Connections

Prompt from Anonymous: Prompt for white collar/batman crossover: okay. So we know Dick is Neal. And we also know that Dick has a thing for redheads. So let's take that a step further. Dick, for whatever reason, is undercover as Neal Caffrey for some justice league /batman/etc mission, and has backup in the form of one Sarah Ellis...who is, naturally, Barbara Gordon.-StoryReader12

Neal was disappointed. Peter had brought them to Montebello, a revolutionary place which incorporated biochemistry into cooking and then said that they weren't eating there, just meeting someone. Why would an insurance investigator pick this as a meeting place?

"Who's the investigator?" A dreadful feeling coiled in his gut as Peter responded. Neal caught the lack of a name and the female pronoun. "She? Wait," there was only one reason Peter wouldn't mention her name. "Wait, is it? No."

The dreadful feeling sent a chill up his spin as a lovely red haired woman walked over. She smiled at Peter.

"Agent Burke, it's nice to see you." Then the smile faded as she turned to him. "Neal Caffrey, it's been a while."

"Sara."

Mozzie looked him over.

"You're looking more miserable than usual," he commented. "Lack of freedom finally getting to you?"

"No." He explained the Sara situation. Mozzie hadn't been at his trial when Sara had testified. Some of the words she had used to describe him were... not nice.

"Ouch."

"I guess I kind of caused it. I made her mad and now she's back."

That seemed to confuse Mozzie for a moment. "You didn't sleep with her, did you?"

"Moz!"

"That's a yes then. Honestly Neal-"

"This is different Mozzie! We were each other's prom dates!"

Mozzie shuddered a little at the mention of 'prom'. It was a despicable and flawed tradition in his eyes. "Please tell me you didn't break some poor maiden's heart? That's like the worst thing you could do. 'Poor maidens' will tear you apart."

Neal rolled his eyes. "I know her outside of Neal Caffrey, Moz."

It clicked. "Oh, so she slept with Dick Grayson. Is 'Sara' even her real name?"

"No. And I'm not telling you what it is. Also, she's mad at me because I came back to Neal Caffrey, even after I was supposed to burn this ID."

"You were supposed to burn Neal Caffrey?" Mozzie gasped in shock. He would never approach Dick Grayson so Neal Caffrey being burned as akin to their friendship going up in flames.

"But I didn't." Neal wondered if he would get brownie points for stating that Mozzie was a factor in that choice. He liked the little guy. "Worse, I've gotten myself tied to New York-"

"Worse than that. A two mile radius of New York, not the whole city," Mozzie corrected.

Neal glared at him as he continued, "-and I didn't discuss any of it with her. Because, while we aren't dating right now, we're still best friends."

Mozzie's head was taking in all this information and bringing back only one result. Regardless of the risks, he had to meet this woman. But first, he needed information.

Mozzie didn't even hear a clack of high heels. He only knew he had been caught when he looked around and found one Sara Ellis staring at him with her hands on her hips.

"Who are you and why are you in my garbage?" she demanded to know with an ice cold glare.

Mozzie wondered where they taught bone chilling glares in Gotham.

"Chasing a raccoon," he said, slipping out of the bin and kicking it so it shook. "Nasty creatures. I was hoping to capture it and hand it over to animal control."

"You could just call animal control, Mozzie," Sara stated.

Mozzie nodded and was ready to expand upon his story when he paused. "How do you know my name?"

"Neal. Now, what did he tell you about me?"

Mozzie could not believe Neal had told this woman about him. A flush of anger went through his body. He would have to spend a lot of time in his zen garden after this. "Would I be rummaging around in your rubbish if he had told me anything?"

"He told you enough that, even after years of chasing Caffrey for the Raphael, you suddenly find me interesting enough to look into."

"He may have mentioned a relationship. And that 'Sara' isn't your real name."

"He didn't tell you what is was?" she questioned. "And you didn't think to look around at people who surround Dick Grayson to figure it out?"

Actually, he had. There were just too many options and the possibility that he wouldn't be able to find anything on their friendship. News often didn't report things which weren't scandalous.

Sara realised that he had and grinned. "You couldn't find anything, could you?"

"Shut up!" Mozzie countered. "Why are you back in Neal's life? He can't have the distraction after what happened with Kate!"

Sara flinched. "Kate... shouldn't have happened. I know they were together for a time but he was too much of a bleeding heart to tell her to deal with her own problems. You know she's the one who spread the rumour that he took the music box. Karma came for her but she used it to pull him back in."

