NCIS BIGBANG Brats, Badges and Hoses: Chapter 1 - Hope You Don’t Have Plans
Title: Brats, Badges and Hoses
Author: k8bnimble
Pairing: Gibbs/Tony
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None except for abuse of whipped cream
Synopsis: Tony’s looking forward to the weekend. He had plans - big, big plans. When it looks as if they might be cancelled, an unexpected party steps in to ensure he gets to go.
Beta: The most awesome dinozzosprobie. So much love and many hugs to you for keeping my tenses and cars straight!
Artist: The lovely ceares who did a wonderful job giving me two fantastic covers and chapter divders! Thank you!
A/N: This takes place between Season 9 and Season 10 and AU afterwards. This was done for the NCIS BIGBANG
Art by ceares
Chapter 1 - Hope You Don’t Have Plans
“McFibber, you’d better be joking. I can’t work this weekend,” Tony groaned loudly.
“Davis has the flu and Paulson broke his arm this morning. There’s no way their team can work this weekend and we’re next on the rotation.”
Tony leaned back in his chair, frustrated. He rubbed his hands over his face and through his hair.
“Had some hot plans, Tony? Afraid she will not wait for you?” Ziva asked, a little snark in her voice.
“Considering she’s probably just become legal drinking age, a weekend would be an eternity,” Tim teased.
Tony glared at both of them. Of course that’s what they thought. What else would a DiNozzo have to do on a weekend but hook up? His own fault. He’d made sure over the years that that’s exactly what they would think. Sometimes he thought he really should have gone into acting. He’d have probably won some awards in that field.
“Of course…and I had some exclusive passes for a show I was hoping to impress her with,” he grinned broadly as he said, “and she would have been suitably grateful. Did I mention she used to be a gymnast?” he added with a waggle of his eyebrows. He appreciated the dual looks of disgust tinged with what he thought was a touch of jealousy on both of their faces. It was hard to believe they were both investigators sometimes when they bought into his act so easily. He looked back to his computer trying to decide if email or a phone call would be the better option.
“And I was really looking forward to it…” he muttered, without realizing he’d said it loud enough for them to hear. Looking up, they were watching him even more horrified. He clarified, “The show, I mean.”
Both Ziva and Tim rolled their eyes as if they didn’t believe him.
It was close enough. He decided to call Pete. It would be the first time ever he’d miss the entire thing. Somehow in the twelve years he’d been at NCIS, he’d always managed to have this weekend off except for when he was an Agent Afloat, but he’d been able to at least make a cyber-appearance at the dinner thanks to a resourceful ensign he’d befriended and an understanding CO. He almost missed it the year he had the plague and had lost Kate, but Pete had dragged his ass up there and it had helped. He hadn’t been able to do much but it had reminded him that life went on. He still missed her and almost smiled at the thought of how surprised she would have been to learn that Tony actually had a heart. This year felt more important than ever after the explosion and everything that had happened with Dearing. He looked around at the temporary offices they were in - he really needed to get away.
“Maybe you could sell your tickets? Depending on what it is, I might know someone who might want them,” McGee offered.
“I don’t think so. I doubt your friends would be interested.” Tony said.
“Good point. I doubt my friends would go to the “America’s Got Talent National Tour Show,” McGee sounded offended as if Tony were insulting his friends.
He tried not to grimace. Again, it was partially his own fault for the teasing he’d down over the years. He hoped McGee had seen past the glib lines and obviously faked stories and looked at the actions of his partner over the years, but McGee still lacked any ability to see the truth below the surface, much like Ziva. Even if Tony had been relieved that McGee was okay after his injury and was grateful Ziva had escaped the elevator with no injuries, he knew he hadn’t expressed it enough for them to understand they were important to him, even when he was annoyed with them. Again, it was his own fault for never telling them that but he had hoped they were better investigators and could read what wasn’t obvious.
