Work Text:
Neal really hadn’t thought it was going to be that big of a deal. He had a few scrapes and some dirt on his suit, but was it really worth everyone looking at him as he walked into the office?
“Caffrey, what the hell happened?” Diana asked as she walked towards him with a speed Neal really didn’t like.
He held his hands up and took a step back, ignoring the slight wince that wanted to come out. “Nothing, I-“
“Bullshit. What-”
“Neal! What the hell happened?” Peter shouted as he came down the steps two at a time. Everyone was in such a hurry.
“Nothing.” Neal repeated with annoying deja vu.
“Someone go get the first aid kit.” Peter commanded, and Neal expected it to be with a roll of his eyes, but instead he was watching Neal with eyebrows furrowed and his gaze firm.
“Do I really look that bad?” Neal asked as he held his hands in front of him. One was fine, the other scraped on the palm and up the arm, and his wrist was maybe a little swollen. Damnit, there were some tears in his suit arm. He’d also lost a cufflink. He’d have to pay June back.
But really, it wasn’t that bad. Neal could’ve gotten the same injuries by tripping on a gravel path.
He jumped a little when Peter put a hand on his shoulder, and it took a moment to understand Peter was pushing him down. The grip on his shoulder ached a little. “Sit, Neal.”
“Sit? Here?” They were still in the middle of the room, his desk was too far away and there wasn’t- oh. There was a chair behind him. Jones had brought it over, still standing behind it. “I don’t know why you’re all making a big deal about this?”
Peter just ignored his questions, brushing over them with his own. “Neal, can you tell me what happened?” Peter’s voice had changed. When he yelled it was loud and firm, tight enough Neal could’ve ziplined on it, but now it’s quiet and soft, the kind of soft Peter rarely ever used. It only came out when things were really bad.
Neal sat down.
“I mean, it was nothing? I-” He shrugged gingerly, a burning sensation rippling down his shoulder blade at the attempt. “I was late for work? I was crossing the street and..." He let out a sigh, mentally bracing himself for the scene the next statement was going to cause. "I...maybe I got clipped by a taxi. Didn't look both ways."
It's like Neal shattered something with that sentence, the tense silence that had fallen over the room breaking into gasps and quiet mutterings. He could see the shock wash through the room like crashing waves, starting with Peter's face shifting from the concerned gaze turning into a serious, slightly wide eyed panic; the same look right before he pulled his gun. Behind him, Diana's mouth went slightly slack before she turned around and started for her desk and...weirdly got blurrier. Neal had 20/20 vision, why was she getting blurrier?
"I'm calling an ambulance." She announced.
"Ambulance? I don't need an ambulance, I'm fine." Neal argued, even as the words caused billows of pains, each one worse than the last. He glanced down just to make sure he wasn't on fire, somehow.
"We don't need an ambulance, because I'm taking him." Peter bent over slightly in front of Neal, and with a small rush of panic Neal realized he was blurry now too. "That is, if you can stand up?"
"Of course I can stand up." Neal said as he pushed off on his elbows to rise to his feet
a flash of white-hot pain engulfed him
and for a second time that morning, Neal hit the ground.
This time he didn't get right back up.
_____
The next time Neal woke up, the molten pain had been replaced by the dulling sensation Neal recognized as medication. The pain was still there, somewhere, under the layers and through the distance of the fog he was in.
He reached up to rub at his eyes before he opened them- only to wince. Not because his arm hurt, but because there was something hard wrapped around it that he had accidentally hit himself with.
"There's two fractures in your arm," a voice told him, which spurred Neal on to open his eyes further. Peter sat next to him, placing a Sports Illustrated in his lap. "Two in that arm, a break in your shoulder blade, and a moderate concussion, because you got hit by a taxi and were thrown into the air, and then-”
"I remember." Neal mumbled, even if he didn’t. “Is it…bad? Permanent?”
Peter sighed a little before he pushed his chair closer to the edge of the bed. “ No , thankfully. But Neal, it could’ve been. I saw the CCTV footage, and the way- I mean, out of all the dangerous situations you put yourself in, how could you let this -”
“Peter.” Neal tried to put as much firmness into his drug addled mind as he could, and it seemed to work as Peter went quiet. “I…appreciate this parental lecturing, but I’m kind of loopy and confused and apparently I was hit by a taxi. Can we put a pin in the reprimands until later?”
Peter tapped his fingers against the armrest of his chair a few times, as if seriously considering whether or not he could hold off on the, apparently well-earned, lecture, before he nodded. “Fine…fine. Okay. Elizabeth’s about to be here anyway with dinner. She’s bringing you cookies too.” He picked up his magazine again and gave it a showy flick open. “We will be talking about it later though.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay.”
Neal looked around and found the remote that gently raised his bed up, and when he winced at the pull against his shoulder, Peter slid his chair closer once more so he could reach over and adjust the pillows behind Neal’s back to better support him.
“I am glad you’re okay.” He said softly as he fluffed the pillows. “Don’t scare me like that again, got it? I have to worry about you enough on the job without worrying about you getting to the job.”
“Got it.” Neal nodded. “Won’t do it again, as fun as being hit by a taxi was.”
“I’m gonna unfluff your pillows.” Peter threatened as he sat back down, the genuine concern disappearing from his voice. “Or I’ll take your cookies.”
“No, not- wait…what kind of cookies?”
“Those chai ones you like so much.”
Neal’s eyes went a little wide; the threat was serious after all. “I’m sorry Peter, I really am. Won’t scare you again, promise. Best behavior from now on.”
“That’s what I thought.”
An hour later, as Neal sat with a chai cookie and a lemonade from the hospital vending machine, with flashes of memories of the earlier portion of his day, he recanted his earlier thought; maybe it had been a big deal.