know. I don’t really care for sports,” he says.
It’s Tony’s turn to blink.
“I meant you’re a DiNozzo. Anthony DiNozzo’s kind of a big deal in certain circles around here.”
Ah. The wrong kind of circles, CC means.
“Huh. Yeah, Dad he’s… He’s quite the up-and-comer.” If you consider his line of… work… a means of “moving up”. Tony’s smile is polite. “I don’t really plan to follow in the old man’s footsteps. All instances of aiding and abetting coat room pick-pocketers aside.”
CC laughs. His voice is just as pretty when he does as he is. Tony tries not to fidget too much in his seat. Goddamn his overactive imagination. Tony’s preferred method of coping with his moderately suppressed homosexual tendencies is currently to restrain restrain restrain and fantasize very creatively. But only about men he’s sure never to actually meet or, as in this case, meet again in person. He gets… uncomfortable… interacting with someone he’s pictured spread out, face down, on the hood of his car.
“I don’t think the prosecution could build a case,” CC is saying. “If anything, you prevented the theft of a reasonably convincing reproduction of a valuable wristwatch that night.”
“But not the theft of several thousand dollars worth of gemstones from a safety deposit box the next day,” Tony adds with some satisfaction.
CC stills. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Tony smiles. “I saw it on the news. Owner of the box said he hadn’t seen the key since before his wallet and pocket watch were stolen out of his coat pocket at a party the night before. Interesting story.”
“Yeah, fascinating. Well, it was nice talking to-”
“Oh, simmer down. Do I look like a cop to you?”
Maybe Tony does. Or maybe CC is as clever as Tony suspects him to be. He still looks wary, but Tony’s waiter has brought Tony his bill so CC doesn’t make to say anything until she is out of earshot. And then Tony gets in a word first.
“You know, I didn’t think pick pocketing was your end game. A guy in Zegna loafers… going after pocket change? Seems a little petty to me.”
There’s a reason Tony’s kicked around the idea of going into law enforcement, beside the fact that it might really rib his father. CC looks impressed despite himself. And finally the guy grins.
“You remember what shoes I was wearing… during a five minute exchange two months ago?”
Tony smirks. “They were nice shoes.”
“You were drunk!”
“You were creating a diversion.” Tony wonders what he’s doing. He isn’t a cop. This little… thing he does… is fun as a party game, but this is a real, live criminal sitting across the table from him. An incredibly hot, slim and classically handsome, sharply dressed criminal but- “I figure, your mark was so distracted by the missing wallet and the credit cards inside it, that he didn’t think about the key. And he wasn’t the only one hit. Probably he thought it wasn’t much of an issue. What good is a safety deposit key to a pick pocket who doesn’t know what it’s to or how to get to it? I take it you knew.”
“Or maybe I just like petty theft and the box has nothing to do with me.”
“Or maybe that,” Tony concedes, knowing his face says he doesn’t believe that for a second.
CC shakes his head, chuckling. It occurs to Tony that he should have tried to get the guy’s name before he started picking at his dastardly past plans. It’d be nice to think of the guy in terms besides an acronym Tony made up himself.
Not that Tony needs to think of him, thermonuclear hotness aside. Today was undoubtedly a fluke. Tony’ll surely never see him again.
This thought gives Tony a little pang as CC stands up.
“Will you do me a favor, Tony?”
Tony cocks his head to the side to show that he’s listening.
“Don’t become a cop. I’m too young to retire.”
Tony laughs. “I make no garauntees…” He makes it obvious he’s waiting for a name. He’s not sure why he bothers - CC’s sure to only give him an alias, but-
“Ni- Neal,” says his coat check/pick pocket/jewel thief. Neal looks a little surprised at himself. Maybe he usually waits til the second heist to give a name to his pseudo-accomplices.
“I make no garauntees, Neal.”
Neal smirks, nods at Tony, and turns his chair back around. Tony is hit by the odd, sudden urge to do something - say something - to make him stay.
It’s just as well he doesn’t. Two days later he is amused, but not surprised, to find out that a very rare old book was stolen from an apartment above the bistro the day Tony and Neal were there.
He wonders if he won’t actually see Neal again. He seems to have a subconscious knack for being in the right place at the right time to see Neal work.
