Title: Dad Always Knows Best

Author: rose_malmaison

Rating: Slash relationship mentioned, Gibbs/DiNozzo

Spoilers: Everything up to season 8

Disclaimer: Borrowing the characters for further exploration.

Length: 1850 words, 1 chapter, complete, Aug. 2010

Summary: Tony's father always said that rules don't apply to DiNozzos.

Dad Always Knows Best

It wasn't until Tony met Leroy Jethro Gibbs that he truly understood the value of rules. How by breaking any of Gibbs' Rules he not only made his boss angry, but he also broke the trust that came with them. By knowing the rules you tacitly agreed to live by them. Tony had been able to shrug off the disappointment his father had shown in him; it had become an unfortunate way of life. But nothing compared with the way Gibbs looked at him - or looked away, which was far worse - when he let him down. Oh to be in someone else's shoes when Gibbs found you lacking.

But if he messed up, which had become a less common occurrence over the years, Tony stood and took his punishment. "Won't happen again, boss," warranted Gibbs to respond, "No, it won't." And Gibbs was right.

At least his intention to do the right thing was present, Tony thought, even if he still slipped up occasionally. It seemed like when he did mess up those mistakes were really bad, far worse than the small missteps of his probie days. Now he knew the rules by heart, knew not to bend or break them. He simply knew better so why did he still made such monumental, stupid, irrational mistakes, the kind that could cost someone their life, or could get him fired. Maybe he'd used up all the little mistakes and the only ones left were the ball-breakers like Jeanne, like Rivkin.

In a way he'd rather die than face that look in Gibbs' eyes, that disappointment, the knowledge that he'd failed him miserably.

When he was a kid, back when he still had his head up his ass, little Tony DiNozzo had hung on his father's every word. "Watch their eyes, Anthony." "People see what they want to believe." "Gauge a man's worth within the first five seconds, and make a plan to take it away from him in the next five, and you'll be sure to win." They weren't exactly rules, more like tenets to live by.

And then there was Anthony DiNozzo, Sr.'s favorite saying: "Fuck them first." Five-year-old Tony had giggled the first time he heard that bad word, but he soon learned its true meaning and any sense of humor went by the wayside.

Dad liked to say, "Rules don't apply to DiNozzos," but that never sat right with Tony, even at a young age. After all, here was his father spouting the Rules of Life right and left yet, as Dad often pointed out, he didn't have to follow any stinking rules. Tony had a vision of the Mexican bandit in Mel Brooks' 1974 western masterpiece, Blazing Saddles, sneering as he spat, "Badges? We don't need no stinking badges." In retrospect it was strange that he'd ended up carrying a badge when Dad had scoffed at them and everything they stood for.

Anthony DiNozzo, Sr.'s parentage was not as blueblood and upright as he made it out to be - not that anyone ever suspected him of falsifying his family history. He was just…creative when his background came up in conversation. Dad would say, "Mother…Lady Antonia…always declared she married my father because all those medals on his chest blinded her." And he'd laugh in a self-effacing way that did nothing to diminish his smooth, affable manner. Dad smiled and charmed his way through life and everyone from the guys down at the country club to the boardroom just loved Anthony DiNozzo, Sr.

Tony's paternal grandmother really was the daughter of an English earl as well as being a stage actress of some repute. And his grandfather, Vincente DiNozzo, was a freedom fighter, war hero, and owner of a substantial olive oil exporting business.

That was sixty and more years ago. Now they, and almost everyone who truly knew them, were dead, and so the truth about Antonia and Vincente DiNozzo, Senior's parents, was also dead and buried. Tony was well aware that his father was relieved that no witnesses to who they really were remained.

Senior had adored his mother, who had shone when she was up on the London stage. She had also opened the stage door to a procession of admiring men and, later on, when her addiction to pills got the better of her, with a careless shrug of a beautiful shoulder she allowed her young son to watch her backstage performances. Tony knew this because his father had told him, in great and sordid detail, about his own personal childhood peepshow.

Dad always told tales when he'd been drinking, which was often, and the length and breadth of his stories rivaled those that Ducky recounted, which was saying a lot. Funny how a man who could talk a blue streak at people could never talk to his own son.

Maybe that's where Dad had developed an early disdain of women - at his mother's knee. Oh, Dad admired their beauty, their unique talents. He even married several of those women, those who were strong enough to stand up to him, and put up with his wandering eye. But he never truly liked women. From a young age Tony understood the difference.

