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Neal was stuck in the car as Peter raided a known smugglers warehouse. Because it was too dangerous. As if he didn't handle worse on an almost daily basis. But Peter didn't know that because Neal Caffrey was non-violent, Neal Caffrey didn't deal with things like this all the time. For that matter, neither did Bruce, Batman did. And right now he was Neal.
So he waited.
In the car.
Bored.
Bruce hadn't even remembered what boredom felt like. Since the day he took Dick home he hadn't had enough time to even contemplate being bored. Alfred would probably commend him for "finally taking time for himself", even if it was as Neal.
At least Peter left him a radio to listen in on the raid. It was a poor attempt to keep Neal away from the action. If he hadn't been listening in he would not have jumped out of the car and hurried inside.
-
Peter and his team followed a SWAT team inside the warehouse. It had taken them months to gather the evidence for a warrant to search the smugglers' base of operations.
As most of the SWAT members cleared the main room and moved on to the offices, Peter, Diana and Jones stayed behind to look through the crates for evidence. They would need to get a whole team of agents in here but for now the building had to be cleared first. Peter listened to the SWAT checking in over radio as it got more and more bizarre.
"Be cautious. There's bullet holes everywhere."
That was the first transmission coming through.
"Three men passed out. Knocked out actually."
"Two more. Shot, bleeding, terrified."
"Overturned furniture. Blood spatter."
"Did you hear that?"
"Yeah, whoever did this might still be here."
"FBI, freeze!"
"Oh my god, is that-?"
"Well, hello fellas. I'm not done here, so I'm gonna need you to turn around and leave. Come back in like an hour, I'll leave the bad guys tied up by the door."
"W-We can't do that! You're on the most wanted list."
Peter nervously watched the corridor the SWAT team had left through. He had no idea who was back there. He wanted to go help and by the looks of it so did Diana, Jones and the rest of the SWATs. But if there was someone that had trained operatives nervous enough to stutter chances were Peter would not be able to help and the SWATs out here might need to defend the three agents if everything went to shit.
"We can't have that," was heard over the radio before the distinct sound of gunfire started and one by one it dropped off. They heard a whimper shortly before a final thump.
It was a tense few moments that stretched like hours as Peter and the others squared up facing the corridor. Peter was just glad that Neal wasn't with them. This was no place for a non-violent criminal informant.
His blood ran cold as a man in a red helmet stepped, no, sauntered through the door and let his gaze wander over the people in the room.
Red Hood.
What was a Gotham crime boss doing roughing up New York smugglers? Red Hood didn't leave Peter anytime to think about it.
"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" Red Hood said through a voice modulator that made him sound vaguely like Darth Vader and Peter really should try to figure out how to get himself and his team out of here instead of wondering if Red Hood watched Star Wars in his free time. "Are you going to let me tie you up quietly or do I need to knock you out first so you can tell your bosses it wasn't your fault?"
Peter took a step forward. He really was glad Neal wasn't with them. "Red Hood, you're under arrest."
Red Hood sighed. "So we're doing it that way." He cracked his knuckles. "Okay."
Just as he took the first step towards them a loud bang echoed through the warehouse. All heads turned in the direction of the noise to see Neal Caffrey standing in the door he had thrown open.
Peter hated that Neal never listened. "Get out of here, Neal!" he shouted. Peter turned back to see the Red Hood standing still with his arms at his sides and his fingers twitching in a way that if he didn't know any better he'd think the man was fidgeting. But it had to be that he was refraining from pulling the trigger, right?
Neal ignored Peter and walked right into what had quickly become a very serious situation. And if he was already here, that meant he probably hadn't had time to call for back up before waltzing into the warehouse with a known mass murderer.
This just kept getting better.
"Fuck," Red Hood mumbled. Or at least Peter thought he did, but why would he?
Diana and Jones tried keeping Neal back but they couldn't catch him and if you asked them they wouldn't have been able to tell how he evaded them.
"Language," Neal said calmly as he came to a stop in front of the Red Hood.
"Fuck you!" Red Hood exclaimed.
"Language," Neal repeated.
Red Hood crossed his arms and gave the distinct impression of glaring at Neal. Peter didn't know what kind of parallel universe he'd stumbled into that had Neal chastising a mass murderer for swearing but he'd really like to go back. Right now, please.
