00:02

The numbers on the timer are red, and large, and counting down.

00:01

"Oh, shit--"

00:00

***

Silence.

Tim holds absolutely still for another several long seconds before slowly, cautiously straightening up from a crouch.

The sight before him doesn't change, no matter which way he looks at it.

Tony's still standing. He's got his arm outstretched, palm forward. There's sweat sliding down the back of his neck and curling under his collar. All these things are fairly normal.

Inches from Tony's fingertips, the inferno stands frozen. It's like some sort of weird sculpture; explosion in situ, Tim thinks, with what he considers an entirely reasonable tinge of hysteria. This, this is not normal.

"Tony?" Tim's voice squeaks embarrassingly on the upturn.

"Might want to back off, Probie," Tony grits out, turning his head ever so slightly. Light flickers dangerously, and Tony quickly turns his attention back to the conflagration he is, apparently, holding at bay with the power of his mind.

"Um. Oh. Right!" Tim shakes his head violently, breaking his paralysis. "I'm going." Time enough for surprise later, when they're safe. There's a concrete wall ten feet away; it should be enough to protect him from the flames, or any shrapnel. Tim turns, then pauses.

"What about you?" he asks.

Tony flashes a sideways grin without taking his attention off the explosion. "I'm a fast runner, remember?"

Tim gets behind the concrete wall. There's the sound of running footsteps, and something slams into him.

The roar of the explosion drowns out all thought.

***

The thing that hit him turns out to be Tony, having made a spectacular dive behind the wall to escape the explosion. He ends up sprawled half across Tim's lap, chest heaving, blinking dazedly up at the ceiling.

Tim lets his hand come down to rest on Tony's hair. "You okay?" he asks, or thinks he does. He can't actually hear himself speak over the ringing in his ears.

Tony reaches up and bats away Tim's hand. He'll take that as a 'yes'.

***

Tim-- and his hearing-- finally recover enough that the frantic ringing of his phone registers. He flips it open; it's Gibbs, of course. He and Ziva had been on the other side of the compound, checking the other offices, when they'd heard the bomb go off.

"We're fine, Boss," Tim says. "There was a bomb in one of the rooms-- well, obviously-- but we managed to, ah, get behind cover in time." The lie comes easily to his lips.

Tony watches him talk, seated with his back propped up against the opposite wall, eyes unreadable.

"No, really, we're fine. Looks like the bomb took out most of the evidence, though," Tim says, sticking his head back around the corner; fires still smolder in the twisted wreckage of the file cabinets. "No, Tony has not gone mute, I think he's still just a bit in sh--"

Tony snatches the phone out of his hands.

"We're fine, boss," Tony repeats. "See you in a minute." He flips the cell phone shut, turns to face Tim. Tension tightens the corner of his mouth.

Tim tilts his head, waiting for Tony to speak.

"This is usually the part where people start freaking out, you know." Tony says, finally.

Tim scratches the back of his head, shrugging. "What can I say, Tony? You controlling fire with your mind is honestly not the weirdest thing I've ever seen on this job."

Tony lets that stand for a minute, the silence growing uncomfortable, while he examines Tim's face, looking for something-- what, Tim doesn't know. Abruptly, Tony flashes a smile. To anyone who didn't know him it would seem real; to Tim, it's painfully fake. "You've got a point there, McGee." He cracks his neck, and Tim winces at the noise. "So--"

Whatever Tony was about to say is abruptly cut off as the sound of footsteps echoes through the hall, and Gibbs and Ziva turn the corner, breathing heavily from the run.

"--I could really use a beer," Tony finishes, plastering on a grin and levering himself to his feet. "Hi, Boss!"

And from there, things go back to normal.


***

Except they don't, not really.

Oh, there's still the case to solve, and it's simple to fall back into the easy rhythms of work, letting Gibbs, Ziva and Abby act as a buffer between them when awkwardness threatens. Without the evidence that was destroyed in the explosion, they're forced to track down the bad guys the hard way. It takes up most of their time and attention. (Tony never does get his drink.)

Sometimes, though, Tim will catch Tony flicking him little sidelong glances when he thinks no one else is looking; and every once in a while, Tim will jerk himself back from the memory of frozen fire to find he's been staring at Tony, who is studiously not staring back. And whenever they're together in the same room, Tony retreats behind movie quotes and sarcasm, and Tim retreats behind computer jargon, and neither of them really says anything to each other at all.

