A/N: Just wanted to give a reminder about the Chapter 1 author's note about potentially upsetting content.
Marty perched on the edge of his bed, barely registering the pungent smell of gunpowder as he continued to keep a close eye on the two intruders. The Russian next to the bed was clearly dead, his eyes open but seeing nothing. Dead at his hand. How had it come to this? Shooting his father might be the worst thing he'd ever done, but this had to rank right up there too. The second intruder's pained breaths indicated that he was alive, at least for the moment, so Marty numbly got back up and grabbed some towels from the hall closet before he returned to the bedroom to kneel down and begin applying pressure to the man's seeping wound. He also needed to call 911, but the sirens sounding in the distance over his still-ringing ears told him a neighbor must have taken care of it for him. He tried not to fixate on the steadily dampening towel in his hands or the man's struggles to keep breathing, finding his mind pulled back to the last time - the only other time - he had had to shoot someone.
From his bedroom, he heard his mom begging his dad, pleading with him to put the gun down. He had to at least try to help her. He couldn't let his dad take her away from him. He wouldn't. He gripped the gun in his small hand and stood and opened his door, which immediately made his mom's pleas twice as loud. He crept down the stairs, his bare feet moving soundlessly over the carpeted treads. As he crept forward, he heard what sounded like another kick aimed at his mom, who gasped and cried out in pain. He paused near the bottom and peeked out into the living room to see his mother on the floor. She clutched her stomach, blood trickling from her nose, as his father stood in front of her with the shotgun held casually across his arm. She was barely moving. She looked really hurt, like she needed an ambulance to come take her to the hospital. He didn't even register the familiar smell of alcohol hanging in the air.
"Gordon, please, please put the gun down. I'm so sorry for everything," she slurred through hiccupping tears.
"Shut up Robbie, just shut the hell up for once in your godforsaken life!" he bellowed.
"Gordie-"
"I said shut. The hell. Up." His voice had changed, now eerily calm. Marty had never heard his dad talk that way. "I've fucking had it with your whining. I can't take it anymore."
His dad stepped back and pulled the gun up to aim it at his mom, and Marty could no longer remain hidden. He could barely breathe, his heart in his throat. For sure he was about to die, but he wasn't going to let his dad kill his mom too. He had to at least try to save her.
Marty padded down the last few stairs into the living room and held the gun up with both hands and pointed it at his dad. His mom saw him first and gasped out a "No!" Whether she was worried he'd be hurt, or worried he'd hurt his dad, he would always wonder.
His mom's reaction caused his dad to turn, and Marty would never forget the look of anger and disgust on his dad's face. When he thought back to it later, Marty wanted to believe he also saw a ghost of respect pass over it, but chalked it up to his imagination. Either way, within a few seconds, fury, pure and simple, was the only sentiment radiating off his father. When his dad told him, "I'm gonna kill you," he only confirmed what Marty already knew.
After hesitating a moment, his dad lurched toward him and raised the shotgun in his direction. Marty couldn't move, but as his dad closed the distance between them, he shut his eyes and squeezed the trigger.
His dad's weight crashed into him as the gun was wrenched from his hands and they both fell to the floor, his dad landing on top of him. Marty couldn't move. Thankfully his dad was more distracted by the blood oozing out of his stomach than by trying to kill him or his mom, which gave him a small sense of hope. When his dad rolled off of him and onto his back, cursing out his pain, Marty grabbed his revolver and stumbled away to a far corner of the room, where he pressed his back into the wall, as if he could sink right through it, and then slid down onto the floor. Only then did he notice his mother screaming his name. She managed to crawl over to wrap an arm haphazardly around him before she passed out, falling silent at his side. His mind stopped running and he could only stare at his father as he lay bleeding all over the living room floor, cursing him.
"You little shit. You piece of crap. You're gonna pay for this. I'm gonna fucking kill you, you worthless excuse for a son. You'll never amount to shit, you little loser. They're gonna lock you away forever and I'm gonna be glad to have you gone."
Though his overwhelmed mind had largely ceased processing everything around him, his father's words managed to effortlessly tattoo themselves deeply into his soul. In the distance, the sound of sirens slowly made themselves known.
As the sirens grew louder, Marty came back to the present and looked down at the two men. He lingered on the dead one. Did he have a family? Did he have kids? A wife? A girlfriend? People who loved him? Were his parents still alive? How would they feel when they heard the news? Could he - should he - have handled the situation another way?