Once, twice… alright. But the third time Tony runs into Neal it’s just uncanny.
A girl from Dad’s country club talked him into going with her to her boss’s birthday party. He’s kind of a stuffy, pompous old guy - and his home is just as stuffy and pretentious as he is, if stocked full of valuable art work and genuine antiques. It isn’t Tony’s kind of party, but the girl is Tony’s kind of girl. Easily impressed, as eager to skip ahead to the good stuff as Tony, and hot (Tony’s appreciation of men doesn’t hinder his appreciation of these qualities in a female.)
He and the girl (in time, he will forget her name) are just about to slip away to somewhere more “private” when a masked man walks into the room with a gun and their host - Jameson - starts yelling for everyone to “be calm” and “do as the man says”.
It’s just a hunch, really. The masked man is dressed head-to-toe in black, form-fitting cat burglar attire. Tony’s pretty good at matching up height, weight, and body type - but he’s only ever seen Neal twice. When Tony gets a closer look at their gunman’s weapon of choice, however (it’s a fake!) he decides it’s worth a risk to try his hypothesis out.
The masked man is slowly circling the room, asking everyone to get down on the floor. Tony remains standing, despite the fact that his date is tugging at his pants leg, whispering in a frantic tone that he feels a little bad about, even though the fake gun thing has nothing to do with him.
When Neal gets close, Tony puts his hands up and says - just to him - “A bit of a jump from the coat room, isn’t it?”
The masked man pauses, looks at him. Tony knows he was right. Those are Neal’s eyes looking at him through the eye holes in the mask. They’re open wide, a little panicked.
“Tony?”
“You wanna tell me why you’re scaring all my date’s coworkers with a fake pistol right now?”
The panic intensifies. Tony can practically feel it. Something is wrong here. He could be totally off - Neal could be exactly the type of guy to enjoy frightening a bunch of white collar baby boomers and their assorted underlings, but Tony doesn’t think so.
“What’s going on, Neal?”
Neal just looks at him for a moment. And then, loud enough for everyone to hear, he says, “Enough stalling, take down the painting!” He gestures at Tony with his “gun”, as if this is what they’ve been talking about this entire time and he is growing impatient with Tony’s lack of cooperation.
Tony’s date gasps. Tony keeps his hands up and pretends he doesn’t know Neal is pointing a piece of harmless rubber at him. At the same time his mind asks ‘What the hell are you doing?‘ his mouth says, “Alright. Just don’t shoot.”
There is only one painting in the room that Neal could be talking about - the rather impressive Rothko over the mantle. Tony doesn’t know anything about art, but his date does. She had pointed the painting out to him as soon as they arrived at the party. She’d pointed it out not for its artistic merit, but for the awe-inspiring price tag that had reportedly come with it.
Jameson protests - a bit too comfortably for a man with an armed thief in his home, Tony thinks, but realizes that nervousness or arrogance could account for that.
Neal isn’t entirely convincing as he “menaces” Jameson into quieting down and Tony into pulling a wingback over to the fireplace to stand on and get to the targeted painting. At least Tony doesn’t think so - an assortment of Jameson’s guests cower on the floor, where Neal directed them to lay, and make frightened sounds that cause Tony to rethink his course of action momentarily.
Eventually, he decides to continue on with the ruse. He has no idea what’s really at play here.
Tony hefts the medium sized still life off Jameson’s wall and climbs off the chair with it.
“Okay, through that door. Anybody else tries to leave the room and I catch them, I come back.” Neal waves the gun at his “hostages” who make sounds of distress. Then he waves it at Tony. “Go.”
“Now wait just a moment-”
Neal points the gun at Jameson, and the man quiets down. Tony doesn’t blame him - Neal is surprisingly convincing in the way he holds his “weapon”, although why Tony finds this surprising is a mystery to him. For all he knows, theft is the least of Neal’s crimes. Tony just doesn’t think so.
Neal guides Tony out of the room and down the hallway beyond, closing the double doors to the parlor Jameson and his guests are in. He hurries them down the hall, fake gun looking forgotten in his hand as they pass through a library, a den, and a study. Jameson’s house is massive. They finally stop in the sunroom off the kitchen and Tony sets “their” stolen painting down as Neal catches his breath.
