A/N: This is the place I will keep all my one-shots that have something to do with undercover work. The one-shots will be just that—one-shots. None of them will be related to each other. They won't necessarily be in the same timeline. They'll all center on Tony and Ziva, but their relationship might be different from one 'chapter' to the next. Some might be fluffy, some might be dark, and they will vary in quality. The only common thread is that they'll have something to do with them being undercover. Updates will probably be slow. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
ROB AND GABBY
When Tony was a rookie cop in Peoria he had the good fortune to befriend a veteran homicide detective. Moe Silverman was 61 when they met and had been a detective for 25 years. He was on his fourth wife, had seven daughters, four granddaughters and a Plymouth GTX that he wanted his ashes to be sewn into after he died. Tony met him the first time he had to control the perimeter of a crime scene where a woman had apparently jumped from the top of a five-storey building onto the street. As Tony recalled it, he had made some comment about the woman's handbag being a long way from her body within earshot of Silverman, and the detective had gotten his huge grey beard up in Tony's face and given him a slapdown about running his mouth. Tony, possessing all the dangerous confidence of a 24-year-old man with a badge and a gun, had responded by running his mouth more, and had been sent back to the PD for his efforts. At the time, Tony had thought that Silverman would have a word to the Captain and get him fired. He headed to the nearest cop bar at the end of his shift with plans to get drunk, pick up a date for the night, and then consider his future in the morning.
The date he ended up with that night was Silverman. The Beard (as Tony took to calling him back in the days before that nickname took on an entirely different meaning in popular culture) walked into the same bar later that night by coincidence, and Tony had sucked up his pride and headed over to apologize. Over the next few hours and a few more drinks, The Beard started using Tony as a sounding board on the crime, and Tony had eagerly shared his thoughts. He had been wrong about most of it, but The Beard had humored him all the same, and then patiently explained why Tony's theories needed work. By the time The Beard took a bullet to the chest and died ten months later, they'd become good friends.
The Beard was responsible for the direction of Tony's career. When he decided he wanted to make detective, one of the things Tony would routinely question his first mentor about was what it took to be a great one. Over whisky and beer and wrapped in a cloud of cigarette smoke, The Beard would tell stories of cases he'd worked where he'd had to rely on one skill or another. The guy was a bona fide storyteller, so sometimes the details got lost in the drama. But he would always wrap his stories up in the same way.
"So you see, Goldenboy," he'd say, "to be a great detective, you gotta listen to me on this." And then he would tell Tony the moral of the story.
A lot of his stories seemed to deliver the same message. But over the months they knew each other, Tony was able to distil the information down to a few key points. To be a great detective, you had to have an open mind and open eyes. Use your mouth for asking, not telling. Be stubborn until you're satisfied. Listen to body language, not words. Love someone who makes your sacrifices worth it. Be flexible enough to change your plans on a second's notice. And always give thanks for dumb luck.
Tony is thinking about The Beard's respect for flexibility and luck while he and Ziva are pinned down by quasi-friendly fire in the dining room of a house in Alexandria. Aside from full body armor, those are the two things they need most right now. The two of them had arrived at the house just 20 minutes ago for a dinner party with Mark and Pam Kensington during which Tony and Ziva (or Rob and Gabby, as Mark and Pam know them) would gather a little more information about the operation of their hosts' marijuana grow house in The Berg. NCIS has reason to believe that the Kensingtons have been using sailors to move some of their product, and that one, a 21-year-old petty officer, had been shot and killed in the process. Instead of just putting the shooter in jail for life, the agency is keen to take down the kingpins of the admittedly minor set up.
Tony and Ziva had no intention of bringing them down tonight. They figured they had another few weeks of work ahead of them in building a solid 'friendship' with Mark and Pam. But someone—and it sure as hell wasn't NCIS—had other ideas.
Tony is halfway through telling Pam a made up story about his time as an alligator wrangler in the Florida Everglades when Mark bursts through the dining room with a shotgun in his hands. Tony and Ziva both jump at the sight (they will later say that they were maintaining their covers, but the truth is that they'd both been genuinely startled) while Pam jumps to her feet and gives her husband a scowl that would have knocked a lesser man dead.
"Mark!" she barks, and shoots a look at Tony and Ziva to gauge their reaction. But Mark is amped up on fear, anger and adrenaline.
"There's people in the yard," he tells her, his voice strained. "Body armor and rifles."
