a/n: Flynn gave me this idea, and McKenzie has been begging me to go back to the Eli/Anthony 'verse. !
Ziva was conscious of the fact that the sooner she got home, the better – Tony had been out all night working on a case, and he'd had only an hour of sleep before the boys had aggressively pounced on him and woken him up for Saturday morning cartoons.
Saturdays were Tony's particular day with the boys, since he worked a tight schedule all week – Saturdays were the days when Ziva spent the whole of the day teaching her self-defense courses, so Eli and Anthony could spend as much time with Daddy as their little hearts desired.
But – Ziva knew it could be taxing, emotionally and physically, to entertain and supervise two young and increasingly hyperactive boys, and when Tony was tired, he had a short fuse with them – so she'd decided to have a colleague cover the rest of her courses for the day and go home early.
Tony needed to take a nap before they went to Gibbs' tonight for McGee's youngest daughter's birthday party.
She expected a certain amount of chaos when she walked in the door to their house – perhaps some running around, perhaps some annoyed snapping from Tony, definitely the dog barking – but what she did not expect was –
"Anthony," she barked, scandalized, freezing in the doorway. "Elijah!" she snapped next, catching the boys' attention immediately.
They froze – they were running absolutely amok, dressed up in their Halloween costumes from the past year: Eli as a dragon, Anthony as a knight in armor – there was spilled grape juice on the floor, a tube of lipstick lying open on the table – which, she realized, had been used to paint blood on Elijah.
She slammed the door, her face contorting into 'mean Mommy' immediately, and folded her arms.
Anthony, six-years-old and well aware he was in trouble, dropped his plastic sword and shield.
"What is going on?" Ziva demanded, her voice deadly.
"Anthony's tryin' to kill me!" piped up Elijah, giggling. He started to run towards her, tripped magnificently over his paper mache tail, and grinned up at her like a fool. "I'm a mean scary dragon!" he shouted, gnashing his teeth.
"And I'm Prince Charming!" bellowed Anthony, jumping up on the couch dramatically and balancing on the edge.
Ziva marched forward, afraid he would fall and hurt himself, and picked him up easily – with surprising strength. She peered at him seriously for a moment, until his smug smile faded, and then she sat him down on the couch and snapped at Elijah authoritatively.
"Get up, Elijah," she ordered. "Tony?" she yelled, standing in front of the couch and pointing at Elijah to sit down. She heard no response from her husband and grit her teeth.
She looked down at her lipstick, the spilled juice, and tried to control her annoyance – she had just cleaned this carpet last weekend, and grape juice was going to be impossible to get out –
"You two have some explaining to do," she growled seriously, giving them each a firm look. She glanced around. "Tony—" she started, and then narrowed her eyes. "Where is your father?" she asked her sons, exasperated.
To her chagrin, they both immediately shut their mouths and gave her completely innocent, wide-eyed expressions.
She waited, folding her arms.
She clenched her jaw.
"Anthony?" she demanded. "Where is your father?"
He blinked at her sweetly.
"Elijah?"
He blinked, giggled loudly, and then Anthony pushed him off the couch.
"Shhh!" he hissed, as Elijah scrambled up, a dark look on his face, and dove at Anthony, tackling him.
Ziva rolled her eyes, watching the two of them wrestle – half her life these days was prying the two of them apart. She strode forward, yanked them away from each other firmly, and sat down between them, looking mildly and yet seriously at them both.
"Boys," she said clearly. "Is Aba asleep?"
"No," Elijah said loudly.
"We don't know where Dad is," Anthony retorted seriously, and mimed zipping his lips.
Ziva frowned – his car was in the driveway, and there was no way Tony would leave the boys alone, anyway. She grit her teeth again, setting her jaw, and shrugged.
"It will not bother me to leave the two of you with Mrs. Robinson down the hall while Aba and I go to Matilda's party," she said sharply, threatening them easily. "You tell me where your father is, or you stay home from Gibbs' tonight."
Elijah's face puckered immediately, and he started to whine, glaring at Anthony.
"Al?" Ziva demanded, an air of finality to her tone.
Anthony pouted, and then stood up, rolling his eyes.
"He's in prison," he informed her seriously. "We played Cops and Robbers and Daddy was Billy the Kid and he's in prison."
"Prison," Elijah echoed solemnly.
Ziva stood up, shoving her hair back – okay, so he was in prison; did that mean they had shut him in the laundry room and put a chair in front of it? They'd done that to the dog once, when playing lion tamer – and they had locked McGee's daughters in their once, when playing Princesses and Knights.
Still – she hoped to God a grown man could get out of a laundry room with only a flimsy folding door and a chair in his way.
"And where is prison?" she asked coolly.
Elijah tilted his head. Anthony stuck out his tongue, and then pointed – directly to the master bedroom.
Ziva narrowed her eyes in that direction, and snapped her fingers sharply.
"Go to your bedrooms," she ordered. "Sit quietly until I come in."
