White Collar Fic - Profiled: A White Collar/Criminal Minds Crossover – Part I

Title: Profiled:  A White Collar/Criminal Minds Crossover – Part I
Rating: R (For violence, reference to M/M relationships)
Fandoms: White Collar, Criminal Minds
Characters: Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey, Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan, Aaron Hotchner
Spoilers: Probably some for CM, but I have no idea which episodes, sorry.
Summary: Neal finds out Peter had him profiled. Much crack ensues
Warnings/Triggers: Guns
Word Count: ~ 4800

Neal was ready to go back to New York.

On Monday, Peter dragged him down to the FBI Academy at Quantico for advanced evidentiary training. It was really kind of interesting -- trying to figure out better end-runs around the Fourth Amendment. It was certainly better than the mortgage fraud and cold cases that took up most of his time lately. The problem was the other people in the class, mostly experienced agents. They all knew he wasn’t one of them right from the start and by the end of the first day, the whole class somehow found out who he was. Neal was heartedly sick of the whole stare and whisper thing. It wouldn’t have been bad had Peter been in the class with him, they could have passed notes back and forth, riffed off of each other, then made fun of the other students after class. But no, Peter needed do some big boy FBI stuff, and get recertified for his firearms. Neal shuddered at the thought. There were way too many guns around for his piece of mind. Guns in holsters, guns in belts; the damn things were everywhere.


Truth be told (and Neal was learning that telling the truth was A Good Thing™), it really wasn’t all bad. He and Peter beat the pants off a group of Academy trainees on the infamous Hogan’s Alley run. His time was a few seconds better than Peter’s, since he had a bit more practice scaling walls and dodging obstacles in real life. Peter took the defeat with good grace, and then spoiled it by chewing out the trainees who had flocked around Neal to congratulate him when they all finished.

It was just after midday on Friday, and they were almost ready to leave Quantico, but Peter wanted to stop by and visit an old friend.

“So, who are we going to see?”

“I am going to see Aaron Hotchner. You are going to sit quietly and not get into trouble.”

“Peter, I’m hurt. I’ve been here for five days, and I haven’t done anything wrong.” Neal grinned. “How do you know this guy? Did you work together?”

“No, we were in the same class at Yale, and roommates for a few years. We were good friends, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen him.”

“Good friends?” Neal wagged his eyebrows at Peter. “Or very good friends?”

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Caffrey,” Peter growled. Then smiled.

They finally reached a set of glass doors inscribed with the FBI logo and “Behavioral Analysis Unit” and Peter practically pushed him through them.

“Your friend is a profiler?” Neal whispered. And then an appalling thought occurred to him. “You didn’t have profile done on me, Peter, did you?”

“Yep, I did. In early ’04, after the Venice fiasco.”

“Peter! That’s - that’s cheating.” Neal was outraged.

Peter turned and looked at Neal, very amused. “No, that’s using the tools at my disposal.” He knew that Neal would be put out by the thought that he had a psychological and criminal profile worked up on him. Little did he know..

A pretty blonde woman approached them as they entered the BAU. “Can I help you?” Neal saw that she noticed Peter’s badge on his belt and Neal’s lack of one.

“Peter Burke to see Aaron Hotchner. I believe he’s expecting me. Do you have an empty desk for my friend here?”

The blonde pointed to a workstation in the middle of the room, and Peter pulled Neal towards it. “Sit, touch nothing and talk to no one.”

“Peter – who do you think I am, Satchmo? And what’s with all this pushing and pulling. You’re going to ruin the cut of my suit.” Neal made a big production of brushing down his sleeves and unbuttoning and re-buttoning his jacket. Peter had been exhibiting alpha wolf tendencies all week, and while Neal didn’t mind them in the privacy of their dormitory room (for the first time in his life, Neal appreciated foot-thick concrete block walls), it was getting annoying when they were both fully dressed.

Peter looked at him. “I know your capacity for getting into trouble. You’ve been way too well behaved and that worries me. Just don’t do anything, okay.”

Neal couldn’t help himself as he leaned back in the chair and grinned. “If I’m really good, will you get me an ice cream cone?”