Tony and Ziva share a quick look before Ziva puts a worried hand to her chest and turns herself towards Tony. Acting like a protective husband (and even amongst the confusion and danger, Tony still has time to note that this is probably the only time in their lives he will get away with the move without being yelled at), Tony puts his arm around her back and holds her closer to him.
"What people?" Ziva wants to know, somehow managing to make her voice shake. "What's going on?"
The question goes unanswered as Mark continues through to the front of the house and Pam runs for the kitchen. As they watch her throw open the pantry door and reach to a high shelf, Tony and Ziva have a whispered conversation.
"Rival dealers?" Ziva suggests.
"In body armor? Over pot?" Tony counters. It doesn't seem likely.
"You got your backup?" she checks.
He grunts an affirmative response as Pam pulls down a hand cannon from the top shelf of the pantry and checks the magazine. Ziva mutters something in Hebrew under her breath that Tony knows is an expletive, and then drops her shoulder to start inching up the hem of her dress. Although he hasn't seen it, he knows she'll at least have a knife, if not a small pistol, strapped to her thigh. But she doesn't get to it before Pam spins and races back towards them. Tony and Ziva take a step back, strategically placing themselves further away from the window and closer to the wall, and then Ziva lets out a gasp as she drops the handful of fabric at her hip to grab a handful of Tony's shirt instead.
"Pam, what are you doing?" Tony demands to know, keeping up their cover.
"We're surrounded!" Mark calls from the front of the house, and that is all Pam needs to lift the gun and aim it at Tony and Ziva.
"Who the hell are you?" she yells at them.
"Who the hell are you?" Tony counters, trying to sound as outraged as possible.
Pam flicks off the safety and shifts her stance to absorb the gun's kickback, and Tony feels Ziva tense against him. He knows she's ready to take Pam on, and so is he. As soon as Ziva pushes away from him he will drop into a crouch, grab his gun from his ankle holster, pray for luck and then—
Rifle fire comes from Mark's location before they can put their unspoken plan into action, and Tony and Ziva instinctively drop to the ground and duck their heads beneath the line of the tabletop. Return fire explodes from outside the house, and amid the bullets, the shattering glass and the crumbling drywall, Pam screams out in fury and leaves Tony and Ziva to run to the back of the house. Tony grabs his pistol from his ankle holster, and Ziva crawls over to snatch her clutch from the tabletop. A baby Glock comes out of the bag, and then Ziva flattens herself back against the wall beside him.
"Well. This escalated quickly," she deadpans.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Tony has to laugh. What an understatement. He gestures at her gun. "I thought you had that strapped to your leg."
She shakes her head quickly. "Knife," she tells him. "Plan?"
Tony pulls out his cell phone. "Gibbs. Cops."
"Plan for right now?"
He speed-dials Gibbs and brings the phone to his ear before looking at his partner/fake wife/real object of adoration's face right beside his. He gives her a smile that acknowledges that their situation doesn't look good, but reassures her that he has faith in the two of them anyway. They are, after all, highly flexible. "Roll with it. Hope for good luck," he offers up as Gibbs picks up. "And don't get shot."
She greets the plan with a grimace. "So you think we should just be squatting ducks?"
"It's sitting ducks."
"I know it's sitting ducks," she snaps, losing some of the cool she has a reputation for in these circumstances. "But we are squatting."
Tony looks at their positions. Okay, she's right. They are squatting. But that is hardly important.
"DiNozzo!" Gibbs yells over the line, no doubt alarmed by the gunfire from Tony's location.
"Boss! Mark and Pam are going Rambo on a bunch of guys who've surrounded the house," he sit-reps quickly. "Need back up! Urgently!"
Gibbs starts to say something in return, but Tony can't hear him. At that moment half a dozen men in body armor and with weapons raised storm the house and start screaming orders.
"ATF! Get down! Get down!"
Tony drops his phone to grip his gun with both hands. "Don't shoot!" he yells back.
"NCIS!" Ziva adds as a bunch of armed men spill into the room. "Federal agents!"
"Drop your guns now!" the lead ATF agent bellows, and with four automatic rifles aimed at their heads, Tony and Ziva have no choice but to comply. They share a quick, adrenaline-charged glance and then drop their guns and put up their hands.
"We're federal agents," Tony repeats, but the ATF is in no mood to listen.
"Shut up and lie on the floor!" the lead guy yells as three other agents advance on them. "Face down. Do it now!"
