Chapter 4 –Childhood Crush?

Thanks always to stargatesg1973, Fluffybird, NCIS fan(who I can't message back-thanks for your reviews!), and VG LittleBear, here are some word prompts that they have given me: picture frame, knife, lullaby, scientist, travel, pilot, cuddles, sleepy, danger (can't forget the C4), overwhelmed, patience, probing, nosy, fright, threat, custody, Dinozzoisms, little dude could say things like 'on your six' on short acquaintance, Vegetables, coloring, carving, shoes, to go sippycup, cheese, lollipops, Bert the Hippo, singing, angels, hugs, worms, Harry Potter, hot dogs, boats and trains. Also, I forgot to mention the words I started with in my own head: bunny slippers, backpack, baby powder, c-4, blanket, couch, cartoons, electronic store. I will keep attaching these to each chapter to see which will keep me going, yay! Also, remember that not all words may fit to the story, but hey, that is still the fun part, to see what does and does not fit. Any and all mistakes are mine

Oh, to note here, Flashbacks and memories will be in italics….hope you enjoy! T

Tony's flashback -First Semester, Junior Year at OSU:

Tony and Mike walked back toward their frat house, Tony grousing over his homework. "Three papers due and all in next two weeks? It's only the first week!"

"That's what happens when you are taking the courses you are, Tony," Mike teased.

Mike knew Tony actually enjoyed his classes; in point of fact they both did, but enjoyed the banter to lighten the tension of all the studying ahead of them. It was getting late, and curfew would be sounded soon for everyone in the dormitories and frat houses. As they turned a corner they usually didn't take in their hurry, they walked into something that shocked them: two students they recognized that were trouble makers, holding a girl, yes, a girl - against the wall. She wore an OSU sweatshirt; extra small, Tony mused, and wore purple tinted glasses, blue jeans, and bright purple sneakers. She had long dark brown hair and a light complexion. They had her mouth covered to keep her quiet, both holding her against the wall; one of them was holding a knife in his left hand, poised near the girl. The five jerked in surprise, the two captors in dismay, Tony and Mike in shock and anger, and the girl looked shocked at the development then in hopeful relief.

The one holding the knife growled even as he turned the knife toward them, "Walk away superheroes, nothing for you to do here. Just some business..."

"Say what? Mike, did I hear them right, did they just call us superheroes?"

"Hmmm, I do believe they did; guess we will have to pull out our invisible superhero suits."

The one holding the girl's mouth snorted in annoyance, "All right you dumb jocks, walk away, and you won't get hurt."

Tony placed his left hand to his chest, "Awww, now that hurt! I do believe he meant that one, but really now, seeing as how you are traumatizing a little girl, that would make you the idiots."

The one holding the knife let the girl go, the second still keeping her up against the wall at his height, holding her up by his forearm across her chest and his other hand still over her mouth. Tony could see she was having trouble breathing, but he could not let her fear get to him, not just yet.

Mike had already put his bag down slowly, his face grim; Tony's face was anything but. Dramatics was his forte, and he used it to his advantage now, even as he had been talking, keeping eye contact and steadily walking forward, his right hand gripping his pack. In an instant his thick book laden backpack was off his shoulder and swinging at the knife, hitting the hand hard. With a cry of pain, the crack of bone was heard, and the knife was airborne and heading to the other side of the walkway, disappearing under a dumpster by the second building. In that same instant Tony dropped his pack and sprung, grabbing the wrist with his right and twisting to add to the pain even as his left fist hit upward at the jaw quickly to counter any fight coming from the tormentor. Mike in turn launched at the other holding the girl, tackling and hitting midriff, forcing all air and fight out of him. In moments both football players had the perpetrators pinned painfully to the ground. The girl lay in a heap beside Mike, gasping in pain as she got her breath back even with her added groan of pain at her sudden loss of height above the ground.

