Only Gibbs noticed when Agent Quann returned with a large plastic bag full of Chinese take-out, two big cups of coffee and a bottle of fruit juice for Sam. The little girl had calmed down some, she wasn’t crying as hard but her iron grip around Tony’s neck hadn’t lessened and she made no attempts to raise her head. No way were any of them ready for food even if they could do with something in their stomachs.
Quann took one look at the huddled group on the table and froze. Gibbs threw her a warning glare not to interfere, but it wasn’t necessary. The female agent seemed to guess what was going on and the compassion on her face made Gibbs’ estimation of her competence rise a notch or two. She silently arranged the containers on one of the smaller side tables and then left the room again after showing him her watch and signing to him that she would be back in fifteen minutes. Her presence wasn’t required with Tony in the room.
And no way was he stepping back from father and daughter. Gibbs felt that he had the right to reassure Tony while the younger man was doing his best to support Sam. He spared a thought for the little camera McGee had installed and the possibility that they were being observed. David and McGee were away fulfilling their assignments. Though, even if they had still been in the squad room, Gibbs wouldn't have cared. All he was doing was comforting Tony while Tony comforted Sam. It amused Gibbs that the same back stroking motion seemed to work equally well on father as it did daughter.
The distinctive smell of exotic spices permeating the room was what finally made Sam loose her grip and raise her head. She wriggled out of her father’s arms and turned her face in the direction of the bagged delicacies, sniffed, but made no attempt to go over. Her nose was red and snotty, her eyes swollen and equally red-rimmed and tears had left their tracks on her cheeks. Her little hands rose up and rubbed across her face but the only thing she accomplished was to spread the mess. The braid without a barrette had unraveled completely and the loose strands of hair were not adding to the picture in a positive way. Nor was her sniffling.
Tony was still patting her back and he didn’t look much better than his daughter. That had to be the third ruined suit in two days; maybe Tony would finally come to appreciate the practicality of Sears men wear when he got the next dry-cleaning bill.
‘I am so sorry, so sorry; I don’t want to be a cry baby! I don’t want to be a bother.’ Her hastily signed message startled both men.
“It’s ok to cry!” Tony was reassuring her but all he earned for his troubles were more frantically signed words.
‘So sorry dad, I will not be clingy and a stupid cry baby.’
Boarding school had a lot in common with boot camp and in both institutions tears were a source for open scorn among peers. Gibbs guessed that other children with their casual cruelty had mocked Sam for her tears.
Tony tried again. “It is all right to cry, you lost your mom and step-dad, it is natural that you would mourn them, nothing to be ashamed of, Sam!”
Sam violently shook her head, her hands were balled into impotent fists. Nothing Tony tried seemed to bear fruit, she was on the fast track to hysterical.
Gibbs was of the opinion that shrinks were mostly useless and probably couldn’t find their own asses in a crisis for all their vaunted highly educated theories. The rules demanded that agents had to be cleared by them before going back into the field after every traumatic incident. Killing in the line of duty, losing a teammate, gruesome cases. Private tragedies. The first psychologist he had to visit to be accepted as an agent had told him that it was cleansing to let out all the hurt stuck inside in a nonviolent way, no matter what other people thought. Yeah, right. Doing it just opened yourself to people who would heap scorn or pity atop of the original problem.
But Sam- Gibbs hesitated for a moment, called himself all kinds of stupid, and then he squatted down in front of Sam so she didn't have to look up at him. “Sam. Look at me, come on.”
She averted her face and pressed her eyelids closed, shutting the world out. Fresh tears were escaping nevertheless and she batted at her own face angrily. Tony caught her hands in his own and Gibbs touched her under her chin to get her to look at him again. It worked.
“Sam, now, pay attention.” The command made her blink. “I’m a Marine, like Chris was.”
That wasn’t a topic she had anticipated. The girl hesitantly reached out and her wet fingers skimmed his temples where his hair was shorn near to the skin and she nodded weakly.
