conning | I've been here, I've been there // Honey, I been somehow everywhere

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for: norton folgate

I've been here, I've been there // Honey, I been somehow everywhere

Neal isn't really sure what's going to happen when the Admiral sends them home. To his home. Where by now, somewhere in the world, Kate is alive and healthy. It's strange to think of her somewhere unknown and not feel the immediate need to go find her. To save, protect, avenge her. It's also strange that even knowing she's out there, even seeing proof, Neal can't shake the guilt of killing her, either. It feels like things should have shifted, that some monumental internal change should have taken place. He still feels the things he always had, but with new knowledge counter it.

It's all swirling in his brain when Norton meets him in his cabin. Still roiling there when Neal squeezes his hand and tells thin air that they're ready.

It snaps to background when, on his next blink, Neal and Norton find themselves in the conference room of the FBI's New York City White Collar division, and Neal is still holding Norton's hand. The door from the office floor swings open and admits a small flood of people in the forms of Peter, Diana, Jones, and... Mozzie?

All four of them stop dead, seeing Neal and a stranger at the far end of the room, plus whatever Norton chose to bring. Neal stares at all of them, bemused.

"I knew it! I told you." Mozzie says, pointing at Neal. He glares at Peter and company in triumph.

Peter's jaw works for a moment before he takes a deep breath, clearly trying to focus on being relieved instead of furious. "Neal. Who's your friend?"

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Norton packed a small leather suit-case for the trip, which he holds in the hand that isn't holding Neal's hand. A few spare outfits and a gun hidden in a holster under his suit jacket is all he brought with him. Everything else, he expected to obtain in New York. But when, between one blink and the next, they're suddenly in a bright, airy room full of glass, Norton glances around curiously, taking in the room and the small crowd of people piling in.

"Going out on a limb, but I don't think this is your flat," Norton whispers to Neal before he steps forward with his hand delicately outstretched.

"How do you do, I'm Norton Folgate. You must be Agent Burke. I've heard ever so much about you."

Neal loves him for the way he adapts without a blink. Peter takes Norton’s hand and shakes it slowly, still looking between Neal and Norton.

“Friend of yours, Neal?” Peter sounds wary, but not outright accusing, which is nice.

Seeing him, Neal remembers their last conversation. The tension, the rage. He looks at Norton instead of Peter, giving him silent permission to answer the question however he feels comfortable.

“Yes. But I don’t like to speak for my friends when I don’t have to.”

Mozzie beelines for Neal and throws himself into a hug, which Neal accepts, slightly startled. “Mozzie, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Trying to convince these fascists that you didn’t run!”

“Cool it with the hyperbole,” Neal says, glancing at Norton again when Mozzie says fascists. He smiles to soften the reprimand. “But thanks.”

Norton raises his eyebrows slightly at the word fascists. He'd hoped to have more time to acclimate himself to twenty-first century America, plan a cover more thoroughly before meeting Agent Burke and the others. But since he's dropped right in the deep end, and Neal has given him silent permission to answer, he'll start splashing.

"Close friend," he says with enough innuendo in his voice to invite speculation. "I'm sure it doesn't surprise you that Neal has friends around the world. I came here to help him with a sticky situation involving a former agent of ours."

Nothing Norton said was a lie, strictly speaking. Neal probably does have friends around the world, Norton did come to New York with Neal to help him, and he did work for British security services, sort of.

Neal looks at Norton with the same kind of enchantment he had on his face when the other man started scheming about how to hoodwink the Admiral over the bathrooms. It's a lot more sensible and coherent than that plan, maybe, but the place it comes from is the same, and just as delightful.

Peter glances at Neal, sees him giving Norton that look over Mozzie's head, and frowns a little. "An agent of yours. So you're with the government? Do you have ID, contacts I can reach out to in order to verify?"

To Neal, he adds, "And what the hell happened with your ankle monitor?"

"Someone cut it off when they tried to kidnap me."

"Cute that you think the British government officially acknowledges all its intelligence agencies. I work for a department you won't have heard of and no one in the British government is going to talk to you about. Needless to say, I don't carry a badge."

He flicks his hand loosely in dismissal of the whole topic. "Anyhoo, it hardly matters to me whether you believe me or not. I came here to help Neal, not the FBI. He was the one who insisted we come here." He'll try to steer Burke to believing that Neal loyally returned when he could have fled. "I suppose you could have me deported if you really wanted to get in a snit about it, but that wouldn't do anyone any good."

Peter doesn't buy it. Neal can see it on his face. It's that I'm not sure which part of this is bullshit, but I know there's something face. But Neal and Norton are tag-teaming well enough that he has to put a pin in that for the moment and address Neal again.

"Someone tried to kidnap you?"

"Someone who was standing in the back of Rebecca's helicopter when it flew off without her."

