Disclaimer - I don't own anything.
Tony was at a loss. Sure, he knew how to impress a girl. But, if he was honest, all the 'romantic gestures' that he'd carefully perfected over the years were actually ways of helping him get laid. And now that he actually wanted to be romantic, to make someone he cared about feel special without the intention of getting her into bed, he didn't have a clue.
Before, he was always bragging about how he sent the hot blonde from the bar a bunch of roses and now she's smitten. So that was roses out of the question. And clothes were complicated. You had to get the size exactly right, and on top of that, she had to actually like it. Tony had bought clothes for girlfriends before, and had vowed never to do it again unless he was told exactly what to get. He could hand over his credit card and send Kate down to the mall, but that wasn't exactly the effect he was going for. That left… lingerie. Not an option. That would definatelymake her think he just wanted sex.
He knew it hurt Kate that whenever they said 'I love you', she said it first. He always said it back, but he knew that she desperately wanted him to volunteer it himself, without her instigating it. She wanted to hear it when it wasn't just a standard response. And it wasn't that he didn't love her – he did. But he had always been so quick to say it in the past. He used to be 'in love' almost every week, and he didn't want Kate to think she was just another girl to him. He was afraid that if he said it first, she wouldn't believe him, or she'd think he was only saying it because he wanted something or felt he should. He needed another way to say 'I love you', without actually saying the words. He wanted to give Kate a chance to say 'I love you too' instead of just 'I love you', and he wanted her to know it was for real.
He had always thought he was good with the ladies. That he knew what to say and do to stay on their good side, and to make them think he was the perfect man. And it had always worked - for a couple of weeks at least. Until he moved on to the next one. But now, he wasn't so sure. He was beginning to think he was a bit, well… useless.
He'd once told McGee that 'the best way to know about women is to know them'. But he didn't really know any women at all. He wasn't on speaking terms with any of his ex-girlfriends, and he didn't have any sisters to learn from. The only woman he really knew properly was Kate – and he couldn't ask her for advice, could he? It would be like when he was a little boy and asked his mother what she wanted for her birthday, then told her to forget he asked. She'd always act surprised on the day, and he'd believed that she'd truly forgotten that the gift sitting in front of her was the exact thing she'd asked him for a week ago. Somehow, he didn't think Kate would be so willing to play along. And now maybe he was going to have to rethink how well he actually did know Kate, if he couldn't even think of a present for her.
It wasn't her birthday or Christmas or any type of anniversary. It was just that work was making her kind of down. There's only so much brutality a person can see before it starts to wear on them, and Kate was nearing her threshold. He'd been too busy watching a football match with his old frat brother – and Kate's ex-boyfriend – to listen to her when she was trying to talk to him about it, and he had made her mad. He'd apologised, of course, and she'd said it was alright, but she still seemed pretty miserable. She didn't seem to want to be alone with him at work and she didn't go home with him or ask him if he wanted to stay over at hers like she normally did. So now he was trying to make it up to her, hopefully cheer her up a little. He was pretty sure that just telling her 'I love you' would get him forgiven, but he didn't want to do that. She deserved more than him saying it because it was convenient for him. He was stuck for ideas though, and he was getting desperate. He'd even asked Gibbs and McGee how to show a girl you love her. Hell, he'd asked Jimmy Palmer. If he thought it'd be any help, he'd have gone to autopsy and asked the dead bodies they had in there. Mind you, their silence might have been more helpful than the ideas he'd got from the rest of the team.
'A puppy?' McGee had suggested.
He had considered that, briefly – everyone likes puppies, right? But she already had that bad-tempered little dog, Toni. And she hadn't even been too thrilled about that, at first. At least Toni came ready house-trained – a puppy would take up time Kate didn't really have. And Kate adored Toni now – although Tony couldn't for the life of him figure out why. The dog was the most irritable little creature he'd ever met, and it was always snapping and growling at him. It was like a four-legged version of Gibbs. It followed Kate around all the time, though, and would curl up on her lap and go to sleep. And if Tony tried to put his arms around Kate when Toni was there, the horrible animal barked at him like he was trying to kill her or something. Another dog was definitely not the answer.
Ducky had recommended he cook for her. But his culinary skills were put to better use just putting a pizza in the oven or ordering takeout than cooking anything from scratch. He was trying to make Kate feel special, not sick. The last time he'd cooked for her, she'd spent the weekend throwing up. She insisted it was a sickness bug, nothing to do with what Tony had cooked or he'd have it too, but he wasn't convinced. He was probably used to it, immune after so many years of eating his own horrible cooking.
Abby had told him to take her to a spa. He had got as far as checking dates and prices on the Champney's website, before realizing that he wasn't about to let a man give him a massage. He didn't think it was right to take Kate away for a romantic weekend and spend his time being rubbed all over with lotion by one of the young, hot chicks these places employed to give massages. And there was absolutely no way he was letting another man rub oil over him. Or Kate, for that matter. So he'd had to scrap that idea, which was a shame, really, because it was looking quite promising for a while.
