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.fic: Every Distance: PG13/R D/M 7/9
Title: Every Distance
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: PG13/Rish; language, maybe some smut, violence, angst, etc.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and very likely many other people.
Advertisements: Sequel/companion to A Long Time Coming, set during and after the events of ALTC 10.
Previous parts: 01; 02 ; 03; 04; 05; 06
Notes: Whenever I'm done with a chapter I sit on it for a bit to get some perspective and fix any issues that are bothering me. Not the case this time; the whole thing just came, and you can't ask for better than that.
ETA: Eek! Somehow the last few paragraphs got left off. So now they've been added... kind of important, they are.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When Martin woke the next morning, his neck and back protested a night spent on a couch in a Bureau office, twinge and ache reminders that he wasn’t as young as he would have liked. His mouth tasted of the previous night and stale, heated air, and he was acutely, uncomfortably aware that he’d been wearing the same clothes for two days. Someone had draped a blanket – Bureau-issued to agents on surveillance – over his coat, and drawn it up high enough to chafe at his chin. Irritated with it suddenly, he pushed it down and away, blinking away the dryness and grittiness from his eyes.
“Your dad ran by my place and picked up some clothes,” Danny’s voice said from somewhere near him. Martin swiveled around and saw Danny perched on the arm of his couch, elbows resting on his knees, watching him speculatively. He had showered and shaved, with hair damp and messy in the way that only Danny could pull off, and in clean clothes, a state that Martin envied bitterly at the moment.
“Your stuff’s in there,” Danny said, nodding in the direction of the desk. Martin’s gaze tracked over to where Danny was looking, and he saw an overnight bag sitting there. Blinked at it stupidly a moment.
A teasing grin flickered across Danny’s lips. “You look like you just came back from the dead.”
“I feel like it,” Martin sighed, dropping his head back down. The tightness in his neck had reached his temples, and he could feel the beginnings of a headache lurking underneath his skull. “Please tell me there’s coffee.”
“Brewing. But I warn you, it’s from the break room... and I don’t think the coffee’s gotten any better since I left the FBI.”
“Don’t care.” He shifted again, felt the framework of the couch digging into his side and then his back as he turned over. Tried to stretch out but it didn’t work, only aggravated the tightness in his shoulders and back, and God, the stupid blanket was itchy as all hell and, irritated, he pushed it further down his chest. Too late, he saw Danny watching him, interested and predatory expression spreading over his face, lighting dark eyes.
“Danny,” he said repressively, fought the urge to pull the blanket back up despite the fact that he was still decently clothed.
“Oh, relax.” Danny’s fingers began to play around Martin’s ankle in a decidedly unrelaxing manner, and Martin realized with a distant, strange sort of fascination that someone had taken his shoes and socks off, and when this had happened he had no idea. Fingers brushing over the sensitive skin at the back of his leg, the stretch of it over tendon and bone, pressing harder down near the heel, hovering, tickling at his instep.
“Danny,” Martin said again, a little wildly this time.
“Martin.” Almost an exact copy of his tone before, impatient and harassed, at odds with the quick, elusive touch, and the things written on Danny’s face that only belonged in bedrooms and darkness – want and admiration, and Martin could deal with those when it was only the two of them together, or thought he could. So easy, Danny’s touches and smiles said, so easy to take, to be happy.
But here, in the wider world, with his colleagues and his father waiting beyond the walls? Nothing was that simple, and that had been one of the first lessons he’d ever learned, even before he learned to defy his father.
“Look, nobody knows about me – about you and me – okay?” With an effort, he jerked his foot away and pulled himself up, fighting back a wince as his muscles protested the sudden movement. Very carefully he didn’t look at Danny. “Two things haven’t changed here: the coffee still sucks, and it’s still ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’”
“But your dad...” Deliberate and neutral, not even hiding the annoyance and confusion underneath. Against his better judgment, Martin glanced at Danny, and yeah, arms folded across his chest, brows drawn together.
“I came out to him after I moved back to Washington,” Martin said, unable to help the defensiveness in his tone. And I did it only because he was so damn happy I’d gotten the transfer – another Fitzgerald on his way up the ranks – and that was the best way I could think of to disappoint him. “And Viv knows about us, and Matt suspects. Nobody else.” His shoes and socks were lying on the floor by the side table, and he bent down to put them on. Something in his lower back cracked painfully. “And seriously, Danny? Right now I don’t want anyone else knowing. Or guessing, or hell, even thinking. They’re already looking at me like... I don’t know. Like they’re waiting for me to explode, or mutate, or something.”
He became aware that he was starting to ramble, forcibly shut his mouth, and waited in awful, suspended silence for Danny to reply.