"Are you ok, do you need the hospital?" Tony asked quickly, trying to keep the anger at bay as he spoke with her, as Mike twisted the second guy's arm behind him, making him yelp in pain.

Her wide startled eyes stared at both him and Mike, yet she shook her head even as she coughed.

"I'm….fine…"

Narrowing his eyes at her, he checked her over for blood by glancing cursorily even as they heard a shout from some other students who now saw something was going on. In minutes security was called, and the girl was being checked over by a female med student. The two who had been terrorizing her were now held by college security, and the police and ambulance called. Tony pointed out where the knife was at and the younger cop found and bagged it. Even though they had been separated from the girl, the three kept each other in sight even as they were asked questions. Mike and Tony were asked to come in the next day to make formal statements, to which they agreed. The girl had sighed quietly to this but had complied as well when the two had given her a 'no argument' look across the way. Tony could only sigh in relief when she had.

Mike murmured, "She looks familiar; can't place her though."

Tony eyed his friend quizzically, "What, she a student here? At her age?"

Mike snorted quietly, "You're the one to talk! When did you graduate high school?"

"Shhhhhh, still trying to keep that under wraps, geez!" As he had graduated at sixteen, he could only wonder when she had.

"Well, at least you had your height to your advantage, she doesn't have that."

Tony exhaled noisily, nodding. "Do you get the feeling this has happened to her before? I mean, she looked resigned to it when we walked up."

Mike shook his head stating, "Didn't notice that, only thing I was really hoping was that they were not going to do what I thought they were going to do to her."

Both had made a face at the thought, for neither wanted to think what could have happened if they had not walked that way this night.

Even as the two in cuffs were put in the back of the police vehicle, one sans wrapped hand until a cast could be made the girl got up and limped over to where they sat. The two friends looked at her, one a little wary, and the other with quiet speculation. "Hurt your foot when you fell?" Tony asked, and the girl grimaced as she nodded. He had watched as the medic from the ambulance had taken over from the student and had wrapped the slightly swollen foot until they could take her to get x-rayed. Even now the medic was frowning at her walking toward them, but had nodded earlier at her quiet insistence.

"I wanted to thank you both for what you did. They found out who I was and, well, they wanted to hurt me for reporting them for cheating last year." Tony grimaced at this, his own memories at that age. Unlike her though, he'd had the advantage of height and sports buddies at her age. Mike looked at her in comical dismay, "Well shoot, and here I was going to just ask you to do some papers for me for saving you," he winked at her in jest, hoping to alleviate the seriousness. Even as she started to laugh nervously, Tony snorted at this, and then introduced them as he saw her relax more, "My name's Tony and this is Mike. What's your name?"

She sighed quietly, now calmer than she had felt in a long time."My name is Marie."

"Nice to meet you, Marie. Hey, do you like movies?"

"Sometimes."

Tony placed his hands to his chest in shock, tragically posing in dismay even as Mike rolled his eyes and groaned, "Don't even get him started."

End FLASHBACK

Tony smiled at his remembrance of meeting Marie, the sixteen year old girl that had won over the whole team and their multitude of girlfriends to making sure she was always near someone safe for the rest of the year when they had heard she had been harassed multiple times before. Tony and Mike had both been insistent on it at first, but it quickly caught on when Mike's current girlfriend had stated her little sister had been attacked that previous summer, so her own need of keeping Marie safe caught on quickly with the rest. The friendship had lead to fun study groups when it came to classes she explained to them in better ways than their professors at times, pizza and movie nights (because Tony would not let Marie miss out on the best movies of all time) which led to a mass of college students enjoying the game of quoting their favorite parts during the movies (something Tony had started, of course), and of course Marie would cheer them on at their games. Secretly both Tony and Mike would think of her as their very own mascot, but they had never told the rest of the team that. Tony alone had thought of her as a little sister, and had thought she had felt the same. At least, until now, he thought wryly.