"He always felt responsible for her."

"He feels responsible for everyone." Sara rolled her eyes and then smiled at Mozzie. "Come in for some tea."

"And give you the chance to poison me? No way." Instead of acting like he was a paranoid fool, Sara chuckled.

"You sound just like someone I know," she said fondly, thinking about a little kid who used to hang around Dick. "I'm not surprised Neal enjoys your company. I promise the tea is not poisoned. You can even make it."

Mozzie accepted those terms and followed her inside.

Neal snuck into Sara's house, wondering how he was going to con the driver in the limo into thinking that he had killed her. When he figured out who had proposed the idea that 'Mr Black' was a courier, he was going to send them a number of remedial detective lessons. Or just back to Quantico. Who mistakes a hired assassin for a courier?

He crept past the living area and froze. That was a familiar figure sleeping on the couch.

"Moz!" he hissed. "Hey, Mozzie!"

"The money's hidden in the fireplace!" Mozzie said as he woke up. He paused and blinked, eyes adjusting to the dark. "Neal? What are you doing here?"

"Remember how the FBI was going to have me impersonate the courier?" Mozzie nodded. "He wasn't a courier."

"Oh. She's going to shoot you," Mozzie said.

"You think?" Neal responded flatly. "What are you doing here?"

"I was invited to dinner. Sara has been kind enough to offer to look into some of my conspiracy theories."

Neal gave his friend a flat stare. It felt a little like he had left him to join Sara's team. Mozzie rolled over and wished Neal luck, going back to sleep. With a grumble, Neal slipped into Sara's room.

"You know I heard every word between you two," Sara said, her sleeping form not moving as she spoke.

"You bugged your living room?"

"Of course. This is the only room not bugged." Neal breathed a sigh of relief until she added, in a happy tone, "my phone can change that though. Why are you in my apartment with gun? I doubt this is your way of getting back together."

"Why? Is it working?" Neal couldn't help asking.

Sara shook her head, finally getting up. "You're an idiot."

"So people keep telling me. Remember Mr Black? The guy your suspect paid off? He's an assassin."

"Oh joy. I suppose he's sent you to kill me?"

"Yep."

"Thank you for not ringing the doorbell and shooting me there," Sara said, getting up and walking over. Her phone started to ring in that very moment. Not that it mattered as Neal was a little too horrified that she even said that. "Hello?"

"Please tell me you haven't shot him yet," Peter said, loud and clear on the other end. Sara had put it on speaker for him.

"The flight was long Peter," Neal said, stressing his extraction phrase. If the FBI had extracted him after he said the phrase in the limo, he could have gone on blissfully unaware of Sara and Mozzie's alliance and being compared to the Joker who had once shot Sara's spine out. He really could have lived without that latter one.

The conversation with Peter ended with Sara taking Mr Black's gun from Neal and shooting the ground, 'killing' her.

Sara moved into the FBI office while she was 'dead'. Neal had to admit the plan was good but he also didn't like her faking her death.

"At least some people know," she said to him when he brought it up. "Unlike what others have pulled in the past."

"Yeah, but you don't have to stay dead. We get Halbridge and you get to come back. It's okay for you to let some people know."

Silence hung heavy between them. "I guess so. 'Sara Ellis' might be out of town for a while after this."

"Too exciting for you?" he quipped.

"No. Too much work building up back home. I'm only able to catch up by being 'dead'." At Neal's confused look, she added, "I don't have to worry about keeping up Sara Ellis' life, I can just work on my things and being a good backup to you."

"Sara Ellis is fine backup to me," he said, sitting down next to her.

"Hmm, only when you need to use my name to get access to something you've been told to leave alone a number of times." Like the flight box recording from the plane that had exploded with Kate in it.

"I have to know, Babs," he said, using his old nickname for her. "Who killed her and why? Does it have to do with me? There's too many unknowns."

"And I'm afraid you're going to get hurt."

Neal found the person who killed Kate. He even found out why. The fact that it all came down to money disgusted him but he didn't let that show, except for that one moment when he almost shot Fowler over it.

Neal had even managed to convince the FBI to take another look at his situation and consider letting him go free. But then Kramer had to come and ruin it all. Neal didn't know how he had managed it yet. Peter had given him a sign to run and he wouldn't have told him to run if the agent wasn't completely sure that they had lost somehow.

