Chapter Text
"These fucking assholes." You finished typing the email from your phone, capped it with I will continue working on the matter when I’m back in office, and sent it off.
Despite the finality of the message, you still had to stay logged on in case something truly emergent came in, but at four percent, your phone was taunting you with its slow death. You couldn’t risk it.
You looked up and called the bartender's attention. "Hey. You got a charger back there I can borrow?"
He gave you a look. "I can hold it for you, but we're not responsible for it."
"Right." You muttered under your breath. “Yeah, give me a sec.” You fired off one more text—running late?— analyzing whether it was the right amount of breezy. You sent it anyway.
“I’ll come grab it in fifteen.” You were about to hand the bartender the phone, when you remembered one final email you had to send. You snatched it back, opening the Outlook app again and composed a quick—logging off, will follow up re: Hamilton Pharmaceuticals by EOD tomorrow. You sent it off to your boss.
You waved off the bartender when you saw him tapping his hand against the counter impatiently. “Gimme a sec,” you muttered, opening your message app one last time, because the heart wants what it wants and the heart wanted to triple-check if there really wasn’t a single message from the person you had been waiting for over the last fifteen minutes.
"Doll, I got drinks to serve."
You finally handed the phone over and rolled your eyes at the term of endearment that was so little endearing. "While you're at it, get me a Stella. Please, and thank you."
You turned away in time to miss the bartender’s eyeroll, and scanned Hannigan's for somewhere to sit. You found every stool occupied or saved. Of course.
You figured standing guard at the bar was safer than leaving your phone over to the bartender and hoping it would still be there once you came back.
"Excuse me." A voice called your attention.
You looked twice. The first time on reflex, the second because the man it belonged to was worth the second look. He was in his early-fifties, maybe. Salt and pepper in the beard. Looked tall, even sitting down. He was alone, one hand around a beer he'd clearly been nursing long enough to go warm. He tipped his head at the empty stool beside him.
"Seat's not taken. You're welcome to it."
"Oh." You blinked. "Thanks." You slid in beside him, dropping onto the stool. The work day was finally starting to weigh you down.
You exhaled and sank back, finally still. The man beside you watched you as you did.
When the beer landed in front of you, you took a long pull and let your eyes wander the room. There was one pool table huddled around by a few players, a scatter of patrons lingering, taking advantage of the Thursday happy hour.
"You work around here?" The man asked.
You shot him a sympathetic look. "Sorry, I'm really not trying to get picked up tonight."
He gave a cross between a low chuckle and scoff. "I'm not trying to pick you up. I ask because the only people who come to this place work nearby or need a drink so bad they don’t care what it looks like." He lifted his beer an inch off the bar.
Your mouth opened, then closed. You felt the heat climb your neck. "Right. Okay. That's fair." You dragged a hand down your face. "I'm sorry. I have a terrible time at bars alone, so I've developed a defensive posture and you caught the brunt of it." You winced. "New job isn’t going great. I'm a little raw."
He nodded, accepting the apology. "What do you do?"
"Lawyer." You kept it to the one word, because no, you were not about to rattle off your life's details to a stranger at a bar. Not unti he deemed worthy of it, at least.
His eyebrows did the thing. "Huh. You seem—"
Your shoulders immediately deflated, eyes narrowed to slits, cocking your head to the side. "If the next words that are going to come out of your mouth are that I look too young to be a lawyer, I’d rather you not."
He raised the hand not holding his beer in surrender. "I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to imply you weren't competent."
You looked at him a beat longer than was strictly necessary. You forced the annoyance out of you. "No, I'm sorry. It’s a touchy subject. Two-for-oh tonight." You took another sip, softer now. "I'm not usually this catty, I swear. I've been waiting on someone, and I'm about ninety percent sure I'm being stood up, which does not bring out my better angels."
"Hot date?"
You surprised yourself by chuckling. "If he had shown up, I might have called it that." You tilted your head and gave him the second look on purpose this time, dragging your gaze over his scrubs and the look of exhaustion written over his face. "Physician?"