Then Tony grabs him. It’s partly reflex. Tony doesn’t like any sort of gun pointed at him, nevermind that this one isn’t real. It’s partly nervous agitation. This isn’t even Tony’s heist… why is he the one who’s been lugging a Rothko that is much heavier than it looks all over the place?
It’s a lot of agitation with himself. He made a vow, once, never to get caught up in his own father’s criminal activities. He doesn’t understand why he keeps getting mixed up in Neal’s. Tony takes Neal by the shoulders and backs him into the wall behind them.
“Whoa, whoa!” Neal holds up his hands. Tony hadn’t actually thought far enough ahead to plan on hitting him, but Neal’s apparently thought about Tony thinking it. He talks fast. “This wasn’t my idea!”
“Yeah, right.”
Neal makes a face. “Okay, the painting- the painting I agreed to. Jameson’s got it insured for a big payoff-”
“And he hired you to pretend to steal it from him.” Neal looks at Tony like he did in the bistro, but Tony thinks nothing of it. It’s not like this isn’t, more or less, the plot of at least a dozen B-rated jewel capers Tony has seen.
“Yeah, except he told me no one was gonna be here,” Neal continues. “When I showed up tonight and saw the house full, I contacted Jameson. He said he had a recording of us making our deal. He’s decided it would look better for the insurance investigator if there are witnesses to the painting being stolen. He threatened to turn in the recording if I didn’t put on a show.”
It makes sense. In any case, it’s not the kind of thing a guy who likes waving guns, fake or otherwise, at old people uses to excuse his behavior.
“Do you know where he’s got it?” It probably isn’t the part of what Neal’s just told him that Tony should be worried about, but since insanity’s carried him this far…
“On him. We’re supposed to trade - the painting for the recording two hours from now.”
So… Neal hasn’t actually stolen anything that someone didn’t ask him to steal from them. And nobody’s gotten hurt…
Apparently, rationalization isn’t just for one’s own bad judgment.
“So… uh. Are you going to let go of me?”
“I’m thinking about it,” Tony lies, but speaking of bad judgment, Neal’s smirk at close range seems to inspire it.
Tony kisses him.
And not even some rough, it was just the adrenaline, kiss. Slow and even and Tony feels like every part of him is burning by the time he’s pulled back. It’s the first time Tony’s kissed a guy - not counting Derek Pointer in the eleventh grade just to be sure of himself.
There was a flash of surprise in Neal’s eyes as Tony leaned in, but no resistance to Tony’s mouth as it met Neal’s, and Tony releases the breath he’s been holding when Neal grins at him without any derision.
“Do you make out with all the art thieves you capture mid-caper?” Neal asks. Tony thinks there’s even a hint of breathlessness in his voice. But that could be because Tony’s got him pressed up so tightly against the wall now.
“I don’t know. You’re the first art thief I’ve got my hands on.”
“Think you might want to get those hands on me sometime when I’m not working?”
And Tony thought this evening couldn’t get more surreal. Is he really in the middle of-
“That depends. Are you ever not working a con?”
“I can take a night off now and then.”
“When did you have in mind?”
Tony’s got a criminal in his grasp, several million dollars worth of stolen goods he could take the credit for recovering nearby. And he’s accepting an invitation from said criminal for a date.
“Well, I’m about to come into a little money…”
[tbc]
Author: nevcolleil
Fandom(s): White Collar/NCIS (AU)
Pairing: Neal Caffrey/Anthony DiNozzo
Rating: PG-13
Word Count (this part): 3463
Summary: When Neal met Tony. Part of the universe glimpsed in this drabble I wrote and also for tigriswolf who prompted the pairing.
It’s not like he goes into it planning for a long haul.
They meet at one of his stepmother’s “social engagements.” (That’s stepmother number 4. Or 5.) Dad asked Tony to go in his stead so Tony agreed. Partly it’s to get out of the house and stop feeling sorry for himself; partly it’s because he still feels guilty that step mom number 3 (?) tried to sleep with him - and for, like, half a second Tony considered it. (He’s had a tough year; his mind hasn’t been in the best place.)
