NCIS:Rag Doll. Angst/Drama PG 13 17/? (Tony-centric)
Title: Rag Doll
Chapter: 17/?
Fandom: NCIS
Author: cheekymice
Rating: PG13
Beta: Scousmuz1K
Genre: Drama/Angst
Disclaimer: I don't own anything relating to the TV show NCIS sadly.
Notes: So here I am back again with another multi chapter fic. I hope you enjoy. This will be my usual brand of overblown angst with a soupcon of whumpage. I can say that this story will not be dwelling on anything graphic regarding the subject matter, it is mainly a study on how difficult some undercover assignments must be.
~~~ ~~~~
Tony calmly picked lint off his sweatpants as Senior talked and talked about all the business pipe dreams he had, all the money he'd make through new contacts he'd found in Dubai and how maybe he would settle in that part of the world as the women were classy, beautiful and invariably independently wealthy.
It was always the same and completely typical of his father.
They hadn't spoken for months and although they were both trying hard to bridge the Grand Canyon size gap that bisected their relationship, it was still always an awkward exercise. Stilted conversations and uncomfortable silences were the general order of the day, which was incredible considering how much both loved to talk.
It also amused, no that wasn't the right word, pissed Tony off that Senior didn't consider a call at 1am from his son was anything other than an opportunity to brag about his delusional business prowess. Most parents would be on high alert, or at the very least they would casually enquire if anything were wrong.
It flashed through his mind just to say it, blurt it out.
'Well, dad thanks for asking. Actually I've just spent the last god knows how long undercover posing as a pedophile; I also had brain surgery and almost lost my fingers to frostbite too in case you were interested. Nope, nothing wrong, dad, just the fact that I haven't slept in days because whenever I close my eyes I see dead girls and images of kids doing things that they should never be forced to do; oh and I feel like I'm fucking coming apart at the seams. So, yeah, everything is fine and dandy with me really.'
But mollycoddling, as Senior called it, was not the man's way…ever, and Tony knew he'd simply be told to suck it up and stop wallowing.
Tony continued to sip his wine and wondered idly why he was actually trying to speak about anything remotely personal with his father when experience told him that their relationship only worked as long as they kept strictly to very sporadic and cordial chitchats about nothing.
He'd stupidly called Senior after he'd lost his partner and close friend in a shoot out with drug dealers in Peoria. All he'd gotten for his pains had been a completely disinterested comment that had run along the lines of 'you choose that career path, then you have to deal with things like that happening, Anthony'.
An insistent buzz in his ear broke through his internal monologue.
"Junior, are you still there? Junior…"
Tony realized that he must have stopped making any automatic 'I'm listening and I'm fascinated' noises.
He sipped his wine again before responding to his father, wincing as the acidic tang seeped into the raw cut in his lip.
"Dad…did you and my mother actually want children?" He didn't know where the question had come from but it was out there now. Guess that's what happened when you mixed alcohol with spending the evening with Washington's version of The Waltons.
"Junior…" His father sounded exasperated as he always did when things got a little too personal.
"C'mon, Dad. I really want to know." Tony kept his voice even, as if the answer really didn't matter. "Did you and mom actually plan on having kids?"
His father went silent for a while before responding.
"I met your mother when I was traveling, and after we married we continued globe trotting. That was our life, staying with friends, drinking and partying, free to move at the drop of a hat. Your mother and I never discussed if we wanted children, we were too wrapped up in each other. And then suddenly we found out we were expecting and we really weren't ready to be parents. We still had so much we wanted to do, to go to so many places," Senior said simply. "You came as a big shock to us. I guess we were both too selfish for a baby, it wasn't part of our plans."
"So I was an accident, huh?" Tony said tightly, not like he hadn't always known he'd been an afterthought.
"I took your mother to Rome for our first wedding anniversary; she'd been taking antibiotics for a mild strep throat infection and we forgot that we needed to take extra precautions." His father gave a throaty chuckle. "So I guess you could say you were a mistake in the heat of the moment. End of our life as we knew it."
He shut his eyes briefly. A mistake, that just about summed him up.
"Having me didn't seem to make a difference to those plans, you both continued gallivanting around the world anyway," Tony responded dryly. He picked off another bit of lint and rolled it in his fingers, his phone wedged by his chin.
"We took you along several times too if you remember, but you always managed to get into trouble! There was that trip to Monaco where you fell off that fountain wall, I never knew such a small head wound could bleed so much. And there was the vacation to England when you were five. We were sightseeing in Oxford and you decided to go walkabout without us; found you three hours later sitting in a public house with a group of students from Balliol College. You gave your mother a nervous breakdown that day."
Yeah, Tony remembered it well. In fact the hours he'd spent with those students counted as some of his happiest childhood memories.
He fondly recalled sitting next to a roaring log fire in a huge, cracked, green leather chair with several college scarves wound around his neck even though it had been hotter than the sun in that pub. He remembered feeling so proud when it was suggested that he became the college mascot because he'd been 'so funny'.
They'd completely indulged him, bought him packets of dry roasted peanuts, salt and vinegar chips and thick slices of pork pie with a hard-boiled egg right in the center. He'd drunk several glasses of dark brown, liquorish tasting Dandelion and Burdock soda, which he'd never encountered before. It had taken a little while to get used to but he'd persevered because it had made him feel like a grown up…especially as they hadn't insisted he use a straw like his mother always did. They had ruffled his hair and listened to his chatter without telling him to be quiet which seemed like Nirvana to him back then at a time when his life had been pretty much about being seen and not heard.
Tony also remembered how his father had roughly dragged him out of the pub by his arm, almost wrenching it off, and had spanked his ass sharply several times right there on the street for walking off and worrying them.
His mother had dramatically taken to her bed that afternoon and he'd been packed off that evening to stay with Uncle Clive in London for the rest of the vacation.
"You were a nightmare to take away," his father chuckled. "Always so inquisitive, we'd turn around for one minute, something would catch your eye and you'd be off. You drove us to distraction."
"So why did you have me if I was such an inconvenience?" Tony again forced his voice to stay light and neutral.
"Junior, not this again…" His father sighed down the line.
"What do you mean 'this again'…we've never talked about 'this' before," Tony responded, finally losing his calm. After an evening seeing how the Vances acted as a family it did hurt that his parents had always been so blasé about his very existence.
"We never talk, Dad," he finished quietly.
"Is that what this call is about?" Senior sounded testy.
