Rating: R
Fandom: White Collar
Characters/Pairings: Peter Burke/Neal Caffrey
Spoilers: None - Pre-Series
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~850
Summary: The first time Peter and Neal meet, with surprising repercussions.
It took only two months after Agent Peter Burke was assigned to his case for Neal to get a photograph of him. Moz, who had good reason to hate the FBI, which he called to tool of the Industrial-Military Complex and the Power Elite, didn't hesitate to hack into their systems to get a copy of Burke's files. Neal was impressed, Harvard graduate from a full scholarship, doubled majored in Economics and Accounting, and a surprising minor in Art History, advanced degrees from the LSE, a brief stint with the Bureau's counterterrorism unit before transferring to the Financial Crimes division. All in all, a worthy opponent.
A good looking one, too - in an All-American sort of way. Dark hair, close clipped to Bureau specifications, dark eyes, olive complexion. Roman nose and strong jaw - a solemn mouth that probably spent more time smiling than frowning. And that was just from his official identification photo. Mozzie also got some action shots, too – when he was running, playing basketball, out with his extraordinarily hot wife. Burke had unfortunately bad taste in clothes and Neal idly wondered what he'd look like in a well cut suit.
Kate teased him about getting a “daddy complex” because he spent so many hours reading the agent’s file, but in truth, Neal was wondering what it would take to corrupt Peter, to bring him in on the con. He had the feeling that he’d never meet a man smarter than Peter Burke.
It wasn't until the job in Venice, the thing with the Canaletto sketches, that he got his first look at Peter Burke in the flesh. The caper didn't go south, precisely. The sketches were taken, copied and switched - but somehow, the authorities suspected that he had stolen them. There wasn't an active manhunt for him, but he knew that the Carabinari would want to bring him in for questioning. Kate had already decamped from their lovely apartment near the Bridge of Sighs and they were going to meet up in Florence in two weeks.
It was luck, sheer, dumb and bad luck that he was on the Rialto Bridge that evening. He loved Venice almost as much as he loved Paris and New York and London, and since it was going to be a few years before he could return to La Serenissima, he wanted to take an hour and say goodbye. Moz thought he was insane (what else was new) but the city was packed with tourists and as long as he kept his head down, he shouldn't have any problems. If he hadn't looked up at that precise moment, their chase would have ended in ignominy - no rendezvous with Kate, no defenestration in Prague, no three years of being neck deep in a game of cat and mouse. Burke would have captured him and dragged him back to the states for questioning in a variety of thefts, forgeries and confidence schemes. But he caught a glimpse of a cluster of uniformed men and in front of them, Special Agent Peter Burke, in the flesh.
Neal's initial impression of Peter was one of solid reality - this was a man who existed within the X and Y planes of rules and laws. From his file, Neal knew that Burke was incorruptible and he had an unimpeachable sense of honor – which Neal found immensely appealing for some bizarre reason. For a brief second, when he met Peter's eyes, he wanted to toss down his bag and turn himself in - just so he could get a fuller measure of the worth of this man.
But common sense prevailed, and just as Burke was about to give chase, Neal heard the motors of a vaporetto passing under the bridge. With perfect timing, he vaulted over the handrail and landed lightly on the passing boat's canopy. The water taxi was heading towards the mainland, but Neal changed boats three times before catching a train out of Venice.
During the two weeks before his rendezvous with Kate, he stayed constantly on the move, making sure that Agent Burke was not on his trail. He crossed in and out of Italy at least three times on three different passports, once into Switzerland, once heading all the way to Austria and the last time he went as far as the Cote d'Azure before taking a first class flight under the George Daventry alias back to Rome and driving to the villa that Kate had rented in Tuscany.
The problem was, even though he escaped arrest, he was still captured. Every night, every damn night during the two weeks he spent laying false trails – and many nights after that, Neal woke up with a cock as hard as stone, dreaming about getting brutally fucked by Agent Peter Burke. Against the hood of a car, the bars of a jail cell, under a bridge in Paris and once, most memorably, on the steps of the Federal Courthouse Building in New York, in broad daylight, surrounded by cheering crowds of people.
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