Lady Antonia was getting on in years when little Tony met her that one time, and his impression was of a frail, vague old lady who wore too much perfume. She had pressed some coins into his hand and asked if he could keep a secret, but he never found out what it was because the adults had swept him out of her reach in a big hurry. He had dug his heels in and screamed and cried, and another DiNozzo rule was spawned. Senior laid down the law, furious at the scene the boy was making: "DiNozzos don't cry."

And Vincente, who Tony's father always referred to by his first name, even though Tony thought of the old man as Grandpa, or nonno, had really done all those brave things during the war that the family talked about at the dinner table. They were true, but Vincente had also run a very profitable black market trade in guns, and there were whispers he had taken on male lovers with the sole intention of exploiting them for business connections. Yes, good old Vincente had truly believed the end justified the means. To the day he'd died, crushed under the wheels of a speeding car in what might not have been the accident it appeared to be, Vincente DiNozzo lived life to it's fullest and left behind a wake of damaged people.

As a youth, Tony's father accompanied his dad on plenty of those business deals. He had seen the way the old man exuded charm and steel until he secured what he'd come for. Senior watched and learned and, in turn, took care to pass everything he gleaned on to his own boy, Tony.

Only, for some reason, with Tony those family teachings never stuck. Admittedly he didn't always play by the rules, finding it was a lot more fun to break them and charm his way out of the consequences. See, Tony did have some of his father in him. [Gibbs' Rule #18: It's better to seek forgiveness than ask permission.] And there were consequences to his actions, some quite severe, he discovered at an early age.

By the time he was old enough to know better, Tony was still pushing those buttons in order to get his father's attention. And the older he got, the less interest DiNozzo, Sr., seemed to have in his recalcitrant son, and the more Tony pushed and pushed - until dear Dad had had enough. The final showdown wasn't even over anything major and Tony was hard-pressed to remember any of the details. Sufficient to say it was what Lady Antonia would have called a scene. It was just a reason for the parent to face down the gawky teen.

Unfortunately Senior pushed back, hard. He sent his only child so far away he did irreparable damage to him, severing the bonds by declaring Tony dead to him. Tony was cast out - on his own - into a whole new world.

Okay, it wasn't really that bad, Tony reasoned. He'd liked boarding school, military school and especially college. Dad had paid for his education until he was eighteen; the succession of stepmothers had insisted on it. They probably just preferred the teenager to be out of sight. Tony grew away from his family, such as it was, until he was no longer known as his father's troublesome kid. Step by step he grew into himself when he went to college, and then joined the police force. By the time Tony walked into the job interview at NCIS and met Leroy Jethro Gibbs, he was his own man and more than ready to cut all past ties and to embrace a whole new way of life.

Later on Tony appreciated that although he'd been left with some pretty ugly scars, figuratively speaking, his old man had done him a big favor. If he hadn't been set adrift and changed the course of his life (and these days Tony liked to make nautical analogies as a nod to Gibbs), he'd have been anchored to the family business. Man, he'd be just another of his Dad's employees, living in Westport, married to the right girl, with a couple of little DiNozzos running around. He'd be well off, well groomed and well…he'd be a boring, empty, desolate figure of a man. Tony shuddered to think of it.

Instead, today he was making do financially (okay, barely, due to his extravagant taste in clothes), was encircled by a team of friends and co-workers who were always supportive [see Rule #15: Always work as a team.], and he was devoted to a man who was equally committed to him. [Ignore Rule # 12, please.] He'd never had it better. Never felt so much at home, so grounded. So needed. 'And loved,' he whispered to himself, lest he break the spell. That alone was enough to make Tony shake his head in wonder at the way his life had turned out. Give up the past and let the future take hold, that's the way he lived these days.

Plus had his own rules now. His own little DiNozzos.

"Hey, no, this is my team now, Gibbs. My rules. And DiNozzo's Rule #1 is: I don't sit on the sidelines when my people are in trouble."

And Tony's Rule #2? Loyalty beyond self. He knew that a man was lucky to find, during his lifetime, people he truly trusted at his back, and Tony was blessed with several friends who fit that bill. He always treated people as he expected to be treated…well, better than that, if the truth were told. When they needed him to be there he was, no matter what. In life all that really matters is family and friends. And, he thought as Gibbs turned to him and smiled one of his rare, open smiles, he was a truly rich man, and he could afford to be generous.

***end***