Fic: Five Times that Tony and Logan Were Mistaken for Each Other (NCIS/Dark Angel; PG-13)
For lordessrenegade: an NCIS/Dark Angel crossover, with some Tony/Logan. Warnings for a metric tonne of Michael Weatherly.
This is not beta'd, so all mistakes are mine. I am very upset that I'm crap at writing porn, because otherwise I could have written Michael Weatherly having sex with Michael Weatherly, which is just something that should happen all the time.
Five Times that Tony and Logan Were Mistaken for Each Other
(1) It was one of those days when Tony was tired and maybe sort of lonely, in a way he wouldn't admit to anyone who bothered to ask, and so he was mentally debating whether he should watch Bonnie and Clyde when he got home (which he had promised himself he'd do) or whether he should just change into sweats and conk out on the couch in front of something totally mindless. Maybe Air Force One. Indiana Jones. Or a James Bond - Goldfinger was always a good choice. Screw Warren Beatty, he decided, as he slammed the car door and followed Gibbs up the house's walkway. He was halfway through another thought (which didn't involve Faye Dunaway, no, not at all) when he noticed that the front door was ajar. He unholstered his Sig. Took a breath. Looked at Gibbs.
The door didn't creak, opening silently on a hallway ending in a living room. They cleared the house, Tony's heart rapping on the entrance to his throat. He wondered if he'd ever get used to this. Hoped he never would.
Gibbs was in the kitchen, leaning over the journalist they'd come to see, giving the address to the emergency operator on the other end of his cell phone connection. There was a spreading pool of blood. Tony swallowed. Breathed again.
The journalist's eyes fluttered and opened, and locked onto Tony. He coughed, a little, weakly. "Logan?" he ground out in a whisper, and Tony couldn't move. "Logan." The journalist's eyes closed again. He breathed, shallowly, and then didn't again.
Gibbs rocked back on his heels and wiped his forehead with the back of a sweaty hand. "Damn it," he whispered.
Tony wondered who Logan was, and if he'd know, somehow, that this man had died, alone in his kitchen with two strangers.
Tony breathed, and wondered when he'd get used to it.
(2) Logan walked down the street, hands in his pockets, kicking at rough patches in the asphalt. Seattle was recovering from the long winter, a little, the people starting to come out of their homes and their houses and their hidey-holes and show their faces and complain about the rain.
He was carrying a new modem for the growing pile of electrical equipment in his apartment, but Logan was more interested in the people around him. Two big guys were arguing on a street corner; a bankrupt store was being boarded up by some rough-looking men; a woman's voice called a name from the down the street. Logan's steps dragged, a little, as he approached his penthouse - it was lonely there, isolated, in a way that the street wasn't.
The woman called again, closer, and then Logan felt a touch at his sleeve. He turned to face a young woman, blond and pretty, with full lips and slightly vacant eyes.
"Tony!" she said, "Didn't you hear me calling? What are you doing in Seattle?"
Logan turned his head away, a little, and fixed the woman with a sidelong stare. "I'm not Tony," he said, a little bemused.
The woman pouted. Women her age, Logan thought, should have stopped pouting at least fifteen years ago. "Of course you are," she said. "Look, I understand why you never called or emailed or whatever, but -"
Logan shook his head, beginning to wish that he had stayed in his lonely apartment. "My name is Logan," he said. "Logan Cale."
He was sort of expecting a comedy of errors, a drawn-out argument, and maybe an eventual screaming match, but the woman looked away from his face, and strangely enough, at his clothes. After a moment, her gaze returned to his, confused but gentle, and maybe she was a little smarter than he had given her credit for. "Logan Cale," she said. "Do you have a brother?"
"Not... as far as I know?" Logan frowned. "Why?"
The woman shrugged. "You look like someone I know," she said. "Or used to. Look, sorry to bother you." She looked him over, once, up and down, and smirked like she knew a secret. "Have a nice day."