Tony hears Ziva breathe out an expletive dripping with irritation, but they both follow the orders given to them. It hurts his pride, and Tony doesn't doubt Ziva is stinging from it as well, but the ATF's guns are bigger than their guns. Much bigger. Unless Ziva has a surface-to-air missile launcher hidden in the car, which, knowing her, isn't entirely out of the question. But right now, inside the house with nothing but Ziva's knife, they have no choice but to comply.
"DiNozzo!"
Tony tilts his head to look at his cell phone lying face up a foot from his right shoulder. "Boss, we're in custody," he calls, but before he can say anything else the heavy black boot of an ATF agent comes down on the screen and shatters the phone to pieces.
"Whoops," the agent drawls before wrenching Tony's arms behind his back to cuff him.
"Hey! That's Government property!" Tony argues. "Expect a bill from NCIS."
"That is my ass!" Ziva barks from beside him. "I do not have weapons strapped to my ass!"
He turns his head to watch as Ziva, who is cuffed just like him, somehow manages to glare down an ATF agent over her shoulder.
"You got any other weapons on you?" the agent asks her, and Tony is sure he sounds a little sheepish. He knows how the guy must feel. He's received that look from Ziva once or twice. He can attest to its effectiveness.
"On the outside of my right thigh," Ziva replies. "There is a knife."
As one agent gingerly retrieves Ziva's knife, another nudges Tony's shoulder with the toe of his boot. "What about you, Captain America? You got any guns or knives on you? Any other weapons?"
"No."
"I'm gonna check," the agent warns. "So you better not lie to me."
Tony rolls his eyes. "I repeat: I'm a federal agent. I'm familiar with the routine."
"You'll excuse us if we take that with a grain of salt for the time being," the lead agent says as another roughly pats Tony down. The ATF agents don't find any more weapons, but he pulls Tony's wallet out of his back pocket.
"Anthony DiNozzo," the agent reads aloud. "And Ziva David." He pronounces both of her names incorrectly, but neither is in the mood to correct him. "Where's your badge?"
"We're undercover," Tony tells him. "We didn't bring them."
"Oh, you didn't bring them," the ATF agent drawls. "Isn't that convenient? Get up, Not-So-Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo."
He tugs on the inside of Tony's elbow and he winces at the awkward pain as he struggles to his feet. He glances at Ziva in time to see her being pulled to her feet as well. Her jaw is set and her eyes close briefly as she draws a deep breath, and Tony recognizes the expression for what it is: she's putting all her effort into tamping down the urge to go full tilt ninja. He knows things have the potential to go south very, very quickly from here.
The ATF agent shakes him by the arm, drawing Tony's attention. "Okay, listen to me. You're not under arrest right now. You're being detained until we work out what's going on. Got it?"
"Got it."
"You still need to comply with our directions," the agent says, and then looks over at Ziva. "You hear me, GI Jane?"
Ziva sends him a glare that makes Tony wince and lean away from her, but she keeps her mouth shut and nods.
"Let's go, Commando," the agent says, and tugs on Tony's elbow again to lead him to the front door. They pass Mark lying on his stomach in the living room. His arms are spread out wide and his ankles are crossed, but he's not moving and there are still rifles pointed at his head so Tony isn't sure what condition his health is in. There is no sign of Pam.
Outside, the number of trucks and cars on the street surrounding the Kensingtons' house surprises the hell out of him. It hurts Tony's professional pride to think that all of these people turned up in the 20 minutes he and Ziva have been there without either of them realizing. But he comforts himself with the knowledge that these agents are professionals and they weren't supposed to know they were coming. He throws a look back at Ziva, though, and he catches sight of the black cloud over her head right before he trips on the path, knocks awkwardly into the ATF agent and then falls gracelessly to the ground. He hears the doink of his head hitting something hard, and then he passes out.
…
"Hey, Tony? Time to wake up now, buddy."
The voice cuts through the black cotton wool in Tony's head. He doesn't recognize the voice of the man speaking to him, but there is something familiar in the tone nonetheless. It's caring, but firm. Like a nurse or a doctor. At least he hopes it's a nurse or a doctor, because they might give him something to stop the clanging in his head.
Someone gives his shoulder a firm shake. "Come on," the man encourages. "No more milking it for sympathy."
Tony actually wants to comply, but he just can't get his eyes open. It's like someone is holding their hand over his eyes and weighing his eyelids down.
The voice moves away from him just a bit. "Hey, what's your name again?"
He feels confused. Didn't the nurse/doctor man already use his name? Or did he just imagine that? Is he really awake?
The voice is closer again. "Hey, Tony? If you open your eyes, you get to look at Ziva."
