Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS or any of it's characters. I do like to play with them on occasion.
Tim McGee walked into his apartment pleased with himself after a hard day's work. The MCRT had been tracking a terrorist group planning a major attack at Norfolk and had cross over into an FBI investigation of an arms dealer. The whole thing had gone sideways quickly on the two agencies when the terrorist took a large group of hostages at a local warehouse and demanded money and passage out of the U.S.
Tim wasn't sure what had overcome him when he was staring at the map of the warehouse with the location of the hostages and terrorist marked based on thermal imaging, but suddenly he took charge and quickly explained a way to get the hostages out and round up the terrorist with little or no chance of collateral damage. What surprised Tim even more was that the leader of the Hostage Response Team agreed with him and within an hour the terrorist were captured and the hostages released without an injuries to any NCIS or FBI agents.
The ruffling of his hair and good job from his boss was the icing on the cake for the young agent.
It wasn't until Tim had taken his shower and was getting ready to log onto his computer for a planned night of gaming that it hit him. The plan that he used today to safely extract the hostages and arrest the terrorist was almost identical to an op his gaming group had used a few weeks ago on the game they had been playing. To make matters worst the whole operation had been the idea of the youngest player, a teenager who went by the name silverfox8. He knew that when the questions started tomorrow on how he had learned the techniques he had suggested he would never hear the end of it from his partner Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, he also knew he could never lie to his boss and not disclose the information.
Leaving those thoughts behind he logged on and entered his world of online gaming, to decompress after work. He payed special attention to all the suggestions silverfox8 made that night and was slightly disappointed when only a couple hours into their session the young voice came over his headset, "Busted, gotta go guys."
The older players just laughed to themselves remembering the days when they also had to suddenly exit game play when one of their parents had walked in on them playing instead of doing homework.
Across town Leroy Jethro Gibbs was in his basement when he heard his front door opened and the footsteps of his longtime friend Tobias Fornell.
"Busted, gotta go."
He quickly logged off the very high end computer he was using and was in the process of covering it with a sheet when the other man made it down the stairs and caught him.
"Jethro, something you want to talk about?", he asked dryly.
"Well as a good leader you learn to use every teaching opportunity available to you."
"How doesn't he recognize your voice?"
"Voice modifier."
"Well I'll be damned, and here I thought you couldn't teach an old dog new tricks."
"Dog, Tobias? I'm a Marine."
AN: Just short one shot to help me decompress after having to live in Karson's mind for Papa Bear. Hope you enjoyed it, has always reviews welcomed. :) stray