Work Text:
Neal is relaxing at home. It’s one of those rare days that both him and Peter have time off.
He decides to spend his time working on a painting.
But it’s not a copy—or a forgery—like most of his art.
It is a Caffery Original.
His mind is on Alvin and where he is from.
Gotham.
Based on what Alvin says, it sounds dark. Grim and dangerous.
Neal has travelled a lot, but he has never been to a place like that before, he’s always known to steer clear.
He’s never so much as considered visiting there.
It worries him that his son lives there. The worry and fear and other such emotions fill him up. Spilling over into his artwork.
The paint brush runs smoothly across the rough surface of the canvas as he adds black to the buildings of what he imagines Gotham looks like.
He is forced to stick to his imagination only. He tried to find reference photos of the place, but it is like the place simply doesn’t exist. Not online, or anywhere else he looked. Hence, imagination. And what Alvin has told him. Which isn’t much.
He’s heard the place is dark, air so chocked full of pollution that it permanently blocks out the sun. But that can’t be possible.
Can it?
It would be trouble to live in. He can only imagine the lung problems that would come with living there.
And if the pollution is really that bad, then why does it never drift over to Metropolis? The cities are right across from each other, only a bay between them.
Neal is so lost in thought, that he doesn’t notice his balcony door opening until a voice speaks up.
“What are you painting?”
Neal jumps, the action resulting in the paint on the brush making an odd shaped blob instead of a line like it was meant to. Now a section of the night sky right above a building is ruined.
“You scared the living daylights out of me.” Neal speaks, awkwardly catching his breath.
Alvin shrugs casually. “Sorry?”
The teen looks slightly confused at Neal’s reaction, as if breaking into someone's home is completely normal.
For Alvin it probably is.
“What are you painting?” Alvin asks again, brushing off the casual breaking and entering.
“Gotham.” Neal explains. “At least, what I think it might look like, from what you told me.”
Alvin hums in acknowledgment and bends at the waist to get a better look at the painting.
“What do you think of it?” Neal asks.
“It’s too bright. It needs to be darker.” Alvin points out. “You got one thing perfect though. Gotham does have a blob that sits on rooftops.”
“What?” Neal asks, his voice full of confusion.
“Batman!” Alvin all but shouts, his voice full of excitement. “Just add some pointy ears and it's Batman. Looks exactly like him!”
Neal has no idea what Alvin is talking about. But to make his son happy, he adds some pointy ears.
Alvin laughs in delight at the action. He pulls out his phone and takes a photo of the awkward blob with ears.
“They are gonna love this!” Alvin says, sending the photo to someone. Neal considers asking who, but isn’t sure he really wants to know. It could be a Malone.
It could be all the Malones.
“You know, Batman isn't the only one in Gotham.“ Alvin says, a hint of mischief in his voice. “There are lots more, practically a whole flock. The best one, and my favourite is Red Robin.”
“Red Robin? What’s that?” Neal asks, slightly worried about the answer. If this Red Robin is anything like other Gotham stuff, might not be great.
“What? Red Robin is a who, not a what!” Alvin looks horrified. “Red Robin is only the coolest vigilante in the city!”
“Vigilante? But…” Neal doesn’t want to call his son a criminal, but, well, he is a criminal. And criminals and vigilantes aren’t particularly fond of each other.
Alvin laughs, a big grin on his face. “I’ll tell you more someday.”
Neal considers pressing for more information, but doesn’t want to scare the teen off.
“So, you don't often come around like this.” Neal points out. “What's up?”
“I wanna hang out with you.” Alvin states, with confidence that might be real or faked. “We could go to the park together.”
Neal blinks, his son has never been that up front about anything. How could he say no?
The answer is he can’t say no.
There is simply no reason to.
Neal and Alvin arrive at the park, picnic basket in hand.
Neal can’t say that he’s ever had a picnic before, not really. Certainly not a family picnic. But he’s seen other people have them, and figures now is as good a time as anyone to have one too. Plus, it might give him more time with Alvin, the teen can’t decide to leave early because he is hungry.
Alvin runs into the park with a smile on his face, he runs straight to a bright green, grassy patch of grass.
That's when Neal spots someone else.
Someone he didn’t expect to see.
Peter.
Neal frowns and walks over to the agent.
“Hey, Peter. What are you doing here?” Neal asks.
“Just enjoying a lovely day with my family.” Peter states. “I take it you are here with Alvin?”
“How did you know?” Neal asks.
“Because I saw him walk by earlier and stop and stare at us. So, I guessed he would get you to come here. He is stalking me a little, but it kind of reminds me of you back in the day when I was chasing you.” Peter explains with a smile on his face. “Like father, like son, huh?”
