A/N: This story was written for a series of Flufftober prompts in 2023, and I'm finally posting it here. Early chapters are one fluffy vignette per year of Neal's childhood, starting when he is 3 and Peter is 15. As the characters get older, the chapters become more complex and angsty.

Spoilers through White Collar season 4.

In this AU, Neal's WITSEC last name is Parker instead of Brooks – that's to help reduce "B" overload when it came to names with the Burkes heavily featured.

Porch Swing

When fifteen-year-old Peter Burke returned from a week at baseball camp, he noticed the moving truck at the house across the street. "Have you met the new neighbors?" he asked his mom as she parked the car.

"Not yet," she said. "I've heard through the grapevine that they have a son."

Peter opened the passenger door and darted toward the trunk to pull out his suitcase and gear. "Does he play baseball?"

Betty Burke chuckled. "Not at your level. He's not even school-age yet. I wouldn't be surprised if they need a babysitter. If they hire you, maybe you can teach him how to play."

Over dinner with his parents Peter learned the neighbors were the Parker family. Dahlia Parker was a widow — her husband had died a few months ago, and she had decided to move away to make a fresh start. Her son Daniel was three years old. Living with them was Ellen Parker, Dahlia's sister-in-law.

The next day, Peter was riding his bike around the neighborhood and catching up with friends, when he noticed someone on the porch across the street. She was tugging at a massive box.

Peter rode up the driveway and leaned his bike against a tree. "Need some help?" he asked.

"I could, yes," she said. "You're the Burkes' son?"

He nodded, impressed that she'd already figured that out. "I'm Peter."

"Ellen Parker," she said, shaking his hand. "I met your father yesterday. He mentioned he worked in construction, and he offered to help if we needed a handyman. I didn't think I'd need assistance so soon, but this looks like a two-person job."

Peter took a closer look at the box. "A porch swing. Nice."

"My nephew's last home had one, and I want to give him something familiar. He's a bit overwhelmed by all of the sudden changes in his life."

Peter pulled the instructions out of the box and scanned through them. "It sounds straightforward enough, just a bit unwieldy for one person to secure the attachments and lift it into place."

They worked together companionably, with Peter dashing back home briefly to borrow a drill from his dad's collection of tools. His mom brought over a pitcher of lemonade just as they were ready to test out their handiwork. He sat on the porch rails while his mom and Ellen relaxed on the porch swing.

A few minutes later a car pulled up. The driver was a dark-haired woman, and in a car seat was a dark-haired boy who did not look happy. His face was scrunched up and he was yelling.

Ellen stood up. "I'll be right back. I'm just going to help Dahlia bring in the groceries."

Betty Burke gestured for Peter to follow. He picked up two bags of groceries, while Ellen picked up the yelling boy.

"What's he saying?" Peter asked.

"Most likely that he wants to go home," Ellen said. "His mom has been teaching him French, to keep them both occupied the last few months. I'm going to have to start learning, too, I guess."

The boy seemed to have worn himself out. He slumped against Ellen and whimpered.

"I know," she said soothingly, rubbing his back. She turned around so he was facing the house. "But look at that — we have a swing now!"

His blue eyes widened. "Swing!"

Dahlia stopped as she reached the steps to the porch and stared at the new addition. "You got us a porch swing?"

"I thought it would make both of you feel better," Ellen said. "Trade you. I'll carry in those bags. You two take a turn on the swing and meet Betty. She brought the best lemonade I've had in ages."

Peter followed Ellen into the house with the grocery bags he was carrying. There were still boxes of stuff everywhere, interspersed with toys. It looked obvious they were trying to balance settling in and placating a child. "If you need a babysitter while you unpack, I can come over pretty much anytime."

Ellen accepted Peter's offer so fast he nearly had whiplash. He went over to their house the next day. Dahlia led him to her son's bedroom. "Daniel, this is Peter. He's going to help you unpack your things." She turned to Peter. "It doesn't matter where you put things, as long as he's happy and we can get rid of the boxes. We can reorganize later."

"Sure," Peter agreed. "Hi, Daniel."

"Neal," said Daniel.

"Short for Daniel," Dahlia said.

"Neal," Daniel repeated.

"We'll work on that," Dahlia said, and then she left the two boys on their own.

"All right, let's take a look at what we've got here." Peter tore open some boxes. He tried to balance their time between toys and more boring items, so Daniel stayed interested.

A little over an hour later, he'd emptied the boxes, folded them down, and placed them in the hall. Now it really felt like a kid's bedroom. The furniture looked a little worn, like maybe it was second-hand, but you could say the same of Peter's room. Many of his things had belong to his two older brothers.

"Not bad," Peter declared. "You're gonna like it here."

Daniel's lower lip trembled. "Wanna go home."

"Let's go out to the porch swing," Peter suggested.

Daniel nodded. There were still tears in his eyes, but at least they weren't overflowing.

On the swing, Peter pointed across the street. "That's my house," he said. "I live there now, but I didn't always live there. We moved in when I was about your age."

"Why did you move?" Neal asked.

Peter shrugged. "I'm not sure. My parents probably told me, but it wasn't really something I could understand. I just know that it felt like a big deal at the time. Mom said I was really unhappy about it, and I missed our old neighborhood. And that's okay, you know? It's okay to miss things."

"It is?"

"Sure. But the thing is, there's so much cool stuff here. This is a great neighborhood. But if you spend all of your time being sad about what you miss, you won't get to enjoy the stuff that's right here waiting for you. Like, see those trees over there? Those are the best trees for climbing. There's even a treehouse in one of them, that my dad helped build. And beyond that, there's a playground. There are slides, and swings, and all kinds of stuff to play on. And you'll meet so many other kids who want to play with you."

Suddenly the floodgates opened, and Daniel turned into a chatterbox. He had so many questions about the playground and the neighborhood kids and the trees. If he couldn't think of the word he wanted, sometimes he'd switch to French.

It wasn't until the next day that Peter realized that it didn't make sense to assume the kid called himself Neal because he couldn't say Daniel. He had a big vocabulary for his age, in two languages. So for whatever reason, he wanted to be called Neal.

And so Peter called the kid Neal from then on, even when everyone else called him Daniel or Danny.

A/N: Thanks for reading! The story is a total of 19 chapters.