They each had remarkable skills of their own, but being able to read people accurately was not one of them and it held each of them back in their investigative work. For that matter, Kate was never that great at it either as much as her background claimed she was a profiler. She tended to take people at face value as McGee did. Ziva tended to attribute more drastic or political motives to people and read things that weren’t actually there. She overanalyzed people and saw things in them that she herself would be motivated by. She tended to forget that most crimes were for profit or for passion because those two reasons were not important to her. Most of her activities were based on duty and loyalty although to whom he was not always sure.
It was part of the reason Tony stayed. It was probably unfair, but he still didn’t trust them to back Gibbs properly. Neither would ever stand up to Gibbs when he was wrong - even if Tony recognized he had been failing in that duty of late - nor would they be able to ascribe the true reasons a crime had been committed and until you knew why, you rarely knew who. They went hand-in-hand and often required a leap of judgment to get on the right track. That often came from getting an accurate read of the people involved. They may have joked that Tony always suspected the “wife” but in a sense that was true in that it was almost always someone very close to the victim in some way.
Although, he admitted to himself, that philosophy was more accurate when he was a police officer than as an NCIS agent. It had taken him a bit to learn to widen his view to more political reasons when he had made the jump between local law enforcement to being a Fed. In the end the team balanced out but it took Gibbs to help him figure it out. He was just afraid it would become unbalanced if he left.
Gibbs was the other reason he was never prepared to leave. He just couldn’t bring himself to be put into a situation where he wouldn’t see the man regularly. He wasn’t really sure why and didn’t try to think on it hard. Even when the man ignored him or actually treated Tony rather callously, Tony cared for him and believed Gibbs returned that affection in some way. He was sure McGee and Ziva would have laughed at him considering how Gibbs sometimes acted in the bullpen or in the field, but in those quiet moments in Gibbs’ basement, Gibbs always came through for Tony when it counted the most.
He knew he wasn’t supposed to know what Gibbs had said to his father the first time he visited NCIS, but Senior had actually teased him about it later wondering exactly how Tony had gotten such a tough man to be so protective of him. Of course, Senior implied that Tony must be servicing the older man because that’s how he thought.
Tony wasn’t an idiot. No matter how many women Senior had married, generally for their money, Senior had been a player for both sides as a younger man and used his considerable charm with men when it was called for. It was how he got himself into such lucrative situations. Senior wasn’t afraid to take advantage of his own skills and knew Tony didn’t fall far from the tree in his own desires.
The only reason Senior had been upset with finding Tony with Billy Corrigan in the stables during the summer holidays of his junior year was because Billy’s father wasn’t wealthy. If Tony had taken up with Jonathan Engleright, III, Senior would have been pleased as punch to tell his father about it in the hopes there would have been some kind of payoff.
Tony used to enjoy both men and women, but he mostly didn’t enjoy either these days. It was too hard to find a guy in his line of work since he didn’t want to put up with the consequences, and the women were scarce since Ziva had apparently scared them all away. He knew most of the women at NCIS were sure he and Ziva were seeing each other. The rest disliked the ‘womanizing’ persona he had cultivated and never bothered to get to know him.
He was too old to go looking for one night stands anymore. He usually found more interesting things to do and one of those things was supposed to happen this weekend.
Damn.
“Tony? Did you hear me?” McGee asked.
“It does not usually take him that long to make a witty comeback. Perhaps he is ill?” Ziva said.
Tony jumped, forgetting McGee and Ziva in his ruminations. He was getting too old and thinking about things too much.
He plastered his smile back on and looked as his partner.
“Yeah - I heard you. Thanks for the offer but I’ll figure something out,” he finally said.
“Tony, calling in at the last minute with a dental emergency will not work,” Ziva said with a smirk.
McGee laughed. “Pretty sure Gibbs is on to that by now.”
“On to what, McGee?” Gibbs said, coming around the low cubicle walls from the back.
“Uh…uh…” McGee stuttered.
Tony rolled his eyes. This was why Tim would never be able to go undercover. He just couldn’t roll with the situation.
“The fact that McGee’s LJ Tibbs’ stories were about us,” Tony said. “And he’s still writing them,” he added just to annoy Tim.