"What gave it away?"
"The thousand-yard stare." You gestured with your bottle. "Are you waiting on someone too?"
He shook his head slowly. "Rough shift. Figured one beer in a room full of strangers beat going home to a room full of nobody." He said it lightly, but it didn’t land that way.
You contemplated the way his jaw tightened when he said it. You figured, in that moment, that he needed the company, and you needed the reminder that being stood up didn’t mean you were as undeserving of love and attention as you felt at that moment.
"Well, we can't have that. Consider me your one familiar face in a room full of strangers."
Something in his face unclenched, half a degree.
You leaned over the bar again to crane at your phone where the bartender had it tethered, watching the screen stay stubbornly dark. While you were turned away, Robby took the opportunity to actually look at you. Really look. You were striking. A menace, he thought. Some poor idiot is about to lose this.
"He's not going to stand you up," he said.
You dropped back onto the stool. "Yeah? And how would you know?"
"Because he'd have to be an idiot, and you don't strike me as someone who wastes her time on idiots."
You pressed your lips together to keep from smiling and failed. "You sure you're not trying to pick me up?"
"Positive. I'm twice your age." He deadpanned, and took a sip.
"Oh, come on." You swiveled to face him fully now, elbow on the bar, chin in your hand. The date momentarily forgotten for the moment because this was more fun. "You've got the whole—" you waved a hand, "—sexy, mature, brooding doctor thing going on. Are you telling me you've never used that to pick up a younger girl at a bar?"
He looked at you like you'd just guessed his weight wildly wrong. "It's not a thing. I'm actually miserable. I wouldn't subject anyone to this."
"Oh God!" You exclaimed, loud enough that two people glanced over. "Okay, I can see how the self-deprecating attitude wouldn't help."
He shook his head, but he was smiling now, which made you feel absurdly proud of yourself.
You checked your phone again. Still nothing.
You sighed and finally said it out loud. "Okay. It's official. I've been stood up. Three weeks in this town and that's my second date gone sideways. You see how dating's going for me?" You drained the last of the Stella and set the empty bottle down with a little ceremonial tap.
"Their loss," he said.
You looked at him. "You got anywhere to be?"
He shook his head. "Not until seven a.m. tomorrow."
You clinked your empty bottle against his. "Then suit up, doc. I took an hour out of my day for this disaster, one beer doesn't cover it, and I will be damned if I waste my whole night dwelling. You want another beer with me and some shitty bar food?"
He huffed a laugh. It surprised him yet again. You kept doing that to him. He lifted two fingers at the bartender. "Two more."
"And two burgers," you added.
The hour stretched over terrible bar food and beer. The room moved around you as you traded stories, both of you making sure to steer wide of work. It was, after all, the shared bane of your existences, the thing you'd each come here to escape.
An hour turned into three. When you finally peeled yourself off the stool, with your phone charged, no message from your no-show date, but your mood now entirely repaired, you slung your work purse over your shoulder and looked at the now somewhat familair stranger.
"This was the best turn of events." You stuck out your hand. "Thanks for keeping me company. It was really nice to meet you, and, oh, I just realized I never even got your name."
He took your hand. His was warm and rough and easily engulfed yours. "Michael."
"Michael." You tested it, nodded. You told him your name in return.
You held on to his hand half-second past polite, hoping your lingering gave him the hint you intended.
"Get home safe, Michael. I hope things start looking up for you soon. Oh, and get a damn dog!" You exclaimed, calling back to an earlier suggestion you had given him on account of an article you had read once. He doubted you were serious, but, already four beers in, you delivered it as if you expected him to take it as a decree. You had insisted the suggestion came from a reputable psychology journal and had been peer-reviewed. "Because you doctors like that sort of thing," you had told him.
"A golden retriever doesn't need you to have your life together," you said, "but It will give you a reason to keep showing up."
"Right," he said. "It was nice to meet you. I'll leave you to it."
A flash of something akin to disappointment crossed your face. You reeled it back fast.
Was he seriously not going to ask for your number? You thought you were being obvious.
