Author's Note: I finally got an update together yay!
I took a break from writing in January and was planning on updating my fics in February but then my mental health got even worse and I've been struggling with it ever since.
I appreciate all the follows/favourites/reviews I've gotten and they've been my motivation to get this together.
It might not be the best update but at least it's an update :)

CHAPTER 23

After some crying and some convincing, Neal finally agreed to staying at the house but it was clear that he was only doing it for his mother's sake.
Over the next couple of days the boy changed completely, he was suddenly always on edge and always making sure that he wasn't too loud, too energetic or too annoying.
He could talk loudly and happily with Elizabeth but then Peter would walk into the room and he suddenly lowered his voice.
It was obvious that Neal was expecting Peter to turn violent now that they lived in the same house, just like Elizabeth's ex Mark had suddenly snapped after three months of living together, and therefore he did his best to take up as little space as possible in order to not provoke Peter.
It truly broke Peter's heart to see the boy change every time he walked into the room but he knew that there was nothing he could do about it.
Neal still didn't believe his promise to never hurt him and even Elizabeth's words fell on deaf ears.
All he could do was to keep showing the kid kindness and give him time to realize that this time it was different.

It was Saturday morning almost a week after they had accepted his offer to stay with him and Peter had just returned from his walk with Satchmo when Elizabeth walked down the stairs, looking apprehensive.
It would have been cute how much her worried face looked like her son's if it wasn't for the fact that he recognized her expression as her wanting to say or ask something but was scared of how he would react.
Sometimes he honestly considered to ask Jones and Diana to track John and Mark and then make them feel as afraid as they had made Elizabeth and Neal feel.

"What's up, hon?"

He asked causing her to relax a bit and smile.
Peter had first called her "hon" the other day and it had just felt right so now it had become their go-to pet name for each other.

"I just talked to my boss at the museum and a co-worker couldn't make it to their shift today. She asked me if I could work instead."
"Do you feel ready to go back?"

He asked her in a concerned tone.
Even if Elizabeth had handled the whole kidnapping situation better than most, she still had nightmares and sometimes complete breakdown.

"Yeah, I just want things to go back to normal."
"Then I think you should do it."

She gave him a nervous smile before asking the question who was the reason for her worry.

"Would you mind watching Neal? If not I could-"
"I would love to watch him."

He interrupted and the relief spread over her face.

Despite the fact that Elizabeth trusted him and even if she knew that Peter cared about her son, she still showed the fear of inconveniencing him.
He couldn't really blame her for it, once you had gotten used to thinking a certain way it was hard to just shake it off.

"Thank you! You're the best."
She gave him a quick kiss and told him that she loved him before she left the room to call her boss back.

Neal hadn't been too happy over his mother going back to work and leaving him with Peter, at least based on the whining and the stomping Peter could hear from upstairs.
The kid tried to keep her from leaving by flashing her his big, blue puppy eyes but the mother stayed strong and left the house anyway.
As soon as she had left, the sulking boy sat down on the stairs and waited as if Elizabeth would suddenly change her mind and come back.
Peter decided to give Neal his space, so he sat down in front of the TV and watched some comedy show while once in a while glancing over at Neal.
It took a couple of minutes before the kid got bored and realized that him sitting on the stairs pouting wouldn't make his mom return.
He left the staircase and grabbed some papers and crayons before sitting down at the kitchen table.
For a while they just sat there, Peter watching TV and Neal drawing.
It was a commercial for some baking appliance that gave him the idea to bake something.
Peter had very little experience of baking but he remembered how Neal had loved being in the kitchen when he had stayed with him before, and it would be nice to surprise Elizabeth when she came back.
He turned the TV off and walked over to Neal, noticing how the kid immediately tensed up.

"Hey buddy, I was thinking about baking something. What's your mom's favourite?"

Peter asked and for a moment he thought that he wouldn't receive an answer but then he heard Neal answer him, barely audible.

"She likes chocolate muffins."

That didn't sound too complicated and he could remember Elizabeth buying some paper muffin cups last time they were at the supermarket.

"Thank you."

Peter said before he walked into the kitchen.
After finding an easy recipe online he started to get the things he would need and just as he anticipated it didn't take long before he saw that Neal was watching him.

"You wanna help me?"