Tim paled and Tony suddenly realized that he really was still writing about them. He sighed. Sometimes the guy was so transparent. He needed to do something about training Tim for undercover work.
“You don’t say,” Gibbs said with slight smile. “Well then, I guess you’d better get going and do some writing this weekend. This time, try not to get one of us killed.”
Everyone froze, staring at Gibbs. He had made an actual joke.
“What are you all waiting for? Go home. Have a good weekend.” Gibbs said while making a shooing gesture as he began to shut down his own workstation.
“I…thought we were on this weekend since Davis and Paulson can’t…” McGee started.
“Nope. Tucker’s team is on.” Gibbs packed up his thing.
“But I thought they did it last weekend,” Ziva said to McGee across the bullpen.
McGee nodded, “They did. I wonder why…”
“Well, a little extra work won’t hurt them. Now, go home,” Gibbs interrupted McGee’s musings before getting on the elevator to leave.
Tony breathed a sigh of relief as the doors closed on Gibbs. He didn’t know who to thank exactly but he owed someone something. He was going to have his weekend after all.
“You heard the man.” Vance’s voice rang out from the landing behind Tony. Again Tony jumped and he turned to see the Director looking at him. “You have a problem with not working this weekend, DiNozzo?” He chewed on a toothpick and looked at Tony with a slightly raised eyebrow.
“No sir, of course not.”
“Good. But don’t worry - you’ll make up for it later.” He looked around at McGee and Ziva. “All of you will. You’ll need to take an extra weekend next month.”
“Err…why?” McGee asked, hesitantly.
“Because it’s only fair, McGee,” Vance responded.
“No - I mean why aren’t we taking this weekend?”
“Your team leader had plans that couldn’t be cancelled.”
Tony wondered what on Earth Gibbs was doing that couldn’t be cancelled. He never knew Gibbs to miss work because of a personal conflict.
“He’s okay, right?” Tony asked Vance and then realized how odd that sounded coming from him. “I mean, it’s just weird.”
“As far as I know, he’s fine,” Vance replied and then headed back up to his office.
Tony looked over and both McGee and Ziva were packing up. He decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and joined them as they walked out together. He was glad he dressed comfortably in jeans, a grey tee and his OSU hoodie and had packed the car that morning. He planned to head directly out and not go back to the apartment.
---
About an hour into his drive, Tony couldn’t stop his mind racing. He picked up the cell before giving it much thought and dialed.
“DiNozzo, what do you want?” Gibbs sounded irritated. From the noise of trucks honking in the background, he also sounded as if he were in the car driving. Tony wondered where he was headed and if he had taken the Challenger. He hadn’t noticed it in the parking garage earlier in the day, but if Gibbs had gone straight home he’d have been there by now and could have swapped cars.
“Just making sure everything’s okay,” Tony answered with a grimace. He could feel the mental headslap through the phone.
“I would have told you if it weren’t,” Gibbs answered.
That irritated Tony. “Really? Because I seem to recall you have a habit of going off alone, headlong into danger and leaving your Senior Field Agent behind.” Tony had surprised himself. He hadn’t expected that to come out of his mouth.
Unsurprisingly, there was no reply although Gibbs hadn’t hung up on him.
“I mean it, Gibbs. I hate it when you go off and play Lone Ranger. If you need back-up, just tell me. I’ll be there to have your six, no questions asked.”
Tony heard Gibbs sigh. “You always have, Tony,” Gibbs replied, in a softer tone.
If Tony hadn’t been using the hands-free function, he would have dropped the phone.
Gibbs continued without missing a beat, “And you’re not supposed to be using your cell phone while you’re driving. It’s illegal, you know.”
Tony almost laughed at the incongruous change in topic.
“Yeah well…we haven’t been known for exactly staying on the legal side of things lately.” It was another thing that had been bothering Tony. He felt like they had been slipping and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. It felt like sometimes they reacted too personally to cases. It chafed at his law enforcement side when they skirted the law - notwithstanding a broken window or two.
