An Inconvenient Encounter


There wasn't much going on in the office. No special cases and they were experiencing a lull in fighting between Peter and him. All in all, things were running pretty smoothly, if only for the moment.

However, there was one piece of interest in the office that caused an air of underlying curiosity. Apparently, Hughes' youngest son was meeting him at the office after work since he was in town for a visit.

Since no one had seen him, many of the team was curious. Although they were doing their work, they were finding ways to stay whether through legitimate means or contrived excuses.

Caught in the middle, Neal felt some vague curiosity, but he was mostly just stuck. His ride, Peter, had his nose so deep in a file that he probably had no idea what time it was. There was a reason the workaholic had a reputation for staying late.

Then the elevator dinged its arrival and there was a pause in the work as a young man got off with a rolling suitcase and turned toward the office.

Like the others, Neal was watching out of curiosity when he flinched and ducked his head.

But not before he saw Ben Hughes' eyes raise and a look of recognition flash across his face.

It was too late to go unnoticed, but he hoped that Ben would walk past him despite their history.

In short, Ben was one of his frat brothers at Stanford and a friend of Chuck's who despised Bryce Larkin after what he'd done.

"Bryce," there was a cold and hard acknowledgment as Ben walked by before leaving his suitcase in the break area and walking up to this father's office. Throwing an extra glare as he ascended the stairs, Ben was clearly still holding a grudge!

Sighing as he disappeared into the office upstairs, Neal wasn't surprised when all eyes turned toward him.

"What did you do to him? Please tell me that you didn't pull a con on the boss's son?"

"When were you Bryce, we don't have that as one of your aliases?"

Jones and Diana were especially curious, but that didn't stop the team from making sure that all questions had been brought up.

As the voices merged together, Neal raised his hands to quiet them. Answering the questions in quick succession, he replied. "Nothing, nope, and that's because it's my legal name."

This brought on a whole new slew of questions about how they'd missed his legal name.

Smirking, Neal wasn't going to tell them that they'd missed his legal name because the CIA had intervened.

However, that didn't help the general anger that was brewing against him.

It didn't take much to cause that though. Really, it didn't. The team would turn on him if they even suspected him of doing the slightest thing.

That was when Peter, Hughes, and Ben came down the stairs, but whether it was in response to the noise or merely because they were leaving for the end of the day, Neal didn't know.

"What's going on down here?" Hughes called the team to order. His words barely got attention, but his tone demanded obedience to his authoritative position.

Stepping forward as the senior agent aware of what was going on, Jones answered for them all. "Apparently, Neal's legal name is Bryce, but he won't specify anything else."

"Neal, care to elaborate?" Hughes turned the glare on him.

"No," Neal held his ground. If he could face Beckman and Casey with a gun, then he could withstand Hughes' best glare.

"Neal," Peter added his growl to the mix.

"Still, no," Neal remained relaxed in his seat.

"Do you always lie to your friends, or is there something special that causes you to explode in jerk?" Ben added his contribution while folding his arms across his chest.

That expression inspired a brief flashback for Neal to when Ben told him off for getting Chuck expelled, Neal also realized that it was a family trait since Reese was doing the exact same thing.

"I can assure you that I will not be elaborating," Neal confirmed for Reese and Peter before turning to Ben. "As for your question, I don't tend to lie to my friends. I try to be as honest as I can be, but some things have additional complications that make things messy."

"Like what you did to Chuck?" Ben continued to hold his arms crossed while everyone else watched on in interest.

"Yes, exactly like what happened with Chuck." Even Neal could hear it as his voice dropped. He missed his friend, but there were so many reasons why he couldn't reach out to him. For one, he was allegedly dead. That always made keeping in touch difficult.

"Do you finally regret what you did?" Ben cocked his head.

Neal bobbed his head back and forth as he thought. "Not remotely, and I'd do it all over again if circumstances required it... Well, there are a few parts of the repercussions that would be nice to avoid," like getting shot to death helping to protect his father's third-best creation... twice.

Frowning, the group dispersed. Despite how interesting the conversation was, they weren't getting anything out of Neal and they all had lives to get home to. If nothing else, they had things that they'd rather do than hang around the office after hours with no active case forcing them to.

"Are you ready to go yet, Peter?" Neal hoped to escape as well, even though it would mean a drive alone with the archeologist.

Fortunately for him, Peter was ready to go and he wasn't overly talkative on the trip, but he did have one question as Neal got out. "Is this going to cause trouble?"