"I don't know, Dad, you figure it out, I mean it's the middle of the night and you've not even asked why I called? Heaven forbid that anything be wrong, that I might actually need to 'talk' about anything." Tony said sarcastically.
"You're an adult Anthony, whining is unbecoming," Senior mocked. The problem was he'd been hearing the same refrain to be a grown up since he was about five.
"Jesus Dad, just answer the question!" Tony said aware that he was whining but he was too damn weary to care much. "Why did you even have me if I was such an inconvenience?"
"Because your mother didn't believe in abortion! There, now can I go to bed?" Senior sighed again.
"So you wanted to get rid of me?"
"That isn't what I said!" Senior snapped.
"Sounded like it to me, Dad, I'm an investigator remember…I put the pieces together to come up with the whole story." Tony said quietly.
Tony picked up the wine bottle and refilled his glass.
The awkward angle of his hand caused the neck of the bottle to clank against the lead crystal of his glass with a loud resounding ping.
"Are you drinking, Junior? I should have known, alcohol always made your mother maudlin and over emotional."
"Dad… for Gods sake!"
Tony deliberately slammed the bottle down on his side table and took a huge gulp of wine in direct retaliation to his father's statement.
"This isn't about me drinking; this is about knowing my whole life that I was nothing more than an inconvenience to you both. You made that abundantly clear to me; I spent my childhood being passed around like a package to anyone who'd have me. And it got worse after mom died. Jesus, you didn't even care who you dumped me with. If they said yes, that was good enough."
Tony took breath.
"Fuck, dad…. you left me for the whole weekend with a guy you'd only just met in a bar so you could go off and do God knows what. Do you know how many perverts and pedophiles there are out there? Did you even think of that when you left me with a man you knew absolutely nothing about?"
There was a stony silence at the other end of the line and when his father did finally speak, he sounded old, which was not something Tony ever thought of his father as being even though the man was advancing in years now.
""What are you trying to tell me, Junior? Did he molest you, is that what you're trying to tell me? Did that bastard mess with you?"
"God, Dad…. No!" Tony huffed out an exasperated breath.
He'd spent that whole weekend feeling utterly shit scared but the man hadn't actually touched him. Stared a lot, yeah and watched a little too intently as he got changed into his pajamas, as he got ready for bed but never touched him. Whether that was from sheer luck, nerves on the man's part or maybe he was maligning the guy just because he didn't know how to act around kids, Tony would never know. What he did know was his father should never have left him with a total stranger.
Shit, he pressed the heel of one of his hands hard into his forehead. He was beginning to get a headache. Funny how conversations with his father usually ended that way.
"If nothing happened then what is your problem, Anthony!" his father sounded way beyond pissed, probably annoyed at having wasted precious seconds of his life worrying about him.
"My problem is that you constantly left me with strangers, you didn't know who the hell they were or what they were capable of. Anything could have happened because you didn't give a shit." Tony yelled. Someone in the apartment above thumped on the floor over his head. Shit, yeah, it was the early hours of the morning and normal people were asleep. He lowered his voice. "And my problem is you still don't give a shit."
"I did my best back then, it wasn't easy having to cope with a child and earn a living," His father snapped.
"Millions of people seem to manage that task quite well, so why the hell was it so difficult for you?" Tony snapped back.
His father snorted.
"Oh please! Climb down off your damn high horse, Junior. Do you honestly think you'd do a better job? Don't make me laugh. You work twenty-hour days when you're on a case; you practically live at that naval yard even when you're not. You'd be around less than I was," Senior spat out angrily. "As you see fit for some reason to tell me that I've been a bad father, let me tell you something, Son. You'd be just as inept as I was, probably a whole lot worse because of your career."
Tony gripped his wine glass tighter and licked his swollen lip. His father was in full attack mode, he'd been on the receiving end many times throughout his life but it never got any easier.
"Face it, Junior, you've never managed to commit to anything or anyone your whole life so what makes you think you'd be any different with if a child were involved?"
He could hear his father breathing heavily down the line, could just picture the vein throbbing in Senior's neck as it always did when he got angry.
Tony unclenched his jaw and drained the last of his wine before he responded.
"Gee, thanks for that, dad, I guess that's it then for this latest heartwarming father and son bonding session. Must do it again next year. I'll look forward to it."
"Junior, look…. I…"
His father started to speak but Tony was done and didn't need to listen to any more of his father's words of wisdom. That line of conversation hadn't been what he'd intended when he'd made the call, it really hadn't but this is what happened when he and his father 'talked'.
"Goodnight, dad," Tony said quietly before he ended the call.
He switched his cell onto silent even though he didn't expect his father to call him back and threw it onto the chair opposite his bed.
Tony rubbed his temples, then ran a hand across the thick scar at the back of his scalp. His head was really throbbing like a bitch now.
He padded into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He found some painkillers that he'd been sent home from the hospital with and popped a couple in his mouth. He turned on the cold tap and cupped his hand under the faucet, scooped some water into his mouth and swallowed.
Tony wiped his mouth and stared at the mirror. His bruised eye where Ingrid's ring had caught him yesterday was slowly going down, his lip still stung like a bitch and the dark circles under his eyes told him that he really needed to go to bed, but he knew sleep wouldn't be coming anytime soon.
One simple twenty-minute call to his father had him feeling more alone than ever.
Why the hell had he ever thought that reaching out to his father was a good thing when his brain was in such a fucked up place?
The fact that he'd realized that his father was correct, that he was destined to carry the mantle for shit parenting by virtue of his genes was just the icing on the cake, but the phone call to his father hadn't been about wanting validation for his very existence as much as desperately reaching out to the one person he knew he should have been closest to, the one person who should have been able to scare away the monsters for him.
Although he was a grown man, he just wanted to hear his father to tell him it would be okay.
That's all he'd ever wanted.
~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~
The bullpens across the floor were starting to fill up now, yet he'd already squeezed in a meeting with Vance, talked with a black ops unit in Afghanistan via MTAC and completed the previous week's expense forms.
Entering the bullpens he glanced at the desks in his section, the one bowed head already there didn't look up when he passed.
"You were in early." Gibbs put his coffee down on the corner of his desk and set about taking his jacket off. "Your car was already here when I arrived at six."
"Still trying to catch up with my mails." Tony eventually looked up from his screen and waved his hand in the direction of his monitor.
"You sure that's all it is?" Gibbs unclipped his gun and tossed it in the drawer. He sat down. "Cause it looks to me like you didn't sleep much last night."