He watched you go with a look he couldn't quite explain to himself.
TWO MONTHS LATER
The next time Robby found himself back at Hannigan's was two months later.
He'd worked a twelve-hour shift that should've been ten. His body was begging for a bed, but the crew had clocked out, and in the name of morale, they'd folded themselves into a booth in the back of their usual pub. What was left of the day shift Pittllings were slowly drifting in.
Robby sat at the edge of the booth with Whitaker, Mohan, and Santos. All of them wore the same tired face.
"It's not even a holiday," Javadi said, voice flat with exhaustion.
Santos, forehead flat on the table, grumbled, "Our bad for thinking we were entitled to a calm shift."
"We jinxed it," Whitaker said, shaking his head.
The younger staff sat wallowing in their collective despair. Robby was about to intervene, when he thought he caught a glimpse of someone who looked eerily like the person he met at this exact place two months prior.
You looked out of place in a dark brown suit, with your work purse on your shoulder, leaning against the bar to catch the bartender's eye.
When the recognition hit, he felt a snag in the chest. Finally.
He'd replayed that night more than once over the past two months. He regretted how he'd left it, and had wondered, more than he'd admit, whether he'd ever get the chance to run into you again and fix it. He looked for you every time he passed this bar. Hell, he looked for you every time he passed a law firm in the area.
He found his feet were already moving.
"If it isn't my favorite lawyer."
You turned, and your face lit up. He caught the brightness that arrived like he'd flipped a switch. The bad day he'd carried in went a little quieter just from being on the receiving end of it.
"If it isn't my favorite familiar stranger!"
"You here alone?" he asked, and then heard himself add the old bit, "And no. I'm not trying to pick you up."
The eye-roll he got for that was deeply gratifying.
"Actually, I'm meeting my boyfriend for a post-work drink. He told me he'd swing by before his shift so I could meet some of his coworkers."
He felt a pang in his chest. Boyfriend. Of course you had one. Someone was bound to have picked you up by now.
The bartender set a shot glass in front of you and filled it to the brim with tequila. Robby whistled as you threw it back.
"They that bad?"
You sucked on the lime, shaking your head, talking around it. "Not at all. He's been hyping them up for a while, then called me out of nowhere an hour ago asking me to meet him here. Caught me off guard, so I need the aid."
He couldn't help the smile. "Good for you. You found a man in Pittsburgh who didn't stand you up."
"Oh! He’s the same guy, actually!" You had drifted closer, leaning into him closely so he could hear you speak over the music. He caught it again, the easy gravity of you. Being talked at by you felt like being let in on something.
"He works traumas,” you continued. “Got an insane emergency and had to go in early. I forgave him. Mostly. What about you, who are you here with?"
"Friends from wor—"
He didn't get to finish his sentence.
A freckled arm came around your waist from behind. A kiss landed on the side of your face. And you folded back into it. You were laughing, turning, lighting up again, but this time for somebody else. Robby looked up past the top of your head into the grinning face of none other than his friend, his brother, Jack Abbot.
Something in Robby went very still.
"I see you two have met," Jack said, oblivious, delighted. Robby fixated on his hand spread warm and easy on your hip.
You looked between the men. "...Hm?"
"This is Robby," Jack added, as if you should have put two and two together by then.
"...Michael?" You cocked your head, openly confused.
Catching it, Robby offered the necessary explanation, "Michael Robinavitch, or just… Robby." He set each word down carefully.
"Ah."
He watched you do the arithmetic. You watched Robby, the name Jack must have said to you a dozen times, click into the face you'd met at a bar two months ago. Robby was doing his own arithmetic right alongside you, reading the whole night back with new margins. Lawyer. New job, not going great. The date who stood her up. Every piece he'd been handed two months ago, resorting into a story he didn't want to be real.
"I thought you said she worked at the hospital," Robby said to Jack. Jack had mentioned someone he'd started seeing and had said he'd bring her by the bar before his shift whenever he got the chance.
"I do." You cut in, lifting your chin like you didn't much appreciate Robby talking about you as if you weren't standing right there. "The position I started is Assistant Counsel at PTMC."