She left, disappearing into the crowd, and Logan walked home. It was a little odd, to be sure, but there was a mound of electronics waiting for his guiding hand, and he didn't think too much more about the woman, or the unknown man whose face was so like his own.
(3) The lawyer's reception room was comfortable and warm, with carpet that wasn't the regulation thin gray office threads with mystery stains, with art that actually looked like its title instead of a few blobs labelled "City at Night" or "Society's Underdogs." Tony was uncomfortable pretty much immediately.
"Have I mentioned that I hate lawyers?" he asked McGee.
"Only about a hundred times. In the last hour."
"I hate lawyers," Tony said again, helplessly. "And her kind are the worst." He made a face at the nameplate on the closed door in front of him, which proclaimed, Amelia Richards, Divorce Attorney.
The phone on the receptionist's desk rang, and she nodded at them. Tony let McGee open the door to reveal a middle-aged woman with dark hair sitting behind a desk, removing glasses that balanced precariously near the tip of her nose.
"Logan!" she said to Tony.
"What?" he asked, now uncomfortable and confused and trying to find some way to blame this on McGee and the lawyer's lawyerness.
"How nice to see you!"
McGee snorted. Tony glared at him and redoubled his blaming efforts. "I'm Special Agent DiNozzo, and this is Special Agent McGee." He flashed his badge. "We're from NCIS."
"Don't be ridiculous, Logan," the lawyer said. "Have you spoken to your ex-wife recently? Nice suit, by the way. Not exactly your usual."
McGee snorted again.
They spent the next ten minutes attempting to persuade the lawyer that Tony was, in fact, Tony, and that no, he had never been married and no, he did not live in Seattle but was only there following a lead on a case.
They were unsuccessful.
However, when asked, the lawyer was willing to give them information on their suspect, and too many hours later, they were back in the squad room armed with another lead.
"How was the lawyer?" asked Gibbs.
"Barking mad, boss," said Tony, dumping his backpack behind his desk and easing out of his jacket. "She thought I was one of her clients."
Gibbs only raised an eyebrow, but Ziva looked at Tony like he was hiding a secret. And the weird part was that even though he thought about it later, he couldn't think what it might be.
(4) D.C. was cold and lonely, even for someone from Seattle. The difference, Logan mused, wasn't the actual weather. But Seattle was all warm rain and steamy coffee shops and crowded people, whereas D.C. was all empty nights and office lights lit too late and faceless white marble in the moonlight. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and shivered, curling his fingers into the tweed to warm them against the heat of his thighs. Hunching his shoulders, Logan breathed into the frosty, dead air and turned a blind corner in the dark.
Then there was a gun, and it was shaking, and it was pointed at him.
Logan tried to see the end of the barrel, but it was close to his skin, between his eyes, so close that he could feel the cold of the metal like the gun was alive and breathing frost. He stepped back, and the gun followed. He stepped back, and the gun followed, and he tripped over the curb, and it turned out that there was a face, behind the gun, distorted and angry and breathing frost into the air.
"Tony DiNozzo," it said. "You ruined me. You took away my life. Now I'm taking away yours."
A gloved hand clicked the safety off, and Logan closed his eyes and thought of warm rain. He was intensely aware of his own body, where it stopped and the cold air began, where it steamed in the night and the warm blood that rushed through his veins.
"Metro Police!" he heard, from somewhere outside himself, somewhere that was still in the snow and the street. "Drop the weapon!"
He gave his statement still not understand what had happened. Years later, he would know of twelve children and a place named after a monster, and he would think of clones and serial killers and what makes us different. But he would know by then that this wasn't that, and would only remember walking back to his hotel in the cold of pre-dawn, still not understanding.
(5) It's the kind of shindig where he fits in perfectly, which is why Gibbs had chosen him for the job. After all, you don't spend eighteen years being treated as an extra piece of artwork by his father without picking up how to mingle with a rich, snobby crowd and not be looked at twice - or, often, even once. Tony blends in perfectly.