He didn't often venture into personal territory with his agents but after the past few months he felt it was a necessity. The elevator dinged and he silently cursed at the soon to be intrusion.
McGee stepped into the bullpen followed by Ziva.
"Morning Probie, Ziva," Tony greeted his colleagues.
Gibbs wasn't going to let him off that easily.
"Did you sleep at all last night?" he asked.
Ziva and McGee looked Tony's way.
The man in question rolled his eyes and answered nonchalantly.
"Slept like a log actually, just a late night," he smiled.
"Really? Leon said you left his place at nine, pretty much straight after dinner. That doesn't sound like a late night to me." Gibbs gulped his coffee and continued to watch his agent.
The two junior members of the team moved quickly from concern and onto amazement.
"The Director is inviting you to his home for dinner now, Tony?" Ziva cooed and raised an eyebrow.
"Dinner…with Director Vance?" McGee's mouth gaped open like a fish at the tidbit of news.
"Don't get your panties in a bunch, Probie, you're still The Toothpick's favorite." Tony quipped as he returned his focus to his screen tapped at his keyboard. "I suspect he only invited me because his wife made him rather than any deep seated liking for me."
Gibbs pursed his lips and returned his gaze to his paperwork. That was unusual. DiNozzo tended to use everything to his advantage where McGee was involved and gloating at any perceived favoritism with the director would be right up the man's street yet he was playing down the event.
Why?
"So why do you look so tired if you left early?" Gibbs asked looking up briefly from the file he'd just opened.
"It was a long day yesterday, first day back and all, don't bounce back like I used to, I guess." Tony shrugged.
That was a bunch of bull crap and Gibbs knew it.
Gibbs narrowed his eyes again and observed his agent.
As much as he hated to admit it, it was clear that what had happened in the past months obviously still weighed heavily on DiNozzo. His face was so pale that the split lip, slightly puffy eye and bruise on Tony's cheek from yesterdays skirmish stood out in stark relief against the skin, and he'd bet a month's pay that he was still spending his evenings staring vacantly into the Potomac; he'd have to check on that again.
When questioned, Leon had said that everything had gone extremely well, Tony had charmed both his wife and children, had appeared relaxed until after dinner when he'd seemed to withdraw from the evening, and made his excuses to leave even though the night had been young. The director had admitted to being at a loss as to what had triggered the switch.
Nope, DiNozzo had dark circles under his eyes and a tight pinched expression on his face that said the man had something on his mind and he was going to get to the bottom of it before the guy managed to tie himself up in knots that no one would be able to untangle.
Tony shut the refrigerator in the rec room and sighed. It had been a sad day when Special Agent Ross had jumped ship over to the FBI. Damn, that man's wife could cook, and just about everyone in the agency at one point or the other had purloined the man's food supply.
He spied a Krispy Kreme box on the counter top and quickly advanced on it, flipping open the lid with one finger and peering in. There was one solitar, glazed donut sitting in the bottom. Taking a large bite, he frowned as he chewed; stale was not the word but beggars can't be choosers so he shrugged, and rinsed down the dry mouthful with some of his coffee.
~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~
The day was turning out to be a quiet one. The sort of day that was as much a blessing as it was a curse. He was beyond tired so the lack of brainpower needed was a plus but the day was dragging big time and that wasn't a boon when all he wanted was to get home, shut the blinds and ignore the world.
Leaning heavily against the counter, Tony finished off his impromptu stale snack.
His cell vibrated in his pocket and he retrieved it with the less sticky hand, checking the screen fully expecting it to be McGee warning him that Gibbs was looking for him or Abby, just because she wanted to chat.
It wasn't either.
He absentmindedly wiped his hand against his pant leg as he stared at the screen.
Stared at his father's number.
As he debated whether or not to answer, his cell stopped ringing as it tripped into answerphone. He waited, knew he should just press delete without even listening but he always did have a masochistic streak. Sighing, he brought his cell up to his ear and started to listen to the message his father had just left.
'Junior, Look, about last night...'
Tony gritted his teeth as he tucked his phone under his chin and turning on the faucet he rinsed the sugary residue off his hands.
'…On reflection I was perhaps a little too blunt but you didn't hold back last night in pointing out my flaws as a father maybe it's time I listed your flaws as a son but I'm not going to get into another agument with you... I do hink it's time for you to take a long hard look in the mirror, Son and realize that the apple didn't fall far from the tree…'
Without even knowing he was doing it he spun around and threw the cell as hard as he could against the farthest wall as anger and fear took over. Anger that his father felt the need to rub his face in the conversation once more and fear because he knew what his father said was true.
It took him a couple of seconds after the red haze left his vision to realize he'd narrowly missed hitting one of his colleagues in the head as they'd entered the rec room in search of coffee.
Special Agent Samantha Danvers stood stock-still, staring at him as if he were a crazy man. He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving with barely tempered emotion so he supposed that wasn't too far off the mark.
"Sorry, cold callers really tick me off, Sam," he forced a wide smile as he quipped to try and bring down the tension in the room but the look on her face told him, that the smile was probably pure Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining' and she wasn't convinced.
As he stepped forward to retrieve the pieces of his shattered cell from Danvers' feet, she quickly moved away from him.
He frowned at the move because she'd never had a problem with him invading her space before, then realization hit.
Oh shit, just great, she looked like she was actually scared of him.
He wanted to tell her that c'mon, what did she think he was going to do, hit her?
Hell, he'd never raised a hand to a woman before! But considering Danvers was seeing for the first time that the flirty, chatty, affable fool that was Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo had one hell of a temper whatever he said would probably only make the situation more uncomfortable.
Red flamed up his neck and face as he grabbed his broken cell. He swallowed hard and quickly left the room with Danvers eyes still boring into his back.
Absolutely fan-fucking-tastic.
He was already getting the stink eye from security for getting two of theirs suspended, and now he'd just added terrifying random work colleagues into the mix of what was already shaping up to be a crap week.
Plus... Special Agent Danvers was one of the biggest gossips he'd ever met and Tony predicted that this latest little episode would be halfway around the yard before he even made it back into the bullpens, and probably with several embellishments when good old Chinese whispers came into play.
He kept his head down as he walked down the stairs, trying to calm his beating heart and sinking gut.
At his desk he fumbled to remove the sim card from amongst the broken fragments of his phone. Task completed he unceremoniously dumped the useless mess into the trash at his feet with a loud clatter. He wrenched open the stationery cupboard door with a loud crash and retrieved one of the boxed, pristine new cells from the shelf, slamming the door shut as a final nod to his temper.
