— The story and any possible original characters are mine. NCIS, its own characters and canon aren't. —
In case you didn't notice it, the name is from the James Bond movie.
Leo
- YEAR 2004 -
NAVY YARD AT 9 AM. MONDAY. PRESENT.
"Where's DiNozzo?" Gibbs growled the moment he stepped out of the elevator. His other two agents shrugged and prayed that their boss would keep his bad mood outside the work this time. Gibbs furrowed his brows, feeling irritated and worried at the same time. DiNozzo was often late from work, but rarely more than few minutes here and there and he did always make up for it by staying late. Last months however, it seemed like the young man could never get to work on time.
ITALY AT 8 AM. SATURDAY. LOCAL TIME.
"Why do they always escape?" he huffed under his breath as he ran.
The voice in his ear sounded both amused and annoyed, "Are you seriously asking that? I mean, what would you do in their shoes? Happily run straight into your arms and let you do your thing? Remind me again what was it that you do. Cuddle them to death? "
"Fair enough." He nearly slipped on something, but he didn't have time to see what. He could feel the beating of his heart, like underwater drum solo playing just for him. He could taste the blood in his mouth and distantly he realized that he was smirking. Maybe he'd been doing this work for too long. Then again, had there ever been a time when it hadn't been too long?
The dirtbag had a good distance, but not for long. He wasn't doing this job just so he could let his targets get away, not that he'd never done it per se, but that was another story... Changing direction, he quickly made his way to one of the rooftops. Running to the other side of it, his eyes scanned the area and within a few seconds he knew all he needed to know. Adjusting the small ear piece to make sure it wouldn't fall off, he ignored the frantic screaming in his ear and there was not a moment of hesitation as he jumped down. Landing on something soft, he was thankful for spotting it in time. Hard landing wasn't on his 'to do' list anytime soon again, since apparently human bodies were not made for it.
Standing up, he brushed his fingers quickly over his clothes and then over his hair. He noticed the shocked look on the face of a man whose cargo he had just messed up. Flashing a smile he apologized in fluent Italian before running off again. Now was not the time for a friendly chatter. Running for a few more minutes, he finally slowed down into a slow walk and shook his head when he saw the car. Not too clever, making it so easy for him to find.
"Just to double check. That's the one, right?" He frowned when the only answer he got was silence. For a moment he feared that something had happened to his partner. "Are you still there?"
"I'm not talking to you," came finally the muffled response.
He laughed, barely hiding his relief from his voice. "I'm sorry. I'll warn you next time I'm going to jump so you can close your eyes."
"Don't joke about it! You try watching a live video broadcast of a life through the eyes of some idiot who completely ignores the laws of physics on a regular basis. I keep thinking that this is it, he's not going to make it this time. If you weren't so averse of it, I'd give you the math of just how low your chances are making it to age forty."
"Sorry. So?"
"Yeah. That's the one."
"Good. You might want to close your eyes."
There was a moment of silence. "They're closed."
"Attaboy." He grinned and then the smile was gone as he put his hand inside his jacket and walked closer to the car. Stopping next to it he knocked on the window.
The driver rolled down the window, looking annoyed and tried speaking something in broken Italian, but then stopped in the middle of the angry rant. With eyes wide open and a bleeding hole in the wrinkly forehead, the driver slumped backwards. After making sure the dead was truly dead—because of that one bizarre case when the dead guy had somehow refused to die even after a bullet to the brains—he opened the door and pushed the driver down on the other side. He barely glanced at the body as he reached forward to take the hat. Glad that it didn't have much blood on it, he put it on his head and sat in the driver's seat. Waiting with his gun hidden on his lap, he kept brushing his thumb over the cold metal.
"How close?"
"Five minutes, tops."
"Don't forget to close your eyes again."
"I can handle it just fine."
"Like that one time? I heard you threw up for days after it and you can't forget the nightmares you had after the last time. Remember?"
"Fine, I'll close my eyes. But just so we're clear, I'm over it by now, thank you very much for bringing that up again."
"Attaboy."
"You can't protect me from things like that forever, you know."
"I know." But he could and would try. "Ah, there he is..." He moved the hat to hide most of his face.
His target opened the backdoor and jumped inside. "The plans have changed! Let's go!" the man yelled in Russian, glancing frantically outside while still gasping for his breath.
He turned around slowly to look at the man and with his gun pointed at him, he spoke in Russian, "Vlad quit." Before the man had time to react, he ended his miserable life, watching how the life was gone from yet another bad guy. Another mission completed.
"Is it done?"
He stared at the bloody body for a moment. "Yeah... The mission is over. Let's both go home and if we're lucky, maybe we'll get some sleep this time." He could feel the concern from his partner, but he refused to say anything as he got out of the car and walked away toward the morning sun. It hurt his eyes even through his sunglasses, which he had put on, but he didn't care.
"Are you sure you're not hurt? I don't want to smuggle you out of some shady Chinese hospital again, because you pass out on the way home and crash your airplane. They're never giving you a new one if you break this before even using it for a few more missions. If you're not careful, you'll end up having to walk and swim everywhere."
"I'm fine. Besides, I'm not even in China, remember? I'll call you later."
"Okay, but listen—"
Taking off the earpiece and then the contact lenses from his eyes, he cut off all contact to his partner. It was time to go home and all he really wanted to do was sleep away a generation or few, but knowing at the same time that he didn't have the luxury. He never did. It was the price he had to pay for living two lives that were both demanding that he worked himself to death. Quite literally.
"God... What am I doing?"