Peter just ignored him.

The blonde came back. “Unit Chief Hotchner will see you now, Agent Burke. Follow me.”

Neal watched as Peter made his way to the back of the offices, towards a staircase. A door opened on the mezzinine level office and a tall, slim, dark haired man stepped out. Neal noticed the contradictary body language - shoulders closed, but hips opened and feet widely placed. Unfortunately, he was too far away to see if he had light colored eyes. Ahhh, it seems that Peter definitely has a type.

ooOOoo

Spencer Reid, David Rossi, Emily Prentiss and Derek Morgan were just coming back from lunch, and Morgan was elaborating on the sexual attributes of some girl he was supposedly dating (no one was fooled). Spencer listened with half an ear, he didn’t understand why the man had to invent a beard for himself. Everyone in the BAU knew about the two of them. Except Aaron, maybe. Spencer then started thinking about the origins of the term “beard” as a disguise (some time in the 1960s, when men with beards were presumed to be extremely virile and homosexuals were presumed to be extremely effeminate). That lead to him to think about other types of beards, like soul patches (worn by African American jazz musicians in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Maybe I should grow one...if I could ever grow facial hair) and merkins (pubic wigs worn by prostitutes after shaving their genitalia to get rid of lice or to cover up signs of syphilis). Spencer then started to consider the pros and cons of shaving his own pubic hair (it’s good hygiene, but it would itch growing back).

Spencer’s list never made it beyond that point – he got distracted by the stranger sitting at an empty desk in the middle of the BAU. He asked a passing agent if she knew who the man was, and she shrugged. From the back, the man appeared young and fit, although the hat tipped forward (a narrow brimmed fedora – or more likely a trilby) and cut of the suit (gray summer weight wool, narrow collar, tightly fitted through the shoulders, back and arms) seemed like something out of the movies his mother liked to watch (Ocean’s Eleven, Robin and the Seven Hoods). The man’s dark, curling hair was newly trimmed (slight tan line at the nape of the neck), and looked very expensive to maintain. Spenser then considered his own unruly locks, clean but stringy and always falling in his face, and wondered if he got them cut short would they itch growing back. (nonsense...stop thinking about pubic hair).

He continued to watch the stranger from the back, when Derek bumped him. “What’s up, Pretty Boy?”

“Who’s that?” Spencer gestured to the stranger with his head (it’s not polite to point), who was spinning side to side in the desk chair (52 degrees clockwise, 48 degrees counter clockwise). The stranger finally spun all the way around (183 degrees) and stopped. He smiled at Spencer and Morgan and then spun back to the desk. Morgan sucked in his breath and Spencer was just puzzled. (Seems familiar?).

He considered the man for a few minutes, and decided that this was an question that needed an answer. So he went over and introduced himself.

The man looked at him consideringly. Up and down. Pausing at his waist, where his gun was belted in (was that a sneer?), and then back to Spencer’s face. “No, I don’t think we have. You don’t look like someone I’d be likely to forget.” He smiled at Spencer, but not with his eyes. They were wary, like he was afraid or hiding something.

“I have an eidetic memory and I’m sure I’ve seen your face before.”

“Well, I do too, and I’m telling you, we’ve never met.”

Spencer blinked - how bizarre that man claimed to have an eidetic memory too, since it was something that many mainstream scientists still refused to believe existed. Spencer just stood there, staring at him (suit was from the early 1960s). And the man stared right back (blue eyes, long black lashes, nicely defined lips, high cheekbones, perfectly dimpled chin, sexy mid-day beard, probably will grow in nice and thick, wonder if he wears a merkin) , no trace of a smile or any emotion. Spencer finally blinked and looked away. And looked back - this time, the man was smiling, a bit smug and self-satisfied. He leaned back in the chair and stretched (well developed chest, wears too many clothes, Windsor knot on the silk tie, package to the left, boxer or briefs? Does he wax or shave? Spencer - stop thinking about PUBIC HAIR NOW).
“Can I use this phone? Dial 9 for an outside line?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks - my cell phone doesn’t work here.” The man turned back to the desk and started to dial.