It isn’t going badly. Dad can’t pick a wife to save his alimony payments but he sure can pick a tailor; Tony is looking good in his new tux and heads are turning.
That’s the start of the trouble.
The wine’s flowing freely, so Tony’s feeling good too. The limp is barely noticeable as a result. He’s grown his hair out a little since “taking a break” from his classes, but someone still recognizes him.
“Hey, aren’t you- You are. Honey, this here’s the best quarterback Boston U’s had in the last twenty years! It’s a shame about the knee, son.”
Things begin to go downhill.
At first, Tony manages to be discreet. There is always someone just out of sight that Tony has glimpsed and must hurry to catch up with. His stepmother has lost her purse and/or an irreplaceable item of jewelry.
But by the time Tony finds himself in the coatroom, it would be obvious to anyone who was looking… if anyone knew where to find him… that he is hiding from his would-be admirers.
It is also obvious that the guy “Mom’s” friend, Barb, hired to check coats is robbing all of her friends.
He doesn’t see Tony. Which might not say anything about his skills - after all, who expects a grown man to be hiding in the coat closet? That could account for his being painfully obvious about his criminal activities.
Or it could be that Tony’s just really good at spotting criminal activities. He’s never told anyone, but he’s been thinking for a while about becoming a cop once he’s through with school. (If he gets through with school.) Wouldn’t that piss the old man off?
“It’s a fake, you know.”
Coat check/robber guy jumps, like, a foot in the air when Tony speaks. Tony’s got just enough liquour in him to giggle at that without embarrassment.
The guy looks at Tony and the laughter catches somehow between Tony’s chest and his throat. He coughs to dislodge it. Barb knows how to pick ‘em. Although, if it were up to Tony… A guy with eyes like that? And those features? The last place Tony would want him is in the closet.
And that is a funny thought for so many reasons, so Tony giggles again.
“Uh… What are you talking ab-”
Tony tsk‘s. “Grovener’s watch. Cal never wears the real stuff out of the house. You think a guy’s gonna leave a real fifty thousand dollar watch in his coat pocket and just hand his coat off?”
The guy smirks. He raises a brow in a way that should probably strike Tony as snooty, but really just looks mischievous and cute. Tony gets the feeling that several of Barb’s guests tonight have handed off valuables that he would not leave in his coat pocket, but that they apparently felt no qualms about.
“Okay, alright. But Cal wouldn’t, trust me. And, ironically, he’s the first one that’ll make a fuss if it goes missing, so I wouldn’t bother.”
The guy just looks at him. Tony looks back. He can practically see the thoughts in the guy’s head - is this some strange, new police technique? Hide out in closets waiting for thieves to try to loot the contents and trick them into revealing themselves?
The guy decides that’s probably unlikely. He pulls Cal Grovener’s knock-off Rolex out of some pocket inside his jacket and puts it back where he got it.
Tony smiles.
“I knew it wasn’t real,” the guy says. “But I like to be thorough.”
“Guess that means you won’t take some time out to have a drink with me?”
Tony holds up the wine bottle he brought with him into the closet. Coat check/robber guy grins and winks.
“Thanks for your help,” he says and slips out the closet door.
Tony sighs. “Of course it does.” The first guy he sees all night who, a, doesn’t live on college football and, b, is really, really hot isn’t interested in having a drink with him.
Oh. And is a criminal. That’s bad too.
Tony kills the bottle of wine and has Stepmom number… whatever… call her driver around to take him home before other people start checking out and notice what Coat Guy got up to.
Tony’s too drunk to remember what the specifics of ’aiding and abetting’ might be but he figures he probably shouldn’t be around to possibly find out.
They meet again a couple of months later. Tony sees him from across the bistro and does a double take. Guy with looks like that… You look at least twice.
But Tony doesn’t just look because the guy is hot. He looks because there’s this niggling little something at the back of Tony’s brain that says he recognizes Hottie, and not from the pages of GQ - though the guy looks like he could do some serious modeling.
It’s Coat Check/Robber guy. Tony figures it out by the time CC pulls a chair away from Tony’s table, turns it, and straddles it.
