"I'm back in Washington," she greets brusquely, far from the excited tone he was hoping for when he saw her name and picture pop up his phone screen. The Capitol's winter winds whipping around her causes her voice to blur through the speaker.
"Hello to you too, Zee-vah," Tony chirps instead. It's nearly two in the morning, but after the nightmare of a case that the MCRT just worked, his sleep schedule is still a wreck.
"I need a partner for the night. You up for it?" Her suggestive words almost make up for the hurried voice she's using.
He knows that tone, though. It's the same one that she used to use when they were close to breaking a case wide open. He writes it off as a miscalculation. After all, he hasn't heard her voice in nearly four years.
"Ziva, don't you know any other men?" Tony tries for a scandalous joke, something he knows she's expecting from him. In truth, he's sitting ramrod straight on the couch that he's been using as a bed for far too long, at the edge of his seat waiting for her to continue.
"I know many men, none of whom I trust to have my back."
Just like that, Tony feels like he has been doused in cold water and shoved under a pile of snow. She needs him as a work parter. Which means she's back to the business she swore off when she insisted he return to Washington without her.
"So, you need a partner in crime?" Tony clarifies. He scrubs his hand down his face and shakes off any remnants of tiredness from the day.
"Quite literally, yes," Ziva confirms. She sounds out of breath, as if she has been walking quickly and attempting to keep her breaths to a minimum.
"When do you need me?" He asks and he thinks he does a great job of masking his— disappointment? Resentment? He doesn't know what he feels, not exactly, but he knows that he wasted too much time not having her. Even if it's only for a job, he knows he can't deny her a minute more.
"Shower and get dressed now," she instructs with a hint of what could almost be considered sadness. "I will meet you at your place."
Ziva disconnects the phone before Tony can even begin to make any protests. He lets out a loud groan and throws his head against the back of his couch. He counts to sixty then stands slowly, knees popping in protest at the sudden movement.
Making his way to the shower, Tony can't help but wonder where all of this is going to end up. And how she thinks she can drop off the face of the earth for four years then come storming back into his life, cocked and loaded and ready to go. Actually, he thinks, he wouldn't expect her any other way. Ziva never did anything halfway. When she stayed in Israel, she ruined him completely.
Ziva is perched gracefully on his couch when he emerges from the bathroom, just as he expected. He has no doubt that she called him from the stairs of his apartment to his floor. The smell of pasta and garlic bread wafts through his apartment and he hears his stomach growl.
It's not that he hasn't been taking care of himself, more that he simply doesn't have the energy or the will to do it. Not without her. "Couldn't live without you, I guess."
"I made dinner," Ziva offers quietly, her dark eyes boring into his.
She's standing now, her body at full attention like a soldier. Her hair is pulled into a tight bun at the base of her neck, curly tendrils hastily brushed back. Her old wardrobe of practical cargo pants and a t-shirt vastly differ from the fashionable leather jacket and blouse he last saw her in. Tony tries to count the weapons on her person, but he realizes he might not even want to know at this point.
"What a lovely surprise," Tony croons, sarcasm dripping from his words. His hot shower did nothing to calm his nerves. If anything, he absorbed the steam and heat to pile on to his own growing hellish anger.
"I have a lot to say to you, I know that," Ziva begins confidently.
"No shit," he snorts. "Did you really think that cooking me dinner before telling me you rejoined Mossad would make the blow any less harsh? Maybe that crazy Israeli heat did something to your head, Ziva, because I don't want to–"
"I am not Mossad." Ziva's eyes flash something dangerous and her fingers retract into fists at her side.
"Then what do you do with all of your free time now, Ziva? Because you sure as hell don't look like you bag groceries for a living," Tony spits out.
Despite the venom in his words, Ziva simply cocks her head towards his dining room table and the plates that cover it. She lit a candle in the middle, two glasses of white wine and two plates of pasta seem to mock him.
"You will want to sit down. Maybe you should eat something first," Ziva implores and takes her own seat across from his.
She lifts the napkin to place on her lap, but Tony grabs it out of her hand and tosses it back on the table. He pulls her to stand on her feet, barely a breath away from him. He can feel the heat radiating from her body and it takes everything in him not to crash his lips against hers.
Ziva flicks her eyes between his mouth and his eyes and quirks a small grin. "Thinking of kissing me, Tony?"
Her voice is a deep, seductive tone, but he knows better than to give in. He knows exactly what game she's playing, and no matter how good she thinks she is, he can play this particular game better.
He drops his own voice an octave and gruffly orders, "Strip."
The command takes her by surprise, for just a split second, but it's long enough that he can see it in her eyes.
"If you insist," Ziva recovers and reaches for the band in her hair first. Her signature rebellious curls explode out and she shakes her hand through them. Tony presses his hand insistently against the curve of her hip until she walks backwards, back against his piano. She makes to hop on, but he stops her.
"Undress for me, baby."
Ziva's eyes narrow and all hints of arousal disperse immediately. Without warning, Tony finds himself with his left arm behind his back, his face jammed against the cover of the piano and he can't help but laugh at the situation he has found himself in. This is leaps and bounds away from the reunion fantasy he played in his head to keep himself sane.
"You want to find out what weapons I am carrying, do you not?" Ziva murmurs against his ear, teeth and warm breath skimming after her words.