He hates every minute of it.
This is the sort of thing he's been avoiding since he was eight years old and his dress shoes were getting to be half a size too small on him, and he had to wear a real tie for the first time instead of a zippered one. Maria, his housekeeper, had knelt and tied it for him, and to this day, when he loops silky fabric into a knot inattentively, he can vaguely smell baby powder and flowers and baking bread.
Tony pulls mindlessly at his collar, sliding his thumb along the tie he's wearing now. It's a silk Armani blue and gray number, striped with white and pale lavender. Bold enough to be stylish and pretentious without being obnoxious. He had spent five minutes picking it out.
The wire is laced under his shirt, taped to the inside seam. No mic, no radio, no safety net. Not tonight. Just the wire, recording what he hears.
He drops his hand, realizing suddenly that such a gesture makes him seem uncomfortable - the worst possible impression to give, even though he really, really is. Swirling his champagne in his glass, Tony plasters on his most charming, meaningless social smile and approaches two girls who can't possibly be much older than twenty.
Fifteen minutes later, he's amassed a virtual library of knowledge about one Mr. Cale, CEO extraordinaire of Cale Industries - and a money-laundering crook. At the top of said list is the fact that Mr. Cale should learn to hire secretaries who carry more weight in their brain than their chest. Not that the man is going to be easy to take down, Tony muses, with his phalanx of lawyers and army of legal advisors.
God, Tony thinks, I need a drink. The champagne in his glass is just for show, though; he's on the job. Some quiet will have to suffice.
Tony turns down a corridor, looks around, and eases a door open, shutting it behind him silently. The thick oak cuts off the noise of the soiree almost completely. One thing that could be said of the rich - the house is of the highest quality. At the moment, Tony is in a frame of mind to be grateful for it. The room is a study; a thick Persian rug warms hardwood floors, shelves of books collect dust on two opposite walls, and armchairs and writing desks are scattered liberally throughout. In front of Tony is a heavy desk, and beyond that, a wall of windows and a window seat cushioned with red and blue pillows.
Standing in front of the windows, staring into the night through the flowers of frost on the glass and absently holding a champagne flute as if he's forgotten it's there, is a man in a dark suit. Tony appraises it quickly - well-tailored, expensive cut. But it's wrinkled, just a little, in the back, and the man's shoulders slump within it as if it isn't quite the armour he expected it to be.
Tony knows the feeling all too well. He clears his throat.
The man starts, jumping a little, and a single drop of champagne hisses on the floor. Tony doesn't notice. He doesn't assess the man's tie, or interpret the look in his eye, or determine whether or not he's worth picking over for information. He doesn't notice that a car starts up outside and the headlights wash through the study; that the desk is covered with financial documents; that anyone could walk in and hold a gun to the back of his head.
He's staring at himself.
Or, well, not himself, he realizes after a very long moment. He would never wear that tie with that shirt. The man is slimmer than Tony, too, not as well built, thinner in the face, and stubbly, with longer hair. But mostly the tie thing.
It's not him. It's very close, though, close enough that Tony is shaken, close enough that it takes another moment or two for the other man to come to the same conclusion. The expression on his face falls from shocked to confused, and Tony can read him because those are his expressions. He rubs his thumb along his collar.
"Tony," says the man in a slightly lighter voice than Tony's, as if he's realizing something, and then Tony is, too.
"Logan," he replies, after a panicked moment of trying to remember the name. Things are suddenly clearer.
Logan apparently agrees. "Well," he says, "this explains a lot." He puts his champagne glass on the desk.
Tony's smile is a little self-deprecating. "Long-lost cousins?" he asks sardonically.
Logan's burst of breath isn't really a snort. "Doubt it," he says. "Are you also a part of the great and glorious Cale clan?"
