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Dick glanced at him as he stared out the window before looking back to the tea in his hand.
"What are you gonna do, Little Wing?"
Jason turned from the pouring rain to look at his brother. "What?"
"Friday is Neal's commutation. He'll be a free man." there was a little pause as Dick grinned softly. "You will be too. What are you gonna do?"
Jason watched him. He was sitting on the couch crisscross, no shoes, and a slight tilt to his head. "What do you really want to ask?"
The grin sharpened as Dick straightened, caught in his redirection. "Are you coming home?"
He shook his head once, a sad smile on his face as he looked into the eyes of his older brother. "I am home Dick. It's more home here than anything else I've ever had. You said it yourself, I'm free now."
Dick's eyebrows rose, "That's not an answer."
"Yes it is, Dick." Jason said, softer, setting his own cup down on the table. "I am home, Dick."
"No, you're not!" his voice rose, in volume and pitch.
"Don't do that," Jason spat, "don't make me have to defend myself. It's my life. I decide where home is."
"I'm not asking you to convince me, Jay!" his cup was put on the coffee table with a little too much force as he stood. "I'm asking you to come home. Gotham is your home. We're your home."
Jason looked away from his brother and to the city he'd called home for the past four years. Drenched in rain and car horns, it was beautiful.
"I've saved enough cities, Dick."
His brother blinked. "Jason..."
"I've saved the world. Over and over." The word's weren't dramatic, rather a confession. "I've been saving people for so long that I forgot what it was like to be saved. To be safe in any meaning of the word. I have that now."
"You can't just quit, Jason. That's not how this works." Jason's never seen his brother cry, but the way his voice cracks, he just might tonight. "Gotham needs you. Gotham needs saved."
"I'm not quitting you, Dick. Not you or the family. I'm just done being the hero, the crime lord, the dead Wayne. Gotham has you. It has Batman, Robin, and a whole other flock of birds. I think it's high time I save myself."
"Jason."
He took a step forward, pulling Dick into his arms. "I'm not lonely here, Dick." He tapped his face, the blank discoloration splattered there, and Dick nodded in recognition.
"Okay." Dick took a step back and rubbed at his own face, erasing any tears that might have been there. "If that's what you want, little wing."
"It is." Jason handed Dick his own mug of tea. "But let it be known that that doesn't mean you have to stay away."
The was a quiet, wet laugh. "Alright, Jay."
Friday arrived both very fast and very slow. Fast in the way that each day was a day closer to freedom. Slow in the way every agent was shooting him looks of excitement as he passed or just plain staring. Four years and it would all be over in a day.
Despite what Jason had told Dick days prior, he didn't know what he was going to do. He had a place to be and a person to be there with. But not a job, not after today. Maybe he'd go to school or maybe he'd actually become an artist and sell paintings. He had a whole world full of options.
The commutation itself was anticlimactic. A series of questions and answers that reminded him more of his reports with Batman when he was Robin than anything else. The click of a key and for the first time in years, a bare ankle.
"Neal." Peter said as they walked down the steps of the building, headed to his car. "Congratulations."
"Thank you, Peter."
The rest was left unsaid. A series of words and feeling they didn't need to say. They knew each other far too well for that.
Jason had no idea what he was going to do, that felt good. That felt free. He followed Peter through the building and up the elevator then through the doors to the White Collar Unit.
"Caffrey!" Diana stood from her paperwork. "Let's see it."
Jones came around the other side of her as he lifted his foot onto the table and pulled up his pant leg to show off the nothingness.
"Atta boy, Neal." Jones cuffed his shoulder. "What's next for you?"
Jason looked up to his friends and grinned, "I have no idea."
"About that, actually." Agent Hughes said, stepping in to fill the place between Peter and Jones, a file in hand. "I have a proposition for you?"
"Oh?" This had to be good. A file was shoved into his hands a moment later.
"Civilian art consultant. Working for and getting paid to work for the White Collar division of the FBI, New York branch. Specifically with Agent Peter Burke and his team."
Oh. Oh. Nothing was good. This, was better.
