Immovable
Unstoppable force meet immovable object.
Neal likes to think of himself as unstoppable. He can get anything he likes, do anything he wants, escape from anywhere they try to keep him. Nobody can catch him. Nobody, that is, except Peter Burke.
That con movie—the one with DiCaprio and Hanks—is so schmaltzy he can't take it. Neal likes romance, not a sad-sack story about a kid who wants to be a conman and the FBI agent who becomes more than a friend. It's ridiculous. See, Peter might have spent three years trying to catch him, but that was the end of it. Neal never saw him again, and he knew he never would. There was none of that fatherly Hanks garbage.
Except, three years and nine months later, there's only one person who comes for him. Sure, they're all after a fugitive, but only of them comes for him, and it's Peter Burke. Tall, craggy face, four-year-old suit, that same gentle manner that overlays steely resolve. Neal crashes into him again, and he's just as immovable as last time.
Neal's always been able to move people. Nobody can resist if you push the right buttons. Nobody except Peter Burke, that is. Maybe it's the conman's curse to be the most fascinated by the one person he can't con.