That same year of meeting had been the year when the last game had been His Final Game when he had broken his leg, changing his life. As it had also been Marie's graduating year, poor Tony had been dismayed, as he had not been able to go to her graduation with the others, the doctors insisting he needed to keep his leg elevated and stationary, it being so soon after the game. She had later gone to the hospital to see him before she left for the next college she had enrolled into to continue her studies. She had been the only one besides his coach he had told of his fiery rescue the day before the game. Saving her and that second rescue had helped to make up his mind on the college major change, along with talking to her about it, to which she had agreed. She had also thanked him again, he remembered. "You made me believe in friendship, Tony, no matter who the person is." Sadly, they did not keep as well in touch as both worked hard in different colleges as she continued her studies elsewhere and as he launched in a different direction…from phys ed to criminology, forensics and on to the police force academy. He was still working on his doctorate slowly, when work allowed. 'Huh,' he mused, 'guess she and I had something in common, the continuance of learning all we could in what we strived for.'

"My dad wanted me to graduate from his alma mater before I continue college." Marie had told him quietly weeks before she had graduated - she had majored in two degrees graduating the year she met Tony, he fondly remembered. She had had a fondness for fuzzy sweaters and tennis shoes, and purple tinted glasses, and wondered if she still did. Each girlfriend that was with the football team had enjoyed giving her makeovers to help with her self esteem at her young age. Any boys that noticed her had been vetted by all the players, much to her chagrin, he remembered, yet at the same time she had been relieved, he remembered. Now he wondered if this was the reason, looking down at the boy in his arms.

'That means she had Benjamin when she was… nope,' he thought warily, 'not going to think on that yet,' then another thought hit him, and he looked at Fornell suspiciously, "How do you know so much about Marie when she just disappeared last night?"

"She was helping us on our investigation, putting together facts for us on what the others were working on to see if they had a correlation to the chatter we had heard. She has helped us before. Didn't know she had a kid, though, until one of her assistants mentioned it today. She didn't keep pictures up in her lab or office. Figured she was security conscious, but as to Jack Farrington…"

"Uncle Jack?"Tony questioned.

"Where did you hear that name?" Fornell demanded in surprise.

"Benjamin told us he shot Marie." Gibbs stated quietly.

"You do realize her first name is Ada, middle name is Marie." Fornell said to them both.

"She will always be Marie to me," Tony said with a ghost of a smile, thinking of the little girl he once thought of as a sister, forcing himself to shake it off. "Any way, back to Jack? Who is he to her, and is he also in the science field?" Nope, he was not jealous, he thought, just very worried now about an old friend.

"He was her boss."

"Was?"

"Found him dead an hour ago, with her car in his garage. Looked like multiple persons in a fight, with the way the house looked inside."

"Was her body…."

"No, but there was some blood in the trunk."

"What do you mean by some blood?" Tony almost snarled even as Gibbs asked. Benjamin was now so tightly attached to him he hoped the boy could calm soon, his quiet sobs soon and to Tony's relief slowly quieting to a stillness of an exhaustive sleep.

Moments later Vance answered his phone and excused himself to MTAC, the SFA could feel the small arms loosen up as the small body relaxed. Tony could only breathe in relief, but did not let the boy go even as he and Gibbs continued to look to the FBI agent for more information.

Fornell sighed, and then continued, "Dr. Stirling may still be alive."

NCISNCISNCIS

Author's note…..Whew, it just would not get out of my head today, so I was able to rip out most of it, then went over it multiple times to make sure it seemed plausible, etc. It sure was fun to write though! Can't wait to start the next chapter, and I am even getting more ideas for my other story! Yeah, I am hoping you give my first story a chance as well, so please if you could review both of my stories, as I don't want to start any others in my head until these two are finished, well, ok, maybe not, but it sure would help with a review and maybe some more words not just for this story but for the other as well, ok? YAY! Push that pretty button down below, ok? Thanks bunches! T