Chapter 20

Things started to settle down. Nothing of note seemed to happen and Chuck's team started making preparations to head back to Burbank.

Chuck returned to the White Collar office for the final debriefing.

"What happens in these things?" he asked Neal.

Neal sipped at his coffee and smirked at Chuck. "Hughes is going to go over the case one more time, address any issues in the reports and let us know what charges have been laid. Sometimes he goes over what they're seeking as consequence, but sometimes I think it's just because I'm in the room and he's trying to steer me away from a life of crime with a reminder of consequences."

Chuck laughed. "I don't think that'll work on you."

"Hey!"

"Well, you don't really think about the effect a course of action will have on you when you decide to do something. You only think about how it'll affect others."

"That fits Neal to a T," Peter commented, walking out of his office the moment they reached the top of the stairs.

"No, it doesn't," Neal muttered under his breath, however he knew he was outvoted.

Walking into the meeting room, it was obvious that there were people who had either not been invited or hadn't bothered to come. The only people present were Peter's team and Chuck's main team of Sarah and Casey.

Casey's only form of conversation was grunts and glares. According to Chuck, he was in a bad mood because Gertrude wasn't coming back to Burbank with them. She was still hunting down Nightwing.

It was only a couple of minutes into Hughes talking about how the CIA was taking over Newman's confinement and punishment that a tune rang out through the speakers.

The screen lit up as Batman's face appeared, complete with the familiar jingle someone online created years before. Jones had hummed it once.

Neal's mouth dropped open while Chuck started laughing. Hughes was frustrated and horrified, Peter was just suspicious of Neal and the rest of the agents were somewhere between horrified and amused.

"Charles. I would appreciate it if you kept your skills away from my presence and computers," Batman said.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Chuck said, a picture of innocence.

"I'm not just talking about hacking the Batcave-" Batman realised probably shouldn't have mentioned that as many of the agents were just looking amused now. "-but also that infernal tune."

"To be honest, I only hooked it to this monitor because I didn't think you'd ever remote in," Chuck said with an apologetic grin.

Batman was not amused. He knew Bartowskis could be shrewd and very good at making things go their way, especially Chuck.

"You have to admit, it is next to impossible that you'd ever call like this, Batman," Neal said politely. He would probably pay for it in paperwork and stakeouts for the foreseeable future; on all sides, but it was worth it.

Batman narrowed his eyes but didn't comment. Instead he turned to Hughes, the only sane one in the room, and reported that Robin would be returning to Gotham and that no one was to chase them up on their involvement in this case.

"What if Newman escapes or something, wouldn't you like to know?" Chuck said.

"I'll know." With that said, the screen went dark.

Neal heard at least one agent wonder why he had called in when there didn't seem to be any reason to. He wondered if Bruce had been checking up on him or if he was showing Chuck what the Batman could do.

If Batman calling the FBI office wasn't enough, Neal found himself floored when Jason walked into the office with a frown on his face. He was dressed nicely and didn't seem out of place but it was Jason. Jason didn't just visit.

"Why are you here?" Neal found himself asking.

"I'm looking for Bartowski," Jason growled softly to Neal.

"Chuck? Why?"

Diana came up to ask what was going on. Jason either instantly assessed her character or had been reading Neal's reports to Bruce on his coworkers because he kept his response short and to the point. Although, it could just be that Jason was never expected to flirt with people so it wasn't as ingrained into his personality as it was Neal's. So he was able to get Diana on his side and she showed him up to the conference room, where Chuck was.

"Oi, you!" Jason immediately spat out as soon as he thrust the door open. He pointed at Chuck as he said, "call off your hounds!"

"Hounds?" Chuck questioned curiously. Neal was confused as well.

Sarah was instantly on guard as Jason was borderline threatening Chuck.

"Yes! Your father, your friend and his little minion!" Jason said, jabbing a finger into Neal's arm at 'his little minion'.

Neal glared at Jason, rubbing his arm. That hurt. "Minion? I don't have a-"

"Of course you do! That little guy with glasses!"

"Mozzie?"

Peter sighed from behind them. "Of course it's Mozzie." They stared at him. "You're yelling loud enough for the whole office to hear, I came to see what's going on."