Danny didn’t say anything, only slid down until he was sitting on the couch itself, close enough now that, even in the dimness of the half-lit office, Martin could see the dark blemishes under Danny’s eyes, the uncertain tension around his mouth, and the disheveled hair that spoke more of hasty finger-combing than actual effort. And it hit him that, since this insanity had begun – yesterday, God they were working on twenty-four hours since he’d gotten the call from Matt – Danny had gone along with everything, steady and unquestioning, by Martin’s side when they saw the bodies of Silverman’s family, by Martin’s side when he tried to come to terms with sitting on the sidelines.
No... not since yesterday morning. Since two weeks ago, when he’d gone down to St. Jude’s and told the doctors who he was, and hadn’t left to go back to the rest of his life.
“Shit, Danny... I’m sorry.” The apology sounded painful and ridiculous, and he could feel the hot, excruciating flood of embarrassment creeping up his face. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, Fitz,” Danny said, soft and rough, voice painted with the same strain that Martin could see in the corners of his eyes, and he couldn’t remember ever seeing Danny this raw, stripped of the smoothness and flash that had drawn Martin from the first day they’d met.
Danny stood, a little shaky, but when he met Martin’s eyes, there was no compromise in them, only a terrifying kind of determination that had Martin leaning back but unable to look away.
“Do what you have to do, Martin,” he said quietly. “And when you’re done, come back.”
He left, slipping soundless from the office and moving down the hall. Martin watched him go, frozen.
Do what you have to do. And what the hell that was, Martin had no idea, but he knew – he knew – that he couldn’t do it without Danny.
And he knew he couldn’t tell Danny that. It wasn’t in him, though Martin desperately wished that it were, and he couldn’t even tell Danny that, though he suspected that Danny knew. Sighing to himself, he finished tying his shoes, tried to ignore the burn of confusion and frustration deep in his chest, the painful tightening of the headache in his temples.
Shower first, then think. He grabbed the overnight bag, stood, and stepped out into the hallway, glanced down it in the direction Danny had gone. Break room, the same way as the showers on the next floor, and he hesitantly made his way down the hall. His clothes stuck to him uncomfortably, sticky with sweat and the grit of two days’ wear.
The offices were still mostly empty, a few agents at their desks already, soft rustle of paperwork and preoccupied murmurs a sharp contrast to the chaos of the day. Nick’s office light was on low, which most likely meant he’d spent the night working and was catching sleep on his own couch. Martin wondered where his dad had gone to – most likely to whatever hotel he was staying at, because the Deputy Director didn’t do things like sleep on couches in a borrowed office.
He paused outside the break room, and yeah, there was Danny, sitting bent over a mug of coffee, gripping it in both hands and staring at it with a desperate, lost intensity that Martin had no idea how to quiet, or even to approach. And standing there staring at Danny from behind the blinds was... Martin shifted from foot to foot. Even tired and angry – especially angry, maybe – Danny was too much for him to handle, pushing past everything Martin had put in place to keep him out, and all he was doing was sitting, long, fine fingers curled around the coffee cup, dark eyes fierce and honest, and seeing this was like seeing Danny naked.
Martin turned away quickly, almost ran down the hall in his eagerness to get away. He found the locker rooms and the towel stash with little effort and flung himself into one of the shower stalls, yanking off his clothes and tossing them over the door as he went. Turned the tap on as hot as he could stand it and slipped underneath the shower spray, head tilted up to catch it.
Hot water pounded down on him, taking the edge off his headache and soothing some of the tension from his muscles. Absently he reached for the soap dispenser, frowning at the generic antiseptic smell, and began to clean up. Muscles loosened a little more as he stood under the spray, the steam making him lightheaded, and unconsciously he slumped back against the tiled wall, liking the still-cool smoothness of it against his skin.
Do what you have to do.
He wished he had the words for it, the terrible, crushing loneliness that had haunted him ever since Danny had left. Viv had understood, but she’d left too, and then Sam – who had also understood, in a way that he hadn’t expected but for which he’d been grateful – and Jack at last, leaving him with a teamful of strangers. And that had been like starting with the Bureau all over again, only instead of being the rookie being the second seniormost team member, who’d gotten there because of who his father was. He’d never tried to change their assumptions, because he’d proven himself to Jack, Viv, and Sam – proven himself to Danny, and he suspected that had been the hardest test of all for him, earning Danny’s trust.
He wondered if that was what he had destroyed back there in the office, and firmly made himself not think about that. Even the possibility... God. He shivered and stepped under the water again.
Long ago, he’d recognized that he had a hero complex, and that wanting to save other people covered a whole host of his neuroses. It explained Sam – in painful and excruciating detail it explained Sam – and why after five years the only thing that had chased him out of New York had been the possibility of helping more people elsewhere.
