Chapter Text
Jon is having a terrible time concentrating. He's supposed to be putting together references to the other people taken by the Anglerfish and instead he can't stop thinking about Martin. About their - their plans for Saturday, certainly, but also about the way he's spent the past month doing his best to run interference, and the way he squared his shoulders before agreeing to go back into the tunnels, and how he'd worked out that a corkscrew best way to deal with the worms. A little grotesque, certainly, but rather brilliant. Which he hadn't acknowledged at the time, although to be fair -
Well, no, it wasn't fair, that's the point. Jon has spent years being very unfair to Martin and Martin has been nothing but kind and supportive and apparently devoted in return. It's a little embarrassing that it took Georgie's badgering for him to notice how important Martin has become. (Georgie is going to be insufferably smug, Jon is sure, but under the circumstances he can't quite begrudge her.)
He's fidgeting with that damn engagement ring again, he realizes, twisting it around on his finger. He looks at it for the first time in a while. It's a horribly garish thing even aside from everything it implies, the past weeks of absurdity and uncomfortable, unlooked-for intimacy and whatever Elias has promised him to, and suddenly it's intolerable. He pulls it off, a little surprised that it goes so easily, and cups it in his palm. "Right," he says to himself, and heads for Elias's office.
Jon doesn't usually knock at Elias's door any more, but the sounds of multiple voices from within gives him pause. Obviously it's possible Elias is having some kind of meeting, there are other departments in the Institute than the Archives - then he recognizes one of the voices raised in protest as Peter's, and shoves the door open anyway.
It's quite a scene. Elias is leaning against his desk, arms folded, with that expression he wears when he's trying not to look too insufferably smug. Two police officers are flanking Peter, one trying to look obsequious, the other with his hand on Peter's shoulder and looking like he's very interested in a touch of police brutality but isn't willing to risk it under the circumstances. Peter, of course, is talking.
"Honestly, the least you could do is bother with handcuffs, I'm considering being offended that you don't consider me dangerous."
"You're hardly accused of a violent crime, sir," the obsequious officer says calmly.
"Jon," Elias says, and they all turn to look at him. "What can I do for you?" He sounds like he might be willing to be magnanimous, under the circumstances.
Jon's hand is clenched in a fist around the ring, and he forces his grip to loosen. "Ah. I - um, didn't mean to interrupt -"
"Nonsense," Elias says cheerfully over the beginnings of objections. "These gentlemen are nearly finished, I can spare a moment."
His casual disregard, as ever, stabs at Jon's contrariness and quite suddenly he's out of hesitation. He strides forward and sets the ring down on Elias's desk with a sharp click. "Then maybe you'll have time to re-negotiate with the Lukases, because I'm not doing this any more. It was a ridiculous demand in the first place and I am not letting you commandeer the rest of my life."
Elias, infuriatingly, doesn't look displeased or even surprised. "Of course, Jon, I entirely understand. I think Peter and I have worked out an alternative arrangement, especially given the - " He eyes Peter consideringly. "Circumstances."
"Worked out - " Jon says, shocked in spite of himself, but he's drowned out immediately.
"Oh now that's too much," Peter says plaintively, "first Elias and now you, Jonathan? Must I have my heart broken twice in one day?" Jon glares at him, though his mind is stuck on first Elias and twice in one day. The police are looking positively intrigued, damn them.
"Now really, Peter," Elias says, "I don't know what you expect me to do. I have no control over whether or not you have to suffer the consequences for any crimes you've committed. If it helps," he adds, softer but no less smug, "I promise to miss you while you're in prison."
Peter huffs in annoyance, but he looks thoroughly pleased. Elias pushes himself up off the desk and, after a reluctant nod from one of the officers, steps in close to Peter and kisses him thoroughly and intimately. Peter makes a positively indecent noise and leans into it, looking very pleased with himself. Jon blinks at them. Well, he thinks, I suppose that answers the divorce question?
