Title: 'Boss'
Word Count: 2,443
Characters: Tony, Abby, Ziva, McGee, the rest are mentioned.
Genre: Drama, friendship with a dash of Angst
Pairings: None
Line: "They're your team now." - Gibbs, Season 3 Episode 'Hiatus 2'
It was late. All the overhead lights were out and the squad room all but deserted save a few lone, diligent agents who worked by the light of desk lamps.
Among them sat Tony, who watched McGee as he worked away at his computer, reaching out with one hand for his coffee and, upon finding the cup empty, tossed it in the trash. All without ever letting his eyes leave his screen or stopping the incessant tap-tap-tap of his computer keyboard.
It was long past midnight, the others had left hours ago and they hadn't eaten since lunch, but Tim didn't complain. Hell, Tony wasn't sure he even noticed.
"McGee."
"Yeah Boss?" he answered distractedly, his eyes still on his screen. Tony barely withheld a wince. Being called 'Boss' didn't give him nearly the satisfaction these days that it used to, but he was trying his best to get used to it. Would get used to it. He had no choice.
"Go home."
His eyes snapped up to Tony's.
"But I'm not finished running down all the BOLO responses?"
Tony closed his eyes briefly, but resisted the urge to rub his face, "Probie, there's a freeze on all of his accounts, a BOLO in every cop's hands from here to Sacramento and his photo is at every bus or train station and airport in the country. He's not going anywhere. At least, not tonight," he opened his eyes and looked at McGee, "I need you fresh and ready to go tomorrow if the call comes in. Go home."
After a moment's hesitation McGee nodded and began shutting down his computer and gathering his things.
"G'nite Tony," he muttered as he walked by and Tony nodded in response.
"See you tomorrow Tim."
Tony waited until McGee had disappeared inside the elevator before he started to shut down his computer for the night. He checked the parking lot to be sure Tim's car was gone as he silently made his way towards his own. He unlocked his car and got in just as his cell phone began to vibrate. He sighed.
"DiNozzo," he paused, "you're where?"
---
"David."
Ziva's eyes snapped up and they met the scowling face of her team leader.
"Tony, thank you for coming," she said humbly, pushing off the thin cot and coming to stand and look at him between the bars.
"Yeah, well, maybe instead of thanking me you can explain why I'm here."
Ziva took a deep breath, "it's kind of a long story."
"I've been awake for eighteen hours, Ziva. Shorten it."
She looked at him and raised an eyebrow, wondering if he was doing his 'Gibbs' again, but decided, in the end, it really didn't matter.
"I was pulled over for a minor traffic violation, asked to get out of the car because I did not have my license on me and arrested for assaulting an officer."
"Ziva!"
"I did not realize it was 'no left turn' and I also did not realize there were officers nearby," she defended weakly, knowing she really did not have a foot to stand on.
"And assaulting them?"
She shrugged, sounding a little less apologetic as she added, "I did not like the placement of his hands when he patted me down."
Tony sighed and closed his eyes, rolling his head from one shoulder to the other.
"Did you tell them you were NCIS?"
"They did not believe me."
Tony stared at her for a moment, wishing to communicate his displeasure at the entire situation, and Ziva had the grace to look remorseful. Finally he turned to go back out front, put on his best icy glare and approached the desk. He pulled out his badge and shoved it into the face of the officer sitting there.
"Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, NCIS. Naval Criminal Investigative Service. You've got one of my agents back there. I need you to let her out."
"I can't do that, sir."
"Sure you can. You pick up those keys, you take a short walk down the hallway, you unlock the cell and you let her out. Easy."
The man shook his head emphatically. "No sir, I really can't do that. The chief's out of town until Monday and I-"
"Look kid," Tony interrupted, allowing his temper to get the better of him, "your obviously new here, so I'm gonna give you a little hint. You don't make the cheif's 'good' side by alienating federal government agencies. Now I've got better things to do than stand here and argue with you over this. Okay? I have a UA marine to catch, a drug smuggling ring to break up and who knows how many murderers and terrorists to put behind bars in the meantime. Just issue her a ticket and let her be on her merry way."