Tony matches his grin with a smirk. The brunchers all around them are looking, wondering who the hell would sit like that in a place like this. Tony likes CC’s style.
At least until the guy talks.
Tony’d been debating how best to start a conversation with someone he’s watched pick-pocket his previous stepmother’s close friends when Coat Check says, “Last time we saw each other, you didn’t tell me you’re a local celebrity.”
Tony’s interest dims. (It doesn’t die, mind you - those eyes really are something.) But it dims.
“Yeah, well. Not much of a celebrity anymore.” Tony motions for a waiter. “I don’t play ball now.”
He expects CC to backtrack when he sees the displeasure on Tony’s face - or maybe obliviously prattle on about Tony’s exploits on the field before “The Incident” - the usual. But the guy blinks. He doesn’t seem to get it.
“I… wouldn’t know. I don’t really care for sports,” he says.
It’s Tony’s turn to blink.
“I meant you’re a DiNozzo. Anthony DiNozzo’s kind of a big deal in certain circles around here.”
Ah. The wrong kind of circles, CC means.
“Huh. Yeah, Dad he’s… He’s quite the up-and-comer.” If you consider his line of… work… a means of “moving up”. Tony’s smile is polite. “I don’t really plan to follow in the old man’s footsteps. All instances of aiding and abetting coat room pick-pocketers aside.”
CC laughs. His voice is just as pretty when he does as he is. Tony tries not to fidget too much in his seat. Goddamn his overactive imagination. Tony’s preferred method of coping with his moderately suppressed homosexual tendencies is currently to restrain restrain restrain and fantasize very creatively. But only about men he’s sure never to actually meet or, as in this case, meet again in person. He gets… uncomfortable… interacting with someone he’s pictured spread out, face down, on the hood of his car.
“I don’t think the prosecution could build a case,” CC is saying. “If anything, you prevented the theft of a reasonably convincing reproduction of a valuable wristwatch that night.”
“But not the theft of several thousand dollars worth of gemstones from a safety deposit box the next day,” Tony adds with some satisfaction.
CC stills. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Tony smiles. “I saw it on the news. Owner of the box said he hadn’t seen the key since before his wallet and pocket watch were stolen out of his coat pocket at a party the night before. Interesting story.”
“Yeah, fascinating. Well, it was nice talking to-”
“Oh, simmer down. Do I look like a cop to you?”
Maybe Tony does. Or maybe CC is as clever as Tony suspects him to be. He still looks wary, but Tony’s waiter has brought Tony his bill so CC doesn’t make to say anything until she is out of earshot. And then Tony gets in a word first.
“You know, I didn’t think pick pocketing was your end game. A guy in Zegna loafers… going after pocket change? Seems a little petty to me.”
There’s a reason Tony’s kicked around the idea of going into law enforcement, beside the fact that it might really rib his father. CC looks impressed despite himself. And finally the guy grins.
“You remember what shoes I was wearing… during a five minute exchange two months ago?”
Tony smirks. “They were nice shoes.”
“You were drunk!”
“You were creating a diversion.” Tony wonders what he’s doing. He isn’t a cop. This little… thing he does… is fun as a party game, but this is a real, live criminal sitting across the table from him. An incredibly hot, slim and classically handsome, sharply dressed criminal but- “I figure, your mark was so distracted by the missing wallet and the credit cards inside it, that he didn’t think about the key. And he wasn’t the only one hit. Probably he thought it wasn’t much of an issue. What good is a safety deposit key to a pick pocket who doesn’t know what it’s to or how to get to it? I take it you knew.”
“Or maybe I just like petty theft and the box has nothing to do with me.”
“Or maybe that,” Tony concedes, knowing his face says he doesn’t believe that for a second.
CC shakes his head, chuckling. It occurs to Tony that he should have tried to get the guy’s name before he started picking at his dastardly past plans. It’d be nice to think of the guy in terms besides an acronym Tony made up himself.
Not that Tony needs to think of him, thermonuclear hotness aside. Today was undoubtedly a fluke. Tony’ll surely never see him again.
This thought gives Tony a little pang as CC stands up.
“Will you do me a favor, Tony?”
Tony cocks his head to the side to show that he’s listening.
“Don’t become a cop. I’m too young to retire.”
