The first time Tony and Gibbs had sex wasn't spectacular. The first condom broke getting it out of the package. The lube was cold and Tony couldn't keep from screaming to himself that he was going to regret this.
Turns out he didn't, but he couldn't know that at the time.
The second time they had sex was marginally better. An undercover op gone wrong meant bandages and pain pills and a leg that didn't quite bend that way any more. But at least they hadn't needed to worry about a second condom.
The lube was still too cold.
The third and fourth times were rushed and harried and at Tony's apartment. Once over lunch after interviewing a suspect and the other after getting his confession. Tony didn't even get his left shoe off the second time.
He got off, though.
So did Gibbs.
Eventually.
Damn those fourteen years.
The fifth time was better. At least it wasn't on a sofa or up against one of their front doors. Still, Tony worried that he might have fallen asleep at some point. Thirty-two hours without sleep will do that to a guy. Gibbs didn't complain, so he apparently didn't miss much.
Waking up together was nice. Awkward, but nice.
That's when Tony rediscovered that Gibbs spent as much on coffee as Tony did on shoes.
Their sixth time was later that morning, but Tony wasn't sure it should count, since they got interrupted by a call about a dead commander under an abandoned Volkswagen. Gibbs muttered about "goddamned squishy cars" throughout the case. Tony only laughed once. He did manage to smirk a great deal, but only where McGee could see him do it.
(They never did figure out how, or even why, such a big man managed to crawl under the VW to die.)
Finally came the first weekend the team had off rotation since he and Gibbs had started whatever it was they'd started.
Dinner, such as it was, had been eaten at their desks, and reports had been mostly finished when Tony glanced at Gibbs and found him watching him over the rim of his glasses. McGee was down with Abby and Ziva had gone off to the little assassin's room. Tony leaned back in his chair a bit and Gibbs almost smiled. It was as close to talking about their relationship as they'd come, so far.
Gibbs raised his eyebrows.
Tony smirked.
Gibbs cocked his head.
Tony rolled his eyes and shrugged.
Gibbs' place was fine with Tony. He went back to his report and wondered what would go wrong this time. Still, seven was lucky, so maybe things would go well. Not that it mattered. What mattered was that things had been going wrong while he was with Gibbs.
Tony could live with that.
But this time, he was sticking the damn lube in the microwave, first.
The End
Author's Chapter Notes:
Even the best things in life take practice.