But Danny had saved himself, saved himself from a life on the streets and alcohol, the dead-ends and disappointments that life had thrown at him and those that he’d brought on himself. Most people would call it the system working out, or they’d call it a miracle, but they didn’t know Danny. And Martin knew that Danny hadn’t only saved himself, like pulling himself from shipwreck, but had found something like happiness somewhere along the way.
And, after the hell of his childhood and the foster care system – the lesson that was don’t try to be happy because it’ll make things worse, when they move you again – that he’d somehow been fearless enough to take it... That stymied Martin.
Do what you have to do.
To do what? Helpless, he shut the water off and reached for his towel. To close the case? To deal with his dad? He wrapped the towel around his hips and stepped out of the shower, pulled his clothes down off the door and trailed back into the locker room.
To straighten out his own fucked-up self? Martin snorted, reached for fresh boxers and his ancient ‘Property of the FBI’ t-shirt. He stared at it for a moment and smiled bitterly, wondered if the merchandising people had any idea how true their slogan was.
He was turning back to the bathroom to brush his teeth when he heard the door open and shut, looked over his shoulder automatically. Stutter-stepped and ground to a halt when he saw his father in the doorway, shoulder propping the door open, a hesitant expression on his face, something Martin had never seen there before.
“Martin,” Victor said. “Do you have a moment?”
“Uh... Yeah. Yeah, sure.” He shifted in place, covered the nervous reflex by turning it into a trip back to his overnight bag to drop his toothbrush and toothpaste back into it. “What did you want?”
He had prepared himself for another disastrous conference along the lines of yesterday’s, and when Victor said that he wanted to update him on the situation in the field, surprise skipped through him and he knew he’d failed at keeping it off his face.
“Bateman thinks that we’ve identified the building where you were held,” Victor said, moving more fully into the room and shutting the door behind him. “At the corner of Nassau and 25th, only about twenty blocks from where you were picked up.”
“Nassau? But that was all abandoned buildings...” Very carefully Martin leaned against the bank of lockers behind him, desperate for support but not wanting his father to see it. Cold, so cold and dark beyond anything he’d ever experienced, and he was there, in a heartbeat he was back in that place, shivering and desperate, throat raw and wrists scraped red.
“Martin?” And God that was concern in his father’s voice, and Victor was moving closer, cautious as though waiting for Martin to lash out.
“I’m okay,” he said roughly, stepping back a bit, desperate for distance and breathing space. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Made himself straighten and look his father in the eye, and not look away when Victor’s assessing gaze swept over him. “It’s all abandoned buildings down there, or was. How’d they find it?”
“City renewal.” Victor wasn’t wavering, despite the casual tone. “Only a few buildings in the area hadn’t been razed or restored, and city planners said major plumbing overhauls had been done on all the restored buildings; the material in the pipe bomb, if it came from the same source as the pipe that you were... that...” He coughed and looked away, was silent for a moment. “If they both came from the same place, the building would have had to have been built before 1930. Only six of those were left in a ten-block radius.”
“Did they find anyone?” Martin refused to dwell on that small, awkward silence, the spasm of emotion that had flickered across his father’s face.
“No.” Frustration this time, and that was something Martin was used to hearing. “We have the building under surveillance now, in case they come back. I don’t think it’s likely they will, though.”
“It was risky enough killing Whitney and the kids,” Martin agreed, hating the coolness of his tone. A woman and her children are dead, and all they are is strategy, is that it? “So... so what are you going to do now?”
“We’ll sit on the building for a while, and see if anything turns up. Not much was left; forensics dusted for prints and is processing some trace right now, so if any of them are linked to the people who... who took you, we’ll know soon.” Not soon enough, Victor’s tone said, and Martin was used to hearing that – Good, but not good enough – but impatience laced through the disapproval.
“Yeah.” Martin nodded and looked away, studying the corner of the room over Victor’s shoulder. His father continued to stand there, watching him with an expression for once devoid of judgment or condemnation, and Martin had no idea how to deal with that. Once he might have, long ago before bitterness had set in, but not anymore.
There are other reasons for doing things – or not doing them, or whatever – besides your dad disapproving of it.
And Danny was right.
“Listen, Dad... I just.... I wanted to say thanks.” He took a breath, surprised at how hard simple words had become, half-waiting for Victor to ask for what, but it didn’t come, and he forced himself to keep talking. “For letting me stay on the case and all.” Another breath. “And for... for Danny too, I guess.”
He waited for it, the sudden sharpening of superiority that marked his father’s victories.
And that didn’t come either.
“Don’t mention it,” Victor said gruffly, glancing down at his watch for a second and then looking back up at him. Still no triumph there, no condescension – Finally, Martin, you see things from my point of view, and all this could have been avoided if you’d listened in the first place – only a tiredness Martin had never associated with his father before. Dry smile now, very unlike the broad, political grin he’d seen his father offer so many people. “I would prefer to have you out in the field. I would, if it were safe enough.”
