Title: The Case of the Puzzling Passports
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: G
Length: ~3000 words
Notes: Future fic. Gen kidfic with background OT3. This is a sequel to a longfic I'm working on, but it can stand alone. Many many thanks to sherylyn for beta and Ameripicking and mergatrude for beta and advice/encouragement/listening to me go on and on ad nauseam.
Summary: Mikey is hazy on how passports actually work, but he knows they have to show your real name.

(3)

Mikey is six when he first finds the lockbox in the corner of the attic, under Dad's old sleeping bag and rucksack. It's metal and flecked with rust. He wipes a thin film of dust from the lock and tries to pry it open with a nail, but it won't budge, and he can't ask his parents about it. He isn't supposed to be in the attic on his own in the first place.

He forgets it as soon as he goes downstairs anyway, because the dining table is covered in platters of cupcakes and little sandwiches that Mom and Papa must have brought home from a work party. Mikey bites into a deliciously sweet raspberry cupcake with bright pink icing and stashes a lemon one and a chocolate one in the kitchen cupboard behind the mixing bowls for later.

"Hey, buddy, how was school?" asks Papa from the doorway, making him jump guiltily and slam the cupboard door louder than he meant to.

Papa grins and high-fives him, and they get glasses of milk and sit on the couch together. He listens while Mikey describes the new lizards in the terrarium at school, and then he shows Mikey how to make origami geckos from torn-out magazine pages. He doesn't mention the cupcakes, but when Mikey goes back for them later, they're gone. Typical.

(2)

When Mikey's eight, Mozzie comes to babysit while Mom, Dad and Papa go out of town for the weekend. Mozzie is weird, and whenever he comes over, Dad rants later about how he's paranoid and a bad influence, but Mom and Papa like him, and Dad does too, really. Most of the time.

The three freakiest things about Mozzie are: (3) He wears a lot of silver rings, which he takes off every time he washes his hands, and he never forgets which ring goes back on which finger. (2) He thinks Google and social media are "vultures feasting on the corpse-like remains of humanity's personal boundaries." (1) He talks to Mikey like a grown-up and expects him to know about things like MK-Ultra and colony collapse disorder and the JFK assassination.

The best things about Mozzie are: (3) He and Papa sometimes play chess games that go on for hours, with Mom and Dad watching and giving advice to both sides, and when that happens, no one remembers to send Mikey to bed. (2) He's friends with Theo Barrigan, who Mikey met at the FBI barbecue last summer and who posts creepy insect photos on SplashBoard. (1) He teaches Mikey things his parents would disapprove of, like, say, how to pick a lock with a nail file and a hair pin.

(1)

A couple of weeks later on a rainy Friday afternoon, when Mom and Papa are out and Dad's in the kitchen fixing the waste disposal, Mikey goes up to the attic. He's looking for something to practice lock-picking on, and he vaguely remembers coming across a box or a chest or something, years ago. He digs around behind Papa's Van Gogh canvases and the giant blotchy Monet, under the box of old CDs, and finds it: the lockbox. It takes him nearly half an hour to crack it open, and he swears a lot, but when he succeeds, he knows Mozzie would be proud.

He drags the CD box aside and pushes back the lid of the lockbox, breathing in the smell of dust and old paper. It's like a forgotten spy cache: there are a bunch of official-looking papers, a stack of slim little booklets with gold writing on them, some computer drives, a journal and half a dozen sketchbooks, and a green cloth bag. Mikey picks up the booklets. The top one says PASSPORT United States of America. They're all passports.

He opens them, one after the other, and it's Papa. Different photos, different clothes and sometimes different hair, and he doesn't have a beard in any of them, but other than that, it's definitely him. Each passport has a different name: Nick Halden, George Danbury, James Maine, Neal Caffrey.

That last one is confusing. Neal is one of Papa's names, like it's one of Mikey's.

Mikey is hazy on how passports actually work, but he knows they have to show your real name. Before they all went to Paris to see Madame Cécile and Aunt Louise last year, Mom showed him his passport with the photo and the printing that read Neal Michael Burke. He'd wanted to draw in it like a notebook, but she gave him some paper instead.

Anyway, the facts are: (3) It's probably illegal to have lots of passports with different names, unless Papa really is a spy. (2) Dad works for the FBI. If he finds out something illegal is going on, it will make him look bad at work, like when Mikey took that Snickers bar without paying last year. (1) If Papa finds out Mikey picked the lock on his box, he might be mad too. If he's a spy, he might have to shut him up to preserve his cover.

Mikey slips the Neal Caffrey passport into his pocket and locks the box again. He puts the CDs and everything back where he found them and goes to his room to think what to do. It's a mystery, and mysteries need to be solved. Dad would say to do research and formulate a working theory. Mikey turns on his tablet.

What he finds out is even more confusing and confirms he can't tell anyone, not his friends from school, not even his best friend, Joanne, who lives next door. She might get scared and tell her mom. Mikey's going to have to investigate this on his own.

