Title: if you're gonna play the game, boy, you gotta learn to play it right

Fandom: RED/Inception/White Collar (a smidge of James Bond)

Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Kenny Rogers

Warnings: mostly pre all three fandoms; spoilers for each, though; mentions of child abuse

Pairings: Arthur/Eames; some implied Peter/Neal

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 1550

Point of view: third

Prompt: Inception/White Collar/Red, Arthur + Neal + Frank, They aren't biological brothers or Frank's sons, but he saved them both when they were small and the three of them somehow became a family.

He found Arthur first, in a small town in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere. Kid wasn't Arthur yet, of course; he was nameless, bleeding and bruised, and glaring up at a man three times his size, an itty-bitty blade clutched in broken fingers.

He had a dangerous air about him even then, feral and vicious. Frank almost didn't step in, just to see how far the kid could push himself.

But the guy wasn't backing away, and the boy was swaying in place, blinking furiously. He'd been dosed with something.

Frank stepped in and put down the bastard with one punch. Didn't check to see if he'd be getting up; didn't care, either.

"You okay, kid?" he asked, gentle and firm, without making a move toward the boy.

"Fine," the kid slurred, backing up a step and almost going down, but his grip on the pocketknife didn't waver.

When he collapsed, it was sudden and he went straight down. Frank caught him on the way, plucking the knife from his fingers. He gave the boy a quick once-over, to see the worst of his wounds. Thankfully, it was just bruises and some old cuts that had opened up, so he picked the kid up and carried him to his car.

He'd let Joe have the fucker they'd tracked to Bumfuck.

0o0

The kid didn't trust Frank for a long time. He didn't give Frank a name to call him, so Frank stuck to Kiddo or you. Five months in, after coming home with a stolen copy of The Once and Future King, he said, "I'm Arthur."

Frank held out a hand. "Nice t'meet ya, kid," he said. "Now, from the top."

Arthur nodded and went through the stretches Frank had taught him. They'd begin with guns the next week. Kid was getting good. One day, he might even be able to take Frank down.

0o0

Arthur found the boy who'd name himself Neal. Frank'd had him for almost six years at that point. Neal was flashier than Arthur, displayed his rapier wit far more often. He babbled on about everything, doing it with such charm that Frank rarely told him to shut his piehole and let them have silence for just a moment.

Neal's arm was broken and he'd pissed off half a dozen bruisers: something to do with cards and the counting thereof. Frank was out scouting the lay of the land, for a quick takedown of some scumbag. He only heard about how Arthur and Neal met secondhand, and neither of them told it the same way.

According to Arthur, he saved Neal's ass. Neal grumbled that Arthur had stepped in where he wasn't needed and applied too much force to a few bar patrons well into their liquor.

Either way, Neal stuck to Arthur like glue for the longest time. Arthur was slightly older, though none of them knew by how much, and he looked after Neal like a brother.

0o0

Neal never was as good as Arthur with guns or martial arts, but he was partial to knives. His talents lay elsewhere: he could charm men and women and inanimate objects, and he could paint like he'd been born with a brush in his hand. He was smart; both boys were razor sharp, though Arthur was better with hard facts and science and math. Neal picked up languages and history and philosophy with the same ease Arthur could reel off formulas and equations.

If they'd been one person, they would make an operative Frank would hop continents to avoid.

As it was, he couldn't be prouder.

0o0

Neal left in the spring, ten years after Arthur saved his ass. He promised to be careful and Frank pretended he didn't know what the kid was heading off to do.

Arthur watched Neal go with resignation. Then he looked at Frank with something approaching apprehension and said quietly, "I'm going to enlist tomorrow."

Frank nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. "You do that, kid." He put a hand on Arthur's shoulder, squeezed firmly and gently. "You'll be runnin' the joint in a couple years."

0o0

Arthur fell off the grid in a way that told Frank he was in black-ops. Frank retired the spring after his boys left and followed Neal's career with interest.

He almost stepped in when Neal got arrested and sentenced to four years. He attended every court session, planned a dozen different ops to save the kid. But when the verdict was read out, Neal met his eyes and shook his head.