He raised his eyebrows and leveled the man with a glare. The young officer folded within seconds and turned to do as he was told. Tony watched him go, thinking absently to himself that that was a bit easier than he expected and a lot easier than it used to be.
"Thank you, Tony." Ziva said, pulling on her coat as they walked toward his car.
"Don't thank me yet, Zeevah," he unlocked the doors and started to climb in, "you're starting drivers' Ed classes tomorrow."
"What? Tony, no."
"Ziva, you were driving without a license, which is illegal. You made an illegal left turn and you assaulted a traffic cop!"
"Well I don't know what that last part has to do with-"
He turned to glare at her and raised an eyebrow.
Ziva's mouth dropped open, "But Tony-"
"Not gonna help," he muttered, and turned the car on.
She stopped, "what won't?"
"Arguing."
Ziva stared at him for several minutes before finally crossing her arms and looking out the window, pouting. She didn't speak for the rest of the drive and responded to his 'see you tomorrow' with a slammed door.
---
Tony walked into his apartment, took off his coat and dropped his bag on the floor, feeling the weight of the day heavily on his shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted an uneven black lump on his couch that hadn't been there when he left that morning. Resting his hand on the weapon strapped to his hip, he silently moved further into the room. When he saw the black lump had pigtails, uneven though they were, he relaxed and dropped his hand.
"Abby?" He said quietly, coming to stand at the end of the couch. She was stretched out across it, her clothes twisted and riding up, her shoes and coat in a pile on the floor.
Upon hearing his voice Abby sat straight up, just barely catching herself before she tumbled onto the floor.
She stared blankly ahead and blinked, narrowing her eyes in confusion.
"Where am I?" she slurred.
Tony raised his eyebrows. She was drunk. Not that he could blame her. He'd had the urge to do the same more than once over the past month.
"My apartment, Abs," he carefully sat down beside her when she drew her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees, "any particular reason for that?"
Abby was quiet for a moment and refusing to look at him.
"I was at a club," she said, her voice low, "was drinking."
Tony nodded, "yeah. I got that."
Abby sniffed and Tony tilted his head and frowned, realizing she'd been crying.
"Abbs?"
She inhaled sharply and looked at him, red-eyed and looking more lost than he'd ever known her to be, "I always go to Gibbs after I leave my friends so he can give me a ride home when I'm ready," she began, tears flooding her voice, "but when I got there the door was locked. Tony his door is never locked."
Tony's face softened as he realized that for someone like Abby, who believed in signs and fate, a locked door could mean so much more than just a door that could not be opened. Especially if it was Gibbs' door.
"Why was his door locked, Tony?"
Unable to provide her with a satisfying answer, he just shook his head and opened his arms and Abby threw herself onto him, wrapping him tightly in a hug. He rubbed her back while the alcohol and misery-induced tears ran their course.
---
He'd been driving for almost an hour. After dropping Abby off at her apartment and assuring himself she would be alright at home for the night, he hadn't immediately gone back to his place.
He'd driven past McGee's apartment to be sure his car was there and saw the light was still on in the window. He also drove over to Ziva's house but didn't stay long, upon seeing a car he didn't recognize parked in the driveway beside her mini cooper, and unsure of how he felt about that.
So he'd been driving aimlessly for nearly an hour and, though he was beyond tired, he had no desire to sleep.
He wasn't sure what brought him to such a familiar street, what possessed him to park in front of such a familiar house, but he did.
He used the key he'd been given to get in.
Tony found himself in the basement a few minutes later, pacing around the unfinished boat, the scent of sawdust and bourbon still lingering on the air. He had been here before. Not as often as Ducky or Abby or Director Sheppard, but sometimes. When the case had been hard and he didn't have the energy it took to charm a woman into his bed, sometimes he came and sat on the last basement and watched Gibbs work on the boat. There was never much conversation, but something in the rhythmic sanding always calmed him and he'd inevitably end up putting aside his bear and picking up his own sanding block to help out for a while.
He came to a stop by the workbench and stared down at the hand tools strewn about across it. The whole place looked like Gibbs had only left a few hours ago, instead of a few weeks.