Neal blushes.
He isn’t a stalker.
Sending champagne and pizza to surveillance vans isn’t stalking.
If anything, Peter is the stalker, he was trying to stalk Neal from the surveillance vans!
Peter laughs at the expression on Neal’s face, and invites him to sit with him and El and Satchmo. Neal obliges, and shares the contents of the picnic basket with El.
Only with El.
Agents who falsely accuse conmen of stalking do not get any picnic food.
It’s nice.
Exactly how Neal imagined a family picnic should be.
The adults sit relaxed, chatting nicely. The children—Alvin and Satchmo—running around, playing on the fresh green grass. Smiling and laughing.
“Dad! Look at this!” Alvin calls out.
Neal turns away from Peter and El just in time to see his son do a backflip. He smiles proudly. “Good job, kiddo.”
Satchmo barks, seemingly in agreement. Alvin smiles, a light blush in his cheeks. “It’s not that impressive. I can do better!”
Alvin climbs up onto the picnic table beside the one the adults are sitting at. “Watch this!”
“Wait, isn’t that-“ Neal holds his breath as his son does a double backflip off the table. “-dangerous?”
Alvin smiles, and gives a performer's bow, petting Satchmo who came up to see if he was alright.
Alvin glances around the park, searching for something. His eyes light up as he sees a few trees, and he bounds over to them with the endless energy of youth, Satchmo at his heels. The branches on them are not quite low enough for climbing, yet the boy scales them easily.
He swings from one branch to another, his laughter feeling just a little bit off to the ears of the non-Gothamites. Satchmo runs along below him, barking every so often.
His movements vaguely remind Neal of videos he has seen of various heroes and vigilantes, swinging around their cities on grappling hooks, jumping from roof to roof, traversing those heights as easily as if it were solid ground.
The mental comparison makes Neal’s heart race. His son isn’t a vigilante, he doesn’t have the training that they do, if he continues this, he might get hurt.
Neal breathes a sigh of relief when Alvin safely sets his feet on the ground again, but his relief is short-lived as Alvin starts looking around for more danger.
He dares to hope when Alvin seems to consider a short wall, barely knee height, but his hopes are dashed when Alvin scoffs at that wall and continues looking.
The teen’s eyes catch on a stone wall and his smile widens, widens just a little bit more than socially acceptable, enough that Neal does not doubt his Gothamite heritage.
He scales the wall easily, the stones making decent hand and foot holds. In a few short moments he is higher than Neal is tall. Neal stands up from his seat. “Alvin! Wait, that’s dangerous!”
Satchmo whines and paws the wall, as if trying to climb it himself.
“Danger?” Alvin winks. “Don’t know her.”
The teenager finishes climbing the wall, and before Neal can get another word out of his mouth, Alvin jumps.
Time seems to slow down for Neal as he watches his son in the air between the top of the wall and the ground.
The wall is tall, at least 15 feet. Not high enough that injury is certain, but high enough that injury is very likely.
Alvin does one flip in the air, and then another.
And then he hits the ground.
He lands on his hands and knees, a faint look of surprise on his face.
Neal’s feet are moving before he can even register what has happened, and as he approaches the boy, he hears a faint whisper. “Ouch.”
“Alvin!” Neal skids to a stop beside his son. “Are you ok?!”
He crouches down beside the boy, and looks intensely over him, searching for injuries. He doesn’t touch, afraid to touch an injury.
Alvin doesn’t say anything for a moment, seemingly in shock, and Neal’s eyes catch blood on Alvin’s palm.
“You’re hurt!” Neal exclaims, and can feel himself starting to panic. His eyes are also drawn to Alvin’s knees, the fabric of his pants torn, and blood starting to seep through.
Neal’s hands hover around his son uselessly, his frazzled brain unable to figure out what to do.
“Are you ok? No, you're not ok, you’re hurt. Oh no, oh no.” Neal overcomes his panic enough to figure out the solution.
He turns to the picnic table he just vacated and yells. “Peter!”
“It’s gonna be ok Alvin, it’s gonna be ok.”
Peter will know what to do.
Peter always knows what to do.
Alvin’s lip starts to wobble and his eyes fill with tears.
“Oh kiddo.” Neal says softly.
Alvin seems to pause before the tears actually start in full, which Neal finds a little odd, but he has never seen Alvin cry before, maybe this is how he cries. Who is he to judge?
Not that he thinks about that oddity much, far more concerned by the blood.
Neal can’t believe he was so unthinking. He should have brought a first aid kit! Isn’t that the sort of thing that parents usually bring when they go with their kids on potentially dangerous outings? There would have been room in the picnic basket for a small one.
He’s not very good at this parenting stuff yet.
