Walking in the bullpen, they were getting few curious looks that had nothing to do with Tony. Not at first. All eyes were looking at Agent Gibbs, or rather, his nose and the bruised area around it and under his eye. Both men were avoiding looking at each other and neither seemed to be in a good mood. Then the Detective rubbed the back of his head with his hurt hand. Suddenly it was all about both Agent Gibbs and the Detective as the roomful of investigators figured out the obvious; Agent Gibbs had a broken nose, while Detective DiNozzo had hurt his right hand, and the atmosphere surrounding the two men was downright horrible. It was then that the scuttlebutt pretty much exploded.

"He's so dead," Vivian whispered to Langer and secretly they both couldn't wait to see their boss putting the cop in his place, Gibbs style. Oh, it was going to be brutal.

Gibbs finally looked at Tony and when they thought he was about to start yelling at DiNozzo, the look in his eyes softened for a moment, even if the tone of his voice was his usual harsh command. "DiNozzo. Sit down and start on the diary. I'll go see if Abby has something."

"Uh..." Tony hesitated, looking at the desks.

"Use mine."

Vivian and Langer stared, not believing they had seen or heard right. There just was no way it could be right. It wasn't happening. This wasn't the Gibbs they knew.

Rolling his eyes at the way the older man was bossing him around again, Tony sat down and took out the diary, completely unaware of the scuttlebutt happening around him. In only half an hour he was to be known and respected as the one who had earned Agent Gibbs' respect by throwing a punch at him. It was a reputation that would follow him for years to come, and an act that very few dared to repeat and lived to tell.

"You have a problem with me, agents?" Tony glanced up and Vivian's cheeks flushed red with anger.

Langer studied the Detective with a permanent frown. This definitely was not a good sign and neither was it good news for them. He stared for a moment at the open documents on his computer screen and then he smiled.

"What did you do, DiNozzo?" Vivian snapped, but Tony merely raised his brows. "Gibbs doesn't allow anyone near his desk. You've done something."

"If that's all you can come up with your investigating skills, I am truly disappointed, Viv."

Vivian scowled at the way the Detective was using her name. She had barely stood up, when Langer spoke with an odd glint in his eyes, "So... DiNozzo, huh?"

Tony frowned. "It is my name."

"There's no way someone like you, and at your age, could've made it so far as you. So I did some digging."

Tony's eyes darkened and Vivian suddenly felt the need to get away from there. Yet she was unable to look away. Langer however, hadn't noticed anything off.

"People like you are the worst, DiNozzo," Langer spat out.

"Brent..." Vivian tried to warn her partner, but the man glared at her and she bit her lip, frustrated.

"Really? And why is that?" Tony spoke with calmness, but the dark look in his eyes hadn't changed. He knew where this was going; he hadn't missed the look the Agent had cast first at him and then the computer. He'd seen the very same look with so many different variations and in so many different situations that he didn't even have to guess. He didn't try to defend himself against those accusations anymore since it didn't matter how many times he would say that he had nothing to do with his 'father' or the old man's money and that everything he had earned, wasn't without hard work and some talent. Without forgetting all those days, weeks and even months of undercover work, where he had proved his worth the hard way, and where he would most likely some day end up dying. He could feel it in his gut. He was a burnout and a lonely loser who just couldn't stop killing himself with work and had a bastard as a boss who wanted nothing more than to find a way to get rid of him. No, idiots like this one were pretty much everyday thing for him.

"Rich kid who bought his way around. What's next? Did you buy off Gibbs? Are you after one of our seats next?"

Tony chuckled darkly. "I can see you've done your homework. Sort of. As for your boss, why don't you ask him? I'm sure he would love it."

"Cut the crap, DiNozzo. If not him, then someone else. That's the only reason I can think of why he treats you like some golden boy. Gibbs doesn't do nice."

"Tell me about it," Tony muttered.

"He doesn't let people sit behind his desk and surely doesn't let them walk away after attacking him." Langer was getting a curious looking color on his face when he started to realize the younger man didn't even bat an eye at his accusations.

Tony merely shrugged and opened the diary, ignoring the agents. While seemingly absorbed in the diary, he was perfectly aware of the silent bullpen around him and then the sound of a chair being pushed aside. Before it happened, he knew it would. Two strong hands took hold of his shirt and then yanked him up violently from the chair.

"Brent!" Vivian sounded alarmed rather than endorsing.