And Tony knows this tone. This is the tone that creeps, unbidden, into his own voice whenever he speaks of his father. His smile mediates a little, softens. "No," he says. "I have my own great and glorious clan." His mouth quirks in spite of himself. He suddenly wants to tell this man the truth, tell him everything about himself. Bad idea, DiNozzo. "And what relation, may I ask, do you boast the honour of being to the illustrious Mr. J. Cale?"
Logan really does snort this time. "Illustrious, my ass," he says, and Tony just bites back the Why yes, yes it is. "I'm his nephew. Embarrassingly for him, unfortunately for me."
This is where Tony should take the conversation a different direction. Loosen Logan up, pry information from him. He's a close relation of Cale's - he'd know a lot. They haven't even come close to exhausting small-talk options, but Tony doesn't get the feeling that this man is in the mood for idle chatter. Neither is Tony, and he's not in the mood for games. "Why unfortunately?"
"My uncle is a criminal." Logan shrugs. "Anyone can see that. One that... I can't bring myself to expose." He runs his hand through his hair, and Tony smiles a little - the habit certainly explains the terrible spiky haircut. He makes a questioning noise.
"I'm a journalist," Logan explains. "I tackle corruption for a living." His jaw sets, and his tone is derisive. "Just apparently not in my family." He shakes himself, almost visibly, and raises his eyes to Tony's. "What do you do? Do you work for your own business mogul of a relative?"
Tony ignores the question, thinking. His tie runs through his hands like water. The benefits of an expensive buy, he supposes, only a little sardonically. "Do you want to expose him?" he asks, carefully.
Logan's glance is a little too sharp, but he seems to feel it's safe to answer honestly. "Yes," he says, after a pause. "But it would be... inconvenient in more ways than one if I were the one to do it." He sighs. "I wish - I wish I had a screen between me and the world. Anonymity would be.. comforting." Very honestly.
Tony could do several things at this point. The smartest would be to nod, make sympathetic noises, and leave. The most useful would be to draw out more information on what, exactly, Logan had uncovered about his uncle's less-than-legal pursuits.
It's a good thing, Tony thinks, that he has never been either particularly intelligent or particularly pragmatic.
"I'm a Navy cop," he says bluntly. "NCIS."
Logan's mouth quirks, but it's hardly an amused expression. It's something closer to resigned. "Am I to assume that, among other pursuits, my uncle is in the business of stealing money from the government?"
"That would be a somewhat accurate assessment."
Logan nods, his eyes suddenly alive behind their dull sheen of defeat, disgust, and self-hatred. "What can I do for you?" he asks.
Unfortunately, this is when the door opens.
Whoever is behind the door stops when it's barely ajar, speaking loudly to someone in the corridor. This is the only reason that Tony is able to sprint across the room, seize Logan by the shoulders, and tumble them both into a corner beneath a writing desk, hidden from the door by a conveniently-placed armchair that has certainly seen better days. Tony finds himself in a position to judge precisely how numerous those days have been, as he stares fixedly at the back of the upholstery, where a little stuffing is making a break for it from the bottom seam and a spring has come loose on the underside of the chair.
The door opens, finally, and heavy footsteps lead to the desk. Some paper is shuffled, and Tony tries very hard not to think of Logan's champagne flute on the corner of the desk. But the stumbling owner of the footsteps seems to find what he's looking for and leaves, the door snicking closed behind him.
Tony breathes out, slowly, and realizes that he's on top of Logan. "Sorry," he says, but doesn't move. Logan is looking at him, and Tony knows the expression in his eyes, because it's his. There's a warmth in his gaze that's more like heat, and Tony can't look away. He breathes and Logan breathes, puffs of air against his cheek, and Tony realizes abruptly that neither of them has actually consumed any alcohol. He leans down anyway.
In the space before their lips actually touch, Logan whispers, "Isn't this a little... narcissistic?"