Neal sighed. "Why didn't you tell me you were in town?" Because apparently a crime boss had Neal's phone number.
Red Hood uncrossed his arms and clenched his fists at his sides. "I don't have to tell you anything."
"It's not that you have to tell me," Neal squeezed the bridge of his nose like Peter had seen him do a few times to ward of a headache. "I just think it would be nice to have dinner together once in a while." Oh, great. Neal was propositioning the mass murderer. Fun. Peter wasn't even surprised at this point. Bad decisions seemed to be the norm with Neal. "Besides, we could have avoided this whole mess while we're at it." He gestured behind himself and all around.
Red Hood reached up to his helmet and with a click and a hiss unlatched some kind of mechanism. He started pulling it off - and oh god, Peter and his team would see the Red Hood's face! He hadn't even been able to say goodbye to El- thank god, the guy was still wearing a mask. Peter could still see that the guy was a lot younger than he had thought. The black and white hair seemed kind of distinctive, but he was sure he wouldn't be able to identify him with just that. It was too easy to cover up and maybe it was some kind of colour he put in as part of the costume. Peter just wanted to get his team and himself out of here without landing on Red Hood's shit list.
Red Hood glared at Neal and sneered. "Boohoo, so I beat up some of your buddies. Get over yourself, there are more important things. Like finding the big honchos kids, who haven't been seen in a week."
Neal didn't back down. Peter really needed to schedule a psych eval for the CI. "You could have come to me, I would have helped you. And we could have kept the FBI out of this." Neal glanced at Peter but just kept talking, ignoring the incredulous looks they were all spouting. "Now I'll have to call J'onn to deal with this."
"Neal, what the hell?" Peter couldn't hold back anymore. He absentmindedly noticed Jones and Diana reacting similarly to having to be dealt with.
Neal turned his head with a very un-Neal-like glower that shut them up immediately.
"What? No 'language'- comment for them?" Red Hood mocked.
Neal turned back to him und raised an eyebrow, not saying anything.
Red Hood bristled like a cat. "You're not my Dad!" he spat, completly out of left field.
Neal - with a completely blank expression - replied, "I have paperwork that says otherwise."
What. The. Hell.
Peter felt his jaw hanging open. He had no brain capacity left to care about that right now. Even disregarding the seemingly too small age difference between Neal and Red Hood. Disregarding the fact that Peter had never found any hint that Neal had a family at all. A kid? Neal had a kid? And that kid was a crime lord? Peter would like to wake up right about now.
Red Hood stabed his finger at Neal's chest. "You also have a death certificate."
"You have no idea how fast I can get rid of that." Neal slipped on his usual Caffrey-grin. "After all, I'm one of the best forgers in the world. Allegedly."
Red Hood scoffed and turned away, but not before Peter had seen the blush on his face. "Keep your jokes for later old man, there's missing kids."
Neal smiled at him as he walked away and hummed as he started to follow. Peter was still standing in the same spot as Neal threw an arm around Red Hood's shoulders in a sideways hug and pulled his phone out.
Red Hood angled his head to see the screen. "You better be texting J'onn and not Alfie. We don't need more siblings just because you come across some poor kids on a case."
"Hmm," Neal hummed, which wasn't an answer either way.
-
Peter woke up in his bed next to El. She was sleeping soundly, breathing in a regular pattern. The early morning sunlight filtered through the curtains. Everything was the same as always.
Except for his weird dream.
They had gone after a smuggler yesterday. They had found evidence of someone taking the bad guys out before they'd gotten there. But the person or persons responsible had been long gone. None of the "victims" had remembered who attacked them. Nothing had been missing, all the evidence collected on a table in the middle of the room. Peter highly suspected some vigilante or Justice League associate had meddled.
Neal had been waiting in the car like in the dream, but he had only come in after the whole warehouse had been cleared.
Peter had no idea how his brain came to the conclusion that Red Hood had anything to do with that case. The kids he'd talked about in the dream had however been locked in their father's basement and were now with child services and being sponsered by the Wayne Foundation to find them a good home. He didn't know why the Wayne's cared about these specific kids but he was not going to complain and ruin their chances of a better home.
Peter was still staring at El and thinking about his dream when she finally stirred and opened her eyes, smiling at him. "Good morning, hun."
She furrowed her brows when he just continued staring at her. "Is something wrong?"
Peter thought about it for a second. "No," he said, "just a weird dream."