A Man from U.N.C.L.E. Story
by Darklady
Chapter Thirty-Five: Oh, Very Young
Rated: PG-13
****
We come down dressed for the evening. Napoleon is looking natty in his new suit. I am wearing my black pants and sweater, which David has somehow arranged to have dry cleaned overnight. Mark is already downstairs, having agreed to be our guide.
"Have something to eat before you go," David insists, bringing over a platter of roast vegetables and tortillas.
"David just doesn't want me to eat the food at the club," Mark says.
"Bad enough that you drink there." David folds up a vegetable taco and and passes it across to Mark. "If you eat the cheese sticks you will start another ulcer."
"Do not worry. We will not likely be staying long enough to eat or drink very much," I reassure David. "If I am to be in Santa Barbara tomorrow, it will have to be an early night tonight."
"Heading down the coast, eh?" David passes me the guacamole. "You should go with him, Napoleon. Lots of work going on in the Lompoc area. If Illya likes the school, you could find a lot of opportunities around the base."
"Santa Barbara." Mark smiles. "That's a nice area. Some really good restaurants. David and I spent a week near there last year. Something of a second honeymoon."
"Which," David mutters, "was majorly better then the first!"
"Quite?" Mark looks up.
"You weren't bleeding, I wasn't terrified, and nobody got killed. I think that qualifies as a step up."
"Yes," Mark nods, "but the first time I was with this really hot bloke."
"And the second?" David gives him an unconvincing glare.
"Um." Mark makes a show of scratching his head, "I was with this really hot bloke?"
"Right answer!"
"Good save," Napoleon chuckles,loading up his tortilla with tomatoes and sour cream. "But that does sound like quite a story."
Mark waves it off. "Nothing special."
"Oh?" David's glare is back, and this time a bit more legitimate.
"Not you, luv." Mark holds up his hands in mock-surrender. "Just well.. usual bloody random events. All rather a bit of a balls-up."
David rolls his eyes. "Mark just doesn't want to admit to losing a fight."
"I did *not* lose..." Mark begins, only to be cut off.
"Then how come you were the man with the bruises?"
Mark gives David a *look*, but only mutters, "Should have seen the other chap."
"No, thanks." David sits back. "You were mess enough."
"OK." Napoleon grins. "You've hooked me. What happened?"
"Well.." David looks at Mark, who shrugs. Permission granted. "Mark and I had been...together a bit... but....I wasn't counting on it leading anywhere." A vague wave dismisses the quirks of romantic fate. "Then out of the blue he calls me - from Paris, of all places. Says he's flying in, and do I want to have dinner tomorrow night - his place. I'm flattered, so I say yes..then rush out to buy a new suit because I was... never mind."
Mark gives David a smug look, which he ignores as he continues. "I'm at home, all ready to leave when I get this call. Mark again.. but he sounded terrible. I mean, I couldn't even really recognize his voice. Once I can make out the words, he says he's 'a bit under the weather' and could we get together later." At which lame excuse David again rolls his eyes - and I concur. "My first thought is to be PO'd, because I figure he's drunk and at a bar somewhere and he's now got a better offer. So I slam down the phone."
"Latin temper." Mark shakes his head.
David again ignores the comment. "Later... well, I think ...he *really* sounded bad. And I had never seen him drunk. And... the doorman calls up and my cab is there." David shrugs. "Seems in all my sulking I forgot to cancel it. So...I give the man the address and I go over. I don't know what I was planning to do when I got there. Yell at Mark, or kick out whoever he was with, or punch him or what. I never got that far. I knocked on the door. And he answered it. And he was a *mess*."
Mark looks over at Napoleon and myself. "Not that bad."
"Bad enough," David insists.
"Cuts and bruises." Mark dismisses the matter. "No broken bones."
"Would you like some?" David's voice takes on an edge.
Mark smiles. "No thanks luv."
"Good. So." David returns to his story. "Mark was a mess. Back then I didn't know about his *business*. He'd told me he was a lecturer in foreign events at the Madison Institute." David shakes his head at his past credulity. " I...innocent type that I was..... figured 'he's just gotten careless walking out of the wrong bar.' Embarrassing, but it happened to the best of us. At least, it did back then. Not so much now, thank God. So, while he's standing there, I just *dump* the wine bottle I had brought over with me. Just in case he really did have a cold or something innocent, and not some other date."
Mark picks up the story. "David doesn't even say hello. He just heads straight back to the bathroom, pulls out the witch hazel and towels, and says 'Take off your shirt.' Struck me as a bit forward for a fourth date, but..."
"Nothing I hadn't seen before..." David snorts. " Well, except for the claw marks. Those were different."
