Author: NYWCgirl
Fandom: White Collar
Pairing: None
Characters: Neal, Peter,
Warning/genre: missing scene
Spoilers: none
Rating: Gen
Author's Notes: Written to fill following bingo square:
Word Count: ~590
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine…
Summary: How did Neal get on Avery’s good side in Hard sell (S01E08)?
Ficlet can also be found on AO3 (
http://archiveofourown.org/works/9712778).
Peter had received the surveillance camera picture of Kate standing at the ATM and he could tell Neal was getting anxious. Something wasn´t right. Neal hadn´t done anything wrong, yet. But Peter knew Neal. If it came to Kate, Neal never thought straight. All rational thoughts were gone and Neal would only be guided by his emotions.
All these thoughts run through Peter´s brain while he is sitting at his desk, his morning meeting has just finished. He decides to give Neal some credit. He is working hard on the boiler room case, so he will wait and see.
He is thinking whether to go to the cafeteria for lunch or outside to get a sandwich. Peters stares at Neal´s empty desk, he is undercover with the Wall street boys and Peter feels a certain anxiousness.
Yesterday night, Neal got cocky and confronted the man behind the curtain, but for some reason it worked. Peter is still wondering how he did it. He knows that Neal has a silver tongue, but still. He pulls up Neal´s tracker record and can see that he is not that far away from the bureau. In a split second, Peter decides he is going to see what Neal is doing.
The weather is nice, a bit chilly but the sun is shining, so he walks towards the address where Neal´s tracker has been for the last half hour.
When he walks towards the address, he frowns. It is a store. He hesitates, should he walk in, with the possibility that Neal is not alone, or should he wait. Neal has been inside for more than forty five minutes, so Peter decides to enter. He can always pretend not to know Neal.
He enters the store and is surprised to find out it is a Comic book store. There are racks filled with piles of Comics. Peter slowly walks into the store, pretending to check out the Comics and merchandise while trying to locate Neal. When he spots him, he seems to be alone, so Peter slowly approaches him.
“Hi Peter.”
“I recon you are alone then?”
“Yeah, my new co-workers think I am on a lunch date with a beautiful brunette. If you buy me lunch, I don’t have to lie about it.” Neal smiles.
“What are doing here, I didn´t take you for a comic book reader. What are looking for? Batman? Spiderman? The green lantern?”
“Neal rolls his eyes, isn´t that a bit commercial, Peter? And no, they are not for me. Avery Philips collects comics.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. He has a vault where he keeps them. I am working on getting him to invite me to see them, so I must find one that will attract his attention.”
“Then this is not the place. Let´s go.” Peter orders.
Neal follows Peter outside and they walk a couple of blocks until they stand in front of an obscure looking store. Peter rings the doorbell and the door is buzzed open. It turns out to be a comic bookstore. Neal checks Peter out, how did he know it was here? Neal files the information away for another day.
He riffles through the comics until he stops while studying a cover. He takes it out of the pile and studies the back.
“Perfect.” He smiles.
Peter looks at the Comic.
“Really Neal?”
Yep, this is the one. He is going to love it. This is my ticket in.”
“You sure? Justice lad?”
Neal only gives Peter a thousand watt smile waving the comic in front of Peter´s face.