God bless the infamous and easily recognizable haircut.
“What did he tell you about the Corp, about the other… eagles.” Eagles wasn’t a commonly used metaphor for the Marines, but her step-father had introduced it to Sam so Gibbs might as well take advantage of the expression.
He was very aware of how closely Tony was following their conversation. The younger man had positioned himself behind his daughter and Sam was leaning against his body.
Her signs came reluctant and slow. ‘That - Marines are hard-asses and proud of it and ��" brave and ��" ‘ Another sob escaped.
Gibbs could hear Tony choke on the hard-ass comment but he ignored it, they had bigger problems to solve. It wasn’t untrue, just not appropriate vocabulary for a little girl. “And?” he nudged her to finish her sentence.
‘Marines don’t cry over nothing.’
Gibbs sighed and gave her a mild version of his trademark head-slap. It startled her and she stared at him incredulously. “Never refer to your family as nothing! It’s offensive to their memory. Do you understand? Never. I cried when I lost my family and they were the most important people on earth to me. Do I look like a cry-baby to you?”
‘No, no ��" you don’t.’ Sam leaned forward and her gray-green eyes searched his face, probably trying to imagine him bawling. ‘You cried for them? Really?’
“Yeah.” Only in private, but he had never been ashamed of his tears, just hadn’t wanted to share them with a world that didn’t deserve more of him after taking away his girls.
Gibbs knew how tactile deaf children could be. They tended to have very expressive body language and loved to touch people they liked. He had rated Sam’s avoidance of contact with him as a sign that she didn't trust him. Now her fingers were trailing over his cheeks, petting him and he kept himself very still.
‘You miss them very much?’
He nodded.
‘I miss Mom and Chris.’ Sam breached the last inches between them and pressed her heated face against his for one moment.
“Jethro…”
Green eyes sought his own over a mass of tangled hair and Gibbs could read sadness and compassion in them. He didn’t know what he should do about it. Involuntarily Gibbs must have made a defensive gesture, because Tony looked away giving him privacy.
Luckily Gibbs wasn’t the only one who was defensive and embarrassed about all the touchy-feely stuff that had happened. Sam might be a little bit more convinced that they wouldn’t scorn her for her tears but the way she frantically looked around for something else, anything else, to concentrate on proclaimed loud and clear that her quota for heart to hearts had been filled, thank you very much.
This time it was her father who knew what to say. “Sam, how about cleaning up a bit and then some food. You told me you're hungry, frankly, so am I.”
.-#-.
Tony looked at his daughter’s tear streaked face and then at the two doors of choice. Neither appealed to him, because, whatever Ziva might think, entering a restroom of the opposite gender was not spitting in the face of convention but rather an unprovoked hostile attack on an established sanctuary.
There were ground rules for protection detail, the main one being never, ever let your subject out of your sight. Unfortunately that included bathroom breaks. The chances that anything could happen to her here at NCIS headquarters were slim, but the rules still applied. Didn’t they assign a female agent as a guard for Sam exactly for this reason? Unfortunately his daughter was still quite shaken from her outburst earlier and refused to let him out of her grasp, never mind her sight.
“DiNozzos, the food is getting cold.” Gibbs had snatched his coffee from the tray Quann had provided before accompanying them to the restroom. For an accomplished Gibbs expert like Tony DiNozzo the minuscule upward turn of the older man’s mouth and the way certain lines around his eyes had deepened it was clear that Gibbs was aware of his dilemma. Aware and amused. It was nice to see that the emotional roller coaster hadn’t forced the older man into one of his brooding moods, but still.
Tony threw him a dirty look. Gibbs had it easy, all he had to do was guard the door against incursion while Tony and Sam were inside. But which door to chose? In the end it wasn’t a difficult decision, he lead Sam into the women’s room. Urinals and little girls were not meant to go together.