“Too true,” Gibbs acknowledged, which floored Tony. “My Senior Agent must be neglecting his duties to keep his Team Leader in line.”
Tony winced. Did Gibbs think it was his fault?
“Boss, I…”
“Tony, it’s not your fault. I’ve…I’ve been a little preoccupied, that’s all. Let some things get away from me that shouldn’t have.”
“Me too, I guess. Haven’t been sure if you wanted my opinion or not lately.”
“Told you - I depend on you.”
“That was last year,” Tony said, remembering that conversation. Gibbs had been right. Being with EJ hadn’t worked out - not for the reason Gibbs thought, but still another one that had slipped away and Tony felt sad he hadn’t been more upset about it. He had really liked her.
“So now I’ve told you this year. Too much has happened this year. We’ll get back on track. Take the weekend, clear your head. I’ll do the same. We’ll talk Monday.”
Tony was sure Gibbs was about to hang up but he asked anyway, “Where are you headed?” He wasn’t ready to end the conversation. It was the longest, most pleasant they’d actually had in some time, just the two of them.
“I’m going to visit Jackson,” Gibbs said after a moment. He sounded hesitant which worried Tony.
“Is he okay? Do you want some company?” He liked Gibbs’ old man, better than he liked his own father. If he was ill, he’d help Gibbs take care of him. Pete would understand.
“He’s fine Tony but he’s just needs some repairs done to the shop and I offered to help him. The electricians came in today so I need to help him finish everything up.”
“Okay, then. Tell him I said ‘hi’,” Tony replied.
“Drive safely, Tony. And enjoy your show and your hot date,” Gibbs said with a hint of a chuckle and hung up.
“Yeah, Gibbs, I will,” Tony replied to the dead air. He really hated that Gibbs thought he would rather have a date than help Gibbs’ dad. He wondered again why he never told anyone about his annual event but it was something that belonged to him from before his life at NCIS and he wanted to hold onto it. It reminded him there was life outside those usually orange walls and if anything had happened to that life, like had just happened recently, there was somewhere else he could go.
---
Go to Next Chapter
Author: k8bnimble
Pairing: Gibbs/Tony
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None except for abuse of whipped cream
Synopsis: Tony’s looking forward to the weekend. He had plans - big, big plans. When it looks as if they might be cancelled, an unexpected party steps in to ensure he gets to go.
Beta: The most awesome dinozzosprobie. So much love and many hugs to you for keeping my tenses and cars straight!
Artist: The lovely ceares who did a wonderful job giving me two fantastic covers and chapter divders! Thank you!
A/N: This takes place between Season 9 and Season 10 and AU afterwards. This was done for the NCIS BIGBANG
Art by ceares
Chapter 1 - Hope You Don’t Have Plans
“McFibber, you’d better be joking. I can’t work this weekend,” Tony groaned loudly.
“Davis has the flu and Paulson broke his arm this morning. There’s no way their team can work this weekend and we’re next on the rotation.”
Tony leaned back in his chair, frustrated. He rubbed his hands over his face and through his hair.
“Had some hot plans, Tony? Afraid she will not wait for you?” Ziva asked, a little snark in her voice.
“Considering she’s probably just become legal drinking age, a weekend would be an eternity,” Tim teased.
Tony glared at both of them. Of course that’s what they thought. What else would a DiNozzo have to do on a weekend but hook up? His own fault. He’d made sure over the years that that’s exactly what they would think. Sometimes he thought he really should have gone into acting. He’d have probably won some awards in that field.
“Of course…and I had some exclusive passes for a show I was hoping to impress her with,” he grinned broadly as he said, “and she would have been suitably grateful. Did I mention she used to be a gymnast?” he added with a waggle of his eyebrows. He appreciated the dual looks of disgust tinged with what he thought was a touch of jealousy on both of their faces. It was hard to believe they were both investigators sometimes when they bought into his act so easily. He looked back to his computer trying to decide if email or a phone call would be the better option.