Thinking for a moment, Neal couldn't lie. "It might, but if it does, it won't be for any of the reasons that you or Ben expect." Worst case scenario the wrong person would realize he wasn't dead and they'd try to rectify that. But, if he was lucky, Ben would just make his life difficult for a few days before going back to whatever rock he'd crawled out from under.

"Let me know if anything comes up," Peter warned before sending him on his way. He'd be mulling on the situation, but he had a wife who wanted him home.

Going into the mansion, Neal headed up to his apartment in the loft. Beckman would want to know, especially since there was a risk that Ben could contact Chuck and reveal that he wasn't dead.

Checking, his handler agent Winters', also known as Mozzie, wasn't hanging around so he couldn't pass the alert off to him and avoid getting glared at some more for the evening.

With no reason to avoid it further, he did his checks to ensure that he wouldn't be interrupted before placing the call.

Surprisingly, there was no answer. Beckman always answered his call. It was an anomaly that vaguely concerned him, but he had no involvement in whatever was going on and he'd probably never know what it was so there was no sense in worrying needlessly. Instead, he disconnected the call and sent her a message forewarning against the potential complications.

With everything professionally handled, Neal needed to get his dinner, and then he was looking forward to what could be his last relaxing evening until everything Ben caused had subsided.


Arriving the next morning, Neal was glad to see that things looked fairly normal around the office. Everyone was doing their work, but some were throwing suspicious glances if not all out glares his way.

Shrugging them off, Neal settled into his desk and started working on the pile of cases that had been allotted to him for the day. It didn't go with his usual routine, but he expected things to get interesting if Ben came around again, or if anyone had tried to research his name and came up dry. He might as well get a head start on his workload in case he couldn't finish it later.

"Trying to be good won't stop us from being suspicious," Peter commented as he walked past his desk.

"Ha-ha, very funny." Neal tried not to rise to the bait, but he couldn't help reacting at least a little.

"What's so funny?" Another voice that he hadn't heard in a while asked as he came in behind Peter.

"The joke that I'm trying to behave to prevent the team from questioning me," Neal answered calmly much to everyone's annoyance.

"I agree with them, you behaving is very suspicious," the voice continued to have an irritated edge to it.

Looking up, Neal retained his calm as he faced the glaring puppy eyes. "Really, are we going to do this here and now?"

"We are. You got me expelled for cheating and Ben here was apparently one of my friends who tried to hold you accountable for your actions." Chuck stood in a nerdy tee-shirt, zipped-up jacket, jeans, and his chucks. He was apparently keeping his cover as the college dropout who merely worked as a nerd herd supervisor.

"Alright, hit me with it." Neal leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. It wouldn't hurt to air some of these things and make sure they were resolved.

"Okay, you got me expelled for cheating when we both know I didn't and then you slept with my girlfriend." Chuck threw some extra heat into his glare and tone as he dug into his old grievances.

Cocking his head, Neal knew his actions for getting Chuck expelled had been addressed, but there was a question that had always bothered him, "What happened with Jill anyway?"

Dropping his pretend attitude, Chuck laughed as he ran a hand through his hair, "Yeah, about that." He looked up at Neal with a sheepish grin. "I owe you an apology on that one. You see, she... she was also working for people who were interested in me and when you took me off of their radar, she had to get rid of me. She decided to use a variation of your plan so she told me that she'd slept with you. I hated you and wasn't talking to you so no one questioned her actions and I blamed you for something that wasn't your fault."

"Don't worry about it, Chuck. Technically, you could say that it was my fault. If I hadn't taken you off of everyone's radar, she wouldn't have been forced to dump you so harshly." Cocking his head as a random thought crossed his mind, Neal wondered. "You know, if things had been different, she'd have probably been ordered to marry you."

Popping his head back, Chuck didn't appear to have thought about that before either. "You know, you're probably right. I mean, it wouldn't have been surprising since I'd thought about proposing. Actually, we did the whole engaged charade once. That was a complicated situation." He waved any curiosity away and shook his head that it wasn't something to be talked about.

The conversation topic was dwindling when Chuck glanced over Neal's shoulder and at someone in the room behind him. His expression shifted into a flash and he unzipped his jacket the rest of the way while he processed the information. Then whipping out his tranquilizing pistol, Chuck shot someone before anyone could react.

Holding his hands up as the room reacted, Chuck was calm as the team reached for their weapons, and Peter, as the nearest agent, reached out and took the gun from him.