Martin knew he couldn’t keep the shock off his face, and didn’t even try.
“You’re a good agent, Martin,” Victor said, and there wasn’t any hesitation, any qualification that Martin could hear, no good, but not good enough for me. “I’ve heard nothing else from your supervisors, and I suppose you know that Jack and Ed don’t say that to stroke my ego.”
And he couldn’t help it, couldn’t help but be suspicious, wondering where the hook was hidden underneath the praise. You did well, now do it better: runner-up in the state swimming finals, salutatorian of his high school class, Ivy League but not Harvard or Yale. Every achievement underpainted with his father’s disappointment, ever since he could remember, and Martin filtered through his father’s words and expression, looking for it this time, and couldn’t find it.
He was at a loss and floundering, not knowing what to say, hating that he couldn’t cover up his agitation, and that his father, instead of reveling in it, was watching quietly, waiting for him to collect himself.
“And you said thank you for Danny, too.” Said after a long, silent moment, hint of a question in the words. “What about him?”
“I don’t know.” Martin shrugged helplessly, gaze skipping from his father’s face to the lockers, his toothbrush stuffed in an outer pocket of his duffel. “For understanding.”
“I don’t understand,” Victor said.
“What do you mean?” Cold fear laced around his heart, bleeding into the heat of anger and burning away uncertainty, remembering his father talking with Danny, the conversations he’d caught half-heard, wondering what use Victor had found for the one person who meant anything to Martin, what kind of leverage he’d found. How can I use this person to influence my son? And he was angry now, tense and burning with it. “What do you mean?”
“When you told me – when you told me about yourself after you moved back to Washington, I didn’t understand,” Victor said quietly, and the honest admission almost shocked the anger out of Martin, unexpected as it was. “I still don’t.” Martin opened his mouth to object, but Victor rode over him, impatient. “I’m not saying I don’t approve, Martin.”
“What are you saying, then?”
“After thirty-six years of believing that a person is a... ah, a certain way, it’s difficult to believe the opposite,” Victor said. “And to be honest, I didn’t know why you were telling me at that specific moment, right after you moved from New York. I supposed that it was to make me angry. Again.”
“You’d be right,” Martin admitted.
“But you didn’t... you aren’t gay because you wanted to disappoint me,” Victor said, insistent this time, like he wanted Martin to understand – not because his way was the right way, but because he wanted Martin to understand.
“No, Dad,” he said quickly, red creeping into his face at the thought of explaining his sexuality to his father. “God no. I just... I just am, I guess.”
Victor nodded absently, glanced at his watch again, not impatient but for something to do. “And Danny? Did you...” Faint hint of embarrassment at the edges. You actually slept with him, didn’t you? Confirming a suspicion.
“You probably know the answer to that,” Martin said.
“I know I haven’t told you this, Martin,” and Victor was looking at him now, really looking, head tilted in scrutiny, judging reaction, “but I want you to be happy. And if you can be happy with Danny, then...” Victor’s turn to shrug this time.
The old, bitter instinct wanted to say I don’t need your approval, I don’t need anything from you, and wanted to exult in finally, after endless years wresting an admission of defeat from his father. And days ago – hours, before Danny telling him to do what he needed, before the stark and terrifying possibility of loss – Martin would have given in to instinct and said those things.
He didn’t, though.
“Thanks, Dad,” he said, and the simple truth of that surprised him.
Victor smiled briefly. “You’re welcome.” He straightened, pulling his coat to rights, face falling into its familiar neutrality. “There’s a staff meeting in a half hour to go over what Bateman’s squad picked up. You should be there.”
“Of course,” Martin said. And his father nodded, like he’d expected no other answer, and left, glancing behind him once as he stepped out the door.
Martin stood there for a moment, trying to process what had happened, mind fumbling with what his father had said and his reaction to it. His thoughts tangled together, a hopeless snarl, and the effort to tease them out was beyond him.
But... I want you to be happy. And with Danny... Something loosened in him, or lifted away; he couldn’t tell which, and all he was left with was I want you to be happy, and what Danny had said to him in that half-lit office.
Do what you have to do.
And when you’re done, come back.
-tbc-
Post-fic notes: I'm not sure what I did to deserve the recent rush of inspiration, but hey, I'm not going to question it, especially because if I stay on track one more week I'll have this done before the premiere. Thanks so much to everyone who's stayed with me so far; you guys rock muchly. *loves*
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: PG13/Rish; language, maybe some smut, violence, angst, etc.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and very likely many other people.
Advertisements: Sequel/companion to A Long Time Coming, set during and after the events of ALTC 10.