“And I was really looking forward to it…” he muttered, without realizing he’d said it loud enough for them to hear. Looking up, they were watching him even more horrified. He clarified, “The show, I mean.”
Both Ziva and Tim rolled their eyes as if they didn’t believe him.
It was close enough. He decided to call Pete. It would be the first time ever he’d miss the entire thing. Somehow in the twelve years he’d been at NCIS, he’d always managed to have this weekend off except for when he was an Agent Afloat, but he’d been able to at least make a cyber-appearance at the dinner thanks to a resourceful ensign he’d befriended and an understanding CO. He almost missed it the year he had the plague and had lost Kate, but Pete had dragged his ass up there and it had helped. He hadn’t been able to do much but it had reminded him that life went on. He still missed her and almost smiled at the thought of how surprised she would have been to learn that Tony actually had a heart. This year felt more important than ever after the explosion and everything that had happened with Dearing. He looked around at the temporary offices they were in - he really needed to get away.
“Maybe you could sell your tickets? Depending on what it is, I might know someone who might want them,” McGee offered.
“I don’t think so. I doubt your friends would be interested.” Tony said.
“Good point. I doubt my friends would go to the “America’s Got Talent National Tour Show,” McGee sounded offended as if Tony were insulting his friends.
He tried not to grimace. Again, it was partially his own fault for the teasing he’d down over the years. He hoped McGee had seen past the glib lines and obviously faked stories and looked at the actions of his partner over the years, but McGee still lacked any ability to see the truth below the surface, much like Ziva. Even if Tony had been relieved that McGee was okay after his injury and was grateful Ziva had escaped the elevator with no injuries, he knew he hadn’t expressed it enough for them to understand they were important to him, even when he was annoyed with them. Again, it was his own fault for never telling them that but he had hoped they were better investigators and could read what wasn’t obvious.
They each had remarkable skills of their own, but being able to read people accurately was not one of them and it held each of them back in their investigative work. For that matter, Kate was never that great at it either as much as her background claimed she was a profiler. She tended to take people at face value as McGee did. Ziva tended to attribute more drastic or political motives to people and read things that weren’t actually there. She overanalyzed people and saw things in them that she herself would be motivated by. She tended to forget that most crimes were for profit or for passion because those two reasons were not important to her. Most of her activities were based on duty and loyalty although to whom he was not always sure.
It was part of the reason Tony stayed. It was probably unfair, but he still didn’t trust them to back Gibbs properly. Neither would ever stand up to Gibbs when he was wrong - even if Tony recognized he had been failing in that duty of late - nor would they be able to ascribe the true reasons a crime had been committed and until you knew why, you rarely knew who. They went hand-in-hand and often required a leap of judgment to get on the right track. That often came from getting an accurate read of the people involved. They may have joked that Tony always suspected the “wife” but in a sense that was true in that it was almost always someone very close to the victim in some way.
Although, he admitted to himself, that philosophy was more accurate when he was a police officer than as an NCIS agent. It had taken him a bit to learn to widen his view to more political reasons when he had made the jump between local law enforcement to being a Fed. In the end the team balanced out but it took Gibbs to help him figure it out. He was just afraid it would become unbalanced if he left.
Gibbs was the other reason he was never prepared to leave. He just couldn’t bring himself to be put into a situation where he wouldn’t see the man regularly. He wasn’t really sure why and didn’t try to think on it hard. Even when the man ignored him or actually treated Tony rather callously, Tony cared for him and believed Gibbs returned that affection in some way. He was sure McGee and Ziva would have laughed at him considering how Gibbs sometimes acted in the bullpen or in the field, but in those quiet moments in Gibbs’ basement, Gibbs always came through for Tony when it counted the most.
He knew he wasn’t supposed to know what Gibbs had said to his father the first time he visited NCIS, but Senior had actually teased him about it later wondering exactly how Tony had gotten such a tough man to be so protective of him. Of course, Senior implied that Tony must be servicing the older man because that’s how he thought.