He shrugged out of his coat, draped it on a stool, picked up a discarded piece of sandpaper and approached the boat to begin sanding, careful to go with the grain. It wasn't long before he fell into a rhythm and his mind began to wander and was unsurprised when his thoughts settled only briefly on who would play in the NBA all-star game and what the weather would be like tomorrow and instead moved on to be thoughts on the team. His team.
First it was McGee. If forced to admit it, and sometimes he almost did, he'd say McGee had slipped rather easily into the role of Senior Field Agent. The kid had grown a lot in three years and was shaping up well. But he still had a lot to learn and Tony wondered more often than he liked to admit if he was ready for this job that had so literally fallen into his lap.
Then he thought of Ziva and shook his head with a smile. She was the one acting most normal these days. Always screwing up her colloquialisms and trying to make suspect-shaped holes in the walls. But sometimes he would catch her looking longingly toward the stairs to MTAC and he just knew when she saw him at the top instead of Gibbs there was a flicker of disappointment in her eyes.
Thinking of Abby made him sigh, and something in his heart shift uncomfortably. She always hid the Gibbs screen saver she had on her computers when he came to the lab, and without fail would flash him her sunshine grin when he brought her caf-pow! But he knew what she wasn't saying. She made a point to tell him once a day how much she appreciated him and what a good job he was doing, and he only loved her more for it. But still. He knew what she was thinking. Knew who she would have traded him in for in a second if given the chance.
Ducky and Palmer were easier to deal with. He only saw them at scenes or when he had a reason to go down to autopsy. Ducky, of course, never said anything to make him feel inferior but, again, Tony wasn't an idiot and he was trained to listen to what people didn't say. Surprisingly for Ducky, that was a lot.
Then there was Jenny. He'd always been unsure of her relationship with his 'Boss'. At least, their current relationship. He'd sometimes wondered about the conversations they had in her office when Gibbs would disappear upstairs. Now he knew. He was part of those conversations - arguments- almost everyday now. He didn't always come out on top, sometimes he wasn't sure anyone did, but sometimes when he would storm out of her office after one of their 'discussions', he saw a glimmer of nostalgia in her eyes that always caught him off guard.
Still, he was trying. They all were. There was a huge pink elephant in the Squad Room every time they were together. It was tough, and sometimes there was friction when he did things the 'Tony' way he liked instead of the 'Gibbs' way they were all used to. But they were trying. They were learning, all of them, relearning what it was to be a team. Tony still wanted Gibbs to come back, not as often as he used to, but he did. But he wasn't sure that would ever happen. And if it did, he wasn't sure how he would feel about it. But he did know one thing. If Gibbs had felt half as protective for his team as Tony did now, then there was no way in hell he would have left them in incapable hands. Tony's hands. It was the biggest compliment his boss had ever given him.
And it was strange to think that his respect for Gibbs had only grown in the past few month, not shrunk.
Only now did he realize what having your own team really meant. How thoroughly exhausting and utterly rewarding it was to be the one everyone ran to when they had a problem or a question. To be the one Abby looked to for praise, who McGee looked to for guidance. The one Ducky gave reports to and who Ziva followed without question. It was an immense responsibility. One Gibbs had shouldered without complaint, seemingly effortlessly. Tony both envied and admired him for it.
He stepped back from the boat and glanced at his watch, surprised that he'd been sanding for nearly an hour and that the burden that had been so heavy on his shoulders an hour ago was suddenly a lot easier to bear.
Tony put down the sandpaper and picked up his coat, shrugging it on. He paused at the top of the stairs and looked back down, almost laughing when realized that, of all the things Gibbs had taught him, this was by far the most unexpected lesson.
And now he needed to find an apartment with a basement.
Where he could build his own boat.
A/N: I just wanted to explore what it really meant for them to be Tony's 'team' now. What did that imply off the record, you know? Anyway, this is what I came up with. I'm glad there are those that enjoyed the Tiva romance last chap, and I'd love to hear what you thought of this one as well. Gothgirl2k9 - Thanks for the suggestion, I'm thinking on it. Hey, I have a couple of lines that I want to do a flashback chapter to explain them, like take us WAY back to character childhood, what do you guys think?
Next Line: "Have you ever had a child kidnapped, Agent Gibbs?"