Archive of Our Own

The White Collar office had been buzzing since yesterday at the rumor that they were being pulled into an inter-agency operation. Someone had found out yesterday afternoon that the team was supposed to arrive today, and everyone from Jones down to the probies were eagerly anticipating the event.

Neal, after confirming last night that it wasn't his team going in, couldn't care less, though he did his part to pretend he did. The combination of excitement to be pulled away from mortgage fraud, tinged with worry that it might involve one of his past exploits was a tricky mix, but Neal was familiar with it.

Unfortunately, Neal was also becoming more and more familiar with guns being thrust in his face. He had no sooner looked up at the opening door when the first visiting agent — a large, angry man — had pulled out a gun and trained it on Neal.

Neal's hands instantly shot up. "What?" To his relief, he heard the agents around him pulling their own weapons — at least Neal hoped they were aiming at his attacker, and not also at himself! There were other agents behind the one with the gun, but Neal couldn't tear his eyes away to see who they were, or to confirm where the White Collar agents were aiming.

"Larkin," the man growled, which at least clarified something for Neal. He heard twin gasps from behind the agent, but couldn't tear his focus from the gun. "I'm afraid you've got the wrong guy," Neal said innocently.

"Casey!" someone hissed.

"Colonel, stand down!" Hughes suddenly barked. When the gun didn't leave Neal's sight, Hughes growled, "Casey."

Someone murmured "Bryce!" which confirmed it for Neal, even as Casey lowered — but didn't holster — the gun.

So this was that Casey? It had to be. Neal didn't lower his hands, but he instantly lost his "who me?" smile. Glaring at his target now, Neal said levelly, "So, we meet at last, Casey." He couldn't help but snear the man's name. "I should warn you now, if you ever shoot Bryce again, I will destroy you."

Casey tightened his grip on his gun, but didn't raise it again. "You think you scare me, Larkin?"

"It's Caffrey," Neal corrected. "And yes, I should scare you. I'm not the nice one." Which on most days was debatable, but when it came to someone hurting Bryce it was absolutely true.

Casey shifted again, but then Hughes was between them, blocking him from Neal's sight.

With the gun blocked, Neal finally put down his hands, adrenaline flooding out of him and leaving him lightly trembling. He heard the agents around him holstering their own weapons, and risked a shaky glance at Diana and Jones, who had led the pack. Peter was up on the landing, holstering his own gun. None of them seemed to have been aiming at Neal.

As Hughes moved again, Neal finally saw who had been with Casey. "Chuck!" he said brightly. "I heard you had gotten into the game after all."

Chuck was also shaking slightly, and he smiled with relief at Neal. "Hey Neal, long time no see." He squirmed around the retreating Casey and Hughes and started around Neal's desk. Surprisingly, Diana cut him off.

"You want to explain what your partner was thinking?" she growled. Neal saw Jones discreetly covering the third member of Chuck's party — a blond woman who looked vaguely familiar.

"This one's fine," Neal said, standing and edging around Diana to greet Chuck. He was only slightly surprised that Chuck went for the full bear hug instead of the manly bro backslap version, but Chuck had always been a softie.

As Hughes dragged Casey into the conference room, followed by Peter, the blonde, and Jones, Neal sat back in his chair. "Chuck!" the blonde called.

"In a minute," he waved them off, leaning against Neal's desk. Diana unobtrusively leaned against the next one over — Blake's — as though still guarding Neal.

When the blonde accepted that and let him stay, Neal raised an eyebrow. "You're actually back in the game? I thought Bryce said you were mostly out?"

"I was, but then…" Chuck shrugged.

"Oh, you were being a self-sacrificing idiot: say no more," Neal nodded. "I'm well familiar with that tendency. Still, Casey? The Casey?"

"He's very protective of me," Chuck said defensively. "It's just, with you two…" He vaguely waved his hand at Neal's face.

"Yeah, I know," Neal sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The shakes were almost gone now. He just really didn't like people pointing guns at him.

"You shouldn't make idle threats, you know," Chuck said quietly. "He doesn't really have a sense of humor."

Neal debated with himself for half a second, but if Chuck was on Casey's team — or vice versa — then he'd find out soon enough. Neal gave in to his anger and let his predatory, shark-like grin emerge. Bryce had compared it to his conman smile, except it looked like he was conning them about his teeth not being sharpened and ready to chomp.

"It wasn't an idle threat," Neal said.

Chuck's eyes widened, but Neal could sense more intrigue than fear. And he prided himself on knowing what other people were thinking or feeling. "Really? You're the more dangerous one? Oh God." Chuck facepalmed.

Neal gave a small chuckle, relaxing back into his usual conman grin. "You want in on it?" he offered. It would be interesting to see if Chuck had changed that much…

"Hell yes," Chuck's head shot up, though he still looked conflicted.

Smirking, Neal yanked open his bottom desk drawer, reached up underneath the one above, and pulled out a small burner phone.

