They say everyone has their twin somewhere out there. In Neal's case, this is literal.


One of my ideas arising from PMs with KeJae: now I have an idea where Peter tackles Bryce to the ground, thinking he's Neal (and maybe brings him back to the FBI building) when he's not. And no one believes him until Neal walks in, confused at all the commotion.

Author's Note: In this one, Neal didn't visit Bryce at Stanford and neither twin has seen the other since Neal left. It just worked out that way. Kind of didn't follow the prompt (you'd think I'd be able to follow my own prompt but, nope) and its a long one. So, enjoy!

To Guest (reviewed on chapter 8): I'll have a go at your prompt next.


It was a lovely morning and Peter was treating himself to a slice of sweetness for breakfast. He had to leave for work early and he just couldn't help getting a slice of cake with his morning coffee.

El would never know.

"Wow, that's not really a healthy breakfast now, is it?" the next customer in line said to him, "what would your wife say?"

Peter scowled and turned to face the man. Just as he suspected from the voice, it was Neal. He was dressed in a simple grey turtle-neck and black leather jacket and jeans and Peter thought that a haircut might do him good, but it was most certainly Neal.

"Neal, you're outside your radius," he reminded the con. If Neal was risking getting in trouble with the marshals just to bug him about his breakfast, he was going to drown him in Mortgage Fraud cases and bureau coffee.

Neal tilted his head and gave him a confused frown.

"What?" he questioned.

Peter let out a hiss of anger as he couldn't yell at him right there at the counter. He grabbed Neal's arm and pulled him away.

"Excuse me? I haven't ordered yet!" Neal said in an indignant tone. A moment later he easily shrugged out of Peter's grip. "You know, I was only trying to make polite conversation! A joke! There was no reason to pull me out of line like that."

"No reason?" Did Neal think the radius was a suggestion or something? "You're outside your radius! That's reason enough!"

"You've got to be kidding me," Neal said with a breathy laugh and a shake of his head. "I don't understand what you mean by radius."

Peter's jaw clenched and he placed his hands on his hips. Neal was not doing this right now. Whatever 'this' was. Peter was due at the office soon and Neal was messing with him.

"Wrong time, wrong place, Neal."

"My name is Bryce," Neal interrupted but, Peter continued without heading what he said;

"I'm going to drag you back to the office and cuff you to your desk and later you can tell me what's going on and how you managed to get outside your radius without triggering an alert."

"I have ID," Neal said, pulling out his wallet. Peter rolled his eyes and took it. Sure enough, there was a driver's licence and bank cards all in the name 'Bryce Larkin'. Peter groaned. Now there was a whole new alias of Neal's to check, and burn. More work to add to his day. "Hey!" Neal protested when Peter pocketed his wallet.

"Come on, Neal," Peter said, dragging his consultant out of the shop. He flashed his badge and informed the watching eyes that there was nothing to see here and that he was FBI.

"FBI, huh?" Neal said in a condensing tone, "well, no wonder you don't listen. If you're going to take me in, then can I at least have my wallet back?"

Peter gave Neal a curious look. Something about the other man's manner was off. It reminded Peter of how Neal was like when he first started chasing him.

"You know I can't give you back your forged licences," he reminded him. Neal was slouched in the passenger chair with his arm lying against the window and silently staring at him. "Did you lose a bet with Mozzie or something?" Peter asked. He wanted to solve this but knew that work came first. Neal didn't respond and Peter sighed. "Fine, be that way."


An FBI agent. Of all the people he could have struck up a conversation with, he had to pick an FBI agent. Bryce was still cursing his luck. This agent acted like he knew him, maybe he mistook him for a face on a wanted poster, and took him to the FBI building.

And what was he saying about a radius? Bryce couldn't figure out why the man would think he needed to stay in a radius.

The worst part was that he dragged Bryce up to the 21st floor and handcuffed him into the seat of the first desk they passed. Even with his lack of listening skills making him seem like an idiot, the agent hadn't given him an inch as he took him in. Bryce grudgingly thought that it was impressive. Without knocking the other agent out, which would have caused a scene anyway, Bryce didn't have any idea how to escape.