When he had asked Gibbs, he had glared at him, and ignored him. At least, he had the first three times he asked. The fourth time, he told him to buy her a box of chocolates, shut up, and get back to work.
And Jimmy Palmer had stared at him, open-mouthed, and stuttered something about flowers, before running away.
Fat lot of use they had been – between the five of them, not one of them had managed to come up with a decent idea for him. And Gibbs didn't even try. He was just jealous because his little redhead with the flash car hadn't appeared for a couple of weeks, Tony told himself. It wasn't that he didn't care whether Kate thought Tony was a brainless waste of space or not. Was it? He'd told them to keep it out of the office enough times, but surely he didn't want them to actually break up? He couldn't be that grumpy, could he? Dammit. He really needed to find something good, so he could prove to Kate and Gibbs he was worth all the fuss.
God, he really was useless! At this rate, Kate would leave him and go find herself a boyfriend who wasn't completely clueless. And he wouldn't blame her – he didn't exactly have the best track record when it came to women. He was king of the short-lived relationship. Until now, he had been proud of this title. But now… Kate knew all sorts of guys who were better boyfriend-material than he was. She didn't need to go out with over-excited, immature idiots like him. If she wanted out, she wasn't going to stick around while he acted like a loser. She'd go get herself a proper boyfriend.
That was Tony's biggest fear. That one day, she'd wake up next to him and realise she had gone absolutely mad. It was why he wanted to show her wasn't downright hopeless. But it was backfiring – so far, he had only proved that he was utterly incompetent.
He was learning, though. He was getting better at the whole 'relationship' side of things. He had learned that 'I don't want to talk to you' could mean 'Go away before I kick your teeth in' or 'I want to talk to you but not when you're acting like the world's oldest frat boy', and he knew how to tell the difference. He knew that he should pay attention when she talked, even if he really didn't care what her cousin's friend's neighbour had said to her ex-husband, because nothing made her madder than being ignored. He'd discovered that when they were at work she liked sitting at his desk instead of her own when he wasn't there. He knew that when Kate said she was 'fine' she wasn't, and that when she said she was 'okay' she was, and that she liked it when he came up behind her and kissed her shoulder for no reason at all. And, at long last, after weeks and weeks of waiting patiently and only kissing, and being careful where he put his hands and treating her with 'respect' and not rushing things, which very nearly killed him, eventually she asked him if he wanted to stay over at her apartment. So now he knew what her tattoo was, as well.
Maybe he wasn't such a lost cause. He did know stuff about her, more than he realised. Surely if she thought he was that pathetic she'd have told to clear off already.
Maybe he could get her something for Toni, as a peace offering, and cross his fingers the dog started liking him a bit more. But that wasn't very romantic. Or perhaps he could take her skiing, it was getting colder now and there would be snow soon. That was romantic. But Gibbs would have to give them time off to go, and there was absolutely no chance of that. He could write her a poem, maybe, or a song. But his poetry was worse than his cooking, and he had no idea how to start writing a song, unless it was to the tune of some sort of nursery rhyme and involved changing the words to make it rude.
Tony had never been in this situation before. If only he hadn't shared all the details of his dates with the whole office, he wouldn't have to think of something new. Kate never told anybody about her dates – he used to have to force even their names out of her. But she – and everyone else in the office – could probably name every girl he'd been with for the last six months. She said she didn't mind that he was a playboy – if he tried to pull any crap with her, she assured him, she'd just tell Gibbs and he'd sort him out. But still. She could name every single man she'd been with – he couldn't even count the girls. Which was why he was having such a hard time thinking of a something that he hadn't done before. Something that would show Kate how special he really thought she was.
He could casually strike up a conversation and ask her what she wanted most in the world then go get it for her, but he wasn't sure how to do that without being obvious. He wanted it to be a surprise.
He could get Abby to take her shopping and then report back, so he could go out and buy whatever designer bag or diamond necklace she saw but wouldn't buy because it cost so much.
And he didn't want to ask her or send Abby on a spy-mission. He wanted to be a proper boyfriend, who could think of his own ideas and still impress his girlfriend. He wanted Kate to think he was worth being yelled at by Gibbs twice as much as before, and being constantly quizzed by an over-protective Ducky on where they were going and what they were doing. He wanted her to know that she was more than just flavour of the week, that she meant something to him and that he would choose her over anyone or anything else.
He wanted her to know that he was in love with her, and he wasn't 'just saying it'.
None of his other girlfriends lasted this long. It was why his apartment had been such a state before he started seeing her. Nobody minds a bit of mess for a couple of nights, and it was never much more than a couple of nights so there was no need to clean up. For Kate, though, he'd made an effort. He'd picked up all the dirty laundry and he'd cleaned out the mouldy food from the fridge and he'd vacuumed the living room. His apartment was always clean now. Not pristine, like Kate's was, but it no longer looked like a tramp was living there. At first, he would only clean up when he knew Kate was going to come over. Now, he cleaned when it was dirty, because Kate was almost always there. At weekends they hung out together, and during the week they went home together. Even if Kate said she was just going to go back to her own place and she'd see him tomorrow, she invariably turned up at ten or eleven at night and said she changed her mind.