He goes downstairs where Dad is on the couch now, watching baseball and eating corn chips out of the bag. "Hey, kiddo. What's up?"

"Nothing," says Mikey. He sits next to Dad and grabs a handful of chips. "Does Papa have a twin brother? Or a brother at all?"

"Nope. Why do you ask?" Dad's attention is still mostly on the game.

Mikey shrugs. "It's for school. You have Uncle Jeremy, and Mom has Aunt Anne. I was just wondering."

"Well, the closest Papa has to a brother is probably Mozzie," says Dad, "but don't tell either of them I said that." He winks at Mikey. "Not everyone has a brother or a sister. You don't."

"Why not?" asked Mikey, diverted from his primary mission. It would be kind of cool to have a little brother to play with and boss around.

"It takes three adults to keep up with one of you," says Dad, pulling him into a rough-and-tumble hug. "We don't have enough rooms in the house for another kid and three more grown-ups."

Mikey squirms free and manages to tickle Dad in the ribs, making him laugh, but then someone hits a home run on TV and Dad goes back to watching. "Have you done your homework?"

"Most of it." Mikey sighs, takes another handful of chips and goes upstairs to finish his math.

But the passport is hidden inside the secret compartment in his globe, and he can't stop thinking about it. He doesn't want Papa to get in trouble, but he needs to know what it all means.

Mom always says if you're worried about something, it helps to talk about it, so when she and Papa get home, he goes into the kitchen where she's making cups of tea. "Hey, sweetie," she says. "You want hot chocolate?"

"Yes, please." He climbs onto one of the bar stools, still proud he's tall enough to get up there on his own. He can even touch the footrest with his toe if he stretches. "Mom, do you know any bad people?"

When she kisses his head, she smells of vanilla and flowers. "I've met a few, but you don't have to worry about them, babe. Your dad locked them up where they can't hurt anyone. But you know, deep down, most people aren't good or bad—they're just normal people who make good or bad choices."

Mikey barely hears this last part. What if Dad finds out about the passports and has to put Papa in prison? Maybe Mikey should put the Neal Caffrey one back in the attic and pretend he never found it. Or take them all and bury them in the park. Or burn them on the barbecue.

Mom puts a mug in front of him, and he gets a face full of sweet chocolatey steam and feels a little bit better. She asks, "Everything okay?" and he manages to say, "Sure," without going red or squirming.

"How was work?" he asks to distract her, and she tells him about the anniversary party she and Papa organized, and how the lady wore a sparkly silver dress that sounds like tinfoil or a space suit to Mikey, but which Mom says was really pretty.

He needs to talk to Papa alone where no one will hear them or interrupt. He worries about it through dinner and all the rest of the evening; even Junior Ghostbusters 2020 doesn't take his mind off it because it's a re-run, though it still makes him smile a couple of times.

Finally Mom says, "Okay, mister, time for bed. I'll be up in ten minutes to turn your light out."

For once, Mikey doesn't try to bargain for more time. He says, "I want Papa to tuck me in."

"Sure, buddy," says Papa. "Go brush your teeth and put your pajamas on, and I'll come up." He's sitting at the end of the couch next to Dad, and they're holding hands, and Mikey's palms go sweaty at the sight, because what if Dad finds out Papa's secret? Everything feels like the fire swamp in The Princess Bride: quicksand and flame spurts, and Humperdinck hunting Westley and Buttercup with the palace guards, who are basically police officers. Or FBI.

Mikey kisses Mom and Dad goodnight and goes upstairs. Brushing his teeth makes him want to throw up. He dumps his clothes on the chair in the corner and pulls on his PJs with the stars and comets. The globe squats on his desk like an evil goblin, and Mikey retrieves the passport from its hiding place, sneaking it under his pajama top, and then huddles in bed waiting for Papa.

Who takes forever. Mikey passes the time thinking up questions to ask: (3) Have you ever been a spy or in Witness Protection? (2) Does Dad ever bend the rules and let a bad guy go? (1) What do you need four passports for anyway? You must be able to go a really long way on four passports.

But then he hears Papa's footsteps on the stairs, and he changes his mind. He'll wait and ask Mozzie next time he sees him. (3) Mozzie knows everything. (2) He won't tell or think it's weird if Mikey asks dorky questions. (1) He won't mind that Mikey broke into the lockbox in the first place.

He shoves the passport deep under his pillow.

Papa knocks on the open door and comes to sit on the edge of the bed. He's been wearing one of Dad's old sweaters since he got home, and the cuff is fraying. "What's on your mind? You want me to read you the next chapter of Danny, Champion of the World?"

"That's okay." Mikey hugs him hard, trying to forget everything he knows and everything he fears, but Papa pulls back and looks at him thoughtfully.

"How about you tell me what's under your pillow, then."

Mikey goes hot and cold, but there's no point denying it. Papa always knows when you're hiding something. Dad does too, because he notices clues, but with Papa it's like ESP. "Shut the door," he says.

Papa leans across and shuts the door without hardly getting up from the bed. It's a pretty small room.