She’s a lawyer at his hospital. She worked in his building. She'd been three floors and one elevator away for two months and he hadn't known.
"You two knew each other already?" Jack asked, lost.
"We met here, actually." You hooked a thumb at Robby, then dug a pinch into Jack's side. "The night you stood me up."
Robby's eyes cut to Jack before he could stop them. "You were the date who stood her up."
"I did not stand her up."
"He so did." All affection, no heat. "And, if it hadn't been for Robby here, that night would've been a write-off. You're lucky I'm forgiving." You motioned to Robby’s near-empty bottle. "Okay, what are you drinking? I need one more drink before I can turn the charm on.”
As if you ever have it off, Robby thought.
He answered, and you were gone toward the bar.
It was just Jack and him, shoulder to shoulder, watching you go. Which Robby was definitely not going to keep doing. He looked at what was left of his beer instead. Found his voice in it.
"So, this is who you've been seeing the past two months."
"That's her." Jack said, his eyes still on you as you leaned over the bar.
Robby took a pull he didn't taste. He should've left it there, but the bitterness was crass on his tongue. "Isn't she a little…" Don't say it. Don't say it, Robby. "Young?"
"Eesh." Jack grimaced. "I knew that was coming, but I didn't think it'd come from you."
"I'm just saying."
"It hasn't been a problem." Jack’s whole face went soft. "Give her a chance. You should see the way she is, Robby. We just clicked. And I haven't…" A shrug, a glance towards Robby. "I haven't felt this about someone in a long time. You know that better than anybody."
He did. Their countless rooftop conversations had so often circled around the weight of Jack's grief over losing his wife.
Robby thought about how you'd made the worst kind of night so much lighter for him without even trying. He still thought about it months later.
He felt jealousy land. Whatever you'd done for him, you'd done for Jack too. Only Jack had been quick enough not to let you slip.
He'd assumed you wouldn't have gone for him. Despite the way you'd teased him about his age, despite calling him a sexy doctor to his face, Robby hadn't let himself read it as anything more. If you'd gone for Jack, would you have gone for him?
That night was supposed to stay a nice memory. Now it was tainted with the what if.
You came back balancing two beers and a water bottle for Jack, beaming, and tucked yourself back under Jack's arm. "Now I'm ready. Wish me luck."
"You don't need it," Robby said, and watched as Jack kissed your temple and took you off to meet the crew.
Robby drank his beer and watched.
He kept doing it all night.
He'd catch himself, stop, find himself doing it again ten minutes later. He had no doubt you'd work the room the way you'd worked him and Jack, in your separate ways. You hit it off especially amongst the younger Pittlings. He watched you be gentle with the shy ones, quick with the loud ones.
Every time somebody made the same type of joke, (“Jack, she's a little out of your league”; “robbing the cradle”; “Does she know how old you actually are?”), you caught it and fired back twice as hard, flat hand on Jack's chest, claiming him in front of all of them, daring anyone to keep going.
Robby's mind kept walking somewhere it had no business going. She'd be the exact age, just about, if Jack and Sarah had ever gotten around to having the kid they had dreamed about. It was a nasty thought to have. Robby shut it down quickly.
However, it transformed into a safer worry instead. The one he could convince himself was clinical reasoning. Jack's barely out the other side of his own grief. Is he steady enough for this?
Because if he's not, if he isn't all the way in, then he's wasting your time. You didn't deserve that.
He didn't know how long he'd zoned out for, until Jack's elbow found his ribs.
"You good, brother?"
Robby surfaced and smoothed it over. "Still coming down from the day. You headed in?"
"Yep. Y/N said she'd stay." Jack nodded toward you. "Keep an eye on her for me, will you? Rescue her if she needs it."
"I highly doubt she will."
Across the room you grinned in their direction. Bright, conspiratorial. The exact grin you'd given him at the bar the night when you suggested he keep you company after having been stood up.
Robby lied to himself that your smile was intended for him.
This is going to be a problem.