And Tim can feel them settling down into a sort of equilibrium, as the case wears on towards its conclusion. It'd be easy to let them go on like this, both ignoring the elephant in the room until it gets embarrassed and goes away; too easy. Tim knows it would never affect their work; they're both too professional to let that happen. Even the ultraomnipotent Gibbs has yet to notice the tiny hesitations, the infinitesimal awkwardness. They could continue on like this indefinitely.

Except... Tony is always just a little bit tense, these days. Not as quick to accept Ziva's invitation to a team dinner, or pulling out of Abby's hugs a fraction of a second sooner. Disappearing just a few minutes earlier at the end of the work day. And sometimes Tim will catch one of those sidelong glances and start to wonder why, exactly, Tony left Baltimore. Or Philadelphia. Or Peoria.

Tim likes his job. Likes the work and the people, even Tony, though he'd never, ever admit it out loud. And he's so very tired of losing people.

So he spends his free moments watching Tony watching him, and contemplates his options.

It doesn't take him very long to make a decision.

***

The final break in the case comes on Thursday morning with the discovery of a cache of diamonds in one of the suspect's homes-- hidden in the hollow base of a statue, of all things-- and by Friday evening they've got their lieutenant and his smuggling ring in custody and all the loose ends wrapped up. All that's left is the paperwork.

The room is quiet and dim; it's running on towards midnight, but both Tony and Tim are still at their desks, the only ones left in the room. Gibbs went home a couple hours ago, nursing a black eye and a headache; Ziva has disappeared into the depths of the building and is probably taking out her excess energy on one of the gym's punching bags before going to sleep.

Tony's leaning back in his chair, feet on the desk and staring at the ceiling, twirling a pen in one hand. Tim has his head propped on one hand and is staring at his computer screen. It's practically the first time they've been alone together in the same room since that day in the warehouse.

Tim eyes his cache of ammunition, still a little hesitant; it'd be easy for Tony to take this the wrong way. But then he shakes his head, firming his resolve-- Tony's been studiously ignoring him all week, and this is the only way Tim's sure to get his attention-- and calls up the spirit of those long summer afternoons fifteen years ago spent perfecting the art of irritating his little sister.

The first missile-- a wadded up paper ball-- bounces off Tony's shoulder.

Tony steadfastly ignores it.

Time adjusts his aim. The second curves perfectly through the air and catches Tony in the chest. The third knocks the spinning pen out of his hand. Tony retrieves the pen, burgeoning tension evident in the line of his shoulders, but then goes right back to ignoring Tim.

Fine, then; time to break out the heavy duty ammunition. Tim reaches for the straw he'd stolen from Abby's Caff-Pow.

The spitball catches Tony right smack dab between his eyes; the wet splat is audible across the room. It's quite beautiful, if Tim does say so himself; evidently he has lost none of his former skill.

"The hell was that!?" Tony practically falls out of his chair trying to get the spitball off of him. "That's disgusting, Probie!"

It's the first time Tony's called him that all week. Tim hides a grin behind his hand.

Tony stalks over, spitball held out at arms length between two fingers. He deposits it on the edge of Tim's desk and then wipes his slightly damp hand down the back of Tim's shirt. Tim flinches but doesn't bother to dodge; it's a small price to pay.

"I mean, I always knew you were a six year-old boy at heart, Probie, but don't you think that's kind of pushing it? Eeuuugh." Tony makes a face, but there's a wary look hiding in the back of his eyes, despite his theatrics.

Drastic times call for drastic measures, Tim doesn't say. In lieu of a response, he reaches out to tilt his computer monitor so Tony can see, quickly glancing around to make sure no one's watching. But the bullpen is as as empty as ever.

"I've been meaning to show you something," he says, and props his chin on his hands.

"And this is how you decide to get my attention? You need to work on your interpersonal skills, McGee." Tony shoots him a suspicious glance, but leans in, careful to stay just out of reach.

"Wow," he says, after a moment. "That's a very nice blank... Word... document...." He trails to a halt, eyes crinkling at the corners.

After half a second, he raises one finger. "Is that... supposed to be doing that?"