Sitting back at his desk he tried to break open the packaging but his his fingers still felt weird, overly sensitive post frostbite and his blunt nails just weren't doing it as they skittered over the shiny surface of the cellophane without doing any damage.
Damn, he was sure companies did it on purpose.
Frustrated, he swore impatiently under his breath.
Using his teeth, he tore the cellophane from the packaging and set about opening the box.
"Had an accident with your phone, DiNozzo?" Gibbs' voice broke through his frustration.
Tony looked up from his ministrations for the first time since entering the pen.
Oh yeah, there were other people around at this time of the day and boy were they eyeballing him. Gibbs had an unreadable expression on his face; Ziva and McGee were both frowning.
He licked his lips and smiled as if he didn't have a care in the world.
"Yup," he responded flippantly. "But I'm still about five down on your score on new phones this year, Boss."
"Is that so, DiNozzo?" Gibbs narrowed his eyes at him until Tony felt like he was up on a light box, an x-ray, naked and exposed.
"Found out the hard way that phones and flights of concrete stairs don't mix."
Tony grinned at everyone, nothing to see here, people, just a butterfingers accident.
Gibbs grunted and to anyone else it would have appeared that he'd returned his focus to the file he'd been reading but Tony knew different, it was a simply a ruse, a deflection that allowed the man to observe sneakily.
Tony pretended that he was oblivious, lowered his eyes and turned his attention back to the phone to check all his data had transferred before he plugged it in to charge. He tried to keep his body language loose and easy as he tapped at his keyboard. It must have worked as, slowly Ziva and McGee stopped sending him covert glances. He set about acting as normally as possible even though he was feeling anything but.
The words document he was working on blurred, and faded before his eyes. He shook his head to try and remove the images zigzagging through his brain of the rotting corpse of a little girl buried under the snow, images of innocent children being degraded.
Tony took a deep breath, and rubbed his forehead, tiredness seemed to have seeped into every bone and every muscle.
He opened his top drawer and pulled out a packet of caffeine tablets and tossed a couple into his mouth, in the hope they would kick-start his brain. As he swilled them down with a swig from a bottle of water on his desk, he saw that Gibbs was watching him again.
Nothing got past the man. Again, he ignored the frown.
Thirty minutes later Special Agent Danvers walked by, carrying a cup of coffee from what must have been the longest break known to man. Tony wondered just how many people she'd cornered in that time. He tilted his head; she flushed red as she passed, steadfastly ignoring his smile. Tony shrugged and surreptitiously tracked her progress across the floor with the corner of his eye all the way to her pen.
Instead of settling down behind her desk she headed straight over to the senior field agent on her team. She leaned over Special Agent Finn's shoulder, her lips moving quickly as she spoke and if Tony was unsure as to what she was talking about then the way both agents suddenly looked his way certainly dispelled any doubt.
The knot in his gut tightened when Finn nodded at her, stood and headed their way, stopping in front of Gibbs desk.
His boss lifted his head and raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Can I help you, Martin?"
"Uh, can I have a word, Gibbs?"
"Yup." Gibbs leaned back in his chair and placed his hands nonchalantly behind his head.
"In private." Finn nodded towards the window.
Gibbs frowned but stood up and followed the other team lead.
Oh shit.
Tony looked back over toward Special Agent Danvers; she was concentrating on something on her desk with such a fixed, intense stare she would have put Uri Geller to shame.
Over at the window he could see Finn talking animatedly, he couldn't hear what was being said but he could read Gibbs' body language very well and it wasn't good. The subtle changes signaled anger but he couldn't tell who exactly it was aimed at, him or Finn; one thing for sure was he wasn't going to wait around to find out.
Tony stood, shut his PC down, snatched his new cell and grabbed his coat and bag in one fluid movement.
"Where are you going?" McGee asked.
"Home," He turned off his light whilst still looking over at the window.
"But it is only five…" Ziva scoffed.
"Got a headache. Tell Gibbs." He called as he all but ran towards the stairs.
"Wait! ...Tony…" McGee shouted after him.
Way to go, Probie. I'm trying to make my escape and you go and yell my name across the floor at the top of your lungs.
The door clattered after him as he trotted down the stairs to the parking level.
Reaching his car he pulled out his keys from his pocket. In his haste he fumbled and dropped them.
His heart was racing and he felt pumped up on adrenaline or maybe it was just the caffeine tablets. It kind of felt like he was ten again and he'd just stolen a Milky Way from the store for a dare. Today, like then with every step he kept expecting to feel a hand on his shoulder, except this time it was the hand of his boss and not a store detective.
He cast a quick glance towards the stairwell.
Tony fully expected to see Leroy Jethro Gibbs barreling towards him in full battle mode and call him a coward, but after yesterdays FUBAR he really couldn't face another 'talk' from his boss about where his 'head was at' right now.
He bent down and picked up his keys.
His heart was still pounding in anticipation of a confrontation but the fire door to the stairwell stayed shut. Christ this was exhilarating after weeks of sitting on his ass at home, and he still couldn't quite believe that he was actually going to do it, get away clean and clear.
Tony tried to jam the key in the door.
Jesus, when had it become so difficult to put a damn key in a frigging lock?
And why the hell did the air suddenly seem thin and stale in the garage?
His hands were shaking and his started to feel an odd tightness forming in his throat and chest.
He couldn't catch his breath and sucked more oxygen into his lungs as he scrabbled with the lock.
In, out, in, out, in, out.
The keys dropped onto the floor with a loud clatter again.
He stumbled forward and leaned heavily against his car door.
What the hell was happening?
Little black dots swayed in front of his eyes, pins and needles invaded his hands and legs and he could feel the slide start to happen as his coat slithered across the paintwork, his body gaining momentum downwards.
Strong hands suddenly grabbed his elbows and guided him towards the ground.
He could hear Gibbs barking into his phone at someone, telling them to get down to the garage stat.
The black dots were swarming like bees now and he let his head fall forward as the room swam.
"You've got to slow down your breathing, DiNozzo." His boss' voice sounded muffled and far away. He could hear the words floating by.
A hand quickly pinned him to the car door, whilst the other lifted his chin upwards.
"Slow and easy, c'mon, Tony, you've got to calm down."
Okay, fine but that was easier said than done even though it should have been the easiest thing in the world.
What the fuck was happening to him tight now because he was at a loss to figure it out.