"How did you get that past the security?" Peter asked the obvious question.

Ben was standing to the side watching in shock, but then he also looked puzzled. "How did you get through security so fast in general? I've been here before and it took me quite a while to go through, but you were waiting for me on the other side."

"He isn't wearing a visitor's badge either," Peter contributed as he checked Chuck over for any other weapons.

"You're not helping here?" Chuck looked past them to Neal.

Holding up his hands, Neal shook his head at him. "Hey, I'm just a criminal here; you're the one who chose to pull the tranquilizer pistol."

Hearing a groan, Neal turned his attention to the agent that Chuck had shot. "He's waking up. By the way, is he a Ring agent?"

Chuck didn't get the chance to answer since Neal was no longer listening as he got up in preparation.

The agent was quickly getting up and since his cover had been blown, he didn't seem intent on going down easily. Regaining his feet, the man pulled a knife and lunged for Neal.

Engaging him in combat, Neal defended himself.

He started by dodging the agent's jabs as he tried to catch him with the knife. Then he caught the man's arm and disengaged his grip on the weapon forcing him to drop it.

With both hands busy trying to block the agent's retaliation, Neal called for assistance, "Chuck, do you mind?"

Joining the fray, Chuck simply pulled a karate chop that rendered the man unconscious. "As I was trying to say, yeah, he's a Ring agent. He was supposedly killed the last time you were killed, but apparently, it didn't stick for him either."

"Huh, I didn't recognize him." Neal panted a little from the quick exertion, even from the short fight.

"Probably because you were too busy getting shot to death, again, and protecting the target until the rest of us could get there." Chuck shook his head as he flipped the man over to check him for weapons. Making a pile, he then removed his watch. "I hate those. My first solo assignment had a big guy who used one to regain consciousness. He about killed me before Sara could intervene." Then he pulled his own cuffs out and arrested him.

"You came rather prepared. I've never seen you wield a weapon or carry cuffs. Don't you usually rely on Sarah and Casey for those?" Neal continued to have a calm conversation with his friend while the entire rest of the office watched in stunned silence.

"It's been a while since you were around, but you might remember that I chose to step into the fray despite having regained my civilian status. By making that choice I was made a full agent and am now required to do things for myself. I'm not an asset anymore." Chuck's reveal of being an agent had the office settling down a little, but they were still curious.

"Alright, you have some explaining to do," Hughes pointed at Chuck and Neal. "Jones and Diana, take this agent down to the holding cells and call OPR. We've heard of the Ring and we don't want any of their agents running around."

"How have you heard of the Ring? They aren't known to be in the FBI?" Neal questioned; he'd been tasked with watching out for them in addition to his other operations but hadn't come across one he could prove yet.

Clearing his throat, Chuck got his attention. "I think your agent Burke has that answer..."

"Everyone here knows that he used to be CIA but the Ring targeted him and he was transferred to the FBI with a name change to Peter Burke." Agent Blake contributed to the conversation with a surprising reveal. "It's just been a universal secret since no one wanted to risk you leaking anything."

Shocked, Neal certainly hadn't expected that. "I'm thinking that I should question my skills for routing out enemy agents. How did I miss that?"

"Probably because you weren't looking, just like we missed you, agent Larkin." Peter had his hands on his hips.

"Chuck, I think you need to hang around, at least for a few days, and do a double-check. I really don't want to get shot to death again." Neal sighed, "And you, 'Peter,' I want to know what Budapest was about!"

"That's when the Ring went after me and I had to pretend to go rogue. Probably something similar to what happened to you before the first time you were killed, allegedly in a bank robbery." Peter answered with a growing smirk of his own.

"Chuck," Neal passed verifying that to the human Intersect. It would be faster and easier than going through channels or files.

"What was the name of the operational response to their effort to poach you?" Chuck asked Peter.

"Trojan Horse," Peter answered which caused Chuck to flash as he ran through the data.

"Yes, he's clean," Chuck confirmed. "I need some painkillers and a bottle of water though if I'm going to keep having to process this much data."

"Sorry," Neal retrieved the items and gave Chuck a few pills to relieve his growing headache.

"Who is this?" Hughes directed a thumb towards Chuck while asking Peter, but Peter turned passing the question onto Neal.

"The full answer to that is beyond your clearance and need to know, so we'll just stick with Chuck." Neal didn't want to risk Washington's wrath for endangering everything. Then he turned to Chuck with a frown, "Did you even tell your team or the director that you were coming here?"