He hadn't cuffed him too tight but had made it so Bryce couldn't slip the cuffs off. Bryce could pick the lock, if he was alone and didn't feel all the eyes of the agents around him on him.

Plus, as soon as he was seated, people started coming up to him to talk.

"What did you do now, Caffrey?" A long haired, dark woman asked him as she placed some files on his desk.

"I didn't do anything," Bryce responded. He wasn't even going to bother correcting her on his name; they would learn of their mistake eventually.

A few of the agents laughed. It wasn't nasty laughter but, friendly. Like they were laughing with him.

Except he wasn't laughing. Or smiling.

"Don't pick that," another agent said, lightly knocking his hand. Bryce ended up dropping the paperclip he had fashioned into a make-shift lockpick. "Peter'd have your neck."

Bryce raised his eyebrows. That didn't sound like a threat, not even a friendly one. It sounded more like a joke among friends.

Who did they think he was?


Neal walked into the FBI office at his usual time. Unlike his usual time, there appeared to be a number of agents missing. Jones wasn't at his desk and neither was Diana. Peter wasn't in his office and Neal couldn't see him in the conference room.

"Where's Peter?" he asked one of the clerks as she passed by.

"Down the hall," she responded. Neal smiled at her but she only tilted her head in confusion.

"Everything okay?" he asked, trying to sound reassuring.

"I thought I saw... nevermind," she responded with a shake of her head. She quickly made her exit while Neal moved off towards the interrogation room.

And he found the missing agents. He heard them before he even rounded the corner.

"How long do you think he can keep this act up?" he heard Diana ask. Some of the other agents gave estimations of the time they thought 'Neal' could keep up his little act.

Neal was confused by this. What act?

"What's going on?" he asked Agent Blake.

"Agent Burke caught Neal outside his radius and is trying to get the story from him," Blake responded without turning away from the spectacle on the other side of the two-way mirror windows.

"Really?" Neal responded in an interested tone. One of the agents spotted him and began looking between Neal and the room.

"Neal's pretending to be some other guy, doing a good job of it too, except changing his outfit isn't enough to change the way he looks." Maybe Blake noticed the confusion in the surrounding agents; he turned to face Neal and immediately paled.

"Neal?" Diana questioned in a strangled voice when she spotted him a moment later.

Neal ignored her. He had gotten a good look at the man inside the room, talking to Peter.

"I'm telling you, I don't know who this 'Neal Caffrey' is!"

"Oh god," Neal breathed. It was Bryce. Neal hadn't seen his twin since he left home at eighteen but he had tried to keep track of him. Nothing had been worse than the day in prison when he learnt of his brother's death.

"Caffrey, you okay?" Jones asked as Diana placed a hand on his back to steady him.

"Uncanny," one of the other agents breathed. Neal knew they were referring to how alike he and Bryce were.

They were identical twins, even if they hadn't seen each other in years.

"Alright, I think it's time for us to get back to work," Jones said loudly. The agents knew it for what it really was, not a suggestion but, an order.

"Neal? You okay?" Diana asked in a kind voice.

"How do you know that's really Neal?" Jones asked. Diana smirked and tugged at his pants, where they could just make out the anklet when she lifted it. "Oh."

Neal didn't pay any attention to them. He just did his best to pull himself together before storming into the room.

"I'm busy," Peter said as he turned around. The moment he spotted Neal, his jaw dropped. Neal smiled at him and walked over to take the seat next to him. And across from Bryce.

"Danny," Bryce said with realisation flashing across his face. "I should I have guessed. You're the Neal Caffrey they've mistaken me for."

"That's right," Neal responded in a smooth voice and with a smile. "I'm a felon on work release to the FBI-"

"Hence the radius," Bryce finished for him.

"Right again. Now, answer this one for me: why didn't you tell me you were alive?" He already guessed that the obituary he saw for Bryce Larkin was false. When Bryce didn't answer, he asked, "what trouble are you in, Bryce? Accountants don't need to fake their death."