He always let her in, as well.
Other people who woke him up or dragged him away from a movie and a pizza because they 'changed their minds' about coming over always got moaned at or ignored. Kate was greeted with a grin and a kiss and was practically dragged to the sofa with him before she even said 'hello'. Tony couldn't tell for sure whether this was because he was finally growing up or because he just liked Kate a whole lot more than he'd ever liked anyone before. He suspected it was a little of both. Either way, it had never happened before.
Nobody like her had ever been a part of his life before. He needed to let her know that she was irreplaceable, as far as he was concerned, and nobody was like her. That he didn't care about anyone quite as much as he cared about her.
---
Two days later, he woke up to Kate thumping him on the arm.
"Wake up!" she pouted, shoving him hard in the shoulder before resuming her attack on his bicep.
"I'm awake," he groaned, pulling the duvet over his head and rubbing his arm. "Stop it!"
"Tony," Kate moaned, tugging his ear hard. "Don't go back to sleep!"
Reluctantly, he sat up and ran his hand through his hair.
"I'm bruised!" he exclaimed, examining his upper arm.
"Sorry," Kate said, not sounding it in the least. "I can't get back to sleep, it's six in the morning and there's traffic outside! Make it shut up!"
"What do you want me to – "
Tony suddenly remembered precisely why he was so tired. He'd stayed awake until Kate had fallen asleep the night before, then snuck outside at quarter to midnight to sort out her surprise. He hadn't got back inside until four am, determined to oversee every last second of the preparation. That made two hours sleep, after a day that started at 0700 and didn't end for almost twenty-four hours. God, no wonder he was exhausted.
"Tony," Kate whined, leaning her chin on his chest. "I wanna go sleep, it's Saturday!"
And because it was Kate, not some random girl, he didn't tell her that she'd had more than twice as much sleep as him so leave him alone, and he didn't turn over and go straight back to sleep.
"Come here," Tony said happily, dragging Kate out of bed.
"No!" Kate yelled, kicking him. "I'm tired!"
"God, you're moody," Tony muttered, dropping her arm. "Please, just come look at this!"
"What?" Kate asked sulkily, staring up at him with a petulant scowl on her face.
"Please?" Tony said. "Just at the window, come on."
"Will you carry me?" Kate asked, dropping her grumpy tone and instead adopting a sweet, 'don't you just love me and want to do what I ask?' voice.
"Sure," Tony said, hoisting her up onto his back, piggy-back style. "Come see."
He carried her to the window and pulled the curtains open, nearly dropping Kate as he let go of her with one hand.
"Don't you dare drop me!" Kate ordered, kicking him in the ribs.
"Sorry," Tony said meekly, although if she wouldn't be so floppy on his back then he'd be able to hold her more easily. "Here you go!"
Kate peered out of the window, frowning.
"What?" she asked. "What am I looking at?"
Tony pointed to the car park below them.
"See the wall?"
"That one that's got all the graffiti in it?"
"Yeah. I bought it."
Kate leant forward so her head was hanging over Tony's face, upside down.
"You bought a wall?"
"Yeah!" Tony said, happily. "You remember all the compensation money from when I had plague?"
"I thought you were saving it to buy a Ferrari?"
"Shh, listen! I was, but instead I paid the people who own that apartment building to let me have rights to this side of the wall, so they can't knock it down without my permission or anything. And I got some security people to come and put a higher fence and a better lock on the car park, so nobody can come in and graffiti it - "
"It's already got graffiti on it," Kate pointed out.
"Will you stop interrupting? Then I cleaned the graffiti all off - "
"Didn't do a very good job of it," Kate muttered, annoyed at being told to shut up.
"Shh!" Tony ordered. "And then I got some artist people to come graffiti it properly. Read what it says!"
Kate pushed her hair out of the way and looked carefully at the wall.
"It says 'I love Kate Todd'!" she exclaimed, dropping off Tony's back and slipping round so she was in front of him. "Tony!"
"It does? Dammit, it was meant to say 'Tony is a sexy beast - " he was interrupted by Kate thumping him. "Do you like it?" he asked, grinning.
"I love it, Tony, that's so sweet!"
"Good," Tony grinned. "Because wall's are expensive! You wouldn't think they are, but it would have been cheaper to build my own! I mean, it's just a bit of cement and - "
"Tony!" Kate pouted, wrapping her arms around his neck and jumping up so her legs were around his waist and he had to hold her again.
"Hmm?" he asked, smiling at her.
"Haven't you got anything better to do with your mouth than talk?"
He nodded eagerly, tilting his head to meet her lips as she leaned forward for a kiss.
"Do you really love me?" Kate asked, resting her forehead on Tony's a few minutes later.
"More than anything," Tony nodded.
Kate smiled at him, her hands in his hair and her eyes brimming with tears.
"I love you too."