So Frank let him go.

He knew Arthur couldn't be there (he'd looked around carefully every day anyway, though) and when he saw his first kid glaring at the judge and jury in equal measure, hands and jaw clenched, his mouth actually dropped open.

Arthur had to be AWOL, and from the fury scorching the air around him, he was about to do something beyond stupid. So Frank slipped through the crowd and grabbed his arm, muttered, "Not here, kid," and pulled him out of the courthouse.

Arthur waited until they were in Frank's hotel room to let loose. Frank made sure neither of them were put out of commission, but otherwise gave the kid free rein. Arthur cussed in four different languages, used a couple moves Frank'd never seen before, and called Neal every name under the sun and then some.

Finally, he stood in a loose parade rest and breathed deeply.

"Kid made his choices, Arthur," Frank said quietly. "He didn't want to break out."

"He respects the fed," Arthur snapped. "That's the only reason why."

Frank shrugged. "Let him serve his time," he said. "He won't learn anything, but he'll survive, get out, and put it behind him."

Closing his eyes, clenching his fists, gritting his teeth, Arthur nodded. Another deep breath, relaxing his muscles, and then Arthur said, "I should get back before I'm missed."

Frank pulled him in for a quick, manly hug. "Lookin' good, kid."

Arthur chuckled. "You too, old man."

They left New York at the same time, going in different directions. Neal received two letters his first week in prison, and charmed his way into protection. (He used Frank's training four times, and after that, he was mostly left alone. Thankfully, it was minimum security and no one really wanted to push the issue. He had two dozen escape plans plotted in his head, and Arthur offered to help any way he needed. Frank called him a stupid kid, but said if Neal ever changed his mind, he knew the code.)

0o0
Three years into Neal's sentence, Arthur fell off the grid in a way that meant he'd left the right side of the law. Frank wondered about his method in raising kids, if one was a thief and the other went rogue.

Frank researched everything to do with Project Somnus, then Dominic and Mallorie Cobb. He ripped into Arthur when the kid finally called him, nearly two months after he fled the goddamned country with a fucking fugitive in his back pocket.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he demanded, trying not to slam his phone into the wall.

"He's my friend," Arthur said quietly, sounding weary and tired. "He's falling apart, Frank. He didn't kill Mal, but she did such a good job…" He sighed. "Please, don't give me a hard time about this. And tell Neal not to break out just to follow me. He's almost done."

Frank bit back three different retorts, took a deep breath, and said, "You get in over your head at all, let me know. Hear me? Don't do anything reckless or stupid."

"Okay." Arthur sighed again, an exhale that sounded suspiciously like a sob. "Watch your back, Frank. I heard some things, before—well, I heard some things. If anything happens, you need help, call me, okay?"

"Yeah, kid," Frank said.

"Dom's out of the shower," Arthur said quietly. "I'll… I'll call you later."

Frank didn't hear from him for over two years. By that time, Neal was working for the FBI and Frank himself had gone rogue because a scumbag was using the CIA as his personal hit squad.

It was an adventurous couple years.

0o0

Arthur arrived first, a sketchy Brit with him. Frank hadn't used his New York safe house in almost a decade, but it was barely in Neal's bounds, so he thought he'd hide out there for a little while and send his kid some hints, just to see if he'd kept up with his code-breaking.

Eames took great pleasure in quizzing Frank about his career. He knew things that were so classified Frank barely remembered them and he moved like one of M's boys. Victoria would love him.

Arthur stretched out on Frank's couch and watched Eames with a fond smile. For that alone, Frank liked the smartass bastard.

Neal showed up five hours after Arthur and said, "Frank, you know I'm bugged, right?"

Frank shrugged. "I'm retired, kid. What do I care?"

Neal laughed, hugged Frank and then Arthur, and started flirting with Eames.

Frank took them all three out to a fancy restaurant and told embarrassing stories and was so proud he felt like he'd burst.

Not even Neal's fed trying to ambush him the next morning could dim the glow.