TBC
Cookies and chocolate to all who review. xx
Chapter: 17/?
Fandom: NCIS
Author: cheekymice
Rating: PG13
Beta: Scousmuz1K
Genre: Drama/Angst
Disclaimer: I don't own anything relating to the TV show NCIS sadly.
Notes: So here I am back again with another multi chapter fic. I hope you enjoy. This will be my usual brand of overblown angst with a soupcon of whumpage. I can say that this story will not be dwelling on anything graphic regarding the subject matter, it is mainly a study on how difficult some undercover assignments must be.
~~~ ~~~~
Tony calmly picked lint off his sweatpants as Senior talked and talked about all the business pipe dreams he had, all the money he'd make through new contacts he'd found in Dubai and how maybe he would settle in that part of the world as the women were classy, beautiful and invariably independently wealthy.
It was always the same and completely typical of his father.
They hadn't spoken for months and although they were both trying hard to bridge the Grand Canyon size gap that bisected their relationship, it was still always an awkward exercise. Stilted conversations and uncomfortable silences were the general order of the day, which was incredible considering how much both loved to talk.
It also amused, no that wasn't the right word, pissed Tony off that Senior didn't consider a call at 1am from his son was anything other than an opportunity to brag about his delusional business prowess. Most parents would be on high alert, or at the very least they would casually enquire if anything were wrong.
It flashed through his mind just to say it, blurt it out.
'Well, dad thanks for asking. Actually I've just spent the last god knows how long undercover posing as a pedophile; I also had brain surgery and almost lost my fingers to frostbite too in case you were interested. Nope, nothing wrong, dad, just the fact that I haven't slept in days because whenever I close my eyes I see dead girls and images of kids doing things that they should never be forced to do; oh and I feel like I'm fucking coming apart at the seams. So, yeah, everything is fine and dandy with me really.'
But mollycoddling, as Senior called it, was not the man's way…ever, and Tony knew he'd simply be told to suck it up and stop wallowing.
Tony continued to sip his wine and wondered idly why he was actually trying to speak about anything remotely personal with his father when experience told him that their relationship only worked as long as they kept strictly to very sporadic and cordial chitchats about nothing.
He'd stupidly called Senior after he'd lost his partner and close friend in a shoot out with drug dealers in Peoria. All he'd gotten for his pains had been a completely disinterested comment that had run along the lines of 'you choose that career path, then you have to deal with things like that happening, Anthony'.
An insistent buzz in his ear broke through his internal monologue.
"Junior, are you still there? Junior…"
Tony realized that he must have stopped making any automatic 'I'm listening and I'm fascinated' noises.
He sipped his wine again before responding to his father, wincing as the acidic tang seeped into the raw cut in his lip.
"Dad…did you and my mother actually want children?" He didn't know where the question had come from but it was out there now. Guess that's what happened when you mixed alcohol with spending the evening with Washington's version of The Waltons.
"Junior…" His father sounded exasperated as he always did when things got a little too personal.
"C'mon, Dad. I really want to know." Tony kept his voice even, as if the answer really didn't matter. "Did you and mom actually plan on having kids?"
His father went silent for a while before responding.
"I met your mother when I was traveling, and after we married we continued globe trotting. That was our life, staying with friends, drinking and partying, free to move at the drop of a hat. Your mother and I never discussed if we wanted children, we were too wrapped up in each other. And then suddenly we found out we were expecting and we really weren't ready to be parents. We still had so much we wanted to do, to go to so many places," Senior said simply. "You came as a big shock to us. I guess we were both too selfish for a baby, it wasn't part of our plans."
"So I was an accident, huh?" Tony said tightly, not like he hadn't always known he'd been an afterthought.
"I took your mother to Rome for our first wedding anniversary; she'd been taking antibiotics for a mild strep throat infection and we forgot that we needed to take extra precautions." His father gave a throaty chuckle. "So I guess you could say you were a mistake in the heat of the moment. End of our life as we knew it."
He shut his eyes briefly. A mistake, that just about summed him up.
"Having me didn't seem to make a difference to those plans, you both continued gallivanting around the world anyway," Tony responded dryly. He picked off another bit of lint and rolled it in his fingers, his phone wedged by his chin.
"We took you along several times too if you remember, but you always managed to get into trouble! There was that trip to Monaco where you fell off that fountain wall, I never knew such a small head wound could bleed so much. And there was the vacation to England when you were five. We were sightseeing in Oxford and you decided to go walkabout without us; found you three hours later sitting in a public house with a group of students from Balliol College. You gave your mother a nervous breakdown that day."
Yeah, Tony remembered it well. In fact the hours he'd spent with those students counted as some of his happiest childhood memories.
He fondly recalled sitting next to a roaring log fire in a huge, cracked, green leather chair with several college scarves wound around his neck even though it had been hotter than the sun in that pub. He remembered feeling so proud when it was suggested that he became the college mascot because he'd been 'so funny'.
They'd completely indulged him, bought him packets of dry roasted peanuts, salt and vinegar chips and thick slices of pork pie with a hard-boiled egg right in the center. He'd drunk several glasses of dark brown, liquorish tasting Dandelion and Burdock soda, which he'd never encountered before. It had taken a little while to get used to but he'd persevered because it had made him feel like a grown up…especially as they hadn't insisted he use a straw like his mother always did. They had ruffled his hair and listened to his chatter without telling him to be quiet which seemed like Nirvana to him back then at a time when his life had been pretty much about being seen and not heard.
Tony also remembered how his father had roughly dragged him out of the pub by his arm, almost wrenching it off, and had spanked his ass sharply several times right there on the street for walking off and worrying them.
His mother had dramatically taken to her bed that afternoon and he'd been packed off that evening to stay with Uncle Clive in London for the rest of the vacation.
"You were a nightmare to take away," his father chuckled. "Always so inquisitive, we'd turn around for one minute, something would catch your eye and you'd be off. You drove us to distraction."
"So why did you have me if I was such an inconvenience?" Tony again forced his voice to stay light and neutral.
"Junior, not this again…" His father sighed down the line.
"What do you mean 'this again'…we've never talked about 'this' before," Tony responded, finally losing his calm. After an evening seeing how the Vances acted as a family it did hurt that his parents had always been so blasé about his very existence.
"We never talk, Dad," he finished quietly.
"Is that what this call is about?" Senior sounded testy.
