Disclaimer: Ye verily, may I be strucketh by slop descending from the heavens if I claimeth ownership of ye olde NCIS.
Spoilers: Sharif Returns. And Ravenous, I suppose. And Silver War. And Chapstick. Now we'll sing the Sesame Street song about how one of these things is not like the others.
Summary: Good girls always go after the bad boys.
"So how many times is that now?"
Ziva looked up from her computer, giving Tony a death glare. "How many times what?"
"That you've gone gaga over a guy that turned out to be a perp?"
She knitted her brow. "What do games have to do with that?"
"Games?"
"Ga-ga. It's like your duckball."
"Duckball? You mean like duckpin bowling?"
It didn't sound right. Didn't bowling have those big, heavy balls? She asked, "Is that where you throw a ball at someone and try to get them out?"
"Oh, dodgeball." He laughed, "You guys have got a game like that called gaga?"
"Do you have a point, or are you just going to mock my culture and lack of aptitude in the more inane aspects of your language?"
"Sorry." His face assumed a confused expression. "What were we talking about?"
"I have no idea." She didn't smile as she turned back to her computer, wondering how long her reprieve would last. The last thing she wanted to deal with right now was Tony's dissection of her occasional poor taste in men.
He didn't take long for him to pick up his thread. "Oh, right. Gaga, it means, like, all fluttery with butterflies in the stomach and weak in the knees when you see someone of the opposite sex. Or the same sex, depending on your preferences. I, for one, will not complain if you use your powers on attractive female suspects."
In spite of her better instincts, she looked at him and asked, "What powers?"
"Your invariable attraction to guys who are hiding something." He winked at her. "That engineer you were slobbering over turns out to be selling chemical weapons to a terrorist. Then there was that Eschel guy who framed you. You never did answer my questions about your, uh, history with him. And let's not forget Ranger Smith, the serial killer of Jellystone Park."
She answered through gritted teeth, "His name was Landis and it was Shenandoah Park."
"Not a fan of Yogi Bear, I take it?" He looked at her expectantly. "Smarter than the average bear? Wants to steal your pic-a-nic basket?"
She entered a few final keystrokes and closed the file, thankful she could leave and escape from the conversation. "It could happen to anyone."
"And yet it only seems to happen to you."
"What about Ducky and that, hm, anthropologist?"
"Oh, the one you stabbed during your first case with us?"
"Why do you have to make it about me?"
"Because we're discussing you. Y'know, you see it in movies all the time. It's such a cliché. The good girl, all sugar and spice, falls for the bad boy who's really a good guy underneath."
She turned off her computer. "Sugar and spice?"
"In your case, we'll replace those with hostility and ass-kicking, which might be why the bad guys you fall for really are bad guys. If you were more like Sandy you'd find a nice Danny to settle down with."
She stood and put on her coat, refusing to answer. On some level he was right. She had an inherent attraction to men who turned out to be the enemy. Tony didn't back down from her stare.
He still had an infuriating smile on his face. "Oh, come on. You know Grease. Don't think I haven't noticed your secret fondness for musicals."
"I'll see you tomorrow," she said coldly, buttoning her coat and grabbing her backpack.
"Hold up, I'll walk down with you." He kept his eyes on her, trying to tempt her into smiling back. "You know, we could save a lot of time if we just arrested the guy you start making goo-goo eyes at during an investigation."
"Yeah, well we wouldn't need to save time if you'd stop leaving in the middle of investigations."
The smile finally disappeared. "I needed to take care of something."
"Fine." She started to walk away.
He hurried to grab the rest of his gear. His tone resumed the casual nonchalance it had had while he'd been teasing her, "What, no interrogation? No demand to know where I was?"
"What difference does it make? No one around here trusts me enough to tell me anything anymore." She stepped into the elevator and pressed the close door button.
"Ziva, what are you…" The elevator doors closed, cutting him off.
She took a deep breath and cracked her neck. I need to go for a run. A nice, long run. And maybe beat someone up. I hope some stupid mugger decides to pick on me.
The doors opened as the elevator stopped on the ground floor and she was surprised to see Tony standing in front of them, panting. "I…took the…stairs."
"Good cardio work, yes?" She brushed past him, not bothering to hold the door for him as he followed her into the parking lot.
"I didn't mean anything by what I was saying. I was just making conversation."
She nodded, keeping her eyes forward.
"What is up with you lately? Did I hurt your feelings or something?"
She whirled on him. "Feelings? Feelings, feelings…" She made a show of scratching her head. "Oh, you mean those things I don't have? Why would you worry about that all of a sudden?"
"I never said…" He looked hurt, but she didn't care.
"Yeah, you never say anything. And that's fine. Just don't expect me to laugh it off like we're friends or something."
"Can we talk about this?"
"Why start now?" She came close to running him over as she sped out of the parking lot. He stopped trying to call after the third unanswered set of rings. Fifteen more tries and they'd be even.