Previous parts: 01; 02 ; 03; 04; 05; 06
Notes: Whenever I'm done with a chapter I sit on it for a bit to get some perspective and fix any issues that are bothering me. Not the case this time; the whole thing just came, and you can't ask for better than that.
ETA: Eek! Somehow the last few paragraphs got left off. So now they've been added... kind of important, they are.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When Martin woke the next morning, his neck and back protested a night spent on a couch in a Bureau office, twinge and ache reminders that he wasn’t as young as he would have liked. His mouth tasted of the previous night and stale, heated air, and he was acutely, uncomfortably aware that he’d been wearing the same clothes for two days. Someone had draped a blanket – Bureau-issued to agents on surveillance – over his coat, and drawn it up high enough to chafe at his chin. Irritated with it suddenly, he pushed it down and away, blinking away the dryness and grittiness from his eyes.
“Your dad ran by my place and picked up some clothes,” Danny’s voice said from somewhere near him. Martin swiveled around and saw Danny perched on the arm of his couch, elbows resting on his knees, watching him speculatively. He had showered and shaved, with hair damp and messy in the way that only Danny could pull off, and in clean clothes, a state that Martin envied bitterly at the moment.
“Your stuff’s in there,” Danny said, nodding in the direction of the desk. Martin’s gaze tracked over to where Danny was looking, and he saw an overnight bag sitting there. Blinked at it stupidly a moment.
A teasing grin flickered across Danny’s lips. “You look like you just came back from the dead.”
“I feel like it,” Martin sighed, dropping his head back down. The tightness in his neck had reached his temples, and he could feel the beginnings of a headache lurking underneath his skull. “Please tell me there’s coffee.”
“Brewing. But I warn you, it’s from the break room... and I don’t think the coffee’s gotten any better since I left the FBI.”
“Don’t care.” He shifted again, felt the framework of the couch digging into his side and then his back as he turned over. Tried to stretch out but it didn’t work, only aggravated the tightness in his shoulders and back, and God, the stupid blanket was itchy as all hell and, irritated, he pushed it further down his chest. Too late, he saw Danny watching him, interested and predatory expression spreading over his face, lighting dark eyes.
“Danny,” he said repressively, fought the urge to pull the blanket back up despite the fact that he was still decently clothed.
“Oh, relax.” Danny’s fingers began to play around Martin’s ankle in a decidedly unrelaxing manner, and Martin realized with a distant, strange sort of fascination that someone had taken his shoes and socks off, and when this had happened he had no idea. Fingers brushing over the sensitive skin at the back of his leg, the stretch of it over tendon and bone, pressing harder down near the heel, hovering, tickling at his instep.
“Danny,” Martin said again, a little wildly this time.
“Martin.” Almost an exact copy of his tone before, impatient and harassed, at odds with the quick, elusive touch, and the things written on Danny’s face that only belonged in bedrooms and darkness – want and admiration, and Martin could deal with those when it was only the two of them together, or thought he could. So easy, Danny’s touches and smiles said, so easy to take, to be happy.
But here, in the wider world, with his colleagues and his father waiting beyond the walls? Nothing was that simple, and that had been one of the first lessons he’d ever learned, even before he learned to defy his father.
“Look, nobody knows about me – about you and me – okay?” With an effort, he jerked his foot away and pulled himself up, fighting back a wince as his muscles protested the sudden movement. Very carefully he didn’t look at Danny. “Two things haven’t changed here: the coffee still sucks, and it’s still ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’”
“But your dad...” Deliberate and neutral, not even hiding the annoyance and confusion underneath. Against his better judgment, Martin glanced at Danny, and yeah, arms folded across his chest, brows drawn together.
“I came out to him after I moved back to Washington,” Martin said, unable to help the defensiveness in his tone. And I did it only because he was so damn happy I’d gotten the transfer – another Fitzgerald on his way up the ranks – and that was the best way I could think of to disappoint him. “And Viv knows about us, and Matt suspects. Nobody else.” His shoes and socks were lying on the floor by the side table, and he bent down to put them on. Something in his lower back cracked painfully. “And seriously, Danny? Right now I don’t want anyone else knowing. Or guessing, or hell, even thinking. They’re already looking at me like... I don’t know. Like they’re waiting for me to explode, or mutate, or something.”
He became aware that he was starting to ramble, forcibly shut his mouth, and waited in awful, suspended silence for Danny to reply.
Danny didn’t say anything, only slid down until he was sitting on the couch itself, close enough now that, even in the dimness of the half-lit office, Martin could see the dark blemishes under Danny’s eyes, the uncertain tension around his mouth, and the disheveled hair that spoke more of hasty finger-combing than actual effort. And it hit him that, since this insanity had begun – yesterday, God they were working on twenty-four hours since he’d gotten the call from Matt – Danny had gone along with everything, steady and unquestioning, by Martin’s side when they saw the bodies of Silverman’s family, by Martin’s side when he tried to come to terms with sitting on the sidelines.