"Apparently Orion, Morgan and Mozzie are bothering this guy," Chuck explained calmly. "Although I'm not sure why or how."

"They keep turning up wherever I am! And I'm certain one of them has hacked my helm- my computer."

"That doesn't sound too bad," Sarah said. Neal stared at her.

"You do know how frustrating it is, right?"

"Neal's right. Jason probably can't take two steps without that group knowing," Chuck pointed out. "Look, we'll leave tomorrow and take Morgan with us. That should break up part of the group. I'll get Mum to deal with Orion, I think they're planning to retire to a cabin in the woods or something. He'll jump at that." With a look at Neal, Chuck asked, "do you think you can keep Mozzie off Jason's back?"

"I don't know. I was thinking of getting him trained under Oracle to help support me here," Neal said.

"I shouldn't be hearing this," Peter commented. It wasn't good for his plausible deniability.

Jason was right about one thing, Mozzie's team was good. With their help, Neal had Gertrude's location pinned down in less than an hour. She was at a local bar, thankfully within his radius. Neal pulled on a black turtle-neck, sunglasses and beanie and made his way there.

"Heard you were looking for someone," he said, slipping into the seat next to her at the bar. She glared at him and he smiled back. "You're not getting your gun back, you know."

"Nightwing," she hissed.

He hummed. "Call me Bryce. I'd rather not have everyone scrambling to figure out my identity." He had no problems with anyone who linked Bryce to Nightwing. Bryce Larkin's information would either lead people to dead ends or alert the CIA. His files had been destroyed so linking Bryce to Dick Grayson wasn't a simple task either. It would be easier to draw him out with a crime than hunt him down.

"Bryce?" she questioned.

"As in Bryce Larkin," he responded with a grin.

He could practically see the distrust and disgust as she linked it all together. "CIA, huh? You know I could make your life very difficult."

"But Chuck wouldn't like that," Bryce said. "And you know he's doing to make things difficult for your bedfellow if something like that happened."

"I doubt you'll tell him," she said, downing her drink in one gulp. "You're a solitary agent from what I know."

"Bryce Larkin might be, but the other name you called me is not," Bryce responded. "And we can make your life difficult. Besides, one of Chuck's friends has an eye on my brother and so he'll probably know whenever something happens to me. And anything that makes my life difficult, he'll happily tell Chuck. While he's okay with me being Chuck's friend, he doesn't like me too much so my misfortune gives him some pleasure, you see?"

"I heard you guys prefer to punch people," Gertrude said, obviously referring to Nightwing and his family. "But you're not too bad at the talking side of things."

"I'm not done yet." Bryce pulled out a file and passed it to her. "I'm sure you've heard everything your client was up to since we arrested him. But here's a copy of the information and evidence we had when we busted in. Maybe, you should not only check your clients' backgrounds but also check into who's looking into them and why. Consider your gun a casualty of not doing those checks fully." There. Bryce had probably said that sensitively and not outright insulted her for not checking into whether her client was worth working for. No agency had a perfect vetting system.

Gertrude wasn't happy about it but she took the file and did a cursory flip through.

Bryce didn't get shot so he considered the meeting a success.

Neal had barely opened the door when the three people inside started hounding him.

"So?" Tim asked. "How did it go?"

"DeMorgan would like to know as well," Mozzie said. He had his Russian surplus laptop computer in front of him, ready to type Neal's response to Morgan. Neal decided not to comment on Morgan's choice of username.

Instead, he focused on the final person in the room. "Orion, what are you up to?"

Orion finished typing and looked up. "Booking a hotel in France for myself and my lady. Want to help me pick a good one?"

"Yes," Neal said gratefully. He was so grateful for an out from Mozzie's question that he didn't question the window open in the corner of the computer screen showing a map with his tracking data on it.

Notes: I'm going to end it here. As you can probably predict, Chuck's team goes home, everyone stays in contact and Jason sometimes has to chase little 'gnomes' off his tail while Dick just smiles and poses for the camera (because he knows there's always a camera - you just have to let it see only what you want it to see). Dick still has to complete the rest of Neal's sentence and Peter now not only reminds him to not take anything but to also to not sic Nightwing on anyone. Neal sometimes doesn't follow this instruction.