Well aware that the entire room was watching him, he decided to make this good. "You will share the results, won't you?" He asked Chuck. "Since you'll be seeing the devastation firsthand?"

Chuck looked slightly squeamish at that reminder, then nodded vigorously. "Of course!"

Flipping open the phone, Neal hit speed dial 1, then put the call on speaker. The phone was quickly answered by someone using a voice modulator. "Yes?"

"Hello, I would like to express my displeasure with NSA Agent John Casey," Neal said pleasantly.

"I see," said the voice. "In the strongest possible terms?"

Neal shrugged, "not yet."

"Can I ask why now?"

Neal considered that. "Are you alone?"

A pause. "Yes,"

"He put a gun in my face."

"I see." And even with the modulator, it was clear that the other person was furious. "Give me two hours."

Neal flipped the phone closed smugly and tucked it back into his desk drawer. He'd have to take it home with him tonight, and find another hiding place tomorrow, but that was fine. It was all worth it for this bit of revenge.

Chuck was looking at him in awe, and Neal was aware of that emotion coming from others in the room, as well as shock, amusement, and a small hint of fear. Neal was non-violent, but they were probably realizing that he was an exception, not the rule, and he did have criminal contacts. They'd soon realize that their fear was slightly misplaced: Neal was non-violent, and proud of it, but there were ways to hurt people that didn't involve violence. Once they found out what he had actually initiated, Neal expected both the fear and awe to ratchet up, but for different reasons.

"That— I'm impressed and I don't even know what you've done yet!" Chuck said eagerly.

Neal laughed, then decided to tease Chuck a little. "I don't suppose you've read any Winter Soldier comics recently?" he asked.

As Chuck's eyes fluttered — and yup, Neal had been right, he had gotten another Intersect — someone a few desks over made a strangled gasp. Ooh, a hidden comic book nerd in White Collar? That bore further investigation. But if they thought he was calling out a super-soldier assassin to take down Casey, they'd be in for a relieving surprise.

Neal's desk phone suddenly rang, and, glancing at the caller ID, he picked it up and handed it straight to the now-recovered Chuck. "Hello?" Chuck asked, clearly resigned to what was about to happen.

Even Neal could hear the voice coming through, and though it was distorted enough to mask it, he knew Diana and some of the others would probably catch most of what was said.

"How could you let Casey point a gun at Neal?" came Bryce's outraged demand. Mozzie worked fast — or hadn't actually been alone.

"I don't know if you've noticed, Bryce, but there's no 'letting' Casey do anything," Chuck said tiredly, "especially when it comes to guns."

Bryce's tone lowered slightly, but Neal could still catch the gist of it. "Sarah tried," Chuck said, "but she was a little shell-shocked, you know. You never told her about Neal."

"Yes, we'll keep him safe on this op," Chuck stuck his tongue out at Neal, who made a face. He was perfectly safe with Peter, provided that none of Bryce's old enemies showed up and waved guns in his face.

"Yes, I think she'll be annoyed at you for hiding him," Chuck continued, and Neal smirked, finally placing the blonde in his memories — or more accurately, in Bryce's rare stash of photos.

"Somebody's in trouble!" Neal sing-songed, knowing that Bryce would catch it over the line.

From the way Chuck sighed and put his head in his hands again, Bryce had not appreciated having that pointed out.

Neal laughed, feeling the agents in the room relax even more. While he didn't care for the first part, the rest of the day was looking up.

Exactly one hour and fifty-three minutes later, Deepcover NSA Agent Ted Winters finished putting the temporary version of the Winter Soldier program into effect. The temporary version had a single day shelf-life, as opposed to the full nuclear option, which would permanently erase everything the target held dear.

With respect to John Casey, that included loss of his job, dishonorable discharge from the military and retroactive loss of all his rank and awards, being forbidden to ever own or even touch a weapon again, including powder-sniffing detectors around his person, confinement to a radius, forced into close contact with the kind of people he found the most frustrating, publishing his face all over the internet as an object of ridicule so that he could never remain incognito again, removal of his daughter to an undisclosed location, never to be seen again, impound and eventual destruction of his car, forced meditation…

Literally every element of psychological warfare that Neal, Mozzie, or Bryce could think of would be employed on the target of choice.

With the temporary version, a warning was sent to the target, detailing exactly what was happening to them, and giving them one chance to apologize before it took permanent effect.

With a flourish, Winters pushed the final key to trigger the program activation. "There you go, mon frere," he murmured.

For years, rumors would swirl around the FBI's New York office about the day that a Black Ops agent in a meeting with his superiors received a text, shouted "Larkin!", and then ran out the door. More impressively was the part where, the next day, less than 24 hours after holding him hostage, the Black Ops agent walked into the bullpen to apologize and beg forgiveness from one conman extraordinaire, Neal Caffrey.