But no, this wasn't his fault. He'd only tried to help Sarah. He'd only defended himself in his own home. As shaken as he was at the thought of taking a life, or maybe two, his anger at being put in his current predicament outweighed his guilt, for the moment anyway.
As the cops announced their presence, he called out to them and stayed kneeling. He wiped the blood off his hands with the towel and then dropped it and pushed his own gun away so that he could raise his hands. He didn't want to be mistaken for a criminal in his own home. Once the police officers had ascertained his identity, they summoned the paramedics to tend to the second intruder. They also allowed him to throw on jeans and a pair of sneakers to accompany his t-shirt and boxers before they ushered him all the way outside, where he explained what had happened. He allowed them to test his hands for gunpowder residue, after which they let him wash off what remained of his attacker's blood.
Then they had him wait in a squad car while they processed the scene and called in to Sergeant Bates. While Marty sat, his turbulent thoughts continued. He tried to tell himself that the men hadn't given him a choice. It was kill or be killed. One thing was clear: the gun had saved his life. And he had done a downright remarkable job at hitting his targets, considering his lack of experience and the complete and utter terror racing through his veins at the time. It made him oddly proud. Considering he had never planned to touch a gun again, let alone own one, that thing was fast becoming his favorite possession, right up there with his surfboard. Both objects brought with them a feeling of freedom: the board made him one with nature on the waves, unfettered by everyday dilemmas, but the gun delivered him from danger and gave him the power to stand up for himself and, potentially anyway, others.
By the time Bates arrived on scene, Marty had largely managed to calm his racing pulse, although his general outlook on his future had continued to dim.
"Geez, Deeks, I can't leave you unsupervised for a second, can I?" Bates told him.
"Huh. The way I see it, Sergeant, I actually asked for your supervision and you refused to provide it," Marty replied, arching an eyebrow in Bates' direction.
"Good point, kid. OK, why don't you walk me through what happened and explain how a hippy public defender such as yourself managed to take down two attackers from the Russian mob."
Once Bates had finished his questions, he'd surprised Marty by offering to put him up in an LAPD safe house for the rest of the night, and then he'd stunned him by handing him back his gun. Standard procedure involved confiscating the weapon as evidence, although the cops weren't absolutely required to do so. Marty had gratefully taken Bates up on both the house and the gun, and he'd packed a few clothes and spent a few hours sleeping at the safe house off the 5 Freeway in Glendale before he'd headed back downtown in the morning traffic. He'd updated Jeannine by phone and she'd pulled him off his remaining cases, which allowed him to head straight to Parker Center to confer with Bates about his current options. He sat down in front of Bates' desk and the older man came around and perched himself on the front corner, looking down at Marty. He sighed.
"I'm not gonna sugar coat things for you, Deeks."
"Why would you start now, Sergeant?"
Bates grinned slightly in response, then said, "What we can do is put you in protective custody pending the trial of your second shooter, until the trial or, well, until he dies, whichever comes first. Unfortunately, last I heard, he wasn't doing too well."
Marty blew out a slow breath and silently stared at the floor's ancient linoleum. Frustration, anger, self-pity, and sadness swirled through him, but he finally settled on guilt, thinking about the one dead assailant and the second probably nearing the same fate. He leaned forward, his elbows on his legs, and ran both hands through his long hair.
Bates sat in silence as well, apparently content to let Marty wrap his head around his own troubled future, but then he leaned forward and said, "Or…"
Marty looked up in surprise and, like a drowning man reaching for a life preserver, responded, "Or?"
"Or," Bates continued, "You could help us take down the whole syndicate."
Marty's eyebrows shot upward at the idea. He told Bates, "That does not really sound like a better option... Plus, what the hell are you talking about?"
"You could become a confidential informant. Help us collect enough evidence to bring down the whole shebang."
Marty frowned and then raised a single eyebrow, responding, "OK, firstly, I don't have any evidence to share and I don't see a way to get any, and secondly, that sounds even more dangerous than doing nothing."
"The best case scenario for you, Deeks, would be that your attacker, the one who's clinging to life at the moment, whose name is Victor Yezhov by the way, would recover and give up everything he knows about the inner workings of the Ivankov syndicate. Again, best case, he would know a ton and help us bring them all down, giving you your happy, Zen-filled life back… Of course, he probably won't make it, and if he does, he likely won't roll over on his employers, and even if he did, he probably doesn't know enough to bring them down. Meaning even if your testimony puts him away, it probably just puts you in even more danger."