No... not since yesterday morning. Since two weeks ago, when he’d gone down to St. Jude’s and told the doctors who he was, and hadn’t left to go back to the rest of his life.
“Shit, Danny... I’m sorry.” The apology sounded painful and ridiculous, and he could feel the hot, excruciating flood of embarrassment creeping up his face. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, Fitz,” Danny said, soft and rough, voice painted with the same strain that Martin could see in the corners of his eyes, and he couldn’t remember ever seeing Danny this raw, stripped of the smoothness and flash that had drawn Martin from the first day they’d met.
Danny stood, a little shaky, but when he met Martin’s eyes, there was no compromise in them, only a terrifying kind of determination that had Martin leaning back but unable to look away.
“Do what you have to do, Martin,” he said quietly. “And when you’re done, come back.”
He left, slipping soundless from the office and moving down the hall. Martin watched him go, frozen.
Do what you have to do. And what the hell that was, Martin had no idea, but he knew – he knew – that he couldn’t do it without Danny.
And he knew he couldn’t tell Danny that. It wasn’t in him, though Martin desperately wished that it were, and he couldn’t even tell Danny that, though he suspected that Danny knew. Sighing to himself, he finished tying his shoes, tried to ignore the burn of confusion and frustration deep in his chest, the painful tightening of the headache in his temples.
Shower first, then think. He grabbed the overnight bag, stood, and stepped out into the hallway, glanced down it in the direction Danny had gone. Break room, the same way as the showers on the next floor, and he hesitantly made his way down the hall. His clothes stuck to him uncomfortably, sticky with sweat and the grit of two days’ wear.
The offices were still mostly empty, a few agents at their desks already, soft rustle of paperwork and preoccupied murmurs a sharp contrast to the chaos of the day. Nick’s office light was on low, which most likely meant he’d spent the night working and was catching sleep on his own couch. Martin wondered where his dad had gone to – most likely to whatever hotel he was staying at, because the Deputy Director didn’t do things like sleep on couches in a borrowed office.
He paused outside the break room, and yeah, there was Danny, sitting bent over a mug of coffee, gripping it in both hands and staring at it with a desperate, lost intensity that Martin had no idea how to quiet, or even to approach. And standing there staring at Danny from behind the blinds was... Martin shifted from foot to foot. Even tired and angry – especially angry, maybe – Danny was too much for him to handle, pushing past everything Martin had put in place to keep him out, and all he was doing was sitting, long, fine fingers curled around the coffee cup, dark eyes fierce and honest, and seeing this was like seeing Danny naked.
Martin turned away quickly, almost ran down the hall in his eagerness to get away. He found the locker rooms and the towel stash with little effort and flung himself into one of the shower stalls, yanking off his clothes and tossing them over the door as he went. Turned the tap on as hot as he could stand it and slipped underneath the shower spray, head tilted up to catch it.
Hot water pounded down on him, taking the edge off his headache and soothing some of the tension from his muscles. Absently he reached for the soap dispenser, frowning at the generic antiseptic smell, and began to clean up. Muscles loosened a little more as he stood under the spray, the steam making him lightheaded, and unconsciously he slumped back against the tiled wall, liking the still-cool smoothness of it against his skin.
Do what you have to do.
He wished he had the words for it, the terrible, crushing loneliness that had haunted him ever since Danny had left. Viv had understood, but she’d left too, and then Sam – who had also understood, in a way that he hadn’t expected but for which he’d been grateful – and Jack at last, leaving him with a teamful of strangers. And that had been like starting with the Bureau all over again, only instead of being the rookie being the second seniormost team member, who’d gotten there because of who his father was. He’d never tried to change their assumptions, because he’d proven himself to Jack, Viv, and Sam – proven himself to Danny, and he suspected that had been the hardest test of all for him, earning Danny’s trust.
He wondered if that was what he had destroyed back there in the office, and firmly made himself not think about that. Even the possibility... God. He shivered and stepped under the water again.
Long ago, he’d recognized that he had a hero complex, and that wanting to save other people covered a whole host of his neuroses. It explained Sam – in painful and excruciating detail it explained Sam – and why after five years the only thing that had chased him out of New York had been the possibility of helping more people elsewhere.
But Danny had saved himself, saved himself from a life on the streets and alcohol, the dead-ends and disappointments that life had thrown at him and those that he’d brought on himself. Most people would call it the system working out, or they’d call it a miracle, but they didn’t know Danny. And Martin knew that Danny hadn’t only saved himself, like pulling himself from shipwreck, but had found something like happiness somewhere along the way.