That smile, those eyes. He remembered where he saw them before. A profile that he did, one of the first when he joined the BAU. The man wasn’t an UNSUB, but a career criminal, Neal Caffrey - a forger, thief, confidence artist who had been on the FBI radar for years.

He walked slowly back to his desk, watching the him out of the corner of his eye. Caffrey was talking to someone he liked. Spencer saw the smile on his face, and heard the lightness in his voice, but he remembered how blank those startling blue eyes had gone for just a second.

While the BAU almost exclusively focused on violent serial felons, the agent on the Caffrey case was a college friend of Hotch’s. He had asked him to do for a workup to help him catch the man. Hotch gave Spencer the case, to create the psychological profile based on similar criminal activity and then develop the victimology. Spencer never forgot the details of any of his profiles, the blessing and the curse of an eidetic memory. The profile he had done on Mr. Neal Caffrey indicated that while he had not yet physically harmed any of his victims, that would change shortly and his criminal pattern would spiral into violent and dangerous behavior.

And now, the man was sitting right in the center of the BAU.

ooOOoo

Neal was slightly panicked. The stick figure in a sweater vest kept staring at him. He was good looking, in an anorexic sort of way. Maybe if he wore clothes that fit and cut his hair, he wouldn’t be so creepy. The guy seemed to know him (“I have an eidetic memory, and I’m sure I’ve seen your face before” - did he use that as a pick-up line?) and was probably a profiler. Peter’s admonition not to talk to anyone was a good idea. Wouldn’t it be a riot if this weirdo was the one who did the workup on him?

Best talk with Elizabeth, let her know when they’d be getting back to New York.

She picked up on the first ring, and it was a delight to hear her voice. “Neal, How are you?”
“More than ready to come home. I think we’ll be able to make the 3:00 Acela, which should put us into Penn around 5:45. How was your week?”

“Fine - I missed you both. Did you have a good time?”
“Elizabeth - this wasn’t a vacation. It was fun, to a point. Peter’s gone all he-man - there is way too much testosterone in the air.”

“Oh, you know you like it.” Elizabeth’s laughter was like a soothing balm. Neal did like it, but not in week-long doses.

“About tonight, what do you say I give you a helping hand. I think my tux is at your place.”

“Oh, sweetie - that’s not necessary…”

“I insist. It would be nice to spend an evening with men and women who, at the very least, chew with their mouths closed.”

All of a sudden, Neal became aware that something was very, very wrong. There were four people pointing guns at him. “Elizabeth, please call Peter and tell him I need some help here. They’re about to shoot me.”

Neal hung up before they started shouting at him. “Get down on your knees, hands behind your head!” That would have almost been funny coming from the stick figure, with his squeeky-geeky voice. But no, a tall black guy with a very big gun (maybe even bigger than Peter’s) issued the standard command. Neal, all too familiar with the arrest process, almost automatically complied. Sweater Vest put handcuffs on him, way too tightly. Neal struggled to get at the pick in his cuff, but that only made it worse.

“Excuse me, what are you doing?” A stately brunette patted him down. “If you wanted a date, all you had to do was ask…” Neal gave her his best ‘I’m a sexy man’ smile, complete with eye twinkle and extra dimple. She took his wallet and his consultant’s ID folder and handed them to an older man with too much facial hair. She didn’t do a full frisk, otherwise she would have found the tracker on his left ankle.

“Your right, Spencer, this is Neal Caffrey. But what’s he doing with FBI credentials?”

Neal thought it prudent to interrupt and explain. “I have those because I’m a consultant. I work in the New York field office, in the White Collar division.”

Sweater Vest ignored Neal “He’s a forger - I don’t think they’re real. I don’t understand how he got into the BAU.”

Neal did the only thing he could do in this situation. He opened his mouth and yelled “Peter, HELP!”

ooOOoo

“It’s good to see you, Aaron.”

“You too, Peter.” He sat there and didn’t say anything else.

Peter winced inside. Aaron was always a serious guy, and he guessed that working with murders and deviants all the time made him downright grim.