The inside of the forbidden territory wasn’t mysterious at all and not that different from the male version. Different color scheme and more stalls. And it was at the moment, thankfully, unoccupied. There was no one in front of the big mirror and nobody had entered or left this bastion of female mysteries while he had stood outside. He couldn’t hear anyone.
Sam disappeared into one of the stalls and Tony used the time to sort out his own appearance. He slipped out of his suit jacket and eyed it mournfully. The damage wasn’t too severe, nevertheless it was one of his favorites and deserved better treatment. A damp paper towel and a little hot air from the hand dryer would take care of the worst wrinkles.
A noise from the wrong direction made him drop the garment and draw his Sig. The stall door on the far left had opened and an attractive brunette woman was stepping out, her hands at her chest, in the process of closing the upper buttons of her silk blouse. Another blouse was draped over her arm. She froze. Tony stared at her over the muzzle of his gun.
Damn the interior designers for not including bigger open spaces under the doors! That would have given him a clue that he wasn’t as alone or as secure as he thought. He knew this woman, her name was Victoria Winters and she was working in administration. Tony had flirted with her once or twice. That didn’t make this situation any less awkward.
“Agent DiNozzo!”
Tony put his weapon away and slipped on his best charming little-boy grin. "Hi Victoria, so funny story, you'll love this one-"
She wasn’t impressed at all and didn’t even let him finish his sentence. “I don’t care what inane childish prank you are trying to pull this time. I don’t care if you are trying to get back at Officer David. How dare you! The director will hear about this!”
Her shrill voice made him cringe. Tony was suddenly reminded as to why he hadn't done more than lightly flirt with this woman.
“No wait, you don't understand.” His second feeble attempt to placate her wasn’t more effective than the first, it just enraged her further. The way she seemed to ready her tastefully manicured peach colored nails for combat was deeply disturbing.
“I doubt that you have spontaneously grown a vagina! And that would be the only possible excuse for your presence here.”
A little louder and Ducky in autopsy would be able to hear her berating him. There went his street-cred as a suave player. Tony was sure that if the walls were made out of glass he would be able to witness one very amused former marine standing outside and laughing his head off. He sighed deeply and prepared to try to explain a third time. Winters was an accountant but even she should know enough about Agents and body-guard duty to understand the situation.
It wasn’t necessary. Another stall-door opened and his daughter came out looking a little rumpled still but much more composed than before. Her presence made the harpy hell bent on ripping him a new one pause. Of course she had heard about this new development. Nobody could have missed the news of him having a daughter with the scuttlebutt running amok.
“Oh.”
Tony picked up his poor abused jacket from the floor and winked at Winters playfully. “I think guarding my daughter rates up there with a gender change as decent excuses go, don't you think?” He sent her one of his most charming smiles.
Sam had gone to the counter with the sinks but she was more interested in observing the adults than cleaning her hands and face. Her father didn’t know how to interpret the way she was thoughtfully eying the accountant.
“Sam, this is Miss Winters. Victoria, my daughter Sam.” Tony introduced them and then removed more paper towels from the dispenser and turned on the water. Sam was tall enough to reach the basin, but the faucets were too far back for her. The faster they finished their business here, the faster they would be able to leave. His hint seemed to be obvious enough, Sam began to clean up.
Victoria on the other hand made no attempt to hurry up and disappear, she was observing them nosily and Tony would be willing to bet that this little encounter would make the rounds within the hour. Her fingers finished buttoning up her blouse but they hesitated at the last two buttons and left them open in the end, her eyes never leaving the picture father and daughter provided. Tony had thrown the damp towels into the waste bin and had moved on to untangling loose strands of Sam's hairdo.
No one had had the foresight to bring the missing barrette.
“Tony, she is really a little cutie! Let me help with that… ” Victoria placed her handbag on the counter and searched in its depths and finally held up something triumphantly. A small fluffy deep green something with sparkly bits dangled from her peach colored claws.