And, after the hell of his childhood and the foster care system – the lesson that was don’t try to be happy because it’ll make things worse, when they move you again – that he’d somehow been fearless enough to take it... That stymied Martin.
Do what you have to do.
To do what? Helpless, he shut the water off and reached for his towel. To close the case? To deal with his dad? He wrapped the towel around his hips and stepped out of the shower, pulled his clothes down off the door and trailed back into the locker room.
To straighten out his own fucked-up self? Martin snorted, reached for fresh boxers and his ancient ‘Property of the FBI’ t-shirt. He stared at it for a moment and smiled bitterly, wondered if the merchandising people had any idea how true their slogan was.
He was turning back to the bathroom to brush his teeth when he heard the door open and shut, looked over his shoulder automatically. Stutter-stepped and ground to a halt when he saw his father in the doorway, shoulder propping the door open, a hesitant expression on his face, something Martin had never seen there before.
“Martin,” Victor said. “Do you have a moment?”
“Uh... Yeah. Yeah, sure.” He shifted in place, covered the nervous reflex by turning it into a trip back to his overnight bag to drop his toothbrush and toothpaste back into it. “What did you want?”
He had prepared himself for another disastrous conference along the lines of yesterday’s, and when Victor said that he wanted to update him on the situation in the field, surprise skipped through him and he knew he’d failed at keeping it off his face.
“Bateman thinks that we’ve identified the building where you were held,” Victor said, moving more fully into the room and shutting the door behind him. “At the corner of Nassau and 25th, only about twenty blocks from where you were picked up.”
“Nassau? But that was all abandoned buildings...” Very carefully Martin leaned against the bank of lockers behind him, desperate for support but not wanting his father to see it. Cold, so cold and dark beyond anything he’d ever experienced, and he was there, in a heartbeat he was back in that place, shivering and desperate, throat raw and wrists scraped red.
“Martin?” And God that was concern in his father’s voice, and Victor was moving closer, cautious as though waiting for Martin to lash out.
“I’m okay,” he said roughly, stepping back a bit, desperate for distance and breathing space. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Made himself straighten and look his father in the eye, and not look away when Victor’s assessing gaze swept over him. “It’s all abandoned buildings down there, or was. How’d they find it?”
“City renewal.” Victor wasn’t wavering, despite the casual tone. “Only a few buildings in the area hadn’t been razed or restored, and city planners said major plumbing overhauls had been done on all the restored buildings; the material in the pipe bomb, if it came from the same source as the pipe that you were... that...” He coughed and looked away, was silent for a moment. “If they both came from the same place, the building would have had to have been built before 1930. Only six of those were left in a ten-block radius.”
“Did they find anyone?” Martin refused to dwell on that small, awkward silence, the spasm of emotion that had flickered across his father’s face.
“No.” Frustration this time, and that was something Martin was used to hearing. “We have the building under surveillance now, in case they come back. I don’t think it’s likely they will, though.”
“It was risky enough killing Whitney and the kids,” Martin agreed, hating the coolness of his tone. A woman and her children are dead, and all they are is strategy, is that it? “So... so what are you going to do now?”
“We’ll sit on the building for a while, and see if anything turns up. Not much was left; forensics dusted for prints and is processing some trace right now, so if any of them are linked to the people who... who took you, we’ll know soon.” Not soon enough, Victor’s tone said, and Martin was used to hearing that – Good, but not good enough – but impatience laced through the disapproval.
“Yeah.” Martin nodded and looked away, studying the corner of the room over Victor’s shoulder. His father continued to stand there, watching him with an expression for once devoid of judgment or condemnation, and Martin had no idea how to deal with that. Once he might have, long ago before bitterness had set in, but not anymore.
There are other reasons for doing things – or not doing them, or whatever – besides your dad disapproving of it.
And Danny was right.
“Listen, Dad... I just.... I wanted to say thanks.” He took a breath, surprised at how hard simple words had become, half-waiting for Victor to ask for what, but it didn’t come, and he forced himself to keep talking. “For letting me stay on the case and all.” Another breath. “And for... for Danny too, I guess.”
He waited for it, the sudden sharpening of superiority that marked his father’s victories.
And that didn’t come either.
“Don’t mention it,” Victor said gruffly, glancing down at his watch for a second and then looking back up at him. Still no triumph there, no condescension – Finally, Martin, you see things from my point of view, and all this could have been avoided if you’d listened in the first place – only a tiredness Martin had never associated with his father before. Dry smile now, very unlike the broad, political grin he’d seen his father offer so many people. “I would prefer to have you out in the field. I would, if it were safe enough.”
Martin knew he couldn’t keep the shock off his face, and didn’t even try.