What is he supposed to do? His breathing starts to quicken.
“Let me see.” Peter’s calm, authoritative voice cuts through the rising panic.
Peter joins him at Alvin’s side and takes a closer look at the teen’s palms and knees. He looks uncomfortable, and Neal abruptly remembers that the older man is terrified of children and crying.
“It doesn't look too bad, buddy.” Peter declares. “You’ll live.”
Alvin sniffles, the tears still coming. “It hurts.”
Neal attempts to hug him, doing his best to avoid injuries, and hopes he’s being comforting.
“Here.” El joins them, a water bottle in hand. “Rinse out the wounds. We’ll have to clean them better later.”
Peter rinses out the wounds efficiently, and dabs them dry with a handkerchief. Neal does his best to comfort Alvin during the procedure.
Once the wounds are clean, Alvin’s tears slow down.
“There, there. It’s gonna be ok.” El helps with the soothing. “Just some scratches.”
Now that most of the blood has been washed away, the wounds don’t look quite as scary.
“Do you need Neal to kiss them better?” El asks, a hint of teasing in her voice.
Neal feels bad he didn’t think of that himself, that’s what parents do, right?
Alvin makes a face at the proposition. “Isn’t that unsanitary?”
El shrugs. “Maybe a little. But lots of people do that. Didn’t your mother ever…?”
Alvin’s eyes fill with tears again as he shakes his head.
“We parked over there.” Peter points. “Let’s get you to the car, and drive you back to June’s.”
“Want me to carry you?” Neal offers as the group gets off the ground and starts walking, Alvin wincing at the motion.
Alvin shakes his head emphatically. “I can walk. I’m not a baby.”
Neal’s heart hurts at the refusal. He never carried Alvin when he was a baby.
Why can’t he make up for lost time now?
When they arrive at the mansion, June greets them at the door and immediately starts fussing over Alvin, just as Neal imagines a grandmother would. She ushers him to the kitchen and pulls out a first aid kit.
Alvin winces as disinfectant cleans the wounds, but doesn’t cry in front of her.
In practically no time at all, the wounds are cleaned and bandaged, and Alvin happily starts an animated discussion with June, all but ignoring the other adults.
“Well, all’s well that ends well, right?” Peter speaks.
Neal hums noncommittally, a thoughtful frown on his face.
Peter raises an eyebrow at him. “You don’t agree?”
“I’m not sure.” Neal offers. “It’s just… didn’t you think it was odd? That weird pause before Alvin started to fully cry?”
Peter hesitates. “I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that.”
“Come on, humour me?” Neal asks. “Please?” Surely, in your line of work, and in your lifetime, you’ve seen a lot of people cry. Was that pause weird?”
Peter takes a few minutes, mulling over the matter. “Everyone cries differently, Neal, so I can’t say for certain. But it’s possible there was something off about it.”
“Like what?”
“Well, maybe Alvin was really upset and wanted to cry, but wasn’t sure if it was ok to do so or not. Or maybe he exaggerated the tears, despite not actually being that upset.”
“Do you think he was faking?” Neal asks.
Peter hesitates again. “I wouldn't say faking. I think he was truly upset. He looked genuinely surprised when he fell. But I think he turned up the crying to test the waters with you. To see how you would react.”
“What do you mean?” Neal asks, confused.
Peter shrugs. “You know I don’t like when people cry, right? I’m certain I’m not the only one in the world like that. We don’t know much about Alvin’s childhood, about the people he is and was around. Maybe one or more of them reacted badly to him crying. Maybe they thought it was annoying, or had a ‘kids should be seen not heard’ mentality. Alvin got small cuts-”
“They weren't small. They were bleeding and it hurt him!” Neal interrupts, aghast.
Peter smiles fondly at Neal’s parental feelings shining through. “The cuts really weren’t that bad, not bad enough that a teenager should cry. He really should have been able to not cry. Alvin was probably seeing what you would do if he was upset, if he was crying. Like a child.”
Neal takes a few moments to mull over Peter’s words, watching Alvin still happily chatting with June.
Alvin is a teenager, yes.
But he is still also a child.
A child who wants his parents, wants to be loved and comforted.
A child who wants that, yet also a teenager, pushing boundaries, trying to figure out what the rules are, what the consequences are.
Neal can relate.
He remembers being around the same age. Remembers the things he did—intentionally and accidentally—to see and understand the reactions and consequences.
To see if anyone cared about him.
If anyone loved him.
Neal continues watching his son—the boy, the teenager, he still knows so little about—with pride in his eyes.
And at that moment, he makes a silent vow.
He will always love him. Love him, and be there for him, and most importantly, let him know that he loves him, and that his love is unconditional.
THE END