Tony laughs. “I make no garauntees…” He makes it obvious he’s waiting for a name. He’s not sure why he bothers - CC’s sure to only give him an alias, but-
“Ni- Neal,” says his coat check/pick pocket/jewel thief. Neal looks a little surprised at himself. Maybe he usually waits til the second heist to give a name to his pseudo-accomplices.
“I make no garauntees, Neal.”
Neal smirks, nods at Tony, and turns his chair back around. Tony is hit by the odd, sudden urge to do something - say something - to make him stay.
It’s just as well he doesn’t. Two days later he is amused, but not surprised, to find out that a very rare old book was stolen from an apartment above the bistro the day Tony and Neal were there.
He wonders if he won’t actually see Neal again. He seems to have a subconscious knack for being in the right place at the right time to see Neal work.
Once, twice… alright. But the third time Tony runs into Neal it’s just uncanny.
A girl from Dad’s country club talked him into going with her to her boss’s birthday party. He’s kind of a stuffy, pompous old guy - and his home is just as stuffy and pretentious as he is, if stocked full of valuable art work and genuine antiques. It isn’t Tony’s kind of party, but the girl is Tony’s kind of girl. Easily impressed, as eager to skip ahead to the good stuff as Tony, and hot (Tony’s appreciation of men doesn’t hinder his appreciation of these qualities in a female.)
He and the girl (in time, he will forget her name) are just about to slip away to somewhere more “private” when a masked man walks into the room with a gun and their host - Jameson - starts yelling for everyone to “be calm” and “do as the man says”.
It’s just a hunch, really. The masked man is dressed head-to-toe in black, form-fitting cat burglar attire. Tony’s pretty good at matching up height, weight, and body type - but he’s only ever seen Neal twice. When Tony gets a closer look at their gunman’s weapon of choice, however (it’s a fake!) he decides it’s worth a risk to try his hypothesis out.
The masked man is slowly circling the room, asking everyone to get down on the floor. Tony remains standing, despite the fact that his date is tugging at his pants leg, whispering in a frantic tone that he feels a little bad about, even though the fake gun thing has nothing to do with him.
When Neal gets close, Tony puts his hands up and says - just to him - “A bit of a jump from the coat room, isn’t it?”
The masked man pauses, looks at him. Tony knows he was right. Those are Neal’s eyes looking at him through the eye holes in the mask. They’re open wide, a little panicked.
“Tony?”
“You wanna tell me why you’re scaring all my date’s coworkers with a fake pistol right now?”
The panic intensifies. Tony can practically feel it. Something is wrong here. He could be totally off - Neal could be exactly the type of guy to enjoy frightening a bunch of white collar baby boomers and their assorted underlings, but Tony doesn’t think so.
“What’s going on, Neal?”
Neal just looks at him for a moment. And then, loud enough for everyone to hear, he says, “Enough stalling, take down the painting!” He gestures at Tony with his “gun”, as if this is what they’ve been talking about this entire time and he is growing impatient with Tony’s lack of cooperation.
Tony’s date gasps. Tony keeps his hands up and pretends he doesn’t know Neal is pointing a piece of harmless rubber at him. At the same time his mind asks ‘What the hell are you doing?‘ his mouth says, “Alright. Just don’t shoot.”
There is only one painting in the room that Neal could be talking about - the rather impressive Rothko over the mantle. Tony doesn’t know anything about art, but his date does. She had pointed the painting out to him as soon as they arrived at the party. She’d pointed it out not for its artistic merit, but for the awe-inspiring price tag that had reportedly come with it.
Jameson protests - a bit too comfortably for a man with an armed thief in his home, Tony thinks, but realizes that nervousness or arrogance could account for that.
Neal isn’t entirely convincing as he “menaces” Jameson into quieting down and Tony into pulling a wingback over to the fireplace to stand on and get to the targeted painting. At least Tony doesn’t think so - an assortment of Jameson’s guests cower on the floor, where Neal directed them to lay, and make frightened sounds that cause Tony to rethink his course of action momentarily.
Eventually, he decides to continue on with the ruse. He has no idea what’s really at play here.
Tony hefts the medium sized still life off Jameson’s wall and climbs off the chair with it.