"So," Mark continues. "Here he's got me flat on my back, wrapped in hot towels and steaming like a lobster, and he says 'You should watch where you party'. And me... fool that I was, I grunt out 'Work'."
"Which really cooked his goose, because," David adds, "Mark had told *me* he was teaching. So I tap the longest cut and ask 'What is this from? Harsh faculty review?' And he gives this strangled laugh and says 'Lab accident'."
David gives Mark a soft look, then continues. "So we get into a bit of a talk about what he *really* did - not that he told me much, but hang out with the Georgetown set and it doesn't take much to get the idea - and I'm frankly thinking 'He's cute, but this I *so* do not need,' when the door buzzes again." Davis shrugs. "Well, I think it's the won ton soup I ordered."
"Not chicken noodle?" Napasha questions.
Mark grunts, "Chinese delivers, Jewish doesn't."
"Like I said." David reclaims the floor. "I think it's the delivery boy, so without asking I just go over and open the door."
I look at Napoleon. "Bad idea."
"Totally," David agrees. "There's this lineman standing there with a gun in his hand. I'm wondering if I should scream or faint or maybe just have a heart attack and get it over with.... when *pop*... the guy is down with a large hole where his face used to be."
A second's pause, and even now I know that this is not an easy memory. For all his bravado, David Martinez is an innocent. He shakes it off. "I feel this hard shove, then I'm on the floor, and Mark is standing there wearing bandages and a really harsh look on his face."
"And nothing else?" I see Napoleon smile at the mental image.
"My Special," Mark answers. "But I don't think that counts."
Napoleon mutters. "Sometimes it's all that counts."
"Pravda," I whisper
"Well." Mark lightens the mood. "There were two other thugs out in the hallway, but they got away. Under the circumstances, it didn't seem all that appropriate to give chase."
We do not argue the point, and David resumes the tale. "So then I'm having the vapors, and Mark just strolls over to the desk,and picks up his pen, and calmly calls someone to 'pick up the body before the Chinese guy gets here'."
"Disastrous date." Mark adds.
"Absolutely." David agrees. "Some strange men come, and they pick up the corpse and have a word with Mark, and by the time the soup arrives it's like...it never happened. Except for my nerves. Which are *gone*. Then... I'm sitting at the table, chopping the wontons and cabbage into little pieces so Mark can eat them, when I realize that anyone with any brains at all would be leaving at light speed. And I also realized I wasn't. Ever. As long as I had a choice. So... I looked over the table, and I took his hand, and I said 'You're a loco. And you're going to get yourself killed one of these days. So it's really shitty that I'm in love with you'."
David gives Mark a very deep smile. I think there may be tears too, but if so they are deeper then the smile.
"And he said 'As long as I don't get *you* killed, that works for me'."
Napoleon looks at Mark. "That was it?"
"That and the best blow-job I ever had in my life." Mark laughs. "Make's a real difference when you care for someone. Just took a poke in the eye to get my attention. David with a gun at his head? That got my attention. Cured my roving on the spot."
"That and the Martinez secret bruise cure."
"That, too. Wonderful stuff," Mark agrees. "So we...stayed together. Not that we could move in or any of that . Random surveillance, after all. But... I spent a lot of time at his place."
"Safe enough." Napoleon says. "Lots of field agents didn't like sleeping at home on a regular basis. Too predictable."
Predictability was the thing that got agents killed. Not that I would say so with an innocent in the room. Before I can feel required to say anything, Mark continues. "David was a real trouper. He never complained, even though I was crazy back then."
David passes Mark another taco. "I've told you. I never minded the shooting lessons. Or the driving lessons. Those are useful skills to have. I'm just glad I never actually had to use them."
Mark takes a bite. "Like I said."
"But I will admit, I was the happiest man on earth when Mark resigned."
"Which you did *not* tell me at the time."
David gives Mark a *look*. "You're an idiot if you thought for one minute that I *liked* the thought of you getting tortured by terrorists and kidnapped by madmen. What should I have said? You had enough stress at work. My job was to support you when you got home."
"Still, it was wonderful." David folds another taco and puts it on Mark's plate. "Mark got a job at Berkeley. I found a place at a junior college over in Oakland.."
"Which was *far* beneath you," Mark comments, reaching for the guacamole.
David passes him the salsa instead. "It was only for six years, until something here opened up. We bought a duplex down in the city and fixed it up. Lived there until we moved here in '92. So you see, it all worked out."
"Except the time we had your parents over for dinner."
"How was I to know you couldn't cook? You could do everything else in the world so perfectly."
"I can cook! Just not by Martinez standards."
"You lie like a spy." David laughs and turns to me. "If I had not insisted on cooking classes, the man would still be eating beans for breakfast."
"Yes." I agree with him, spearing a perfectly roasted yellow pepper. "The British are that way."
END CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE