Metamorphosis by Shifty

Disclaimer: Neither Magnificent 7 or Without a Trace are mine. I'm not making any profit from this.

As always, a great many thanks to Moonbeam who read this over for me.

Metamorphosis

Martin resisted the urge to sigh as the elevator doors closed behind him. Fitzgeralds were always the epitome of self-control and respectability. Sighing resignedly was just not done. Nor was pulling at his tie, which he was also sorely tempted to do. It seemed his years of freedom had done more than simply piss off his father.

He had been born Martin Vincent Fitzgerald, only son of Victor and Marie Fitzgerald. Martin was his father’s choice, named after Victor’s father but Vincent had been his mother’s, named for her own father. Though he had only the vaguest recollections, his life, though not always easy, had been pleasant for the most part. His father had expected many things from him, even as a small child, but his mother had always made sure that he enjoyed himself and played as children should. And then, when he was five, she died.

He often wondered, looking back, if that was the exact moment that he had become two different people. He already was Martin Fitzgerald, son of Victor Fitzgerald, of whom a great many things were expected. But with his mother’s last words another had been created. She had made him promise to remember that he was a Tanner. With that Marie Fitzgerald, nee Tanner, had died and Vin Tanner had been born. It was quite some years before Martin put his second identity to use, but it was always there, waiting for him to take it up.

When he was eleven his father had remarried. Victor had insisted that Martin call his new wife ‘Mother,’ something he had refused point blank to do. Victor had taken to referring to her as Martin's mother none-the-less, regardless of Martin’s feelings on the subject. Martin had not bothered to fight him. He knew precisely which things his father was likely to back down on and this was not one of them.

At thirteen when other boys were playing computer games and looking at girls he had been studying to keep his A+ average, practising to keep on the first teams for swimming and athletics and trying to form unbeatable arguments for debating. His father did not accept failure in any form and the harder Martin had tried to excel the more his father seemed to notice his failures. Finally, Martin had buckled under the pressure. He ran away. And Vin Tanner was finally brought to the fore.

He had known that had he remained in Washington his father would find him in a matter of days and so he had run as far and as fast as he could. It had not mattered where he went as long as he kept moving. A year later he had ended up in Denver, Colorado in a place called Purgatorio. Finally he stopped running.

Life on the streets was difficult. More difficult than he had thought possible, but in some ways it was so much easier. There were no expectations and he could be whoever he wanted. Martin Fitzgerald was not wanted there. In fact, the only thing Martin Fitzgerald would get on the streets was killed. But Vin Tanner excelled.

Vin was dark and hardened by the streets. He bore the soft Texan drawl that his mother had never managed to quite get rid of and grew his hair out as a tribute to her. In many ways he was the opposite of clean-cut, respectable Martin. But Martin was his father’s creature. Vin was all his own.

He had seen things that children should not have seen but he had survived. He had learned early on that he could support himself and he considered that his most valuable lesson. He did not need his father or his father’s money to survive. He even helped others where he could, sometimes even at expense to himself, but the deep satisfaction he derived from doing so was well worth it.

Three years later his father found him. He was transformed once more into Martin Fitzgerald, the Fitzgerald heir, expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. It had seemed all the more constricting after his jaunt of freedom but his father gave him no choice in the matter. A year of boarding school and he was eighteen with a high school diploma and no idea what he wanted to do with his life, despite the various colleges his father had applied to.

He joined the army. It was not a decision his father particularly liked, but Victor could appreciate the advantages serving in the army would give him if he chose to pursue politics. People appreciated men who seemed willing to lay down their lives for you. The only condition his father insisted on was that he complete a degree as well. He had known that his father expected that he would do something like law or political science but he chose a degree in computers instead. Since Victor was not paying, there was no way he could disagree and Martin had done as he saw fit.

Four years later, some time after finishing his degree, and after a long stint in the Rangers as a sniper, he left. He was extremely good at what he did but it had begun to wear on him. He was exhausted and scarred, in more ways than one. His father had decided that it was time that Martin continue the proud Fitzgerald tradition and follow in his father’s footsteps in the FBI.

Martin ran away again. This time, however, he used his skills with computers to create the appropriate documents for Vin Tanner. He immersed himself in Vin’s life and roamed freely for the next three years taking work as a bounty hunter. It was something he had quite a talent for, and enjoyed to some degree. There was a certain satisfaction in apprehending someone you had been hunting. He was sure his father would be horrified.

Bumping into Larabee and his team had been purely accidental. Joining them even more so. It seemed that the Fitzgerald tradition of law enforcement would be continued, whether he actively pursued it or not.

It was not long before he came to view the other men as his family, as the brothers he had never had. They fought and they teased and pranked, but there was always an abiding care for each other that overrode everything else. He had found somewhere he belonged and he finally felt truly at ease. He was not sure when exactly it happened but he had let these six men in and he trusted them as he had trusted no one in his life. He knew that they would watch his back and he would do everything he could to watch theirs.

He had a curious relationship with Ezra. They were similar in so many ways, many of which the southerner could not fathom. But it was Chris that had surprised him the most. From the beginning they had been able to communicate with a look and seemed to know what the other was thinking. Chris grounded him even as he tempered the other man. He had grown so accustomed to the other men, to Chris, that he had not been able to imagine life without them. They were brothers of his heart, and Chris was the brother of his soul.

Two years later and his father had found him once again. A few veiled threats about his friends and their careers, which he had known that his father could and would follow through on, and he had handed in his resignation. He had gone straight to Travis because he knew that were he to face Chris he would never have gone. He left with his six brothers never even knowing that he was going.

Another two years after that and he was moving from white-collar in Seattle to missing persons in New York. He knew that his father definitely had something to do with it, but it was a job he was looking forward to despite that. Even if he was painfully aware that it would not be his six brothers that greeted him when he walked into that office. That it would instead be four strangers who knew each other and worked well together. He was just the rookie, Victor Fitzgerald’s son. And he knew that all of them, with the possible exception of Jack Malone, thought that he did not deserve to be there. And maybe he didn’t, but he was definitely going to give it his best.

The elevator chimed the floor and the doors slid smoothly open. Martin stepped from elevator. He straightened his suit self-consciously before striding down the hallway. He entered the missing persons office. It was clear that they were in the middle of discussing a case, so he remained in the doorway, waiting to be formally acknowledged. Finally Jack turned to him.

“All right, as you all know, we have a new member of the team joining us today – Martin Fitzgerald. Let’s make sure we give him the frosty welcome that all rookies deserve.” Martin’s smile echoed Jack’s. Maybe he could even become friends with these people in time. It would be nothing like working with Chris and the others, but maybe it would be something.

“This is Vivian Johnson, Samantha Spade, Danny Taylor. Okay, the clock’s ticking. Let’s get out of here,” Jack continued without pause. Martin put all other thoughts out of his mind for the moment. There was a woman who needed to be found.

Similarly, six men in Denver had not given up their own search for their missing brother.

Fin