"I don't know, Dad, you figure it out, I mean it's the middle of the night and you've not even asked why I called? Heaven forbid that anything be wrong, that I might actually need to 'talk' about anything." Tony said sarcastically.
"You're an adult Anthony, whining is unbecoming," Senior mocked. The problem was he'd been hearing the same refrain to be a grown up since he was about five.
"Jesus Dad, just answer the question!" Tony said aware that he was whining but he was too damn weary to care much. "Why did you even have me if I was such an inconvenience?"
"Because your mother didn't believe in abortion! There, now can I go to bed?" Senior sighed again.
"So you wanted to get rid of me?"
"That isn't what I said!" Senior snapped.
"Sounded like it to me, Dad, I'm an investigator remember…I put the pieces together to come up with the whole story." Tony said quietly.
Tony picked up the wine bottle and refilled his glass.
The awkward angle of his hand caused the neck of the bottle to clank against the lead crystal of his glass with a loud resounding ping.
"Are you drinking, Junior? I should have known, alcohol always made your mother maudlin and over emotional."
"Dad… for Gods sake!"
Tony deliberately slammed the bottle down on his side table and took a huge gulp of wine in direct retaliation to his father's statement.
"This isn't about me drinking; this is about knowing my whole life that I was nothing more than an inconvenience to you both. You made that abundantly clear to me; I spent my childhood being passed around like a package to anyone who'd have me. And it got worse after mom died. Jesus, you didn't even care who you dumped me with. If they said yes, that was good enough."
Tony took breath.
"Fuck, dad…. you left me for the whole weekend with a guy you'd only just met in a bar so you could go off and do God knows what. Do you know how many perverts and pedophiles there are out there? Did you even think of that when you left me with a man you knew absolutely nothing about?"
There was a stony silence at the other end of the line and when his father did finally speak, he sounded old, which was not something Tony ever thought of his father as being even though the man was advancing in years now.
""What are you trying to tell me, Junior? Did he molest you, is that what you're trying to tell me? Did that bastard mess with you?"
"God, Dad…. No!" Tony huffed out an exasperated breath.
He'd spent that whole weekend feeling utterly shit scared but the man hadn't actually touched him. Stared a lot, yeah and watched a little too intently as he got changed into his pajamas, as he got ready for bed but never touched him. Whether that was from sheer luck, nerves on the man's part or maybe he was maligning the guy just because he didn't know how to act around kids, Tony would never know. What he did know was his father should never have left him with a total stranger.
Shit, he pressed the heel of one of his hands hard into his forehead. He was beginning to get a headache. Funny how conversations with his father usually ended that way.
"If nothing happened then what is your problem, Anthony!" his father sounded way beyond pissed, probably annoyed at having wasted precious seconds of his life worrying about him.
"My problem is that you constantly left me with strangers, you didn't know who the hell they were or what they were capable of. Anything could have happened because you didn't give a shit." Tony yelled. Someone in the apartment above thumped on the floor over his head. Shit, yeah, it was the early hours of the morning and normal people were asleep. He lowered his voice. "And my problem is you still don't give a shit."
"I did my best back then, it wasn't easy having to cope with a child and earn a living," His father snapped.
"Millions of people seem to manage that task quite well, so why the hell was it so difficult for you?" Tony snapped back.
His father snorted.
"Oh please! Climb down off your damn high horse, Junior. Do you honestly think you'd do a better job? Don't make me laugh. You work twenty-hour days when you're on a case; you practically live at that naval yard even when you're not. You'd be around less than I was," Senior spat out angrily. "As you see fit for some reason to tell me that I've been a bad father, let me tell you something, Son. You'd be just as inept as I was, probably a whole lot worse because of your career."
Tony gripped his wine glass tighter and licked his swollen lip. His father was in full attack mode, he'd been on the receiving end many times throughout his life but it never got any easier.
"Face it, Junior, you've never managed to commit to anything or anyone your whole life so what makes you think you'd be any different with if a child were involved?"
He could hear his father breathing heavily down the line, could just picture the vein throbbing in Senior's neck as it always did when he got angry.
Tony unclenched his jaw and drained the last of his wine before he responded.
"Gee, thanks for that, dad, I guess that's it then for this latest heartwarming father and son bonding session. Must do it again next year. I'll look forward to it."
"Junior, look…. I…"
His father started to speak but Tony was done and didn't need to listen to any more of his father's words of wisdom. That line of conversation hadn't been what he'd intended when he'd made the call, it really hadn't but this is what happened when he and his father 'talked'.
"Goodnight, dad," Tony said quietly before he ended the call.
He switched his cell onto silent even though he didn't expect his father to call him back and threw it onto the chair opposite his bed.
Tony rubbed his temples, then ran a hand across the thick scar at the back of his scalp. His head was really throbbing like a bitch now.
He padded into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He found some painkillers that he'd been sent home from the hospital with and popped a couple in his mouth. He turned on the cold tap and cupped his hand under the faucet, scooped some water into his mouth and swallowed.
Tony wiped his mouth and stared at the mirror. His bruised eye where Ingrid's ring had caught him yesterday was slowly going down, his lip still stung like a bitch and the dark circles under his eyes told him that he really needed to go to bed, but he knew sleep wouldn't be coming anytime soon.
One simple twenty-minute call to his father had him feeling more alone than ever.
Why the hell had he ever thought that reaching out to his father was a good thing when his brain was in such a fucked up place?
The fact that he'd realized that his father was correct, that he was destined to carry the mantle for shit parenting by virtue of his genes was just the icing on the cake, but the phone call to his father hadn't been about wanting validation for his very existence as much as desperately reaching out to the one person he knew he should have been closest to, the one person who should have been able to scare away the monsters for him.
Although he was a grown man, he just wanted to hear his father to tell him it would be okay.
That's all he'd ever wanted.
~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~
The bullpens across the floor were starting to fill up now, yet he'd already squeezed in a meeting with Vance, talked with a black ops unit in Afghanistan via MTAC and completed the previous week's expense forms.
Entering the bullpens he glanced at the desks in his section, the one bowed head already there didn't look up when he passed.
"You were in early." Gibbs put his coffee down on the corner of his desk and set about taking his jacket off. "Your car was already here when I arrived at six."
"Still trying to catch up with my mails." Tony eventually looked up from his screen and waved his hand in the direction of his monitor.
"You sure that's all it is?" Gibbs unclipped his gun and tossed it in the drawer. He sat down. "Cause it looks to me like you didn't sleep much last night."