Finally Aaron seemed to remember his manners. “How’s your wife -- Elizabeth?”

“She’s doing well, started her own business - makes more than I do these days.”

“Well, we didn’t join the FBI to get rich, did we?”

Peter chuckled. “Not hardly.”

And the conversation fell flat again. Peter looked around the office and noticed pictures of a small boy. “Is that your son?” Dumb question, of course it is. People don’t keep pictures of other people’s children in their offices. Neal and El are right. I can’t make small talk to save my life.
“Yes, that’s Jack. He’s five now.”

“I’m sorry about Haley.” Peter had heard about Aaron’s ex-wife’s murder - that type of news spreads quickly through the entire FBI community. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than having either Elizabeth or Neal hurt or killed by someone he was chasing.

“I got the card and flowers from you and Elizabeth. Thank you.” Aaron looked at his hands.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the funeral.” Peter didn’t think he would have attended, but it seemed the polite thing to say.

“That’s alright...it might have been difficult.” Aaron couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Why?” Peter was puzzled.

“Well…” Aaron let the pause get drawn out. He looked everywhere by at Peter. “We were partners in college. It would have been difficult explaining your presence at the funeral. It was just family and the team.”

Peter was flabbergasted. “Aaron - I think you’re overstating the matter just a little bit. We were friends, roommates and occasional fuck buddies when we were hard up. We weren’t ‘partners’. There would have been nothing to explain.” He shook his head in amazement.

Aaron finally met Peter’s eyes. “I’m sorry. You’re right. My social skills are not what they should be these days.”

Peter decided to accept Aaron’s apology and move on. “Aaron, your social skills were never what they should have been.”

The other man laughed, and the awkward moment seemed to pass. “What brings you to Quantico?”

“A little of this, a little of that, and a lot of other stuff. I had to get recertified on my firearms - which is easier to do down here than in New York. And I had my consultant in for a training class.”

“I’ve heard some rumors about your consultant, Peter.”

“Oh?” Peter wasn’t sure he liked the inflection that Aaron put on the word “consultant,” but he was curious about the rumors. OPR? Mentor? Menage a trois?

“That he’s a criminal - but your closure rate has skyrocketed.”

Peter sighed...the same old, same old about Neal’s presence in the Bureau. At least it wasn’t anything about a personal relationship with Neal. “My closure rate has skyrocketed because of the contributions of a convicted felon with a great deal of practical expertise. It’s certainly nothing the Bureau hasn’t done before” When forced to explain Neal’s presence on his team, he refused to use the word ‘criminal,’ whereas ‘convicted felon’ was a fine distinction that implied that justice had been served and some measure of rehabilitation had taken place.

“Abegnale. Houston. We’ve all seen the movie.”

“Neal Caffrey’s the smartest man I’ve ever met, and I am very grateful that he’s pitching for our side now. I’ve got a great team of agents, but it’s Neal who’s my closer.” Peter mentally apologized to Neal for reducing him to a hackneyed baseball analogy, and promised himself that he’d make it up to him over the weekend.

“Caffrey’s downstairs waiting for me. Let me introduce you - you’ll like him.” At that, Peter stuttered to a halt...introducing his first male lover to his current one. Not too smooth.

Aaron, fortunately, didn’t notice Peter’s awkwardness, nor did he seem to understand Peter’s championing of a felon. “I can’t even begin to imagine working with someone who I’ve put in prison.” Or maybe he did. “White collar is a completely different world from what we do here. I guess you don’t have too much contact with psychopaths and murderers.”

Peter considered some of the criminals that he and Neal put away - Avery, Keller, Wilkes - and those that they haven’t caught - Fowler, the Big Bad - and he couldn’t agree less with Aaron. But that wasn’t for the other man to know. “We deal with a different class of scum, usually less inclined to violence,” Peter replied, neutrally.

The conversation fell back into another lull, and Peter thought it was a good time to leave, when Aaron looked at him quizzically. “Did you say Neal Caffrey?”

“Yes.” Peter knew the direction where this was heading, and he was going to enjoy it.