He held on until he made it far enough before he threw up violently. It was another price he had to sometimes pay after the mission was over and his 'weekday' persona caught up with the persona he used while working on the missions. The he now couldn't always handle the other and the life he lived and the things he did.
NAVY YARD AT 9:05 AM. MONDAY. PRESENT.
It didn't matter how evil the dead were. Each time he felt like he had lost part of his soul. Or perhaps it had something to do with the persona he put on each time; he became a cold-blooded hunter, just barely above the evil that he killed.
Before the elevator doors opened, he quickly pressed the emergency switch. It was what he had to do every time before facing his team. While he knew he could fool everyone else just fine, he knew that Gibbs had already been few times dangerously close to suspecting something. He couldn't allow that to happen; it would be too dangerous. Not just for him and those he worked with and for, but also those in his current life. Taking a few deep breaths, he leaned against the wall, slowly stripping away the remains of that thing he had to become whenever he did the dirtiest jobs, just so those with their humanity still fully intact didn't have to. A few more breaths and he was fully back to being Very Special Agent Anthony D. DiNozzo Junior. He was fine. He was fine. He was.
Glancing at his watch, he grimaced; 9:16. Boss was going to eat him alive and he was beyond tired, ready to drop from his feet. He knew he should have made the plane fly just a little faster, which wasn't safe, but at least he wouldn't be late from work. Yawning several times, he pulled out a bottle of pills from his pocket. His hands shook and he nearly dropped it several times. His 'vitamins' were from their own doctor. He could still remember the first time they'd been introduced to these,
"It will fool your body into thinking you've rested. Take only one or it won't be pretty, so be careful.
Once twelve hours have passed, you will crash and fall asleep no matter where you are and what you do."
Of course, because he was DiNozzo, he did once take two pills at once and with coffee of all things. The results were not pretty at all and everyone around him had suffered from his hyper active behavior, until he fell asleep in the middle of the bullpen while carrying coffee for his entire team. Taking now one cautiously, he grimaced at the aftertaste and glanced at his watch again; 9:17. Oh, Gibbs was so going to kill him.
Entering the bullpen a moment later, he smirked, looking to all the world his usual self. "Good morning!"
McGee and Kate stared at him. They had already been suffering from Gibbs' wrath because of him and so they threw ugly looks at him.
"Sorry. My car broke down. It won't happen again." He flinched at the head slap as Gibbs materialized behind him from out of nowhere.
"You better make sure it won't."
"Sorry, boss," Tony mumbled and rubbed at the back of his head. Gibbs looked at him strangely and not for the first time Tony found himself worrying he'd messed up somewhere, giving out some signs or he hadn't lied well enough and wondered if Gibbs was suspecting something or if he already knew.
"Get to work, DiNozzo."
"On it, boss." Tony kept the smile on his face as he walked to his desk. "The coffee and lunch are on me today," he muttered to the other two, surprising them. "Really, I'm sorry." He shrugged and they relaxed for a bit, even smiling at him.
"Are you working or are you not busy enough?" Gibbs barked and the agents rushed back to work. Gibbs sat behind his own desk and observed DiNozzo with a frown. There was something there and his gut was driving him crazy, but he never could figure out what the young man was hiding. He hoped it wasn't anything serious, but in his gut he knew. "DiNozzo."
"Yes, boss?"
"After work. My place. Cowboy steaks."
McGee and Kate looked shocked. They didn't know it was something the two men did every once in a while, so they stared at them without believing what they had just heard.
Tony smiled again, but inside he felt like he was about to lose his breakfast. "Sure. I'll bring the beer."
GIBBS' PLACE LATER ON THAT DAY AT 9 PM.
They ate and drank in silence. Gibbs hoped Tony would open up to him and Tony was praying that the older man wouldn't decide now of all times to become talkative.
Gibbs observed his Agent who hadn't relaxed the whole time, as if knowing he wanted to talk. It hurt a little knowing that Tony felt like he couldn't open up to him. Smiling sadly he took a swig from the beer bottle. "How did you spend your days off?"
Tony flashed a smile. "Don't tell probie and Kate, but I spent the entire time at home watching movies and sleeping."
Gibbs wanted to growl and glare. He didn't know how he knew it, but DiNozzo was lying to him. Plus, he didn't look like a man who had gotten any sleep for some time. "Nothing wrong with that. What movies did you watch?"
Tony stared at his boss and friend in shock. Gibbs was actually willingly asking him about the movies?
Listening to Tony start his painfully long rambling about all the movies he had watched, Gibbs kept observing him and wondering if his gut was failing him. After all, he wasn't a young man anymore.
"...but then I realized I had enough of that for a while and decided to watch Licence to kill and before I knew it, I was on a James Bond marathon..."
Maybe things were fine the way they were. It wasn't like he shared everything with DiNozzo either... Gibbs smiled weakly as the man went on to quote his favorite parts from the movie, which he thought that Gibbs just had to watch with him sometime. Then suddenly in the middle of his speech, Tony started yawning and before he even realized it, he was asleep, almost in the middle of speaking.
"You know you can trust me." Gibbs sighed and moved Tony so his head was on his lap. Brushing his fingers through the hair, he frowned and looked closer. It looked like blood. After making sure his Agent wasn't hiding any injuries from him, Gibbs relaxed, but the frown on his face didn't leave. Once again his gut was screaming at him and he had no idea what to do with it, so for now he just had to keep trying to ignore it and hope—and pray—that someday the man would trust him enough to tell the truth, good or bad.
The End