Tony wasn’t an idiot. No matter how many women Senior had married, generally for their money, Senior had been a player for both sides as a younger man and used his considerable charm with men when it was called for. It was how he got himself into such lucrative situations. Senior wasn’t afraid to take advantage of his own skills and knew Tony didn’t fall far from the tree in his own desires.
The only reason Senior had been upset with finding Tony with Billy Corrigan in the stables during the summer holidays of his junior year was because Billy’s father wasn’t wealthy. If Tony had taken up with Jonathan Engleright, III, Senior would have been pleased as punch to tell his father about it in the hopes there would have been some kind of payoff.
Tony used to enjoy both men and women, but he mostly didn’t enjoy either these days. It was too hard to find a guy in his line of work since he didn’t want to put up with the consequences, and the women were scarce since Ziva had apparently scared them all away. He knew most of the women at NCIS were sure he and Ziva were seeing each other. The rest disliked the ‘womanizing’ persona he had cultivated and never bothered to get to know him.
He was too old to go looking for one night stands anymore. He usually found more interesting things to do and one of those things was supposed to happen this weekend.
Damn.
“Tony? Did you hear me?” McGee asked.
“It does not usually take him that long to make a witty comeback. Perhaps he is ill?” Ziva said.
Tony jumped, forgetting McGee and Ziva in his ruminations. He was getting too old and thinking about things too much.
He plastered his smile back on and looked as his partner.
“Yeah - I heard you. Thanks for the offer but I’ll figure something out,” he finally said.
“Tony, calling in at the last minute with a dental emergency will not work,” Ziva said with a smirk.
McGee laughed. “Pretty sure Gibbs is on to that by now.”
“On to what, McGee?” Gibbs said, coming around the low cubicle walls from the back.
“Uh…uh…” McGee stuttered.
Tony rolled his eyes. This was why Tim would never be able to go undercover. He just couldn’t roll with the situation.
“The fact that McGee’s LJ Tibbs’ stories were about us,” Tony said. “And he’s still writing them,” he added just to annoy Tim.
Tim paled and Tony suddenly realized that he really was still writing about them. He sighed. Sometimes the guy was so transparent. He needed to do something about training Tim for undercover work.
“You don’t say,” Gibbs said with slight smile. “Well then, I guess you’d better get going and do some writing this weekend. This time, try not to get one of us killed.”
Everyone froze, staring at Gibbs. He had made an actual joke.
“What are you all waiting for? Go home. Have a good weekend.” Gibbs said while making a shooing gesture as he began to shut down his own workstation.
“I…thought we were on this weekend since Davis and Paulson can’t…” McGee started.
“Nope. Tucker’s team is on.” Gibbs packed up his thing.
“But I thought they did it last weekend,” Ziva said to McGee across the bullpen.
McGee nodded, “They did. I wonder why…”
“Well, a little extra work won’t hurt them. Now, go home,” Gibbs interrupted McGee’s musings before getting on the elevator to leave.
Tony breathed a sigh of relief as the doors closed on Gibbs. He didn’t know who to thank exactly but he owed someone something. He was going to have his weekend after all.
“You heard the man.” Vance’s voice rang out from the landing behind Tony. Again Tony jumped and he turned to see the Director looking at him. “You have a problem with not working this weekend, DiNozzo?” He chewed on a toothpick and looked at Tony with a slightly raised eyebrow.
“No sir, of course not.”
“Good. But don’t worry - you’ll make up for it later.” He looked around at McGee and Ziva. “All of you will. You’ll need to take an extra weekend next month.”
“Err…why?” McGee asked, hesitantly.
“Because it’s only fair, McGee,” Vance responded.
“No - I mean why aren’t we taking this weekend?”
“Your team leader had plans that couldn’t be cancelled.”
Tony wondered what on Earth Gibbs was doing that couldn’t be cancelled. He never knew Gibbs to miss work because of a personal conflict.
“He’s okay, right?” Tony asked Vance and then realized how odd that sounded coming from him. “I mean, it’s just weird.”
“As far as I know, he’s fine,” Vance replied and then headed back up to his office.