While Tony had prepared to be given a black eye or two, he was not prepared for the fist to hit his torso. As strong as the punch was, normally he would have been able to deal with it, but with the still healing wound that kept reminding him with every moment how he should have never left the hospital so soon, even a weaker hit would have done it, which was why as soon as the fist found its target, piercing and sharp pain shot through his body. He was distantly aware that he was falling, gasping for the breath he couldn't get in.

Before the darkness took him completely, Tony thought he smelled coffee and sawdust. Then he felt two gentle hands feeling him all over. Normally he would have cracked a joke or few about it, but he was far too gone now. His brains didn't even register the loud shout close to his ears.

"DiNozzo!"

- A LITTLE WHILE AGO -

Gibbs entered the lab and he smiled, seeing the young woman there talking to her computers as if they could really understand her. It was one of the many things she did that he could never understand, yet he loved her just the way she was. Weird quirks and all. "You have something for me?"

Abby yelped, turning around. "Gibbs! Don't do that! I hate when you do that! You know I hate it when you sneak up on me!"

Gibbs chuckled. "Do you have something?"

"No... Not yet—" Of course that's when one of her machines made 'the sound', which even he knew what it meant. She narrowed her eyes and pointed her finger at him. "I swear. Someday I'm going to find out how you do it."

"Abby!"

"Right. Alright. The hair... It's not human hair. Sorry, Gibbs. Instead of a cute blonde woman, it's a cat, who I'm sure is far cuter..." She turned to look at Gibbs. Though there was a blank look on the man's face, she knew he wasn't happy. And because he wasn't happy, she wasn't happy either.

Gibbs shook his head and smiled ruefully. He had hoped this might back up DiNozzo's gut feeling about the wife. Back to square one again. "Keep working on the other samples. Let me know as soon as they're ready."

"On it, boss!" Abby cheered with a mock salute and took a huge swig of her Caf-Pow. She looked at Gibbs, with a wicked smirk on her face. "You know. That DiNozzo... I was surprised to learn you made him work with you."

"It's not what you think. Don't get any ideas." Gibbs resisted the urge to roll his eyes, as this seemed to only be throwing gasoline in the fire and indeed, her smile only got wider.

"Really? What do I think?" She asked, with pure innocence on her face when she was anything but innocent.

"Get back to work," Gibbs growled half-heartedly and left the lab.

"You know he's so busted, right? Or then he just doesn't know it yet." She nodded to her machines. One of them announced her the results were ready. "Let's see... Oh. You know what this means, right? Our handsome young Detective was right." Picking up the phone, Abby hesitated and then grinned. No. She'd deliver the results herself. Perfect excuse to see how her two men were behaving around each other.

Meanwhile, Gibbs entered the bullpen, just in time to see a flash of movement in the almost deadly silent room full of people, all focused on one certain area. His. Gibbs felt fury at the sight of Langer attacking DiNozzo. Why wasn't the idiot fighting back or doing something? There had been no hesitation when the man broke his nose. So why did he let the moron treat him like that? Surely he knew that with the whole bullpen witnessing, he had every right to attack back, to defend himself.

Gibbs was only a few steps away from Langer—who would not remain in his team after this—when the first punch hit the young Detective and soon after that the second one. DiNozzo was already falling toward the floor after the first punch and didn't seem to be even registering the second one. Gibbs flinched at the sound and only then he realized that something was wrong. Very wrong. Had the punches been harder than they looked?

Pushing Langer away, Gibbs didn't even glance up when the man staggered against the desk. Kneeling next to DiNozzo, he ran his hands over the body, trying to see if anything was broken. He noticed the glazed look in the man's eyes and how he was gasping for breath. "DiNozzo! Come on now, kid... I know you are much tougher than this."

Tony stared at nothing, with that same glazed look, before his eyes closed. At least his breathing sounded better now and Gibbs was relieved, thinking he was overreacting.

"I knew it. I knew he couldn't have gotten so far with his skills alone. What a weakling," Langer sneered. The sneer faltered the moment his boss gave him his look of danger.

"Someone, get him out of my sight, before I do something he will regret!" Gibbs growled, but didn't even bother seeing whether it was done; his full focus was now on Tony's upper body, which he had just uncovered, and he cursed softly. "Tony..."

Gibbs was staring at the bandaged torso, which was slowly getting darker from the blood. Blood, which was coming from the wound that had opened. The wound, which he had known nothing about.