Bryce glared at him for a moment before shifting in the seat. He pulled out a wallet ID badge and slid it across to Neal.

"Oh shit," Peter swore when Neal opened the badge. Neal just felt slightly ill.

CIA. His twin brother had joined the CIA.

He didn't know how to handle it, so he dropped the badge back onto the table and left the room.

"Danny!" Bryce called his name with slight desperation as he left.


"Neal, you need to go back in there," Peter said, following him out moments later. He had seen the hurt look on Bryce's face as Neal had walked out.

Neal shook his head in response.

"You haven't seen him in a while, huh?" Diana said, having stood outside and seen the exchange between Bryce and Neal.

"Not since the day I left home," Neal responded, "I just couldn't face him and he appeared to be doing okay without me anyway-"

"Bullshit," Diana responded, "I may not have known your brother long, hell, I only just learnt that it's not you in there but, I do know this: he's just as good a conman as you."

"He probably does a lot of undercover work," Peter stated.

Neal nodded in agreement but didn't say anything in response. He had walked in there, desperate to know if Bryce really was alive, but hadn't thought about how to react if he was.

"I can't process it," he said, "Bryce is a spy. That's a dangerous job. A really dangerous job. God, I could lose him again."

"No, you won't," Peter said, placing a hand on Neal's shoulder. "If he's anything like you, and something tells me he is, he'll be able to handle any dangerous situation."

Neal's mind flashed through all the times had a gun pointed at him and sometimes fired at him. There were times he had only remained unharmed by some stroke of luck.

And he had always thought he was luckier than Bryce. He was the elder twin and had the status of being treated like the first born son because of it.

"Don't I get to be angry?" Bryce asked suddenly, causing everyone to jump. He handed the handcuffs back to Peter. "You left. One day, I had my brother by my side and the next he was gone without a trace. I tried looking for you, you know. I used the CIA to try and find you. After a while, I had to give you up for dead. Why didn't you tell me you were alive? Why didn't you contact me?"

Diana shifted awkwardly. She felt like she shouldn't be hearing this, just the emotion in the two brother's voices was enough to tell her that what she was witnessing was personal.

"I-" Neal didn't really know how to answer that. He swallowed. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, sure." Bryce didn't sound like he really believed Neal. "At least with that radius, I'll be able to find you next time."

Diana's eyes widened as the mood seemed to shift. Peter was hiding a smile behind his hand and he no doubt he agreed with that Bryce had said. Neal just looked shocked.

"Excuse me?" Neal questioned.

"We can't change the past," Bryce responded with a shrug. He had learnt that the hard way.

"Are you serious?" Neal asked. Despite his disbelief, a smile working its way back onto his face. When Bryce nodded, he asked, "when did you grow up? What happened to my little brother who liked to play computer games and speak that made-up language?"

"I still play computer games," Bryce responded in an offended voice, "just on a larger scale sometimes, and my knowledge of Klingon has saved lives!"

Neal gave a disbelieving snort.

"Neal," Peter said as a warning at the conman opened his mouth.

"I guess we need to catch up later," Neal said instead of whatever he was going to say.

"Sure. I just need my wallet back," Bryce said, sliding his eyes over to Peter.

"Peter," Neal said in an over-the-top shocked tone, "you took his wallet?"

"I thought he was you!" Peter responded as he pulled the wallet out and handed it back to its owner.

"An understandable mistake," Bryce said, earning a glare from Neal. They both knew how Neal hated it when people mixed them up and how Bryce liked it. It seemed like that hadn't changed over the years apart.


Neal walked back into the apartment that evening, completely exhausted. And irritated. All anyone at the office was talking about was 'Neal Caffrey's twin brother' and he had spent all day avoiding and answering questions.

"You see, that particular consulate has a hidden tunnel..." Oh no. Neal slammed the door open.

"Bryce!"

"Ahhh!" Mozzie cried, jumping away from the table where Bryce was sitting. "Neal? What the...?"

"He didn't ask my name," Bryce commented with a shrug.

Mozzie shuddered.

"Evil government clone! See, Neal! I told you this would happen!"