Summary: Ziva David has always hated people like Anthony Dinozzo with their seemingly flawless lives, but when she finds him breaking down will she accept how wrong her conclusions about him were. Takes place with the team as kids.
"Stupid, perfect, pretty boy," Ziva grumbled as she jammed textbooks into her locker and others into her backpack. Ziva and Tony both had last period math which meant that Ziva had to put up with him somehow being a fifty-fifty combination of stupid jokes, popularity, and constantly fidgeting in his seat and a smart kid who could grasp anything the class studied so long as it interested him.
The twelve year old was one of the last students to leave the building and as she slowly made her way down the steps out of the seventh grade hallway she heard an odd noise that sounded suspiciously like a boy crying. Curiously, Ziva tiptoed into the grassy area that was surrounded on three ways by the walls of the school and open to a farmer's field on the other. Much to her surprise, the perfect, flawless, Anthony Dinozzo was sitting on the ground crying into his arms.
"Tony?" Ziva squeaked in surprise. Tony's head jerked up, cheeks splotchy and red, and he rubbed the back of his hand across his face.
"What?" he asked sourly.
"What happened to you?" Ziva asked, still surprised to see the golden boy crying.
"Nothing," Tony said, fumbling with some papers as he stood. "It's nothing."
"You can tell me," Ziva said, dying of curiosity.
Tony hesitated, but seemed like he desperately needed someone to talk to. "It's just- things aren't all that great at home," he looked at his feet. "My parents have been fighting for a while and my-my little sister, Kate, died about two months ago." Ziva's mouth formed a little 'o' of shock. "My older brother's deployed in the Marines and my mom's been drinking." Tony was steadily sliding against the wall towards the ground and was now sitting again and looked ready to cry. "My dad says I'm stupid and a failure and I'll never be good at anything." He threw the papers he had been holding onto the ground. Large red numbers, not one over a seventy, and words were clearly visible. Ziva saw comments like Pay more attention, Anthony! Try harder! At least pretend like you care! "Stupid ADHD screws everything up at school! I'm an idiot, aren't I?"
"I-I'm so sorry, Tony," Ziva said. She had never thought that the smart-aleck boy from her English and math classes was baring such a heavy burden.
Tony rubbed a hand across his eyes again. "Forget about it," he said, bottom lip trembling. "I'm just being a stupid baby, like always." He stuffed the failed tests into his bag and stood to leave. "Sorry for dumping all my issues on you, Ziva," he said before leaving to walk home, having missed his bus.
The next day, Ziva couldn't stop thinking about the Dinozzo boy. She didn't have a perfect home life, but she had a father who would move the sun to make her happy. Tony's father told him he was stupid. She had a nerdy, annoying little brother. Tony's little sister was dead. Now that she thought about it, Tim really wasn't all that bad. Yeah, he was too smart for his own good and didn't have very good social skills, but they were family and as clichéd as it was, families stuck together.
So the next time people partnered up in math class to do homework and Tony was left alone, no one wanting to have to rely on the supposedly stupid boy for help, Ziva sat next to him. Tony opened his mouth to protest, say he didn't want her pity.
"Forget it, Dinozzo," she said gruffly with a shake of her head. "You're stuck with me." The confliction of Tony's emotions showed on his face. He was embarrassed, but incredibly grateful. Finally his face set into one more relaxed expression.
He smiled.