He didn't often venture into personal territory with his agents but after the past few months he felt it was a necessity. The elevator dinged and he silently cursed at the soon to be intrusion.
McGee stepped into the bullpen followed by Ziva.
"Morning Probie, Ziva," Tony greeted his colleagues.
Gibbs wasn't going to let him off that easily.
"Did you sleep at all last night?" he asked.
Ziva and McGee looked Tony's way.
The man in question rolled his eyes and answered nonchalantly.
"Slept like a log actually, just a late night," he smiled.
"Really? Leon said you left his place at nine, pretty much straight after dinner. That doesn't sound like a late night to me." Gibbs gulped his coffee and continued to watch his agent.
The two junior members of the team moved quickly from concern and onto amazement.
"The Director is inviting you to his home for dinner now, Tony?" Ziva cooed and raised an eyebrow.
"Dinner…with Director Vance?" McGee's mouth gaped open like a fish at the tidbit of news.
"Don't get your panties in a bunch, Probie, you're still The Toothpick's favorite." Tony quipped as he returned his focus to his screen tapped at his keyboard. "I suspect he only invited me because his wife made him rather than any deep seated liking for me."
Gibbs pursed his lips and returned his gaze to his paperwork. That was unusual. DiNozzo tended to use everything to his advantage where McGee was involved and gloating at any perceived favoritism with the director would be right up the man's street yet he was playing down the event.
Why?
"So why do you look so tired if you left early?" Gibbs asked looking up briefly from the file he'd just opened.
"It was a long day yesterday, first day back and all, don't bounce back like I used to, I guess." Tony shrugged.
That was a bunch of bull crap and Gibbs knew it.
Gibbs narrowed his eyes again and observed his agent.
As much as he hated to admit it, it was clear that what had happened in the past months obviously still weighed heavily on DiNozzo. His face was so pale that the split lip, slightly puffy eye and bruise on Tony's cheek from yesterdays skirmish stood out in stark relief against the skin, and he'd bet a month's pay that he was still spending his evenings staring vacantly into the Potomac; he'd have to check on that again.
When questioned, Leon had said that everything had gone extremely well, Tony had charmed both his wife and children, had appeared relaxed until after dinner when he'd seemed to withdraw from the evening, and made his excuses to leave even though the night had been young. The director had admitted to being at a loss as to what had triggered the switch.
Nope, DiNozzo had dark circles under his eyes and a tight pinched expression on his face that said the man had something on his mind and he was going to get to the bottom of it before the guy managed to tie himself up in knots that no one would be able to untangle.
Tony shut the refrigerator in the rec room and sighed. It had been a sad day when Special Agent Ross had jumped ship over to the FBI. Damn, that man's wife could cook, and just about everyone in the agency at one point or the other had purloined the man's food supply.
He spied a Krispy Kreme box on the counter top and quickly advanced on it, flipping open the lid with one finger and peering in. There was one solitar, glazed donut sitting in the bottom. Taking a large bite, he frowned as he chewed; stale was not the word but beggars can't be choosers so he shrugged, and rinsed down the dry mouthful with some of his coffee.
~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~
The day was turning out to be a quiet one. The sort of day that was as much a blessing as it was a curse. He was beyond tired so the lack of brainpower needed was a plus but the day was dragging big time and that wasn't a boon when all he wanted was to get home, shut the blinds and ignore the world.
Leaning heavily against the counter, Tony finished off his impromptu stale snack.
His cell vibrated in his pocket and he retrieved it with the less sticky hand, checking the screen fully expecting it to be McGee warning him that Gibbs was looking for him or Abby, just because she wanted to chat.
It wasn't either.
He absentmindedly wiped his hand against his pant leg as he stared at the screen.
Stared at his father's number.
As he debated whether or not to answer, his cell stopped ringing as it tripped into answerphone. He waited, knew he should just press delete without even listening but he always did have a masochistic streak. Sighing, he brought his cell up to his ear and started to listen to the message his father had just left.
'Junior, Look, about last night...'
Tony gritted his teeth as he tucked his phone under his chin and turning on the faucet he rinsed the sugary residue off his hands.
'…On reflection I was perhaps a little too blunt but you didn't hold back last night in pointing out my flaws as a father maybe it's time I listed your flaws as a son but I'm not going to get into another agument with you... I do hink it's time for you to take a long hard look in the mirror, Son and realize that the apple didn't fall far from the tree…'
Without even knowing he was doing it he spun around and threw the cell as hard as he could against the farthest wall as anger and fear took over. Anger that his father felt the need to rub his face in the conversation once more and fear because he knew what his father said was true.
It took him a couple of seconds after the red haze left his vision to realize he'd narrowly missed hitting one of his colleagues in the head as they'd entered the rec room in search of coffee.
Special Agent Samantha Danvers stood stock-still, staring at him as if he were a crazy man. He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving with barely tempered emotion so he supposed that wasn't too far off the mark.
"Sorry, cold callers really tick me off, Sam," he forced a wide smile as he quipped to try and bring down the tension in the room but the look on her face told him, that the smile was probably pure Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining' and she wasn't convinced.
As he stepped forward to retrieve the pieces of his shattered cell from Danvers' feet, she quickly moved away from him.
He frowned at the move because she'd never had a problem with him invading her space before, then realization hit.
Oh shit, just great, she looked like she was actually scared of him.
He wanted to tell her that c'mon, what did she think he was going to do, hit her?
Hell, he'd never raised a hand to a woman before! But considering Danvers was seeing for the first time that the flirty, chatty, affable fool that was Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo had one hell of a temper whatever he said would probably only make the situation more uncomfortable.
Red flamed up his neck and face as he grabbed his broken cell. He swallowed hard and quickly left the room with Danvers eyes still boring into his back.
Absolutely fan-fucking-tastic.
He was already getting the stink eye from security for getting two of theirs suspended, and now he'd just added terrifying random work colleagues into the mix of what was already shaping up to be a crap week.
Plus... Special Agent Danvers was one of the biggest gossips he'd ever met and Tony predicted that this latest little episode would be halfway around the yard before he even made it back into the bullpens, and probably with several embellishments when good old Chinese whispers came into play.
He kept his head down as he walked down the stairs, trying to calm his beating heart and sinking gut.
At his desk he fumbled to remove the sim card from amongst the broken fragments of his phone. Task completed he unceremoniously dumped the useless mess into the trash at his feet with a loud clatter. He wrenched open the stationery cupboard door with a loud crash and retrieved one of the boxed, pristine new cells from the shelf, slamming the door shut as a final nod to his temper.