"Curiouser and curiouser." That comes from Mozzie, who is staring at Norton with the feverish delight of a conspiracy theorist being handed a batch of photos from Area 51.

"Look, Peter, I got grabbed, I got away, I met Norton, I came here."

"You couldn't have called and let us know where you were?"

"You think the kidnappers--there were five of them, by the way--let me keep my phone?"

Norton just smiles at Agent Burke's suspicious expression. The beauty of the semi-bollocks he spouted is that it's so much less bollocks than the actual truth. He didn't mention aliens, time travel, or interdimensional spaceships at all. He doesn't need to worry about Agent Burke discovering the truth, just give him some explanation to hold onto, regardless of how much Burke distrusts it.

"We came here first thing so Neal could let you know what happened." Norton raises his suit-case slightly. "I haven't even had a change to drop off my luggage."

Peter is unconvinced, but it's true--there's nothing specific he can question that he hasn't already.

"All right. Neal, we need a rundown of exactly what happened and anything you can give us on the guy who did it."

"And then I can let Norton unpack?" Neal is sliding back into the comfortable crossness he had the last time he and Peter spoke. Peter frowns.

"Yeah. Then Diana can escort you to let Norton unpack."

Neal makes an irritated noise at that, gives Norton a genuinely apologetic look, and lays out the afternoon's events as best he can remember, having been back to the Barge in-between.

They have to wait an extra half hour, almost, for a new anklet, but Neal is at least able to convince Peter that he doesn't need a direct chaperone during the elapsed time. When the marshals arrive, Neal watches the anklet go on with a resentment that makes his chest tight.

As soon as the two of them are in the elevator headed down--Neal convinced Mozzie to go home after Neal gave his statement--Neal grabs Norton's hand and gives it a squeeze. "Sorry about all that."

He glances at Norton with a wicked little smile. "Very well handled, though. I'm impressed."

Norton watches with a small frown between his brows as the anklet is put on. He'd heard Neal talk about it before, but he'd never seen one, and the idea of it--monitoring Neal at all times--makes him uneasy. But at least it's over quickly and once the cuff of Neal's trouser is back down and they're riding the lift down, Norton can (almost) forget it's there.

He suspects Neal never forgets it's there. He squeezes Neal's hand back and returns Neal's smile with a mischievous grin of his own.

"I did enjoy aggravating Agent Burke. Like teensy bit of revenge on your behalf."

Neal grins at his feet, then leans sideways to steal a quick kiss before the elevator dings. He’ll let go of Norton’s hand if the other man is inclined to pull away. This might be New York in 2014, they might have the security of the Barge’s general attitudes to dilute some of that sense of danger, but Norton is still from 1955. Neal doesn’t want to assume.

“Want to get a taxi to my place or walk? It’s only a few miles, but I’m not the one with a suitcase.”

The Barge is another world. Norton categorizes it in his head as something between his public school experience and a Soho club. A place where he can earn alliances through courtships and zhoosh himself up like Mae West for fun and get only compliments.

This is different. This is a real city. So just before the lift opens, Norton instinctively drops Neal's hand. He knows there's no risk of arrest, but he also knows there's still other sorts of risk. It's one thing to drop a bit of innuendo in front of the FBI agents. That was almost a form of power play. But out in the city there's no telling how strangers may react.

He brightens in excitement when Neal mentions a taxi, though.

"Are the taxis yellow, like in the films?" Norton's ridden in cabs plenty of times, but a London cab isn't a New York taxi.

The excitement about the taxi sweeps away the pang of sadness he feels when Norton lets go—not for himself. He wishes he could say them holding hands on a New York street wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. That he can’t breaks his heart a little bit.

“All the good ones are.” He gives a little flourish of a gesture out of the elevator and toward the glass wall that couches the clear front doors. “After you. There’s nothing in the world like that first breath of real city air.”

He’s joking. He’s also not.

"Honey, I lived through the Great Smog of 1952. That air," he points to the outside with a flick of his wrist, "looks positively bucolic."

Which is all for the best, because it means that when he steps outside he can properly see the New York skyline.

"Gosh," he whispers, gaping at it. "Look at the size. Puts Big Ben and St. Paul's to shame."

They step outside, and the heat and garbage and gasoline musk of downtown swirls over them like a benediction. The noise, the crowds, the cars—it’s all a little overwhelming after how quiet the Barge is, on a general noise level.

It’s perfect.

Neal breathes in deep, his eyes lighting up, the tension from upstairs dropping away. New York, New York. A hell of a town.

“God I miss this city every time I leave.” He grins at Norton. “Wait until you see the Empire State Building.”

"It's amazing. London seems downright shabby by comparison. We're still morosely clearing out bombed wreckage, but this city is so ebullient."