"Oh, Ziva, don't you know? You are a weapon."
Ziva straightens and releases Tony's arm. He rolls his shoulder against the soreness that is already starting to roll through his body. He towers over her, his large frame dwarfing hers. He had forgotten just how small she is. Powerful, nevertheless.
"I do know. As you should know better than to play games with me, Tony. All you had to do was ask to see what I am packing."
"What do you want, Ziva?" He demands it this time. His games are over.
Ziva reaches to the small of her back for her Beretta 9mm, slams it against the piano top loud enough that Tony winces. Her eyes never leave his as she takes out every weapon she has on her body, a shockingly large collection, and deposits them on his piano top. From the short butterfly sword that she has apparently been keeping strapped to her back under her shirt to the skinny stiletto at her bicep to the mini handgun concealed at her ankle, she is nothing like the Ziva that Tony has dreamt about. The Ziva in his dreams has an aura of glittering gold, but the one standing in front of him is a stark black.
"I told you. I need a partner in crime," Ziva maintains levelly.
"And what crimes might those be?"
"Murder," Ziva quips as she returns to her place at the table. "The occasional robbery, banks mostly." She primly places her napkin back on her lap and spears a few pieces of penne with her fork.
Tony drops himself heavily down to his chair and stares at her, trying to gauge if she is trying, and failing, to make a joke.
"You want me to rob a bank then murder someone." Tony barks out an incredulous laugh. "You do remember that I am a federal agent, right?"
"I remember quite vividly, yes," Ziva says with a short nod.
Tony shakes his head and stabs at his pasta before throwing his fork down with a loud clank against his plates. He doesn't bother to keep his voice from roaring at her. "What the actual fuck, Ziva?"
"You need to calm down," Ziva instructs.
"Calm down? You're back to being a hired gun?"
"Essentially, yes. Except this time, I get a say in who I kill," Ziva answers serenely as she continues to eat her pasta, occasionally swooping down a sip of wine. "I do not have to blindly follow orders."
"You still kill a fuck ton of people!"
"I have not killed any number of tons of people. That is not even how deaths are measured," Ziva replies smoothly. "And if they did, my number would be so much less than it actually is."
"Ziva."
"Tony."
The light in her eye lets on that she knows what Tony is getting at, and as far as he can tell, she doesn't care. It's more than alarming, Tony thinks briefly, that this isn't the Ziva he left on the tarmac in Israel. This is the Ziva that he first met. This is the Ziva that can kill without batting an eyelash. Tony can't help but be a little turned on by this Ziva.
"Are you going to help me hide the bodies or not?" She continues as if she already knows that Tony is in. He's always had her back, after all.
"Tell me the job and I'll decide," Tony concedes, but they both know that this is a lie. He has already made up his mind. Or more accurately, his heart has already made up his mind.
"We need to break into the SunTrust Bank on G Street. I suspect that there will be a few secrets in there that will break open the Capitol. Specifically, for the safety deposit box of a man who drugged me, kidnapped me, and held me captive in his basement for a few hours. I was not the first or even the tenth woman he kidnapped, but I will be the last one."
"And the wrong one. Goddamn, Ziva. Who is this guy?" Tony sighs and glares at her. He can't be angry at her, though. He can't imagine the toll of being drugged and held captive again.
Ziva hesitates and offers a minute shrug. "He is in the government. He was involved in an earlier... investigation of mine. I got in too close and let my guard down a little too much. He knows people in high places, because he is one of them."
"Which is why you aren't going to the police. They'll protect him." Tony fills in and finally breaks down and starts to eat his pasta.
"Precisely. I did not get the chance to kill him for his sins before my escape. I am going to take him down. And it would be easier if I had a partner."
They sit in silence, besides the scrape of their forks against their plates until they've finished their meals. The sun won't come up for a few more hours, so Tony takes the time to stare at Ziva. She stands up and sashays around to Tony's side.
Tony doesn't move his hand when Ziva traces her fingers along the vein. She dips down to brush a gentle kiss against his lips.
"You have always had my back."
"Well, then," Tony sighs and stands up roughly, letting the legs of his chair scrape loudly against his floor. Ziva doesn't so much as blink at the noise disrupting their almost uncomfortable previous silence. "Let's go. We need to start planning how to bury this fucker in the ground."
Tony drives his hand into her unruly curls and gives her a proper welcome home kiss that she returns just as eagerly. They part breathless and Tony shakes his head, mirthless grin gracing his face.
"Should I turn in my badge now or just let them take it from me when we get caught?"
The implication hangs heavy in the air. The inherent trust that they had as partners isn't there anymore, maybe not in the same form as it was years ago. But there is still something. Tony recognizes it for what it truly is, and he hates himself just a little bit for it. It's always been there, and now is no exception. There's only one force on Earth that can short-circuit a man's better instincts, put fire in his veins, make him dive headlong into danger with no regard for his own well-being.
Love.
A predatory smile creeps across Ziva's face and Tony finds himself helpless against matching it. He's never been able to say no to her, and he knows that if he's going to die, the sweetest death would always be by her side.
"They'll never take us alive."
Author's Note: This is my little dip into the NCIS pool. Can you spot all of the quotes from the show? Thank you for reading and reviewing!