Sitting back at his desk he tried to break open the packaging but his his fingers still felt weird, overly sensitive post frostbite and his blunt nails just weren't doing it as they skittered over the shiny surface of the cellophane without doing any damage.
Damn, he was sure companies did it on purpose.
Frustrated, he swore impatiently under his breath.
Using his teeth, he tore the cellophane from the packaging and set about opening the box.
"Had an accident with your phone, DiNozzo?" Gibbs' voice broke through his frustration.
Tony looked up from his ministrations for the first time since entering the pen.
Oh yeah, there were other people around at this time of the day and boy were they eyeballing him. Gibbs had an unreadable expression on his face; Ziva and McGee were both frowning.
He licked his lips and smiled as if he didn't have a care in the world.
"Yup," he responded flippantly. "But I'm still about five down on your score on new phones this year, Boss."
"Is that so, DiNozzo?" Gibbs narrowed his eyes at him until Tony felt like he was up on a light box, an x-ray, naked and exposed.
"Found out the hard way that phones and flights of concrete stairs don't mix."
Tony grinned at everyone, nothing to see here, people, just a butterfingers accident.
Gibbs grunted and to anyone else it would have appeared that he'd returned his focus to the file he'd been reading but Tony knew different, it was a simply a ruse, a deflection that allowed the man to observe sneakily.
Tony pretended that he was oblivious, lowered his eyes and turned his attention back to the phone to check all his data had transferred before he plugged it in to charge. He tried to keep his body language loose and easy as he tapped at his keyboard. It must have worked as, slowly Ziva and McGee stopped sending him covert glances. He set about acting as normally as possible even though he was feeling anything but.
The words document he was working on blurred, and faded before his eyes. He shook his head to try and remove the images zigzagging through his brain of the rotting corpse of a little girl buried under the snow, images of innocent children being degraded.
Tony took a deep breath, and rubbed his forehead, tiredness seemed to have seeped into every bone and every muscle.
He opened his top drawer and pulled out a packet of caffeine tablets and tossed a couple into his mouth, in the hope they would kick-start his brain. As he swilled them down with a swig from a bottle of water on his desk, he saw that Gibbs was watching him again.
Nothing got past the man. Again, he ignored the frown.
Thirty minutes later Special Agent Danvers walked by, carrying a cup of coffee from what must have been the longest break known to man. Tony wondered just how many people she'd cornered in that time. He tilted his head; she flushed red as she passed, steadfastly ignoring his smile. Tony shrugged and surreptitiously tracked her progress across the floor with the corner of his eye all the way to her pen.
Instead of settling down behind her desk she headed straight over to the senior field agent on her team. She leaned over Special Agent Finn's shoulder, her lips moving quickly as she spoke and if Tony was unsure as to what she was talking about then the way both agents suddenly looked his way certainly dispelled any doubt.
The knot in his gut tightened when Finn nodded at her, stood and headed their way, stopping in front of Gibbs desk.
His boss lifted his head and raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Can I help you, Martin?"
"Uh, can I have a word, Gibbs?"
"Yup." Gibbs leaned back in his chair and placed his hands nonchalantly behind his head.
"In private." Finn nodded towards the window.
Gibbs frowned but stood up and followed the other team lead.
Oh shit.
Tony looked back over toward Special Agent Danvers; she was concentrating on something on her desk with such a fixed, intense stare she would have put Uri Geller to shame.
Over at the window he could see Finn talking animatedly, he couldn't hear what was being said but he could read Gibbs' body language very well and it wasn't good. The subtle changes signaled anger but he couldn't tell who exactly it was aimed at, him or Finn; one thing for sure was he wasn't going to wait around to find out.
Tony stood, shut his PC down, snatched his new cell and grabbed his coat and bag in one fluid movement.
"Where are you going?" McGee asked.
"Home," He turned off his light whilst still looking over at the window.
"But it is only five…" Ziva scoffed.
"Got a headache. Tell Gibbs." He called as he all but ran towards the stairs.
"Wait! ...Tony…" McGee shouted after him.
Way to go, Probie. I'm trying to make my escape and you go and yell my name across the floor at the top of your lungs.
The door clattered after him as he trotted down the stairs to the parking level.
Reaching his car he pulled out his keys from his pocket. In his haste he fumbled and dropped them.
His heart was racing and he felt pumped up on adrenaline or maybe it was just the caffeine tablets. It kind of felt like he was ten again and he'd just stolen a Milky Way from the store for a dare. Today, like then with every step he kept expecting to feel a hand on his shoulder, except this time it was the hand of his boss and not a store detective.
He cast a quick glance towards the stairwell.
Tony fully expected to see Leroy Jethro Gibbs barreling towards him in full battle mode and call him a coward, but after yesterdays FUBAR he really couldn't face another 'talk' from his boss about where his 'head was at' right now.
He bent down and picked up his keys.
His heart was still pounding in anticipation of a confrontation but the fire door to the stairwell stayed shut. Christ this was exhilarating after weeks of sitting on his ass at home, and he still couldn't quite believe that he was actually going to do it, get away clean and clear.
Tony tried to jam the key in the door.
Jesus, when had it become so difficult to put a damn key in a frigging lock?
And why the hell did the air suddenly seem thin and stale in the garage?
His hands were shaking and his started to feel an odd tightness forming in his throat and chest.
He couldn't catch his breath and sucked more oxygen into his lungs as he scrabbled with the lock.
In, out, in, out, in, out.
The keys dropped onto the floor with a loud clatter again.
He stumbled forward and leaned heavily against his car door.
What the hell was happening?
Little black dots swayed in front of his eyes, pins and needles invaded his hands and legs and he could feel the slide start to happen as his coat slithered across the paintwork, his body gaining momentum downwards.
Strong hands suddenly grabbed his elbows and guided him towards the ground.
He could hear Gibbs barking into his phone at someone, telling them to get down to the garage stat.
The black dots were swarming like bees now and he let his head fall forward as the room swam.
"You've got to slow down your breathing, DiNozzo." His boss' voice sounded muffled and far away. He could hear the words floating by.
A hand quickly pinned him to the car door, whilst the other lifted his chin upwards.
"Slow and easy, c'mon, Tony, you've got to calm down."
Okay, fine but that was easier said than done even though it should have been the easiest thing in the world.
What the fuck was happening to him tight now because he was at a loss to figure it out.
TBC
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