He turns to face Neal and half raises his hand. He was going to rest his palm on Neal's chest, but stops himself just in time. This is still much too public.

"Neal, darling, I know people are trying to kidnap you and that's terrible important and we're in great danger, but can we find the time to go to a club while we're here? I'm aching to go to a proper club, with actual people around laughing and dancing and all the rest."

Neal’s heart gives another little ache at that aborted gesture, but the question makes him grin.

“Absolutely. There are more than a few that also make sure the atmosphere stays friendly.”

He’s sure Norton knows what he means, since outright saying there are gay bars all over the city seems like it would spit on Norton’s caution. Neal flags a cab at the curb, the yellow checkered vehicle careening to a stop in front of them.

Norton gets his suitcase and himself settled into the cab, and once Neal's in as well he'll silently take Neal's hand, keeping it low against the seat where he thinks the driver won't see.

"I really don't like that tracking thing when we know there's someone with bad intentions trying to find you. What if they intercept the signal?" He doesn't know much about how the anklet works, just deducing based on what he knows about things like radar and radio signals combined with his experience with alien technology. But if it gives away Neal's location, it's inherently a point of weakness when trying to hide from ne'er-do-wells.

It’s funny how much more something can mean if its context changes. When Norton takes Neal’s hand in the relative safety off the cab, Neal straightens a little, giving the other man’s fingers a little squeeze. The question gives him that particular warm chest pressure he associates with an all-encompassing hug.

“It’s surprisingly secure. The technology is a lot more targeted than what… was available before.” At least he caught himself before he said anything about the 1950s. “Which isn’t to say it’s entirely outside the realm of possibility, but it’s a lot less likely than being physically followed or having someone track my phone.”

Still, Neal scowls down at his ankle. “At least I don’t have to foot the bill to wear it. A lot of those who opt for this instead of prison have to pay for the privilege on top of everything else. And the scar was finally starting to fade again on the Barge.”

Edited 2023-07-25 02:55 (UTC)

Norton's mind starts to weave around the two opposing groups causing Neal problems right now--the people who tried to kidnap him and the FBI--and wonders if he can arrange mutual extermination. But before he goes too far down that rabbit hole, he reminds himself of all the ways a plan like that could go wrong, not the least of which is that Neal probably wouldn't want the entire New York FBI office killed.

"I want to tear the thing off you and toss it under the wheels of the nearest bus." He can't do that, either, but it's probably a more acceptable fantasy than chess mastering a two-sided mass murder.

God Neal wants to kiss him right now. He winks instead. "Maybe we can make that our last little New York excursion before we go back to the Barge."

He points out the window across Norton, not so much because there's something notable, but because he wants to draw Norton's attention away from the unpleasantness and back to the city itself. "Once we're another couple of blocks north you'll be able to see a peek of Madison Square Park."

Norton looks where Neal's pointing, although he doesn't see anything yet. "Is that near were you live? I love a good park. Something else for the list before we go, nighttime stroll in the park." He doesn't think about any possible safety concerns. He simply thinks of parks at night as one the places where liaisons happen. At night they could walk arm-in-arm and he wouldn't feel so nervous about it.

The park at night is an interesting prospect, if not a safe one. He can’t bring himself to shoot the idea down when they just got here.

“There’s a lot that’s close, but Central Park is better.” Which is a good thing, he realizes abruptly. “Shit.”

He looks down at his ankle. “I forgot. With this thing on I’ve only got two square miles.”

How could he forget? There’s a surreality to it that makes him feel dizzy for a moment.

He wrinkles his nose at that. "They do keep you on a short leash."

It makes him ponder the sticky situation Neal is in. Even though he's graduated and not dead, he's not free if he comes home.

"What do you plan to do after...long term, I mean? What with your home being rather unwelcoming to you?"

"Yeah they do." There's a quiet bitterness in it. He hasn't let that particular beast out of its cage a lot around Norton, but it's not a new sentiment. It's just more potent at this particular moment than usual.

He breathes in deep, biting the corner of his lip. "That's what I thought I'd use my deal for. Not the one that Malcolm gave me. The one that, hopefully, I'll be able to get myself. Get free and clear of all of this, the FBI's control."

"You'll get your deal. I know you will." The thought is bittersweet. Neal deserves to be free, but once he gets his deal he'll have no reason to remain on the Barge. He'll be able to come back home for good and start a new life here. Norton doesn't dwell on it, however, and focuses instead on enjoying the present, despite tracking anklets, FBI, and kidnappers.

"Can I get a smart phone while I'm here? I'd like to be able to send you electronic text messages." He may not understand emojis terribly well, but he'd have a fun time sending them to Neal from across the room of his flat anyway. And, if they have to split up, it would give him a way to stay in contact, or for Neal to contact him if an emergency should arise.

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