Marty's mind raced to keep up with Bates' idea, but the mention of his attacker's name had distracted him. He drifted back to the same questions he'd asked himself last night about the assailant he'd killed. Did Yezhov have loved ones who'd mourn him if he died? Did he have kids? Did he-
"Deeks, are you hearing me?" Bates interrupted.
"What was the name of the guy I killed?" he asked, suddenly wanting to know.
Bates shook his head. "Don't go there, Deeks. Don't waste your time feeling guilty about what you did. Those assholes gave you no choice. They don't deserve your guilt, your remorse, or your concern." He paused, waiting for Marty to respond.
Bates might be right, but he still felt like shit. He may have had no reason to feel guilty, but long-lingering remnants of shame had managed to boil up to the surface of his emotions and combine to prevent him from finding peace with his actions.
"OK?" Bates prompted.
"OK," Marty replied, just wanting to change the topic. He added, "OK. But getting back to the picture you were painting about my chances of testifying… Is it right to assume that if I wait to see how it all plays out, whatever alternate plan you have for me as a CI won't work?"
Bates nodded, seemingly impressed that Marty was beginning to put the pieces of his plan together. "That's probably true."
"Before we get into the particulars of what I'm sure is a bat-shit crazy plan of yours, do you really think I could get my life back? That it's possible for me to ever not have to look over my shoulder for Russian assassins?"
"Possible? Definitely. Probable? Mmm, I might not go that far."
"I'm beginning to think I might prefer a little sugar coating, Sergeant."
"No you wouldn't, kid. And it's not what you need. If you're going to help me, I want you to do it understanding all the risks and possible rewards."
"OK, so lay it on me. How am I going to become the CI who takes down the Russians?"
"You're not going to do any actual informing. You're just going to facilitate an undercover operation. Help us get someone in place who can take care of the problem for you."
"I'm not gonna violate any attorney-client privilege. I can't work against a client or lie to a client."
Bates rolled his eyes and replied, "I'd never ask you to do such a terrible thing, if only because it could complicate the admissibility of evidence. Instead, we present you to the Russians as a terrified, desperate man who'd do anything to keep them from killing him."
"So in other words, the truth. What the hell do you mean 'present me to the Russians'? Sounds like I'm gonna be a sacrificial lamb."
"Well, if we play our cards right, they'll see you as more valuable alive than dead."
Marty just shook his head at the insanity of Bates' plan.
"Look Deeks," Bates said, "We'll do our best to protect you. We'll try to limit your interactions with them to public spaces where they're unlikely to try anything."
"Why do I feel like you're presenting the best case version of this plan, and that going along with you will just hasten my demise?"
"Look at it this way, kid, at least you'll go down fighting."
Fighting. Wasn't that what he'd always done? A sense of exhaustion dragged at him. He'd finally built a life that would let him live free from the violence that had filled his childhood. Yet he couldn't manage to escape it. Was he destined to live a life of violence? Or worse, to die an early and violent death? He'd always wondered if he'd cheated death as a child. Maybe now the Grim Reaper was finally catching up with him.
Yet he couldn't just let the Russians win. He'd be damned if he would just lie down and let them kill him. Bates was using him, taking advantage of the no-win situation in which he found himself, but the man was right. He needed to fight. He didn't know how hard Bates would work to keep him safe, but as long as he proved useful, Bates would have an incentive to protect him, at least to some extent. He would just have to hope for the best.
"Alright, I'm in."
Bates leaned forward and slapped Marty's shoulder and told him, "Good call, Deeks... I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
"Yeah, right."
A/N: I wasn't able to confer with any actual attorneys about the premise here of Deeks working undercover as himself. My research would indicate that it's probably not considered appropriate behavior for an attorney, as a lot of state bars forbid attorneys from engaging in "dishonest or fraudulent conduct." There do seem to be some loopholes for attorneys supervising investigators or otherwise trying to address known unlawful behavior, and some states like Florida might be totally fine with Marty's actions, but all in all, I'd guess that working so directly with LAPD would at least get Deeks into some hot water with the California Professional Ethics Committee and possibly even get him disbarred. But I decided to stick with the idea anyway, using the show's frequently, shall we say, less than plausible plots, as my inspiration.
By the way, I'll be traveling for the next week, my first vacation since COVID, so the next chapter won't post until a week from Sunday or Monday. I'm sure you won't mind- you'll have new episodes to watch!