“Here, that should do it, always have it with me to tame my hair so it doesn't get in my eyes. I don’t mind if you keep it, Sweetie, we women have to stick together.” The second sentence was addressed to the little girl but the woman’s eyes stayed focused on Tony. Victoria was shaking her head so her brunette curls bounced in a pretty demonstration of why she would have need for restraining the shiny mass. As if to make sure that they got the point, she punctuated her demonstration by letting her hands glide through her hair, ending by smoothing it back over her shoulders again.
Any other day Tony would have been tempted to show his appreciation for the show, it was very rude to not at least acknowledge the effort, but at the moment he was more concerned about other things. A minor leer and light once over had to suffice. Sam was still observing this new acquaintance closely so a translation wasn’t strictly needed, but he did it nevertheless and asked her to thank Victoria for her assistance.
Sam politely did as she was asked.
“Oh, you poor dear!” Victoria exclaimed and her eyes grew round and moist. “So I heard right, you are deaf? I hoped it was just a stupid exaggeration.”
Sam never took open pity well, Tony could empathize, and he could imagine (and dread) her reaction to being patted on the head or any other well meant gesture. He positioned himself between the two females to prevent any unfortunate incidents, his right hand reached for Sam to steer her out of the restroom. Time for a strategic retreat. He turned to Victoria. “Thank you for your help but we have to go back before we're missed and, well…I really, really shouldn’t stay here.” He tipped his face to the side a little bit so Sam couldn’t read his lips. “After all, I'm still missing the required equipment to fit in here."
That evoked a delighted chuckle and a twinkle from Victoria. “And wouldn’t it be a shame and a waste to change that?” She produced a little bottle of perfume. A few drops were then used on her fresh blouse. The perfume’s fragrance was sweet and flowery. Victoria offered the bottle to Sam but the little girl shook her head and nearly ran out of the room without another looking back.
Tony shrugged his shoulders, smiled apologetically and hurried after his daughter. Victoria followed them at a more sedate pace but, after a good look at the waiting Gibbs, refrained from dallying further. She waved to them before walking back to her own department.
Gibbs was still nursing his cup of coffee. All three of them watched Winters prance down the corridor.
‘I think I know what Sister Agatha meant when she droned on about a lesser evil and counting your blessings.’
“Uhm, Sam?” Tony had ceased to be shocked about the things an eight-year-old could come up with at the drop of a hat but in this case he had no clue what she meant. The way Victoria Winter was working her hips was a deliberate temptation but he doubted that a holy sister would use someone like her as an example for evil in the classroom.
‘He-‘ Sam pointed at Gibbs ‘at least does smell nice.’ She announced and then promptly turned on her heal and hurried in the direction of the conference room. Agent Quann was waiting for her outside and ushered her in.
Tony stared dumbfounded after her retreating form until a choking sound made him look at Jethro instead. His partner was looking rather pathetic, doing his best to hack up the hot coffee that had gone down the wrong pipe. One of his hands was clutching the still half full cup.
Heimlich maneuver, calling for help- Gibbs would never forgive him if it became known that his beloved coffee had nearly managed to kill him. Before Tony could reach a decision on a course of action Gibbs took a deep breath, sucking precious oxygen deep into his again unobstructed lungs.
“Your daughter is a health hazard. And mouthy,” he finally croaked.
Tony drew in a deep breath through his nose, tilted his head to the side and smiled. “Hey, I agree with her. And inheriting my good taste is not the worst thing that could have happened, you know?”
Gibbs dragged the back of his free hand over his mouth and took another deep breath before he answered, his tone of voice as dry as the Sahara. “Good taste? Tony, I’ve seen some of your … interests.” His thumb pointed in the direction Winter had disappeared to. “Rule.” A wolfish smile bloomed on his lips and the thumb jerked around so it was pointing at Gibb’s own chest. “Exception. Yeah?”