"Doing what, Tony?" Tim blinks innocent eyes. On his screen, the words You mean this? appear by themselves in the open document.

"Yes, I mean that!" Tony gropes behind him for a chair, collapses into it. His gaze keeps flickering between Tim's hands, still kept carefully out in plain sight, and the computer screen, where the transcript of their conversation so far sits there, blinking at him. As Tony continues to gape, Word closes out without saving, and Firefox opens up a new browser window. Google News starts to load.

"You-- you--" Tony seems to be struggling for words.

"I, I?" Tim repeats helpfully. He can't help the knot of nervous tension that has taken up residence in his chest, even though this was a carefully calculated, carefully thought-out risk.

"You're not typing with your... toes, by any chance, are you?" Tony asks, running a hand through his hair. It stands up in slightly bedraggled spikes.

Tim leans back in his chair and deliberately sets his feet on the desk in an imitation of Tony's earlier posture, folding his arms across his chest. "Nope," he says. A new programming window opens on the screen, green on black; he's been meaning to do some debugging, and now is as good a time as any. It takes barely a fraction of his attention.

"One of those long-distance computer controlling things?"

"Nope."

"Abby's not crouching down there under your desk with a keyboard and laughing at me, is she?"

"Do you honestly think she'd agree to do something like that?"

"...Well. No."

There's a long pause. Tim takes his feet down off the desk, leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. There's a trickle of sweat meandering down his spine, even though the room's air conditioning is kept at approximately freezing; Tim shifts his shoulders to get rid of the tickling sensation. Tony's still staring contemplatively at the computer screen; Tim can practically see his brain working, thoughts flashing across his face so quickly that Tim can't read any of them. Tim lets him think in peace.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" Tony asks, finally. His voice is oddly subdued.

"Why didn't you?" Tim counters; swallows against the dryness.

There's a half second of hesitation, and then Tony leans back in his chair as if he's made a decision, tension abruptly draining out of his shoulders. A rueful smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Well, it's kind of hard to drop into casual conversation, you know," he says, then switches into a falsetto. "Hey, guys, guess what? I can control fire with my brain!" He waves his hands around, eyes going comically wide.

Tim chokes on a laugh, ducking his head, and when he glances up Tony is laughing too. All the tension between them these past few weeks seems suddenly awkward and pointless, and Tim feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

"Sometimes I wonder why nobody's ever noticed me," he says, still grinning a little. "You do realize that half the things I do around here aren't even possible yet based on current technology, right?"

Tony raises his eyebrows. "Not really big into the whole computer... thing here, McGee," he says, circling a finger in the air. "Abby's never noticed?"

Tim shrugs. "Maybe. I don't know. Sometimes I wonder, but she's never said anything, and I've never asked." He hesitates, lets the last of the grin fade. "You know it doesn't matter to us, right? I mean-- me, obviously not, but Gibbs, Ziva, Abby, none of them would care about the whole... controlling fire with your brain thing. You know that, right?"

Tony's eyes go dark and distant. "Yeah, I know," he says, slowly. "But other people would. And I like this job." The heavy weight of experience lies behind his words.

"They wouldn't say anything. Not unless you asked them to."

"Once people find out, it gets hard to keep it a secret," Tony says, shrugging. "Better not to risk it. Besides, look who's talking-- you haven't exactly been going around announcing it, either."

"I'm not going to run away from this job just because someone finds out, though," Tim says.

Tony winces. "I wasn't actually--"

"You were thinking about it," Tim interrupts. Hesitates. "Not anymore, I hope."

Tony lets the pause lengthen, examining Tim's face-- for what, Tim doesn't know. And then he smiles-- small, but completely honest. "Nope. Not anymore."

He stands abruptly. "Hey, Probie?"

"Yeah?"

"You still owe me a beer, you know. For the whole saving your life thing."

"Tony, it's one o'clock in the morning."

"Hey, tomorrow's Saturday! Bars don't close till 2:30. We have plenty of time." Tony claps Tim on the shoulder. "Besides, we wouldn't want you to keep feeling like you're in my debt, now would we?"

"Gee, Tony, somehow I think I'll survive." But Tim's already shrugging into his coat.

And as the doors close behind them, muffling the sound of Tony's laughter, Tim's computer shuts off all by itself.