"Where do I send flowers?"
Tony watched her walk away, feeling really stupid but also a little angry. Sure, he'd messed up, but it had been an easy mistake to make.
He tried not to let her see how much she'd hurt him by deflecting attention to McGee. But he could still feel the hostility emanating from her.
She had cut him to the quick with her scathing words. It made him feel like he was five years old again, being yelled at by his father. "Can't you do anything right? You're nothing but a screw-up!"
His mother hadn't been much better. He'd tried to please her, but winning her approval had usually meant he had to do something that made him look ridiculous. Like dressing up in a sailor suit, which had only made the other kids laugh at him.
Every time Ziva cut him down, it re-opened all those old wounds.
He'd learned from an early age that the people who were supposed to love and support you most could really hurt and degrade you. It was why he guarded his heart so closely. It was the only way he could protect himself. He could never let himself get too close to a woman because if he did, she'd have the power to devastate him. And he didn't know if he could survive the pain.
Maybe he was being really sexist, but it was different somehow when a woman criticized him rather than a man. He didn't let other men get too close to him either, but he didn't mind as much if a man insulted him. Gibbs got on his case all the time, but Tony didn't take it personally. It was how men were supposed to be with each other. Gibbs only called him on his mistakes so he could improve his work and get the job done. He didn't cut him down for who he was as a person.
Besides, he felt that Gibbs was fair.
Women didn't play fair. They asked for help, then cut you off at the knees when you tried to oblige them.
Look what had happened with the La Grenouille mission. He'd tried so hard to win the Director's approval by carrying out the mission exactly the way she wanted him to, at great risk to himself. He'd had to deceive Jeanne, Gibbs, Ziva, McGee, Abby, Ducky, everyone. He'd worked countless extra hours, led a double life for months, nearly gotten himself blown up… and for what?
In the end, he couldn't help feeling like the price he'd had to pay was too high. The Director had gotten what she'd wanted – La Grenouille dead – but was it worth the fallout with Jeanne, his team and the CIA?
And then finding out that the Director had a personal vendetta against La Grenouille because of her father… He'd felt used. He'd felt like she had betrayed him.
No wonder it was so hard for him to trust women.
But he actually trusted Ziva. He trusted her more than any other woman he'd known in his life. Ziva had helped him through the aftermath of that mission. She'd confronted him and refused to let him avoid dealing with the pain. He'd opened up to her emotionally. She was his friend. And friends helped each other, right?
He was grateful to her, but it was hard for him to tell her that. It was much easier for him to express it in actions. Which was why he'd jumped at the chance to help her.
She'd asked him for advice, hadn't she? Wasn't that what she'd wanted?
All he'd wanted to do was take action and solve her problem. It had seemed simple at the time.
Unfortunately, nothing was simple with Ziva. He couldn't ever do anything right with her.
He hadn't done it on purpose. He wanted to apologize to her and to Aunt Nettie, but she wouldn't even give him the chance. She acted like he would only make everything worse.
She made him feel so inadequate, so inferior. He hated feeling that way.
He'd been taught to protect women, to look out for them. That was what it meant to be a man. But how could he define himself as a man, if women like Ziva were going to insist on not needing any protection? She'd made it clear that she had little use for him.
He really hated women's lib sometimes. He didn't know how he was supposed to behave anymore.
And he really wasn't sure what had possessed him to say that he was her husband, but it had felt good. It was what he'd wanted to say to… well, all the guys Ziva liked. He didn't like it when Ziva went out with anyone. He was jealous of any man she paid attention to.
He wanted to say, "She's mine."