Neal had cut the anklet, jumped in a taxi and went to an apartment which was owned by a Mr Pipistrello. Pipistrello was a quiet guy and no one really knew what he looked like. His apartment was small with just the bare necessities. Neal pulled on black jeans, a blue button up shirt, a cap and a black leather jacket.

"Where do you think you're going?" Sara asked, appearing in the bedroom doorway. She had obviously picked the lock to let herself in. "And why do you look like Jason?"

"What?" he questioned, offended at what she had said. "Jason doesn't own the 'bad boy' look Babs."

She looked him up and down. "Let him keep it, Dick. He pulls it off better."

Dick frowned and pulled on a pair of sunglasses. "I look fine, Babs. Besides, I'll change in Gotham. I'm just a little worried about the shirts and slacks looking a little too much like Neal's clothes."

"Yeah, you need to get out of New York quick. It's a good thing most law enforcement considers Gotham a no-go zone, for once."

"Yep. Want to be Mrs. Pipistrello?" he asked as he pulled out his ID; it said 'Dick Grayson' on it but she didn't know that. Barbara snorted and questioned whether he was serious. "I can whip an ID up for you quickly."

"Not that quick. Come on, boy wonder or no, the FBI will catch up with you eventually. We should be gone when they do."

Dick sighed and pocketed his ID. He would get Alfred to write this place off later. Thankfully, Babs didn't comment on his deflated mood. Together, they walked down onto the street, got into a car Barbara had rented and went over to the airport where one of Bruce's private planes was waiting.

Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon were greeted at the airport by Timothy Drake. The teenager grinned and hugged them both. Alfred greeted them outside with the limo. Bruce was at the house, working on making sure there would be no connection between Dick and Neal.

Dick sometimes got a distant look in his eyes, especially when the subject of the FBI or New York came up and no one wanted to comment on it. It helped when Mozzie appeared on the doorstep, looking for some work in the manor gardens. He was actually very good at landscaping. His other work was mostly ignored by the inhabitants of the manor, except when Matches Malone or his sons came calling.

It had been half a year since Neal went missing. Peter had been looking everywhere but every contact and lead came up empty. The FBI had quietly dropped the search. Diana found out that someone big had pulled some strings to get them to drop the investigation. Whomever it was had managed to get to Kramer, the DC agent quickly packing up his stuff and getting out of New York.

It didn't bode well for wherever Neal had gone.

Sara Ellis walked into the office, hair hanging down to her shoulders and a pair of glasses positioned on her nose. She was holding the hand of a guy who made everyone give him second looks and not just because he was attractive. Loose dark hair parted on the side, coupled with bright blue eyes reminded them of Neal, no matter how much he seemed like a kid in a candy store. He spoke, his voice even holding a slight whine to it.

"Babs," he said, in a drawn out way. "Why do we need to come to the FBI?"

"You need advice, Mr. Heir to the Wayne business."

"That's Tim, not me."

"And wouldn't you like to be able to help your brother? Come on, Agent Burke is good. Let's go." She pulled him up into Peter's office.

Peter pinched his nose for a moment before telling her to close the door.

"Seriously, Neal? What are you doing here?" he muttered.

'Neal' pulled out an ID and placed it on Peter's desk. "Uh, hi? I'm Dick Grayson. This is my friend, Barbara Gordon."

Peter stared at him. "Uh huh. And you expect me to believe it?"

"You'll find my adoption records on file. Also, I've spent the last couple of years travelling the world for Wayne Enterprises." Peter raised an eyebrow and Dick sighed. He lent forward. "Even if I was this 'Neal', do you really think I'd admit it in the middle of the FBI office?"

Peter chuckled and shook his head.

"How about we get lunch?" Barbara said, opening the door. "I'm sure you can tell us everything we need to know about business copyright."

"Sure," Peter said, grabbing his jacket. "In the words of a friend of mine, it beats paperwork. So, Mr Grayson, is this your first time in New York?"

Dick's face lit up and he answered in a quick and excited pace, "actually no. I used to live here back when I was a teenager. I lived with five other people around my age, the oldest of us being twenty-one. We were like a team, working hard in the big city. I still keep in touch with them although it's difficult to do so these days-" Dick kept talking even as they left the office. Peter learnt more in that moment than he had in two years. While he had told Neal to run, he had missed his friend. He knew there was no way he could keep Dick here, but if he could just convince him to keep coming back, he knew he could eventually get the whole story from him.