Quirking his eyebrows up and lifting one side of his smile up, Chuck looked like he didn't know what to do with his face; a sure sign that Neal was right.

Sighing, Neal just shook his head at his friend in slight exasperation. "That means that there's probably a whole taskforce operation freaking out at the moment. Give them a call before you cause a huge national security issue."

"Sure thing, boss," Chuck smiled at him before ducking out to the back hallway to make his calls.

Blinking, Neal hadn't expected that. Sure, he and Chuck hadn't really interacted since he'd been promoted, and technically Chuck had been a civilian at the time anyway, but it still came as a surprise to hear the term from his friend.

"Boss?" Ben had lowered his arms to his sides, but one had transitioned to his hip. His other was moving around to his thoughts.

"Technically, I am his boss, but I don't directly command him or anything. I just don't want one of his counterparts to shoot me again... Actually, if he followed in his father's footsteps for his skill at disappearing, that's probably why the director didn't answer when I called last night." Neal snapped his fingers as he finally solved the mystery of why Beckman didn't answer.

Rolling his eyes, Peter shook his head. "I don't know who would cause more trouble, you or him."

Giving it a thought for a second, Neal almost declared that Chuck would, but then he gave it another thought and realized that he wasn't sure either. "You know, that is a good question. We're both trouble magnets... it's a wonder we didn't get into more trouble at university."

"Like you didn't find enough?" Ben seemed to be lightening up since Chuck had forgiven him.

"Ooh, I need to hear about this," Peter grinned as he looked at Neal with a devious glint. "Now that the prison threats are losing their strength, I need something else to work with."

"That's low!" Neal couldn't believe what he was hearing from Peter. Then he turned to Ben, "Come on, wasn't Stanford enough punishment?"

Since this caused Hughes to turn towards Ben and Ben's eyes to get big, Neal figured that was enough revenge for everything that Ben was causing him to go through... at least, everything that had happened so far.

Coming back into the room, Chuck looked a little rougher for wear than he had when he left.

"Sarah let you have it, didn't she?"

For the first time in nearly a decade, Neal felt like maybe things were going well. Peter and he were in a better place since they were both agents and knew it, Chuck was technically back in his life, and he also felt vindicated since Ben had witnessed that they were no longer enemies.

He wasn't going to tell Reese that Ben was involved in abducting him and had used a mixture of duct tape and rope to strap him to the top of a flag pole in his boxers. If he hadn't been trying to keep his secret he could have gotten out of the situation, but instead, he took the humiliation knowing that the guys were just getting revenge for their unjustly fallen friend. Ultimately, he couldn't blame them.

"Yeah, but I'm not sure if she or Casey is going to kill me first... unless, of course, it's Beckman who sends an assassin that I don't know to do the job from a distance." Chuck cocked his head to the side and sucked his lip in.

"It's the bullets that you've got to watch out for," Neal said in all frankness.

Choking on air for a second, Chuck then burst out laughing.

Within a few moments, the team found themselves relieving the pressure and awkwardness that had been floating through the room by laughing along with him.

Restoring order, Hughes raised his hand and ordered everyone to quiet down. "Alright, this is the FBI... and apparently, the CIA. I want Peter, Neal, and Chuck in my office, now. Everyone else, get back to work." He let the team have his growl before he softened his tone for a more private word to his son. "We will be talking about whatever happened at Stanford, because I have a feeling, I know what you did to Larkin, but I need to handle work right now."

Shrugging, Neal had his own mess to handle so he followed the others up the stairs while Ben went to sulk in the break area. Despite Hughes' frustration, there wouldn't be nearly as much trouble for Ben as there probably would be for him so Neal didn't feel too bad for the guy.

Once enclosed in the office, Hughes turned his frown solely on Neal since he was a familiar face and arguably the reason their office had become a circus sideshow. "Why are you in my office agent Larkin?"

Sitting where he'd been set front and center to take the bulk of Hughes' wrath, Neal debated on how much to tell him. "Well, the short of it is that I was transferred back to a task force after my recovery. I'm on loan to play an alternate version of myself per the arrangement between the Marshalls, the FBI, and the NSA to pursue the public corruption that's been a threat most of my life. Your team was assigned since your reputation means you aren't likely to have corruption on your team and therefore would provide a safe office to base out of. However, since I'm stationed here indefinitely, I'm also assigned whatever operation I'm handy for and generally tasked to keep an eye out for Ring agents. Clearly, I'm not doing so well on that last part since I missed at least one."