Tony smiles for the first time, smiles like he smiles when he's off the job, and says, "What's wrong with that?" and then he's kissing Logan, and there's nothing wrong with it at all.
This is not beta'd, so all mistakes are mine. I am very upset that I'm crap at writing porn, because otherwise I could have written Michael Weatherly having sex with Michael Weatherly, which is just something that should happen all the time.
Five Times that Tony and Logan Were Mistaken for Each Other
(1) It was one of those days when Tony was tired and maybe sort of lonely, in a way he wouldn't admit to anyone who bothered to ask, and so he was mentally debating whether he should watch Bonnie and Clyde when he got home (which he had promised himself he'd do) or whether he should just change into sweats and conk out on the couch in front of something totally mindless. Maybe Air Force One. Indiana Jones. Or a James Bond - Goldfinger was always a good choice. Screw Warren Beatty, he decided, as he slammed the car door and followed Gibbs up the house's walkway. He was halfway through another thought (which didn't involve Faye Dunaway, no, not at all) when he noticed that the front door was ajar. He unholstered his Sig. Took a breath. Looked at Gibbs.
The door didn't creak, opening silently on a hallway ending in a living room. They cleared the house, Tony's heart rapping on the entrance to his throat. He wondered if he'd ever get used to this. Hoped he never would.
Gibbs was in the kitchen, leaning over the journalist they'd come to see, giving the address to the emergency operator on the other end of his cell phone connection. There was a spreading pool of blood. Tony swallowed. Breathed again.
The journalist's eyes fluttered and opened, and locked onto Tony. He coughed, a little, weakly. "Logan?" he ground out in a whisper, and Tony couldn't move. "Logan." The journalist's eyes closed again. He breathed, shallowly, and then didn't again.
Gibbs rocked back on his heels and wiped his forehead with the back of a sweaty hand. "Damn it," he whispered.
Tony wondered who Logan was, and if he'd know, somehow, that this man had died, alone in his kitchen with two strangers.
Tony breathed, and wondered when he'd get used to it.
(2) Logan walked down the street, hands in his pockets, kicking at rough patches in the asphalt. Seattle was recovering from the long winter, a little, the people starting to come out of their homes and their houses and their hidey-holes and show their faces and complain about the rain.
He was carrying a new modem for the growing pile of electrical equipment in his apartment, but Logan was more interested in the people around him. Two big guys were arguing on a street corner; a bankrupt store was being boarded up by some rough-looking men; a woman's voice called a name from the down the street. Logan's steps dragged, a little, as he approached his penthouse - it was lonely there, isolated, in a way that the street wasn't.
The woman called again, closer, and then Logan felt a touch at his sleeve. He turned to face a young woman, blond and pretty, with full lips and slightly vacant eyes.
"Tony!" she said, "Didn't you hear me calling? What are you doing in Seattle?"
Logan turned his head away, a little, and fixed the woman with a sidelong stare. "I'm not Tony," he said, a little bemused.
The woman pouted. Women her age, Logan thought, should have stopped pouting at least fifteen years ago. "Of course you are," she said. "Look, I understand why you never called or emailed or whatever, but -"
Logan shook his head, beginning to wish that he had stayed in his lonely apartment. "My name is Logan," he said. "Logan Cale."
He was sort of expecting a comedy of errors, a drawn-out argument, and maybe an eventual screaming match, but the woman looked away from his face, and strangely enough, at his clothes. After a moment, her gaze returned to his, confused but gentle, and maybe she was a little smarter than he had given her credit for. "Logan Cale," she said. "Do you have a brother?"
"Not... as far as I know?" Logan frowned. "Why?"
The woman shrugged. "You look like someone I know," she said. "Or used to. Look, sorry to bother you." She looked him over, once, up and down, and smirked like she knew a secret. "Have a nice day."
She left, disappearing into the crowd, and Logan walked home. It was a little odd, to be sure, but there was a mound of electronics waiting for his guiding hand, and he didn't think too much more about the woman, or the unknown man whose face was so like his own.
