Chapter Text
Peter was on edge, and it was putting Diana on edge, too. From where she was sat, going through the motions of their latest mortgage fraud case, she could feel the anxiety coming off him in waves. It took a lot to knock Peter off his balance.
He had emerged out of Hughes' office thirty minutes ago, then proceeded to evade all of Diana's probing questions and concerned glances, disappearing over to the coffee machine no less than four times. Something was definitely up. She was sure that Jones had noticed it, too. Peter hadn't been this far off his game since shortly after the team had become short one CI, and the circumstances surrounding that period of time had been many things, "extenuating" the least among them.
As Peter made moves to go for yet another round of shitty coffee, Diana shared a look with Jones. Enough was enough.
She moved to intercept Peter.
"Hey, I was thinking of going out to get some real coffee, do you want anything?"
He startled a little at her presence, then shifted to face her.
"Diana. I... Yes, alright. That would be great, thank you."
Before he shoved his hands into his pockets, Diana saw that they were shaking. Jitters - from the excessive caffeine consumption, or something else? Peter never had been an expert at masking his affect; his body always gave him away. It was one of the things Diana admired most about him - it was a sort of honesty that was hard to fake. It was also one of the things that had been so different between him and the chameleon he'd been working with. Even more so, of course, in hindsight.
"Actually, I was going to grab some for the whole office," she ventured. "Only, I don't think I'll be able to carry everything, so would you be able to come with?"
It was a transparent ploy, but she didn't need to fool him, he'd had enough of that already. She just needed an excuse to get him out of the office and give him a chance to pull himself together. Then, hopefully, he would fill her in on whatever was going on.
She saw the hesitancy written plainly on his face and then saw his resistance give.
"Alright. I guess I could use a break, anyway."
"That's the spirit! The mortgage fraud will still be here when we get back, that's for sure."
Peter's half-hearted chuckle at that did little to reassure Diana.
There were two coffee shops within a short walk from the FBI offices. One, a locally owned business, right across the street. A few years ago, the team had all been regulars there, chatting together on their lunch breaks or emotionally debriefing together after a heavy morning. Moreso than Diana or Jones, Peter had spent a lot of time there, picking up four coffees for the team, always with a shadow in tow.
The shop served delicious coffee, and gave away complimentary croissants with big orders.
Diana and Peter kept walking past it to the Starbucks at the other end of the street.
About halfway down the block, Peter let out a sigh and Diana turned to him, sensing he was ready to talk about whatever was going on.
He started tentatively, like he was trying to find the right words: "I had a meeting with Hughes this morning."
Then, on one breath, expelling the air like some kind of demon, "I'm being transferred to Gotham, to work in Violent Crime there."
Diana felt her own breath catch. Gotham was... not a good place to be an FBI agent. It was an even worse place to be a good FBI agent. The city was rife with corruption, and worse things. And there was no worse place to work the Violent Crime division in.
"But you've worked in White Collar for forever, how can they do that? We have nothing to do with Violent Crime." Or as little to do with them as they could manage, anyway.
"I don't know," Peter groaned, removing one hand from his pocket to gesture exasperatedly, before returning it. "It's come from way above Hughes' head. All I know is that one of the higher-ups has grand plans of rehabilitating Gotham's FBI presence. They want a fresh fleet of agents to go in there and clean the place up, somehow my name came up, and now that's that."
Diana sympathised with Peter's misery over the situation. A transfer to Gotham was guaranteed to be a nightmare in the best case scenario; the worst case didn't bear thinking about. At the minimum, it would uproot Peter's whole life in New York, and the cases he would be dealing with would be a whole other level of dangerous and disturbing.
At the same time, Diana could see the logic behind the choice. Peter was as incorruptible as agents come. If there was any agent she would trust to be able to operate in the most rotten city in the country, and come out the other side with his morals still intact, it would be Agent Peter Burke. Unfortunately, that integrity was not likely to make his time in the city any easier.
"I'm so sorry Peter, I don't know what to say."
"I don't know how I'm going to tell El," he said. He was working himself up a bit now, spitting the words like acid on the tongue. "I know she'll want to go with me, but I can't stand the thought of her having to live in that cursed city."
Diana grasped around for a solution.
"Maybe... Is there somebody you can appeal to? Surely this isn't set in stone already."
"Hughes told me that he already tried on my behalf. If he couldn't succeed, I don't know who I could appeal to that would be sympathetic enough and have the authority to- " Peter broke off.
He looked at Diana, eyes wide. It took her a moment to catch up.
"You don't think..." he said, trailing off, expression a swirl of hope and desperation.
He began again, speaking with a terrible deliberation.
"You don't think N could help, do you?"