Jason quickly read over the contract and looked up, a grin on his face wider than they had seen before.
"You all knew Neal was a mask?" More of a question than a statement. Answered with nods from them all. He grabbed a pen and signed his name at the bottom of the contract. "Then it's nice to meet you. I'm Jason Danvers."
Hughes shot him a look, shocked and slightly confused. "That better not be an alias."
"No, sir." His neutral accent was suddenly gone, now thick with New Jersey. "I've the drivers license and social for it."
Then suddenly there was a hand shaking his as Hughes took the papers back. "Welcome aboard, Mr. Danvers."
Peter knew two things to be true.
- Neal Caffrey (apparently Jason Danvers) wore make-up.
- Soulmates where a huge part of everyday life.
Neal wore makeup. It was just part of who he was. They'd figured it out different ways. Jones when Neal had fallen into a pool during a case and had given him a towel out of the trunk of his car to dry off with. It hadn't rubbed off fully yet there was still foundation left on it, for which Neal had apologized for and insisted on washing for him. Diana had figured it out when she'd messed up her own makeup rubbing her face when she was sick and Neal had let her borrow some of his at work. Peter had learned in the first few weeks of working together when Neal hadn't blended all the way on his jaw and took a moment to roll his eyes at his vain CI before telling him so he could fix it.
Everyone had a soul mark, all but a very unlucky few, and almost all of them met their soulmate. It was hard not to when they lit up gold and turned into art at your first meeting. It was common practice for children to find everyone they could during recesses or for people to travel the world, trying to find their other half in the crowds of the largest cities.
He hadn't expected the two things to be related. Yet, Saturday night, Jason came over to the house to have a celebratory dinner with El and the team. They had not expected Jason to show up in a leather jacket, combat boots, and with a blank soul mark splattered acrost his face. No fedora, no suit, and no color on his face.
The thing about soul marks, Peter thought, as he looked at his own watercolor dancing down his arm, was that they were slow to disappear. Once you found your soulmate the mark itself acted like a gps. The more potent the colors the closer you were to them. The less color, the farther you were. His were always so bright in the mornings, green and red covered with books, a wine cup stain, and a compass painted up his arm. The longer he spent at work the dimmer and dimmer it got, only to slowly color back in as he drove home. El's was a reflection of him, as his was of her. A crossword puzzle and stacked files over the loveliest pink and blue. A red evidence string looping around it all as it spun up her arm.
He'd seen plenty of marks, all of them beautiful, representing the things that make their soulmates who they are. Diana's was on her calf, blank because she hadn't met them yet and Jones on his back, trailing up his spine. Blank marks were beautiful too, a canvas where a story was waiting to be written. He'd seen many, but he'd never seen one on someone's face.
"Jason!" El shook off her shock first. "Congratulations! Come in, come in." Satchmo was instantly nudging into his legs until Jason pet his head and kicked off his boots.
"Hi El, thank you. Hey guys."
The accent too, was definitely all Jason and no Neal. Thick and lower class, New Jersey but with a slight difference he couldn't place. He stood tall now, shoulders straight and broad in a way they'd never looked in the suits.
"Jason suits you better." Diana said, handing him one of the rolls they'd been snacking on in the living room. "Nice jacket too."
Jason's smile was wide in a way that wasn't Caffrey. Too many teeth and large enough it made his eyes wrinkle. Jason was so real, and Peter was thankful for it.
He had too many questions. How much of Neal was Jason? Where they still friends? Could they be? How much of it was a lie?
But then Jason would turn, light catching the splatter of blank on his face as he laughed loudly, would shove the person next to him as they made a joke, and would praise El as they ate dinner. And he would realize it didn't matter. Jason was just that, Jason, and it wasn't fair to compare him to part he'd had to play.
It was weeks later before anything else changed. Weeks of mortgage fraud and art crimes and Jason on the team as an official consultant. Everyday was the usual and expected and Diana loved it. Then she looked up from her latest file and got the shock of a life time.