(3) The lawyer's reception room was comfortable and warm, with carpet that wasn't the regulation thin gray office threads with mystery stains, with art that actually looked like its title instead of a few blobs labelled "City at Night" or "Society's Underdogs." Tony was uncomfortable pretty much immediately.
"Have I mentioned that I hate lawyers?" he asked McGee.
"Only about a hundred times. In the last hour."
"I hate lawyers," Tony said again, helplessly. "And her kind are the worst." He made a face at the nameplate on the closed door in front of him, which proclaimed, Amelia Richards, Divorce Attorney.
The phone on the receptionist's desk rang, and she nodded at them. Tony let McGee open the door to reveal a middle-aged woman with dark hair sitting behind a desk, removing glasses that balanced precariously near the tip of her nose.
"Logan!" she said to Tony.
"What?" he asked, now uncomfortable and confused and trying to find some way to blame this on McGee and the lawyer's lawyerness.
"How nice to see you!"
McGee snorted. Tony glared at him and redoubled his blaming efforts. "I'm Special Agent DiNozzo, and this is Special Agent McGee." He flashed his badge. "We're from NCIS."
"Don't be ridiculous, Logan," the lawyer said. "Have you spoken to your ex-wife recently? Nice suit, by the way. Not exactly your usual."
McGee snorted again.
They spent the next ten minutes attempting to persuade the lawyer that Tony was, in fact, Tony, and that no, he had never been married and no, he did not live in Seattle but was only there following a lead on a case.
They were unsuccessful.
However, when asked, the lawyer was willing to give them information on their suspect, and too many hours later, they were back in the squad room armed with another lead.
"How was the lawyer?" asked Gibbs.
"Barking mad, boss," said Tony, dumping his backpack behind his desk and easing out of his jacket. "She thought I was one of her clients."
Gibbs only raised an eyebrow, but Ziva looked at Tony like he was hiding a secret. And the weird part was that even though he thought about it later, he couldn't think what it might be.
(4) D.C. was cold and lonely, even for someone from Seattle. The difference, Logan mused, wasn't the actual weather. But Seattle was all warm rain and steamy coffee shops and crowded people, whereas D.C. was all empty nights and office lights lit too late and faceless white marble in the moonlight. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and shivered, curling his fingers into the tweed to warm them against the heat of his thighs. Hunching his shoulders, Logan breathed into the frosty, dead air and turned a blind corner in the dark.
Then there was a gun, and it was shaking, and it was pointed at him.
Logan tried to see the end of the barrel, but it was close to his skin, between his eyes, so close that he could feel the cold of the metal like the gun was alive and breathing frost. He stepped back, and the gun followed. He stepped back, and the gun followed, and he tripped over the curb, and it turned out that there was a face, behind the gun, distorted and angry and breathing frost into the air.
"Tony DiNozzo," it said. "You ruined me. You took away my life. Now I'm taking away yours."
A gloved hand clicked the safety off, and Logan closed his eyes and thought of warm rain. He was intensely aware of his own body, where it stopped and the cold air began, where it steamed in the night and the warm blood that rushed through his veins.
"Metro Police!" he heard, from somewhere outside himself, somewhere that was still in the snow and the street. "Drop the weapon!"
He gave his statement still not understand what had happened. Years later, he would know of twelve children and a place named after a monster, and he would think of clones and serial killers and what makes us different. But he would know by then that this wasn't that, and would only remember walking back to his hotel in the cold of pre-dawn, still not understanding.
(5) It's the kind of shindig where he fits in perfectly, which is why Gibbs had chosen him for the job. After all, you don't spend eighteen years being treated as an extra piece of artwork by his father without picking up how to mingle with a rich, snobby crowd and not be looked at twice - or, often, even once. Tony blends in perfectly.
He hates every minute of it.