Both boys looked reluctant, but one look at her face sent them scurrying, and she nodded to herself, satisfied – and then sighed heavily. So much for coming home to some nice fun time with the boys: it was going to be discipline, instead, and then soothing Tony for whatever psychological damage they'd wreaked on him, and then a night of wildness at Gibbs' because her boys were never well-behaved when they were in the same room with Palmer's twins.
She ventured into the master bedroom warily – and stopped in her tracks, eyes narrowing.
There was Tony, all right – definitely imprisoned. He was fast asleep at the most uncomfortable looking angle, one hand above his head, one twisted behind him – the dog was asleep at his side, and Tony was snoring softly –
Handcuffed to the bed, with red lipstick war paint on his face.
She swore in Hebrew under her breath, glaring at the scene in disbelief for a moment.
Then, she cleared her throat.
"TONY!" she bellowed mercilessly.
He jumped, startled awake, and gave a grunt and a small shriek. The Golden Retriever next to him lifted his head lazily and wagged his tail happily when he saw Ziva, his ears cocking brightly. She stood there, waiting while Tony jerked around for a moment, yelped to find himself trapped, and tried to catch his bearings – and then he seemed to slowly remember what had happened, and blinked, staring up at Ziva sheepishly.
"Hey, uh. Babe," he greeted.
"Do not sweet talk me," she snapped.
"Aw, I was just getting' started," he began, and then trailed off, quailing under the look on her face.
She prowled forward, clasping her hands behind her back, looking down at him in annoyance.
"What the hell is going on?" she demanded in a low voice. "I come home and the boys are terrorizing the living room – grape juice on the floor, they've been in my," she crouched, and pinched Tony's cheek: "lipstick," she hissed.
She pulled back, and glared at him head on, requesting an answer.
"Ziva," he whined pitifully. He wriggled in his shackles, making clinking noises. "They handcuffed me –"
"They are children!"
"I was tired, and –"
"Four and six years old, Tony," she said aggressively. She stood, and looked down at him again, shaking her head. She grit her teeth a moment, and lifted her jaw. "How did this happen?"
He looked up at her, blinking sheepishly.
"I uh – well, I slept in my work clothes, 'cause I was tired, you saw, and my cuffs are in my pocket, and when we were playin', I didn't notice Eli get 'em out, and next thing I know Anthony tripped me, tackled me to 'arrest me' and I heard a snap and – "
"You were overwhelmed by children."
"In my defense, Ziva, I haven't slept in forty-eight hours – and they're your kids, they have the blood of damn Samurai or somethin' in them – "
"Samurai are Asian," Ziva sniffed coolly.
She considered him a moment, and then sighed, crouching down. She knelt next to him and peered over his wrinkled work clothes, clicking her tongue.
"Keys?" she asked primly.
He jerked his chin.
"Front pocket," he reminded her – she often forgot where he kept his work things now, since he changed it around, and it had been a while since she worked at NCIS.
She reached for the keys, and went about un-cuffing him, taking one of his hands when it was free and massaging the raw marks from where he'd tried to get out – before he fell asleep, of course.
"How bad is the mess?" he asked with a wince.
"It is manageable," Ziva said dully, her brow darkening when she thought of cleaning the carpet again.
She fell silent, and brought his wrist to her lips, kissing it.
"They put on their Halloween costumes," she informed him.
"Damn, really?" he swore. "Means they were climbin' in their closets."
"They could have gotten hurt, Tony," she said, somewhat sharply.
He sighed heavily, rubbing his forehead.
"Yeah," he said gruffly. "Vigilance," he muttered.
She lifted her shoulders – no harm, no foul. She should have realized he was too tired to deal with them today. She leaned forward and kissed the corner of his mouth, standing up and hauling him with her.
"I must give them a talking to," she said. "You: nap," she ordered.
"Hey, m'not one of the kids," he groused good-naturedly.
"I need you rested," she said firmly. "I do not want to be solely responsible for them at Gibbs' house – it is Matilda's night, and we should be able to keep them in check."
"They're not gonna do anything as bad as last time," snorted Tony.
She gave him a look, and he tried to look sorry – the last time they'd been at Gibbs' house for a cookout, Anthony and Elijah had managed to topple three full bottles of bourbon from Gibbs' bookshelf on to his carpet and, in the process, revealed a card attached to one of them that announced Gibbs' apparently clandestine relationship with Holly Snow to the entire party.
Ziva pointed Tony to the bed, and shoved him down, roughly tucking him in.
He rolled over and glared at her, sheepish again, lipstick smeared on his face.
"Can this stay between us?" he asked grudgingly – of course, he didn't want it getting out that he'd been overpowered and cuffed to his own bed by two kids under the age of ten.
Ziva laughed, tilting her head back, and grinned wickedly.
"Ah, Tony," she said, giving him a sly look. "This is the first story I will be telling Gibbs tonight – how you let your sons take you prisoner!"
Tony groaned, reaching for a pillow and yanking it over his face. Ziva collapsed down next to him for a moment, putting of scolding the boys, and removed the pillow, leaning forward to grin at him – and to kiss him.
She teased:
"You're quite a handsome damsel in distress."
:) little rascals.
-alexandra
story #197