The kiss goes on for much longer than is comfortable for anyone - aside from the participants, who seem happy to ignore the rest of them. While the officers look awkwardly at one another, Jon makes his escape.
He collects Martin on his way to his office, still flustered from the display in Elias's office but also aware that if he puts this off he'll regret it later. Martin is looking at him wide-eyed and worried, and Jon reaches to twist the ring on his finger before he remembers it isn't there any more. Martin's eyes follow the gesture and he bites his lip rather than ask, which makes it easier.
"I wanted to tell you first," Jon says, and it's a relief just to start talking, even before he gets to the point. "I - well, I went to tell Elias that I won't go through with it." He spreads the fingers of his left hand in illustration. There's a blush rising in Martin's cheeks and it sets off his freckles; Jon has to look away before he gets entirely distracted. "It doesn't seem to have proved anything," he says bitterly.
"Did he - he insisted anyway, didn't he?" Martin sounds thoroughly dejected. He shifts a little, like he wants to reach out a comforting hand, but stops himself. Jon wishes that he wouldn't, though he doesn't know how to say it, even if the situation isn't nearly as dire as Martin fears.
"No, actually," he says, and Martin's head jerks up in surprise. "Apparently he'd already made - alternate arrangements." His mind supplies the image again of Elias's hand on Peter's jaw as he kisses him and he does his best to dismiss it. Christ, he'd never wanted to know - "Besides," he says hurriedly, "Peter is apparently being arrested? I didn't quite catch the details, it was all very. Sudden."
That makes Martin grin, nearly as smug as Elias, and Jon is getting tired of everyone knowing more about what's going on than he does, given that he's been at the center of this for far too long. "Sorry," Martin says at his look, "but - really, that's what you're going to be offended by? That he got you out of being forced to marry Peter Lukas without telling you?"
"He got me into it in the first place," Jon grumbles, "the least he could do is tell me before I spend all morning figuring out how to tell him no." All right, it's possible he's being irrational, but he feels as though he's lost track of what a rational response to the whole situation might be. It seems like everyone he knows has been pushing him in different directions, from Elias's manipulation to Martin and Georgie's - "Wait," he says, "was that you, getting Peter arrested?"
"I'll have to tell Georgie her plan worked," Martin says, looking very pleased with himself.
Jon is running out of patience with people making mysterious comments about things that are pivotal in his life.. "What. Plan."
"Oh, uh." Martin blushes a little more under Jon's demanding stare, a reaction he'll have to take the time to investigate later. "Well. Did you know that Al Capone was arrested for tax evasion?" Jon just blinks at him, confused. Martin continues in a rush. "Because they couldn't get any evidence against him for the really bad stuff, the murders and everything, because no one would talk. But they could prove he had more money than he paid taxes on and that was enough to put him in prison and that stopped everything else. Georgie suggested it, said that if someone's doing one illicit thing they're probably doing a bunch more and we just had to find something that we could prove. The monster thing wouldn't do it, but." He shrugs.
"Are you saying," Jon says slowly, "that you and Georgie got Peter Lukas arrested for tax evasion?"
Martin shrugs again, but he can't repress a smile. "More or less."
Jon slumps back a little in shock. He knows - well, he's been getting better at noticing that Martin really is very good, clever and competent and determined, but he's been so focused on wrangling Peter himself that he's barely noticed this going on in the background. To much greater success than his own efforts, apparently. And Martin is sitting there looking pink and pleased and Jon is swamped by a wave of affection he is entirely unprepared for. It catches his breath in his throat and ruins the rest of his composure.
It's a day for rash action, apparently, because he gets up from behind his desk without thinking and stands over Martin, who looks up at him nervously. And that won't do; Jon reaches out to cup his cheek in one hand, and Martin draws in a sharp breath just before Jon bends down to kiss him. It's probably not objectively good; he's terribly out of practice and the angle is awkward and he can barely breathe, but Martin's hands go to his shoulders and he leans into it with a soft, happy noise, and Jon thinks that maybe, just maybe, this is going to be all right.