Suddenly there was a very tight feeling around the younger Agent’s chest. Not uncomfortable per se but impossible to ignore. Tony squirmed and for once didn’t know what to say so he nodded. “In every way, hopefully.” There wasn’t anything more he, and he suspected Jethro too, wanted to say at this point so it was time for some good old fashioned deflection.
“And boss, wasn’t it you that told us to hurry? Now it’s my turn. Come on, or she’ll have eaten it all. You wouldn’t believe the amounts of food Sam can put away.”
Gibbs gave a short, amused laugh. “Yes, I would. I’ve worked with you long enough.”
“Hey!”
They kept up the light banter all the way back to the conference room and during the meal.
.-#-.
Gibbs turned the key in the lock of his front door and the sound of the bolt clicking into place filled him with a kind of savage satisfaction. It had been the last action on his list of things to do, following making sure that every drape had been closed over his windows and talking with the outside agents to make sure they understood their duty. Now no one should be able to enter his home easily, or spy on them.
Tony, Sam and Gibbs had returned to his home after a frustrating afternoon at work. McGee and David had called around 1800 and their leader hadn’t been pleased by the lack of new information. It seemed as if everyone and their poodle could have driven that damn Sedan without raising suspicion. David had reported that the garage door lock was so rusty it might as well have been last used twenty years ago and the opening faced away from the house. The list of possible suspects was long enough to occupy McGee with background checks for days.
A muffled sound made Gibbs turn his head. Sam had retired to her room and the noise originated in his living room, so it could only be Tony. Gibbs was a little bit apprehensive about what might happen now. They had danced around each other the whole day, restricted by the presence of either youthful eyes or the need for discretion in front of other NCIS coworkers.
Gibbs mood darkened when he thought about the flirty accountant who had made her interest in his Tony very clear. Well, she was out of luck and would have to look for some entertainment elsewhere. Not that Tony had seemed to be very interested in her, but it still made Gibbs hot under the collar. One point for being a well known bastard. He could chase rivals away without raising suspicion about his motives.
He knew that he was a possessive and rather demanding lover and hoped that it wouldn’t cause too much friction between Tony and him. It wasn’t as if DiNozzo didn’t know Gibbs’ nature but theory and practice were two very different things. And it wasn’t only the personal stuff that they had to think about. Their professional life had its own pitfalls. Gibbs remembered a snide comment by McGee he had heard in the background when he talked to David and in conjunction with the other incidents during the day…. Well.
Gibbs entered his living room on silent feet, his eyes drawn to the sole occupant. He savored the chance to watch the younger man unobserved. His team might be freaked out frequently by their leader’s quirk of sneaking up on them, and most of the time it wasn’t even deliberate on his part, even if it was amusing, but this was a rare opportunity. Without spectators there was no need for Tony to put on a show.
Tony had switched on a small table lamp. It was something Gibbs’ third ex-wife had bought (and soon after thrown at his ‘stiff-necked, stubborn, unfeeling bastard-marine-head’). Its yellow shade was a little bit dented but since it functioned all right Gibbs had never seen a reason to exchange it for something new. The crinkles in the material produced interesting shadows on the walls but the light was soft enough to prevent anyone watching from outside from seeing a silhouette through the drapes.
Possessive blue eyes roamed over the handsome picture the younger men presented. While Gibbs had prowled around his home, checking every possible point of entry, Tony had changed into more comfortable clothes. He was now wearing sweatpants and an over-sized and fairly shapeless sweater and had made himself comfortable on the couch. Gibbs couldn’t make out what he was concentrating on exactly. Tony sat bent over something in his lap and had either not felt the older man enter the room or wasn’t acknowledging the company because of whatever held his attention. Judging by the frustrated grimaces on his face, whatever it was didn’t go the way it should. Tony’s elegant hands performed a sequence of gestures, halted and repeated the motions again and again.
Gibbs rounded the couch to take a look over the younger man’s shoulders. He bent over and laid his arms on the backrest of the couch and squinted at the book in Tony’s lap. It was a guide for learning ASL. He compared the example on the page to the signs his companion was making, ‘The horse was swiftly galloping down the dirty path’. Tricky. Adjectives and adverbs were difficult to express in sign language.