The boy only thought about it for a couple of seconds before nodding and walking into the kitchen to help him.
At first the kid was quiet and just did what Peter asked him to do but then when Neal was going to mix all the ingredients using the electronic hand mixer, he accidentally put it on the highest speed which caused the mixture to splatter all over the counter and on both of them.
Neal immediately tensed up, clearly expecting to get hit or scolded, but when Peter just laughed the feat turned into surprise before he fully relaxed and even smiled.
After that the tension in the room disappeared and Neal even started to willingly talk to Peter and every time they made a mistake, like overfilling one of the muffin cups which caused it to fall and spill the batter, they both laughed about it.
Peter even put some chocolate batter on Neal's nose and the kid quickly retaliated by putting even more on his.
When the muffins came out of the oven they smelled absolutely delicious and it was actually Neal who had to stop Peter from grabbing a muffins while it was still too hot.
They waited until the muffins cooled down a bit before they did a taste test and highfived as they both considered it utterly amazing.
It felt like forever before Satchmo rushed to the door which was an indication that Elizabeth was on her way.

"Why don't you go get your mom while I get the muffins?"

Neal nodded eagerly and ran to the door to greet his mother while Peter grabbed the muffins and put them on a neat display on the kitchen counter.

"Mommy!"

Neal yelled as the door opened and judging by her surprised yelp the boy had probably thrown himself at her.

"Close your eyes, mommy!"
"Why?"
"It's a surprise."

Soon the boy came back, more or less dragging Elizabeth along.
He stopped when she was in front of the counter where Peter ha placed the muffins.

"You can look now!"

Elizabeth opened her eyes and looked truly surprised at the goodies in front of her.

"Chocolate muffins! My favourite."

She exclaimed and reached for one while Neal more or less bounced from excitement next to her.

"Did you guys make these?"

Peter nodded and Elizabeth looked like she was about to cry.
She took a bite while the boys looked at her, excited to see what she thought of them.

"This might be the best muffins I've ever had."

Elizabeth said and her son let out a happy squeal before Elizabeth hugged Neal and thanked him and the did the same with Peter.
Neal started to tell Elizabeth everything that they had done in the kitchen, including a very dramatic recreation of the hand mixer incident, and both of the adults notice how he happily babbled on despite the fact that Peter was in the room.

Monday soon came along and Elizabeth decided that it was time for Neal to return to school, something that the boy wasn't too happy about.
Despite flashing his puppy eyes and begging her to let him stay home, Elizabeth managed to get the kid into Peter's car so that he could drop the kid off on his way to work.
He also promised to pick him up since Elizabeth was going to work a later shift at the museum.
Peter dropped the boy off at school before going to work where they had gotten a new case, this one involving a theft of a rare diamond.
Time just flew by and soon Peter found outside the school again.
He had arrived to the school late so he had expected Neal to be waiting for him but to his surprise there was no kid waiting at the pick up spot.
Thinking that his teacher might have let him wait in the classroom he got out of the car and walked towards the building.
He came to a halt as he saw three very familiar kids and he got a really bad feeling in his stomach.
Peter remembered the last times he had been on the school's playground with Neal, the time when those three boys had been mean to Neal and then the time when Neal had hid with Mozzie in the playhouse that said boys were now circling like vultures around their dying pray.
Peter started to march towards them and as one of the boys noticed him they scattered, something that only intensified the bad feeling he felt.
When he reached the playground he peered through the small window on the side house and saw the boy he was looking for, sitting and trembling while holding onto the door handle with all of his might in order to make it hard to get the door open.
Peter walked over to the door and knocked on it.

"Neal, it's me."

He called out which caused the door to swing open and to his surprise the six-year-old threw himself into his arms.
Peter hugged the shaking boy tightly before he pulled him back to be able to see his face and was met by two blue eyes filled with fear and a bleeding nose.
He felt a sudden urge to chase after those boys but knew that they were far away by now.

"I-I'm sorry."

Peter frowned, not at all understand why he felt the need to apologize.

"Mark always said I had to learn to fight back but I couldn't. I was too weak-"
"Stop."

Peter interrupted and his hate for Mark only grew, the man knew about the bullying and didn't do anything to stop it.

"You're not weak, kiddo. They are, okay?"

He said and even if the child didn't look convinced, he slowly nodded.
Peter took his tie of and folded it before putting it under Neal's nose to stop him from bleeding all over the place.

"Does your mother know about this?"

Peter asked even if he already knew the answer.
If Elizabeth had known about the bullying she would have done everything she could to stop it and she certainly wouldn't send her son to school if she knew he would get hurt.

"Mark told me not to tell her."

Neal mumbled.

"Well we're going to tell her and then we're going to make this stop."
"Promise?"
"I promise."