Mikey can't put it off any more. He swallows, slowly pulls out the passport and lays it on the bed between them.

Papa opens it and glances at the name. "You get this from the attic?"

"Yeah. Sorry." Mikey grabs Papa's arm and tugs him closer, lowers his voice to a whisper. "Papa, are you Neal Caffrey?"

Papa moves so he's sitting next to Mikey with his arm around him. Both of their legs stretch out along the bed, Mikey's under the covers and Papa's on top. "I used to be, a long time ago. Before you were born."

Mikey's stomach sinks. Papa can't be a bad guy; he's Papa. But the internet says some bad things about Neal Caffrey. "Neal Caffrey went to prison."

"That's right. I went to prison for four years." Papa looks serious but not upset. "I broke the law, and—you know when you get sent to your room? It was like that, but for a really long time." He bends so he can see Mikey's face. "It's okay, buddy. You can ask me anything."

He doesn't mind that Mikey knows. He trusts him to keep the secret. Mikey leans closer. "Do Mom and Dad know?"

Papa actually grins. "You know how hard it is to hide anything from your dad, right? And your mom? They know everything. They've always known."

Mikey blows out a breath, dizzy with relief. The squirmy mass in his stomach wriggles away to bother someone else. "Was Dad mad when he found out?"

"He was, but he forgave me." Papa's voice is quiet and gentle, speaking against his head. "Your mom and dad and I love each other a lot. And Dad's a good guy. He knows sometimes it takes people a while to figure out how to live a good life." He kisses Mikey's head and then kind of scoops him sideways onto his lap, which muddles the covers but makes it easier to see each other. "Anything else you want to know, Monster?"

Mikey thinks about the websites he found. He knows what forgery is, more or less, like Papa's Van Goghs in the attic, but he's not sure about larceny or counterfeiting. "Did you hurt anyone?"

Papa scrunches his lips, thoughtfully. "Not on purpose," he says, "but most crimes hurt someone in the end. That's why we have laws to protect people, and people like Dad to make sure no one breaks them."

Mikey leans his head on Papa's shoulder, as if this is a bedtime story. "So why did you do it?"

"Because it was exciting, and I was angry at my parents. I didn't think about the people I was hurting."

"You're not a criminal anymore," says Mikey, just to make sure.

"Nope, I work with Mom now. You know that."

"Why did you stop?"

"Why do you think?" Papa tilts his head and looks at him.

Mikey tries to imagine what would stop someone from being a criminal. "You were sorry?"

"That was part of it."

"Dad made you?"

Papa laughs softly. "He tried, over and over. But when you're a grown-up, you have to decide for yourself."

Mikey pokes him in the chest. "So why then?"

"Well, the thing about being a criminal is that it's dangerous. You hang out with scary people, and there's always smart guys like Dad trying to catch you and lock you up."

"You could hide," says Mikey. It actually sounds kind of fun, like an epic game of hide and seek.

"But if I was hiding, I wouldn't be able to stay here with you and Mom and Dad," says Papa. "And I like it here. Don't you?"

"I guess." Mikey looks around his room, doubtfully. Most of his school friends' rooms are bigger, but he does have the fish mural that Papa painted around the window, and the shelves Dad made for his toys.

"What's the matter, this place isn't good enough for you, is that it?" Papa scrubs his back teasingly through his PJs. "You'd rather be living in a Turkish palace or under a troll bridge?"

"On an asteroid with a pack of space-dogs," says Mikey. He's been thinking about space-dogs a lot since he read about the Russian aeronautic experiments in the 1950s and 60s. Some of them must have gotten loose and run wild.

"Maybe one day," says Papa. "Who knows? But that would be a long way to come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas."

"And birthdays," says Mikey. Mom and Papa throw the best birthday parties.

"Halloween," says Papa. They share a grin.

Mikey hugs him, pressing his face against Papa's chest in Dad's sweater. "I like that we're both called Neal."

Papa hugs back really tight, making him squeak. "Me too. I love you, buddy." He clears his throat. "And if there's anything else you want to ask me or Mom or Dad, you can. Anything at all. But right now, it's time to go to sleep."

"I suppose." Mikey gets back into bed, and Papa straightens the covers and picks up the passport.

"Can I have this back?"

"Are you going away?" asks Mikey. He's really tired all of a sudden, but he still knows that passports are for traveling.

Papa bends down and kisses his forehead. "I'm not going anywhere. Just downstairs."

"Okay." Mikey sighs and pulls his arms under the covers. Papa turns out the light and goes to the door, but then Mikey thinks of something else. "What about the other passports in the attic—should we bury them?"

Papa stops in the doorway, a tall black familiar shape with the hall light shining behind him. "I'll take care of them. You don't have to worry about a thing."

"Cool."

"Goodnight, Mikey. Sleep well."

"'Night, Papa." Mikey closes his eyes and starts making a list of questions to ask tomorrow, starting with (3) What is larceny? But everything's good, he doesn't have to worry, and he falls asleep before he gets to question (2).


END