This is the sort of thing he's been avoiding since he was eight years old and his dress shoes were getting to be half a size too small on him, and he had to wear a real tie for the first time instead of a zippered one. Maria, his housekeeper, had knelt and tied it for him, and to this day, when he loops silky fabric into a knot inattentively, he can vaguely smell baby powder and flowers and baking bread.
Tony pulls mindlessly at his collar, sliding his thumb along the tie he's wearing now. It's a silk Armani blue and gray number, striped with white and pale lavender. Bold enough to be stylish and pretentious without being obnoxious. He had spent five minutes picking it out.
The wire is laced under his shirt, taped to the inside seam. No mic, no radio, no safety net. Not tonight. Just the wire, recording what he hears.
He drops his hand, realizing suddenly that such a gesture makes him seem uncomfortable - the worst possible impression to give, even though he really, really is. Swirling his champagne in his glass, Tony plasters on his most charming, meaningless social smile and approaches two girls who can't possibly be much older than twenty.
Fifteen minutes later, he's amassed a virtual library of knowledge about one Mr. Cale, CEO extraordinaire of Cale Industries - and a money-laundering crook. At the top of said list is the fact that Mr. Cale should learn to hire secretaries who carry more weight in their brain than their chest. Not that the man is going to be easy to take down, Tony muses, with his phalanx of lawyers and army of legal advisors.
God, Tony thinks, I need a drink. The champagne in his glass is just for show, though; he's on the job. Some quiet will have to suffice.
Tony turns down a corridor, looks around, and eases a door open, shutting it behind him silently. The thick oak cuts off the noise of the soiree almost completely. One thing that could be said of the rich - the house is of the highest quality. At the moment, Tony is in a frame of mind to be grateful for it. The room is a study; a thick Persian rug warms hardwood floors, shelves of books collect dust on two opposite walls, and armchairs and writing desks are scattered liberally throughout. In front of Tony is a heavy desk, and beyond that, a wall of windows and a window seat cushioned with red and blue pillows.
Standing in front of the windows, staring into the night through the flowers of frost on the glass and absently holding a champagne flute as if he's forgotten it's there, is a man in a dark suit. Tony appraises it quickly - well-tailored, expensive cut. But it's wrinkled, just a little, in the back, and the man's shoulders slump within it as if it isn't quite the armour he expected it to be.
Tony knows the feeling all too well. He clears his throat.
The man starts, jumping a little, and a single drop of champagne hisses on the floor. Tony doesn't notice. He doesn't assess the man's tie, or interpret the look in his eye, or determine whether or not he's worth picking over for information. He doesn't notice that a car starts up outside and the headlights wash through the study; that the desk is covered with financial documents; that anyone could walk in and hold a gun to the back of his head.
He's staring at himself.
Or, well, not himself, he realizes after a very long moment. He would never wear that tie with that shirt. The man is slimmer than Tony, too, not as well built, thinner in the face, and stubbly, with longer hair. But mostly the tie thing.
It's not him. It's very close, though, close enough that Tony is shaken, close enough that it takes another moment or two for the other man to come to the same conclusion. The expression on his face falls from shocked to confused, and Tony can read him because those are his expressions. He rubs his thumb along his collar.
"Tony," says the man in a slightly lighter voice than Tony's, as if he's realizing something, and then Tony is, too.
"Logan," he replies, after a panicked moment of trying to remember the name. Things are suddenly clearer.
Logan apparently agrees. "Well," he says, "this explains a lot." He puts his champagne glass on the desk.
Tony's smile is a little self-deprecating. "Long-lost cousins?" he asks sardonically.
Logan's burst of breath isn't really a snort. "Doubt it," he says. "Are you also a part of the great and glorious Cale clan?"