Tony looked over and both McGee and Ziva were packing up. He decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and joined them as they walked out together. He was glad he dressed comfortably in jeans, a grey tee and his OSU hoodie and had packed the car that morning. He planned to head directly out and not go back to the apartment.
---
About an hour into his drive, Tony couldn’t stop his mind racing. He picked up the cell before giving it much thought and dialed.
“DiNozzo, what do you want?” Gibbs sounded irritated. From the noise of trucks honking in the background, he also sounded as if he were in the car driving. Tony wondered where he was headed and if he had taken the Challenger. He hadn’t noticed it in the parking garage earlier in the day, but if Gibbs had gone straight home he’d have been there by now and could have swapped cars.
“Just making sure everything’s okay,” Tony answered with a grimace. He could feel the mental headslap through the phone.
“I would have told you if it weren’t,” Gibbs answered.
That irritated Tony. “Really? Because I seem to recall you have a habit of going off alone, headlong into danger and leaving your Senior Field Agent behind.” Tony had surprised himself. He hadn’t expected that to come out of his mouth.
Unsurprisingly, there was no reply although Gibbs hadn’t hung up on him.
“I mean it, Gibbs. I hate it when you go off and play Lone Ranger. If you need back-up, just tell me. I’ll be there to have your six, no questions asked.”
Tony heard Gibbs sigh. “You always have, Tony,” Gibbs replied, in a softer tone.
If Tony hadn’t been using the hands-free function, he would have dropped the phone.
Gibbs continued without missing a beat, “And you’re not supposed to be using your cell phone while you’re driving. It’s illegal, you know.”
Tony almost laughed at the incongruous change in topic.
“Yeah well…we haven’t been known for exactly staying on the legal side of things lately.” It was another thing that had been bothering Tony. He felt like they had been slipping and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. It felt like sometimes they reacted too personally to cases. It chafed at his law enforcement side when they skirted the law - notwithstanding a broken window or two.
“Too true,” Gibbs acknowledged, which floored Tony. “My Senior Agent must be neglecting his duties to keep his Team Leader in line.”
Tony winced. Did Gibbs think it was his fault?
“Boss, I…”
“Tony, it’s not your fault. I’ve…I’ve been a little preoccupied, that’s all. Let some things get away from me that shouldn’t have.”
“Me too, I guess. Haven’t been sure if you wanted my opinion or not lately.”
“Told you - I depend on you.”
“That was last year,” Tony said, remembering that conversation. Gibbs had been right. Being with EJ hadn’t worked out - not for the reason Gibbs thought, but still another one that had slipped away and Tony felt sad he hadn’t been more upset about it. He had really liked her.
“So now I’ve told you this year. Too much has happened this year. We’ll get back on track. Take the weekend, clear your head. I’ll do the same. We’ll talk Monday.”
Tony was sure Gibbs was about to hang up but he asked anyway, “Where are you headed?” He wasn’t ready to end the conversation. It was the longest, most pleasant they’d actually had in some time, just the two of them.
“I’m going to visit Jackson,” Gibbs said after a moment. He sounded hesitant which worried Tony.
“Is he okay? Do you want some company?” He liked Gibbs’ old man, better than he liked his own father. If he was ill, he’d help Gibbs take care of him. Pete would understand.
“He’s fine Tony but he’s just needs some repairs done to the shop and I offered to help him. The electricians came in today so I need to help him finish everything up.”
“Okay, then. Tell him I said ‘hi’,” Tony replied.
“Drive safely, Tony. And enjoy your show and your hot date,” Gibbs said with a hint of a chuckle and hung up.
“Yeah, Gibbs, I will,” Tony replied to the dead air. He really hated that Gibbs thought he would rather have a date than help Gibbs’ dad. He wondered again why he never told anyone about his annual event but it was something that belonged to him from before his life at NCIS and he wanted to hold onto it. It reminded him there was life outside those usually orange walls and if anything had happened to that life, like had just happened recently, there was somewhere else he could go.
---
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