“You’re a good agent, Martin,” Victor said, and there wasn’t any hesitation, any qualification that Martin could hear, no good, but not good enough for me. “I’ve heard nothing else from your supervisors, and I suppose you know that Jack and Ed don’t say that to stroke my ego.”
And he couldn’t help it, couldn’t help but be suspicious, wondering where the hook was hidden underneath the praise. You did well, now do it better: runner-up in the state swimming finals, salutatorian of his high school class, Ivy League but not Harvard or Yale. Every achievement underpainted with his father’s disappointment, ever since he could remember, and Martin filtered through his father’s words and expression, looking for it this time, and couldn’t find it.
He was at a loss and floundering, not knowing what to say, hating that he couldn’t cover up his agitation, and that his father, instead of reveling in it, was watching quietly, waiting for him to collect himself.
“And you said thank you for Danny, too.” Said after a long, silent moment, hint of a question in the words. “What about him?”
“I don’t know.” Martin shrugged helplessly, gaze skipping from his father’s face to the lockers, his toothbrush stuffed in an outer pocket of his duffel. “For understanding.”
“I don’t understand,” Victor said.
“What do you mean?” Cold fear laced around his heart, bleeding into the heat of anger and burning away uncertainty, remembering his father talking with Danny, the conversations he’d caught half-heard, wondering what use Victor had found for the one person who meant anything to Martin, what kind of leverage he’d found. How can I use this person to influence my son? And he was angry now, tense and burning with it. “What do you mean?”
“When you told me – when you told me about yourself after you moved back to Washington, I didn’t understand,” Victor said quietly, and the honest admission almost shocked the anger out of Martin, unexpected as it was. “I still don’t.” Martin opened his mouth to object, but Victor rode over him, impatient. “I’m not saying I don’t approve, Martin.”
“What are you saying, then?”
“After thirty-six years of believing that a person is a... ah, a certain way, it’s difficult to believe the opposite,” Victor said. “And to be honest, I didn’t know why you were telling me at that specific moment, right after you moved from New York. I supposed that it was to make me angry. Again.”
“You’d be right,” Martin admitted.
“But you didn’t... you aren’t gay because you wanted to disappoint me,” Victor said, insistent this time, like he wanted Martin to understand – not because his way was the right way, but because he wanted Martin to understand.
“No, Dad,” he said quickly, red creeping into his face at the thought of explaining his sexuality to his father. “God no. I just... I just am, I guess.”
Victor nodded absently, glanced at his watch again, not impatient but for something to do. “And Danny? Did you...” Faint hint of embarrassment at the edges. You actually slept with him, didn’t you? Confirming a suspicion.
“You probably know the answer to that,” Martin said.
“I know I haven’t told you this, Martin,” and Victor was looking at him now, really looking, head tilted in scrutiny, judging reaction, “but I want you to be happy. And if you can be happy with Danny, then...” Victor’s turn to shrug this time.
The old, bitter instinct wanted to say I don’t need your approval, I don’t need anything from you, and wanted to exult in finally, after endless years wresting an admission of defeat from his father. And days ago – hours, before Danny telling him to do what he needed, before the stark and terrifying possibility of loss – Martin would have given in to instinct and said those things.
He didn’t, though.
“Thanks, Dad,” he said, and the simple truth of that surprised him.
Victor smiled briefly. “You’re welcome.” He straightened, pulling his coat to rights, face falling into its familiar neutrality. “There’s a staff meeting in a half hour to go over what Bateman’s squad picked up. You should be there.”
“Of course,” Martin said. And his father nodded, like he’d expected no other answer, and left, glancing behind him once as he stepped out the door.
Martin stood there for a moment, trying to process what had happened, mind fumbling with what his father had said and his reaction to it. His thoughts tangled together, a hopeless snarl, and the effort to tease them out was beyond him.
But... I want you to be happy. And with Danny... Something loosened in him, or lifted away; he couldn’t tell which, and all he was left with was I want you to be happy, and what Danny had said to him in that half-lit office.
Do what you have to do.
And when you’re done, come back.
-tbc-
Post-fic notes: I'm not sure what I did to deserve the recent rush of inspiration, but hey, I'm not going to question it, especially because if I stay on track one more week I'll have this done before the premiere. Thanks so much to everyone who's stayed with me so far; you guys rock muchly. *loves*
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Also, yay for Victor being somewhat decent. I knew he had it in him.
And hugs for Danny, because oh, my poor little woobie.
Excellent chapter, as always. So much love for this fic.
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Sometimes? More like all the time. That he finally, after many chapters, decided to listen to Victor and realize how badly he's been fucking things up with Danny? Minor miracle. *sigh*
And hugs for Danny, because oh, my poor little woobie.
*clings*