“Didn’t you ask me for a profile on him...back in 2004”?

“Yep, and it was…” Peter’s cell phone rang - his FBI-issued phone wasn’t jammed (Neal had been royally pissed to find that his phone wouldn’t work at Quantico). He knew from the ringtone that it was Elizabeth. Neal had installed a snippet of their (Neal and El’s, not his and Neal’s) favorite rap song - something with a silly name like “Paper Planes.” “I need to take this.”

“Hey hon, what’s up?”

“Peter, I just got off the phone with Neal. He said he’s being held at gunpoint!”

At that very moment, he heard Neal’s voice calling for help.

ooOOoo

Peter ran out of Aaron’s office and saw Neal on his knees, handcuffed with two agents standing over him, guns drawn.

“What the HELL is going on here? Put your GUNS DOWN NOW!” Neither agent moved, and the two gun barrels were still aimed at Neal’s skull. “Aaron, tell your agents to stand down.”

“Morgan, Reid. It’s alright. Put your guns away.” The two agents holstered their weapons, but otherwise didn’t move away from Neal.

Peter rushed downstairs, the jolt of adrenaline making him lightheaded.

Neal looked up at him, his face glowing with innocence. “Peter, my friend. Can you help me with this?” He shrugged his shoulders - the “this” being the whole handcuffs and knees thing.

“Neal - what did you do? Can’t you stay out of trouble for fifteen minutes?” Peter stood over Neal, hands on his hips.

“Peter - I did exactly what you told me to do. I sat at the desk, minding my own business, when this guy…” Neal gestured with his chin to a tall kid in a sweater vest and a holstered gun pointing at his dick “… said that he thought he knew me, and I told him I never saw him before. All I did was I ask to use the phone so I could call Elizabeth, since my cell phone still doesn’t work. Next thing I know, I was surrounded by people pointing guns at me. You know how much I hate guns. They told me to get down, and I got down. These pants are never going to be the same. They seem to think I’m some sort of dangerous criminal. I think David and Ron need to hear about this. I can probably call them on the way home if I can ever get my cell phone to work again.”

Peter could see that Neal was panicking, and trying to cover it by talking a mile a minute. He bent down and helped Neal to his feet. Peter fished his keys out, turned Neal around and unlocked the handcuffs.

And nearly exploded with rage again. Neal’s hands were cuffed so tightly they were bright red and swollen, and as Peter gently unlocked the manacles, he saw that the skin was discolored and broken. He gritted his teeth against the completely inappropriate need to press kisses against the bruises and beat the living shit out of the idiot responsible for hurting Neal.

Peter took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to get control of himself. “What moron put these cuffs on so tight that they cut off his circulation and tore the skin?”

The kid - the same one who had been sniffing around Neal - raised his hand tentatively. “That would be me.”

Peter rounded on him. “Who the hell are you to handcuff my consultant and hold him at gun point?”

Aaron interrupted Peter before he could really lay into the idiot. “Peter, I am certain my team had a very good reason for restraining Mr. Caffrey. Reid… ”

Peter cut him off. “Is this kid even old enough to drink? I really have to question your judgment here, Aaron.”

Aaron replied, “Dr. Reid is an invaluable member of the BAU. He holds doctorates in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Engineering, as well as BAs in Psychology and Sociology. He’s not a kid.”

“I don’t care if he’s been cloned from Albert Einstein's left nut. I want an explanation, now.” Peter turned back to Doctor Reid. “Well?"

“Umm, I - we - I came back from lunch and noticed a stranger sitting in the middle of the BAU. I went to see who it was - and I recognized him from a profile I did a few years ago. Neal Caffrey is a dangerous criminal.”

Peter laughed, some of the tension in him easing. “That profile. It wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.” Peter turned to Neal, “I was going to tell you about it on the ride home. I though it would be worth a chuckle or two.”

Neal, still rubbing his hands, trying to restore the circulation, looked at Peter. “So, you just wanted to torment me.”