A soft hand slides into his and Tony recognizes the touch as his partner's. He feels himself smile, and a moment later he hears Ziva's distinctive chuckle. Another soft hand touches the side of his face, and he idly wonders if they're both still handcuffed.
"Tony?" Ziva calls, and it feels like she can't be more than an inch away from him. "Can you hear me? I am growing tired of your stubbornness."
She talks tough but he can hear the waver in her voice. He'd call her out on it, but opening his eyes right now seems hard enough. Talking is out of the question.
"Tony," she says again. "I can see you trying. Come on. Open your eyes or you are going to the hospital and they will keep you there for a week."
That sounds like the seventh layer of hell, so he tries, puts all his effort, into cracking open his eyes. He gets a blurry glimpse of dark hair before his eyes roll back in his head again, but he doesn't give up. He gives it another shot and then blinks a few times as he tries to focus under florescent lights. Ziva's face hovers above his, and while he's not sure what's going on, he still finds it within him to smile at the vision. The smile she returns is colored by relief.
"Hi," she says on a sigh.
He blinks his greeting back to her and then slowly looks around. They're in a very small room with a lot of medical equipment. Red and blue lights flash over one wall, and he can hear a lot of activity—yelling, engines running, general chaos—nearby. Then the man who was trying to talk him awake appears next to Ziva. He's a scrawny blonde guy who looks about 50, and he's dressed in a paramedic's jacket.
Okay, so he's in the back of an ambulance. A stationary one, because he's not being tossed around.
"So, all it took was a pretty woman to wake you up from your nap, huh?" the paramedic says to him. "How are you feeling?"
His head pounds like there are two-dozen frat bros taking out their spring break hangover inside his skull. All he can do is frown.
He watches Ziva throw a worried look at the paramedic before she regards him again. "I think this is the longest you have ever gone without talking, Tony." She tries to joke for him but he knows she's worried. So he makes another effort for her.
He squeezes her hand and licks moisture back onto his dry lips. "You look really good," he rasps.
Ziva chuckles and pats his cheek before leaning away from him. "He is fine," she tells the paramedic.
"My head hurts," he argues. "What happened?"
"You fell on a rock," she tells him. "You are lucky you did not crack your head open."
"Got a nice gash," the paramedic adds, rubbing salt into the wound of embarrassment. "We'll have to take you in to get a couple of stitches."
Tony groans his displeasure.
"Do what you're told, DiNozzo."
He frowns at the order and lifts his head just enough to look down his body and out of the open ambulance doors. Gibbs is there, scowling like only Gibbs can.
"Oh. Hey, boss." He's confused for a moment and then the night's activities rush back into his head like a hurricane. He recalls the frantic call to Gibbs for backup, the gunfire, the aggressive ATF agents and being arrested. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, so he can only imagine how fast Gibbs must've driven to get there. Unless the night has turned into a complete embarrassment and he has been unconscious for much longer than he thinks.
"Are we under arrest?" he asks Ziva.
She shakes her head, sending curls tumbling over her shoulders. "Luckily, Gibbs made it in time to vouch for us before I was taken away to be interrogated."
That is lucky. Ziva doesn't take kindly to being interrogated. "Pam and Mark?"
"They are under arrest."
He sighs tiredly. It sounds like there is nothing else for them to do tonight. They will have to try to salvage their case in the morning. "Okay." He looks at the paramedic. "I'm gonna need your best painkillers."
The paramedic smirks knowingly at him. "Hang in there until we get to the hospital." He looks over to Ziva. "You can meet us there."
Ziva nods and then gives Tony one of her small, intimate smiles. "I will see you soon."
He nods and submits to being strapped down to the gurney as Ziva turns and makes her way to the back of the ambulance. He appreciates the view of her butt, but feels the need to call out to her and make her turn again.
"Hey, Ziva?"
She steps out of the ambulance onto the street before looking back at him in question.
"Flexibility and luck."
She cocks her head to the side. "What?"
He grins. "We've got it in spades," he says confidently. "Remind me to tell you about The Beard one day."
"Okay," she says with a shrug, and he watches her look to Gibbs for a translation. But Gibbs just shakes his head with irritation and looks away.
Tony knows he's going to get a dressing down the next time he steps into the bullpen, and he thinks he probably deserves it. But tonight, he's happy to heed the advice of his first mentor: love someone who makes your sacrifices worth it. Be flexible enough to change your plans on a second's notice.
And always give thanks for dumb luck.
END.