And Tony knows this tone. This is the tone that creeps, unbidden, into his own voice whenever he speaks of his father. His smile mediates a little, softens. "No," he says. "I have my own great and glorious clan." His mouth quirks in spite of himself. He suddenly wants to tell this man the truth, tell him everything about himself. Bad idea, DiNozzo. "And what relation, may I ask, do you boast the honour of being to the illustrious Mr. J. Cale?"
Logan really does snort this time. "Illustrious, my ass," he says, and Tony just bites back the Why yes, yes it is. "I'm his nephew. Embarrassingly for him, unfortunately for me."
This is where Tony should take the conversation a different direction. Loosen Logan up, pry information from him. He's a close relation of Cale's - he'd know a lot. They haven't even come close to exhausting small-talk options, but Tony doesn't get the feeling that this man is in the mood for idle chatter. Neither is Tony, and he's not in the mood for games. "Why unfortunately?"
"My uncle is a criminal." Logan shrugs. "Anyone can see that. One that... I can't bring myself to expose." He runs his hand through his hair, and Tony smiles a little - the habit certainly explains the terrible spiky haircut. He makes a questioning noise.
"I'm a journalist," Logan explains. "I tackle corruption for a living." His jaw sets, and his tone is derisive. "Just apparently not in my family." He shakes himself, almost visibly, and raises his eyes to Tony's. "What do you do? Do you work for your own business mogul of a relative?"
Tony ignores the question, thinking. His tie runs through his hands like water. The benefits of an expensive buy, he supposes, only a little sardonically. "Do you want to expose him?" he asks, carefully.
Logan's glance is a little too sharp, but he seems to feel it's safe to answer honestly. "Yes," he says, after a pause. "But it would be... inconvenient in more ways than one if I were the one to do it." He sighs. "I wish - I wish I had a screen between me and the world. Anonymity would be.. comforting." Very honestly.
Tony could do several things at this point. The smartest would be to nod, make sympathetic noises, and leave. The most useful would be to draw out more information on what, exactly, Logan had uncovered about his uncle's less-than-legal pursuits.
It's a good thing, Tony thinks, that he has never been either particularly intelligent or particularly pragmatic.
"I'm a Navy cop," he says bluntly. "NCIS."
Logan's mouth quirks, but it's hardly an amused expression. It's something closer to resigned. "Am I to assume that, among other pursuits, my uncle is in the business of stealing money from the government?"
"That would be a somewhat accurate assessment."
Logan nods, his eyes suddenly alive behind their dull sheen of defeat, disgust, and self-hatred. "What can I do for you?" he asks.
Unfortunately, this is when the door opens.
Whoever is behind the door stops when it's barely ajar, speaking loudly to someone in the corridor. This is the only reason that Tony is able to sprint across the room, seize Logan by the shoulders, and tumble them both into a corner beneath a writing desk, hidden from the door by a conveniently-placed armchair that has certainly seen better days. Tony finds himself in a position to judge precisely how numerous those days have been, as he stares fixedly at the back of the upholstery, where a little stuffing is making a break for it from the bottom seam and a spring has come loose on the underside of the chair.
The door opens, finally, and heavy footsteps lead to the desk. Some paper is shuffled, and Tony tries very hard not to think of Logan's champagne flute on the corner of the desk. But the stumbling owner of the footsteps seems to find what he's looking for and leaves, the door snicking closed behind him.
Tony breathes out, slowly, and realizes that he's on top of Logan. "Sorry," he says, but doesn't move. Logan is looking at him, and Tony knows the expression in his eyes, because it's his. There's a warmth in his gaze that's more like heat, and Tony can't look away. He breathes and Logan breathes, puffs of air against his cheek, and Tony realizes abruptly that neither of them has actually consumed any alcohol. He leans down anyway.
In the space before their lips actually touch, Logan whispers, "Isn't this a little... narcissistic?"
Tony smiles for the first time, smiles like he smiles when he's off the job, and says, "What's wrong with that?" and then he's kissing Logan, and there's nothing wrong with it at all.