Tony had to feel his breath on the side of his face and his lack of reaction, apart from a light drawing in of breath, told Gibbs that his second guess had been the right one, his agent had been aware of his presence.
“I know, I know. I still stutter.”
“A little bit. Try to make that move out of your wrist, not the arm. It helps with the flow.”
It took a few tries till he had it down pat, then Tony turned his head and smiled crookedly at Gibbs. “Hah. Another move for my repertoire.”
And didn’t that link back to the snide remark he had heard from McGee over the phone. "We could have used Tony today, running around talking to people. Brawn to our brains."
“DiNozzo, about McGee-“
Tony closed his book and set it onto the coffee table. He averted his face. “Told you, he's flexing his muscles. Vance’s praise has gone to his head. He thinks his awesome new Yedi powers will solve every problem and forgets that they lead to the dark side."
Gibbs scoffed. Even he had seen that movie. “Yeah, he's overconfident. That’s dangerous. I don’t want his lesson in humility at the cost of your hide.”
“Boss, you normally don’t interfere.” Tony still wasn't looking at him and his shoulders were so tense that Gibbs could see the tendons standing out at his neck.
He was right, normally Gibbs didn’t try to stop the squabbling between his agents. Kate had crossed the line between friendly banter and malicious poking more than once, but so had Tony. And Gibbs had seldom tried to rein them in, just diverted them when they got too vicious. But rue the idiot who tried to attack one of them, the other would jump to their defense at once. And it had never crossed into fieldwork. McGee’s behavior during the last months on the other hand- “I should have done something.”
“Wow, that’s suspiciously near to an apology.”
Gibbs refused to be goaded into a topic change by banter. “Tell me DiNozzo, do you still trust McGee to have your six?”
Tony slowly turned around to face his supervisory agent, his face without expression. “He would never let me get hurt on purpose.”
“Maybe not, but his view of you might influence his decision. Would he warn you that the perp has a gun? Yes. Would he tell you that someone emptied a bucket of soapy water on the back stairs for the chance to see you slip and dirty your fancy designer pants? Not so sure there. Still dangerous in the field. At least he would think about it and-“
“In a dangerous situation every second counts.” Tony finished his thought and sighed deeply, letting his blank mask slip a little bit. “But what do you propose to do? Mr. MIT feels he has nothing more to learn from me. I can only wait and try to give him enough rope to hang himself with in a non dangerous way to show him that he isn’t as good as he thinks he is. You chewing him out will only get his hackles up and … Boss, I don’t want you fighting my battles.”
Gibbs rubbed his chin. He wouldn’t want that either if their positions were revised. “Your frat boy persona doesn’t make it easier.”
“You’re not asking me to turn into the Stepford version of Anthony DiNozzo, are you?”
And there was the carefully expressionless face again. Gibbs didn’t care for it at all. This was something that bothered him and it went beyond the problem of a high flying over-confident colleague. “Aren’t you tired of hiding all the time?” he asked provocatively and watched the reaction.
That wasn’t what the younger man had been expecting. Tony stared at him incredulously and then words nearly exploded out of his mouth. “My frat boy persona has its uses, and yes, it is fun to rile up people. It makes them feel safe, underestimate me, makes them slip up. Makes me seem to be harmless. You're the tough marine. Give me some credit, we're different but I am as much a survivor as you are. I won’t abandon something that's useful. I learned fast how to take advantage of my god given gifts. Do you know what happens to young cops if their older buddies think they are too book smart and snobbish?”
Oh, he could guess where this was going but that wasn’t the point. “They get some lessons in humility?” It was hard to follow the jumble of words. This seemed to be something the younger man had longed to tell him for some time, judging by the glittering eyes and the passion in his voice.
