Summary: Everyone, including Martin, had expected that he would stay in Washington. Somewhere along the way, he got lost.
Author's Note: IDEK. I haven't even written for this fandom in like a year or more. But then I went to New York and Washington, DC, and then I was stuck in an airport hotel overnight, and I couldn't help it.
Disclaimer: I... whatever.
Everyone, including Martin, had expected that he would stay in Washington. Play out his life like he was brought up to do, like his sister had done to rather amazing effect.
It would start after university. He'd graduate, get a job in minor politics (a low position, one that allowed him to climb the ladder). Probably more on his father's merit than his own, even though his academics would have been enough.
He'd rent an apartment outside the city - Alexandria, maybe. Arlington. He'd spend the first few months catching a train to the city and back every day, smiling politely at other commuters and making apologetic phone calls when the trains broke down, or the tracks required maintenance. Eventually (probably after his first pay-rise) he'd get a car, something that Victor had always refused to pay for. His father didn't believe in charity. Not unless it benefitted the Fitzgerald name.
It would be a sensible car, a sedan maybe, smart, fuel-efficient, charcoal grey, four-doored. The kind of car people car-pooled in.
Martin would never car-pool. He'd drive the highway alone every morning, just above the speed limit (but never fast enough to be called speeding), local news radio on, and a coffee in one hand.
Eventually (after a few promotions and apartment upgrades) he'd meet a nice woman, fall in some kind of love. She'd be pretty, of course, in the classical, inoffensive sense - neatly dressed, groomed but not primped. A practical, intelligent woman, one who worked all day and worked out or met her friends on the weekend. One who didn't need him or his affection to make her happy, but who accepted and reciprocated; never an overwhelming love, but a sensible, adult one.
Martin would give up his rent for a mortgage (Georgetown, likely as not), and they'd plan their future. Not the frivolous, ridiculous plans of youth (Martin had never really believed in passionate everlasting love, anyway), but decisions. Would they have children? Pets? Would they find a larger house? Would they marry? (And Martin would have to ask more than once, twice, before she would say, "When we're settled, Marty, I would love to." He would hate being called Marty, but he wouldn't tell her; instead he'd grin, kiss her, promise to tell her parents first.)
His life would have been planned. Safe. Traditional, like the city itself.
But somewhere along the way, all that was lost. He went off the rails in the most accidental, unimpressive way imaginable, and had somehow landed here.
Never, all those years ago, would anyone (including Martin) have assumed that they'd ever see him where he was now.
New York was definitely not Washington, DC. New York was busy, as unpredictable as it was crowded, a complete madhouse of tourists and students and cabs and business and lights. It really was Sinatra's city that never slept (at least, Martin certainly felt like he didn't).
But in this very small, not overly-significant moment, at the conclusion of a case, Martin found himself amused at the absurdity of it. Here he was, the only son of Victor Fitzgerald, the most predictable, boring thirty-four-year-old alive... And he really was, finally, alive.
They'd just chased a man half way across Manhattan, having found the missing girl (alive and healthy, if a little frightened, and returned to her parents) earlier in the day. Night had fallen as Martin and Danny sprinted through traffic, the crowds swelling and ebbing by the street. Martin had been yelled at more that once, and Danny had knocked over a trash can in a rare display of clumsiness.
But they had won, this time - cuffed the creep and shoved him none-too-gently into the back of a waiting cruiser. They had won, and no sooner had the cruiser pulled away than Danny was gripping Martin's wrist, tugging him in some unpredictable direction. Martin was exhausted, sweaty, panting; wearing yesterday's shirt and absolutely high on adrenalin. But it was okay, because Danny was too. As he shoved Martin haphazardly against a faded brick wall in a nameless alleyway, he smelled of sweat, shampoo and bad FBI coffee. His hair was a mess, his face flushed, his eyes dark and glittering in the pink neon light that flashed a few metres away. The city was filthy, the alleyway even filthier (not to mention the things that Danny hissed in Martin's ear), and Martin found that he really didn't care. Couldn't care less, actually,'that Danny's skin tasted a little of pollution, that he still didn't know what their relationship even was, or that he was fairly certain that what Danny was doing to him was illegal in some states. He didn't care that his apartment was barely big enough for the two of them (on those increasingly frequent nights when Danny stayed till morning), or that his father would disapprove, or that he'd almost forgotten how to drive like a normal man.
He could have been content in Washington, he mused, as Danny's knee pushed between his own and an eager hand grabbed his arse. Would have been content, even. But here, making out with another man like a drunk teenager, in a filthy alleyway in the loudest, brightest, most insane cesspool of a city in the country, exhausted and high, Martin was happy. Happier than he could ever remember being.
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