She thought it was highlighter at first, but then watched as the corner of Jason's chin filled in with a beautiful sun. A spot of blue here and a dot of yellow over there. His face was lighting up with oil pastel and he had no idea.
It was an interesting concept, she realized. You would have no idea if your mark was filling in if you couldn't see it. And it meant he'd already met his soulmate if it was filling in like this. Slowly getting dots of colors that would fill into images was the colors of reunion. A newly found soulmate would light it up like glowing gold until the two people touched, revealing the images.
It took a full day for Peter's watercolors to fade into much lighter shades and even then it was spotty when it disappeared, often taken two days to fully fade. And she'd never seen Neal with a hit of color before. It had been a very long time since he'd seen his soulmate. The soulmate that was coming here. Right now.
The excitement hit a moment later as an ice cream cone appeared on his cheek over a spot of dark green. Oh. Oh.
At this point several agents had seen her staring and were staring themselves, watching the painting come to life. She had to tell Peter.
She got up quickly enough that Jason shot her a weird look.
"You okay?"
Now she could see his whole face. Was that a planet on his temple? "I'm good." It was more of a squeak than an answer but it's all she had before she raced up the stairs to Peters office.
"Peter!" She shouted a whisper as he looked up at the door flying open. "Get down here, now. It's his mark!"
Peter was on her heels as she raced back to her desk, getting concerned looks from Jason and ignored by everyone else who were all staring at Jason.
"Guys? What's going on?"
His face was a piece of art, she'd never seen anything like it. Almost complete, a base of red and blue and covered in little stars, a planet by his temple, a vanilla ice cream cone on his cheek and little suns acrost his whole face.
"Nothing." Peter said, sitting on the edge of Diana's desk, trying and failing to look normal. "All good, here."
"Seriously what--"
"I GOT IT!"
Diana barely registered the 'ding' of the elevator before a woman burst through the glass doors to the bullpen, a folder held triumphantly above her head. Long blond hair flowing behind her in the wind her quick movements made, and an oversized vintage Wonder Woman T-shirt that hung nearly to the hem of her jean shorts. Her pockets, longer then the shorts, hung just over a bright soul mark.
Wait.
"Jason!" She stopped just short of his desk and Diana watched in awe as Jason jumped the desk to pull the woman into his arms.
"Told ya, Darlin. Of you got it."
The entire office was staring at the duo who had either forgotten or didn't care about the rest of them. Probably the former if the look of pure adoration in his eyes said anything.
"Officially transferred to the New York branch of CatCo, and let me tell you, Miss Grant was not happy about me wanting to move."
The woman was talking far too quickly now, words tumbling over one another in excitement.
"We can actually put an offer on that place now, the one with the brick. And I did the math already, Jason, yes it will fit the bookshelves if we move the dining table. you're brother's can come over more now too, I know you've been missing them no matter how much you swear when talking about them but I know you, and you really only swear at them when they get hurt and, and..."
She trailed off, taking in the fact that Jason was just looking at her like she'd hug the very sun.
Diana smiled as Peter leaned off of her desk.
"So, this is the soulmate."
The woman turned so fast to look at them that Diana was worried her neck would snap.
"Oh! Yes!" She stuck a hand out to shake, "I'm so sorry. I'm Kara Danvers. You must be Peter."
Diana took a moment to look at the mark on her leg. Also a beautiful work of oil pastels. Stacks of books and a cup of tea. A ragged scar that she didn't want to know what it represented. All of it over a beautiful base of red and green.
"How long?" Diana asked, not paying attention to what her and Peter had been talking about. How long since the last time they'd seen each other? How long had they been apart from who they knew was their other half?
Kara's lips parted, a sad look on her face. "Too long."
"Just over eight years." It was Jason who had the answer, pulling Kara back with a arm around her waist to kiss her neck. "We've met in person once before, about a week before I got put in prison. We've been calling almost everyday since I got out."
Oh. That, was simply heart breaking.
"You're together now." She said instead.
Jason's smile, as bright as it was, couldn't match Kara's. "Yeah."
The sun on his face caught the light again, radiant and full of life. They had each other now.