“They get hurt and sometimes the lessons go too far and you find yourself in a situation where you depend on your partner and your partner isn’t there or is too slow because he wanted to see the upstart rookie taken down a peg. The old boys don’t like new age shit like psychology, it makes them feel stupid. Nobody wants to feel stupid. I learned the lesson at my first district and never forgot again. Fucked up in other ways but this one I learned well.”
Gibbs never went to police academy. Cops made great bullies but boot camp could compare. “So you couch whatever you want to point out in movie trivia, because that's more acceptable than psychology.”
“Yeah. Movie fans are cool, geeks aren’t. To be honest, a lot of my hunches have their roots in movies scripts but I have taken other classes than sports at college and I am a fairly good profiler. Not all my insights are through instinct. You know it, you read my file. Don’t tell me I fooled YOU.”
Gibbs suspected what he really meant was "don’t tell me that you see me like McGee does".
“I am not like your old partners at the district, why try to use the same techniques?”
Tony waved his hand dismissively. “I didn’t know that. First I tried to see where the boundaries were, how you would react. You seemed to be mainly amused by my shenanigans and ignored it. But you encouraged my behavior as soon as Kate joined us, never called me on it.”
“It worked well. Got the best results out of both of you.” But it had set a bad precedent. Caitlin Todd, for all her vaunted profiling skills, had never completely seen behind Tony’s mask. But then McGee with his computer skills had joined the team and the mask was slipping less and less.
“And you always knew, you always could guess what went on behind the public persona. Why are you calling me out on it now?”
Because he wanted his partner to know that he could abandon the public persona outside the office. Gibbs wanted him to feel safe enough to do it and they weren’t there yet, nor was it something he could demand. He would have to earn it and a first step was to acknowledge that there was a difference between Agent DiNozzo and Tony.
Now it was Gibbs’ turn to talk and that was anything but easy, but he had promised himself that he would do all it took to make this work between them. That meant, among other thing, being honest. “You are very good at provoking reactions Tony, something about you pushes all of my buttons. I let you have your shields not only to defend yourself but to keep me distant as well.” As long as they played, Gibbs had been safe. Tony called him courageous but that wasn’t strictly true. Bombs, armed opponents, danger in the street and death the former Marine could face but personal stuff- not so much.
Gibbs was tiredly shaking his head, searching for the right words. “Nah. Hard to admit it, but you pulled the wool over my eyes more than once and I got tangled.” He could see the insecurity and hurt in the younger man’s eyes. “Hush, let me finish. Contrary to what you seem to think of me, I'm not a superhero. I have my human moments the same as you. And you're a good actor. You did fool me sometimes. The rest of the time... it wasn't my place to expose you. I have my own secrets. You wanted to play, so I let you."
“And it was fun to see me prance and perform, admit it. To see how much I wanted your attention.” Tony leaned back and tilted his head until he was looking at Gibbs upside down. His green eyes were dark and thoughtful.
“Yeah. And you liked to make me laugh like every clown everywhere does while internally mocking the audience’s stupidity. The joke’s never on the clown.”
“You didn’t laugh very often. Not outwardly.” Tony reached up and lightly cuffed Gibbs on the back of his head.
Gibbs nodded and allowed himself to smile. “You know why I know that our Probie isn’t a fully fledged field Agent yet, ready to lead an investigation unassisted?” He bent down until his nose nearly touched Tony’s but didn’t wait for him to shake or nod. “Hasn’t passed the DiNozzo test. If he can’t see through you, how can I be sure that he won’t be blinded by some smart criminal? So, no. Changing your public persona isn’t the way to go.”
He expected Tony to preen and laugh but it didn’t happen. The younger man was smiling, yes, but it was a small smile. “So, what do you propose? About McGee.”
Before Gibbs could answer, his phone began to ring insistently. The display read ‘David’. He had to take it. “Gibbs.” He barked into the receiver.
David know him well enough to not waste his time. “We found out who the driver was.”
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.