“Okay, through that door. Anybody else tries to leave the room and I catch them, I come back.” Neal waves the gun at his “hostages” who make sounds of distress. Then he waves it at Tony. “Go.”
“Now wait just a moment-”
Neal points the gun at Jameson, and the man quiets down. Tony doesn’t blame him - Neal is surprisingly convincing in the way he holds his “weapon”, although why Tony finds this surprising is a mystery to him. For all he knows, theft is the least of Neal’s crimes. Tony just doesn’t think so.
Neal guides Tony out of the room and down the hallway beyond, closing the double doors to the parlor Jameson and his guests are in. He hurries them down the hall, fake gun looking forgotten in his hand as they pass through a library, a den, and a study. Jameson’s house is massive. They finally stop in the sunroom off the kitchen and Tony sets “their” stolen painting down as Neal catches his breath.
Then Tony grabs him. It’s partly reflex. Tony doesn’t like any sort of gun pointed at him, nevermind that this one isn’t real. It’s partly nervous agitation. This isn’t even Tony’s heist… why is he the one who’s been lugging a Rothko that is much heavier than it looks all over the place?
It’s a lot of agitation with himself. He made a vow, once, never to get caught up in his own father’s criminal activities. He doesn’t understand why he keeps getting mixed up in Neal’s. Tony takes Neal by the shoulders and backs him into the wall behind them.
“Whoa, whoa!” Neal holds up his hands. Tony hadn’t actually thought far enough ahead to plan on hitting him, but Neal’s apparently thought about Tony thinking it. He talks fast. “This wasn’t my idea!”
“Yeah, right.”
Neal makes a face. “Okay, the painting- the painting I agreed to. Jameson’s got it insured for a big payoff-”
“And he hired you to pretend to steal it from him.” Neal looks at Tony like he did in the bistro, but Tony thinks nothing of it. It’s not like this isn’t, more or less, the plot of at least a dozen B-rated jewel capers Tony has seen.
“Yeah, except he told me no one was gonna be here,” Neal continues. “When I showed up tonight and saw the house full, I contacted Jameson. He said he had a recording of us making our deal. He’s decided it would look better for the insurance investigator if there are witnesses to the painting being stolen. He threatened to turn in the recording if I didn’t put on a show.”
It makes sense. In any case, it’s not the kind of thing a guy who likes waving guns, fake or otherwise, at old people uses to excuse his behavior.
“Do you know where he’s got it?” It probably isn’t the part of what Neal’s just told him that Tony should be worried about, but since insanity’s carried him this far…
“On him. We’re supposed to trade - the painting for the recording two hours from now.”
So… Neal hasn’t actually stolen anything that someone didn’t ask him to steal from them. And nobody’s gotten hurt…
Apparently, rationalization isn’t just for one’s own bad judgment.
“So… uh. Are you going to let go of me?”
“I’m thinking about it,” Tony lies, but speaking of bad judgment, Neal’s smirk at close range seems to inspire it.
Tony kisses him.
And not even some rough, it was just the adrenaline, kiss. Slow and even and Tony feels like every part of him is burning by the time he’s pulled back. It’s the first time Tony’s kissed a guy - not counting Derek Pointer in the eleventh grade just to be sure of himself.
There was a flash of surprise in Neal’s eyes as Tony leaned in, but no resistance to Tony’s mouth as it met Neal’s, and Tony releases the breath he’s been holding when Neal grins at him without any derision.
“Do you make out with all the art thieves you capture mid-caper?” Neal asks. Tony thinks there’s even a hint of breathlessness in his voice. But that could be because Tony’s got him pressed up so tightly against the wall now.
“I don’t know. You’re the first art thief I’ve got my hands on.”
“Think you might want to get those hands on me sometime when I’m not working?”
And Tony thought this evening couldn’t get more surreal. Is he really in the middle of-
“That depends. Are you ever not working a con?”
“I can take a night off now and then.”
“When did you have in mind?”
Tony’s got a criminal in his grasp, several million dollars worth of stolen goods he could take the credit for recovering nearby. And he’s accepting an invitation from said criminal for a date.
“Well, I’m about to come into a little money…”
[tbc]