"He's new to the building and isn't from our team so it's not surprising that he hasn't hit anyone's radar yet. The man was only in our office for a consult on a case. It was pure chance that Chuck here crossed his path and was able to ID him." Hughes interceded. His stance had relaxed a little since his team wasn't directly under investigation. "However, I assume this is going to cause issues for your operation while I don't want my team to be drug into a Washington drama."

Raising his hand slightly, Chuck drew the glare his way. "Beckman is going to handle the confidentiality forms for your team and she's looking to have you written in on Neal's operation since his cover was blown anyway. Damage control should be fairly easy as long as the reveal is contained to your immediate team and Ben... although; Ben will not be notified of anything else and can expect his own forms."

Sighing, Hughes knew this was going to cause complications to his professional career, but he was grateful that his son wouldn't have to face too many ramifications for what he'd accidentally done.

Fortunately, Peter had a great reputation with all agencies as well so he volunteered to handle leading the operation. "His character of Neal is my CI and I also have a history in the CIA, so I can keep up with him. So, I think I'm the best one to ensure that the idiot doesn't get himself killed... again."

Throwing a confident smile his friend's way, Neal tried to reassure Peter that that wouldn't be necessary, but he didn't even get the crack of a grin in response. Peter was clearly upset by his previous deaths and would probably hold a short leash in the future if he even remotely thought it was necessary. "Great, now I get an overprotective former CIA FBI agent." He sighed as he slouched a little down into his seat. What little freedom he'd had was about to be reduced. Could Peter check his tracking data more frequently than he already did and actually get things done?

"You bet you do!" Peter responded sternly which only made Chuck giggle until all eyes turned glares on him causing him to shut up and run his fingers over his lips mimicking a zipper.

"Now, I don't want anyone to do anything rash or draw any more attention. Pretend that nothing happened, carry on as usual. We'll reevaluate once we've got the rest of the data on this operation of Larkin's. In the meanwhile, I want you two to take Chuck and Ben on a tour of the building. This way it will look like you're merely keeping my son and another guest occupied but it will allow Chuck to do an initial review of the staff without attracting too much attention. When you finish that, report back to me and I'll see what I can iron out with Beckman in the meanwhile." They were abruptly dismissed as Hughes shifted his plans for the day to accommodate the changes.

Walking out of the office, Peter led the way while Chuck grumbled behind him with Neal.

"Why do I feel like I'm being grounded?"

"That's because this is Hughes' way of saying 'let the grown-ups talk' but with Peter along to keep us miscreants in line." Neal rolled his eyes as he felt like he'd been demoted to a junior agent again.

Reaching the main floor, Peter instructed the team to pretend like nothing had happened while they waited for the official response from Washington. "In the meanwhile, I'm taking the kids for a tour of the building to make sure they don't come up with any more shenanigans."

'Shenanigans?' Chuck mouthed the word at Neal.

Smiling as he threw an arm across Chuck's shoulder, Neal teased Peter. "He likes to use that word to describe what I do. I think it's because he's so old."

Grinding his teeth a little, Peter didn't appreciate the jibe, but he didn't say anything as he'd fired the first shots by calling them kids.

Pulling Ben into the group, they took off for their tour starting with the back hallways of their own floor just in case there was anything else that had been missed.

It was boring to Neal since he was merely walking along and watching as Chuck flashed on anyone and anything that triggered something in the Intersect. Still, he did find suitable entertainment in mocking Peter and rekindling some of his old camaraderie with two frat brothers from the good old days.


Thank you, everyone, for reading, reviewing, leaving kudos, following, and choosing to favorite :D

Happy Birthday to Quinis! Per her request, we've got a Neal/Bryce story with Chuck involvement, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to at least reference Mozzie and enjoy a new version of a Peter/Kieran reveal ;)

As an additional note, the appraisal is due this week which is the final piece we're waiting on to finalize and close the house purchase. Since the eviction date for the rental to go up for sale is 3/31, our time is dwindling and we're hoping to be able to make the move sooner rather than later. Depending on how all of this goes, we'll either begin moving next weekend or the one following. If the former, I might be able to keep posting in the evenings, but if the latter, my posting will be delayed as moving will take precedence. We'll see how this plays out, but I wanted to give you all a heads up just in case.