AN: My husband has Chloe at the Monster-In-Law's house for the week, and I have plenty of Margarita mix. Yep, time to write.
"I hope you know that when Gibbs gets here, neither of you are going to live very long."
"Not if a certain little lab bat keeps her mouth shut."
Abby chuckled lowly before using an imaginary key to lock her lips and tossing it over her shoulder. Paperclips went flying as she messily cleared the corner of Tony's desk and plopped herself down.
From across the room, Ziva cleared her throat pointedly, raising a thin eyebrow.
"Well," Tony amended, "A lab bat and an assassin."
Smirking, the Israeli woman began to casually examine her fingernails. "I will not keep quiet for you, Tony."
The color flooded out of the man's face, leaving it pale with a horrorstruck expression plastered firmly onto it.
"But I will for McGee. Mostly because I am still unsure how you managed to con him into this."
She smiled innocently. Grinning, Abby gave her a thumbs up and sniggered when the other woman winked back.
"McGee didn't have to be conned into anything. You see, Agent David, our little Timmy has a wildcat inside of him," here Tony paused to do a lively reenactment of a large cat's growl, complete with hand gestures, "Just waiting to be released. Through mischief, of course. Not wild sex. Not our Tim."
He may have gone on, but at that moment he was hit on the side of the head, not by Gibbs, but by a small bolt – one of the many that had recently been removed from the support legs on Gibbs's chair.
"See? Wildcat! Nice aim, McGoo!"
"Just be glad it was a bolt, Tony," McGee snapped coolly, "And not the wrench."
"I really need to come up here more often," said Abby, as she watched her coworkers antics as if she were watching a tennis match. Her pigtails swung as she whipped her head from side to side, trying not to miss anything.
"We'd be glad to have ya, Abs."
Abby almost fell off the desk as Gibbs came striding in behind her. Attempting to be as unobtrusive as possible, McGee scrambled to throw the bolts and the wrench into his desk drawer. Gibbs didn't seem to notice.
The entire team stayed exactly as they were, not moving a muscle or breathing too loudly as Gibbs made his way toward the chair. Even the girls, who had nothing to do with the entire endeavor, were anxious to see the results. Silently, they hoped that Gibbs wouldn't be hurt in the fall, and that their friends wouldn't be hurt in the aftermath.
Fidgeting and twisting, the resident Goth finally decided that she couldn't bear to watch and hurried out of the room, calling a harried goodbye over her shoulder as she went.
Gibbs looked at her retreating back, a concerned expression on his face.
"Everything alright with her?"
The three younger agents all glanced at each other, before McGee finally found a response.
"I think she left something running in the lab, Boss. She was working with some pretty sensitive samples and I think she wanted to be there right when they finished."
Not quite satisfied, Gibbs resolved to check on her later and sat down on his chair.
Which promptly broke down on the floor. Sending Gibbs down with it.
The room went silent. Gibbs had disappeared from view and had not risen. The agents would have gone to check on him, but were too horrorstruck to move. While Tony and Tim had taken every precaution possible to avoid detection, it had never actually occurred to them that they would actually get away with it.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, a large hand reached up and clamped onto the edge of the desk. Gibbs rose slowly, a deceptively calm look on his face. His hands clenched on the desk, revealing his true feelings as he uttered one small but terrifying word.
"Who?"
No one spoke.
Gibbs head turned towards the elevator, remembering Abby's earlier behavior. The horrified agents suddenly realized exactly who Gibbs's biggest suspect was.
Four sets of eyes swung to the now opening elevator doors, signaled by the ding of the bell. Abby stepped out slowly, hesitant because of the earlier trouble, but blissfully unaware of just how bad things were.
"Hey guys," she said weakly, realizing that she had walked in on a slightly tense moment. Damn. She thought that everything would have been over with by now. "So, how are…things?"
She squirmed under Gibbs's stern gaze, unsure why it was being directed towards her.
"Gibbs? Is something wrong?"
"Well, Abbs. I guess that would depend on if you consider my chair breaking wrong."
"Oh. Your chair broke?"
"Yeah, it did. Do you happen to know anything about that?"
"Like what?"
"Like how it happened."
Abby blinked, confused. A quick glance at the rest of her coworkers told her exactly what was going on.
"You think that I did this?"
Gibbs was silent.
"Tell him! You guys know that-"
She cut off after catching sight of the agents. Watching her male coworkers in disbelief, Ziva made a small noise of protest, hoping to urge them into action. Tony and Tim refused to make eye contact with anyone, keeping their eyes on their desks.
"Sorry, Abbs," Tony said quietly.
Giving a broken, slightly hysterical laugh, Abby turned back to Gibbs.
"Yeah, Gibbs. I-I did it."
There. She'd done it. But it didn't matter because any second now Tony and Tim were going to step in and tell Gibbs the truth.
Any second now.
Deflating slightly, she realized that it wasn't going to happen.
I'm sorry, Abby, Tony thought, trying to force his mouth to form the right words. He could swear that even her pigtails seemed miserable, and out of the blue he had the urge to hug her. Tightly. But it was too late, and Gibbs was already leading her out of the building.
Once Gibbs and Abby were alone in the elevator, Gibbs tugged her close to his side and used his other hand to sign to her.
I'm disappointed, Abby.
Abby blinked back tears and thought about her friends up in the bullpen, before signing back.
Trust me, I know how you feel.