“Yeah, I get so little joy in life.” Peter smiled at Neal, then remembered that he was supposed to be angry. He turned back to the BAU agents, who had lined up behind Reid. “I don’t understand how you operate. Don’t you check databases, or at the least, ask to see identification? My rawest probies would have handled this better than a bunch of supposedly experienced agents.”

Another agent, the tall African American who had also held a gun on Neal. “We rely on each other’s judgment one-hundred percent – here and in the field. Reid told me that he recognized Neal Caffrey, and the profile he did indicated that the subject would develop a propensity for violence to achieve his goals, even a taste for it. Finding the subject sitting in the middle of the BAU meant that extreme measures needed to be taken to protect the safety of the unit. He’s also been linked to forgery - those credentials were suspect.”

“And what about the tracker?”

“Peter, they didn’t find the tracker.” Neal leaned into Peter. “They didn’t frisk beyond my torso. They just took my wallet and my ID. Very amateurish. Your team did a much better job. Both times.”

Peter just sighed. This was turning into a major headache. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Reid, however, was not willing to let the matter go. “What do you mean, my profile was not ‘worth the paper it was printed on’?”

“Well, you got just two things right. Neal’s name and his sex. After that, it was useless. The profile, if you want to call it that, claimed that Neal would have an average or below average intelligence.” Peter turn to Neal - “What was your score on those tests we took a few months back?”

Neal held up his hands, which were still painfully swollen. “Peter, I really don’t think this is necessary.”

“Neal - what was your score?”

“193. But Peter - that’s just a number.”

“Stop being modest.” He turned back to the BAU team. “Neal’s tested off the charts.” Peter looked at Reid, who couldn’t seem to meet his eyes.

“Let me see if I can remember what else was wrong.” Peter was feeling mean and in the mood to punish. “There was a bit about building a criminal network.”

At that one, Neal actually laughed. “That would be the sixty-five supermodels. And Moz.” Peter noted that Neal made no reference to Kate.

“And the piece de resistance - a whole section on your escalating need for violence.”

“Violence requires no imagination. Anyone can use a gun or a knife or their fists. It takes real artistry and creativity to do…” Neal paused and delicately coughed, “what I’ve been accused of doing, without harming a hair on anyone’s head.”

Peter said to Neal, sotto voce “Practice that speech much, Cicero?” Neal only smiled.

Without any further discussion, Peter retrieved Neal’s wallet and ID folder, taking them from the desk where he had sat Neal down only a half-hour ago, and gave them back to him. “Get your hat and let’s go.” He checked his watch. “If we hurry, we can still make the 3:00 back to Penn. We’re done here.”

They started to leave, but Peter stopped. “Does anyone have an evidence bag?” He waited while the BAU agents just stood there. “I don’t want to have to ask again.”

Reid produced one for Peter, who picked up the handcuffs with a pen and deposited them in the bag. He sealed it and handed it to Neal. “Why don’t you let Ron have a field day with this.”

“I just might.” Neal grimaced as he flexed his hands. Even though he was in the cuffs for no more than five minutes, the metal restraints had done some damage.

Peter saw the raw skin and bruises, and found himself angry all over again. He turned back to Aaron. “I’d say it’s been a pleasure - but I’d be lying.”

ooOOoo

Spencer Reid watched to two men walk out of the BAU. All of a sudden, everything felt different. There was a clarity to the world now. He found a purpose beyond anything he ever had before.

No more emotionally closed off Hotch. No more being Derek’s dirty secret. No more getting fucked over by men who were his intellectual inferior. He was done with all that. Spencer Reid had just found something pure and perfect, and no one was going to get in his way.

TO BE CONTINUED

Author’s Notes: This fits into the as-yet-unnamed ‘verse I’ve been building. Which is pretty much every story I’ve posted on my Journal, except the Public!Sex fic. I know I’ve taken a lot of liberties with the CM characters and back story - I don’t know it as well as I probably should when writing fic in that fandom.

I’ve referred to David and Ron - that’s David Boise and Ron Kuby, two civil rights attorneys that I’ve had Stuart Gless retain on Neal’s behalf. Please read How Long Did You Think You Could Keep This Up (Before I Found Out) if you want the full back story on that.