Thanks go to the runt duchess, who prompted the idea for the second half of this chapter, and to AlkalineTeegan, who not only lets me steal ideas, she provides me with entire lines to make them even better after I have already stolen them. Have you tried her, "Of Ghosts and Gremlins" - ? WHY NOT?
By the time they reached the hospital and Gibbs was satisfied that DiNozzo was being treated immediately by doctors who appeared to be at least competent, Ducky had already heard about the incident.
"Yes, Jethro, I am on my way now. The director informed me of what happened, but only that there'd been a shooting and Anthony was injured. He did not know the severity of the wound. Is our detective okay?"
"Think it's just a graze, Duck. How the hell did the director know? It's been less than half an hour."
"Ah, well, men of power do have their sources. I did not think to question."
Gibbs grunted, unsatisfied.
"What hospital are you at?"
Gibbs rattled off the information, then hung up. A nurse came out to warn him that they were taking DiNozzo in for x-rays to make sure the bullet hadn't cracked or chipped any ribs, and that it would be at least an hour before they returned with the results.
He left in search of coffee.
Coming back from the cafeteria with truly subpar brew, he was stopped in the hall by a hail.
"Agent Gibbs! This is unexpected. I was just finishing my rounds here. I trust nothing dastardly has happened?" Solas looked concerned, but didn't shrinks always look concerned? He was trailed by his doughy intern.
Grudgingly, he answered. "DiNozzo got shot. Graze. He'll be fine."
"Did you apprehend the killer, then?"
"No. Different case." Sorta.
"Oh, that's too bad." Solas appeared severely disappointed. Maybe his shrink ways hadn't got in the way of a real connection with the Collins kid. "If there's anything I can do to help…"
"You ever do any profiling?"
"It's really not my area of expertise, but I suppose to some extent interactions with patients is initially always about profiling."
"We get some more suspects, maybe you could come by, watch the interrogations, give us your thoughts."
"Certainly. Anything I can do to help find Keith's killer."
The two men stood awkwardly for a moment. Gibbs finally turned and continued walking back to the waiting room.
"Would you like me to stay with you?" Solas called after him.
"Nope."
Both relieved, they parted.
Ducky arrived forty minutes later and quickly disappeared into the labyrinth of hospital corridors that medical professionals seemed to always find easy to navigate.
He returned four minutes later. "Ah, Jethro…there seems to be a small problem."
"What?" It was just a graze. Right?
"Anthony has disappeared."
There was a pause.
"Disappeared?" Tense, Gibbs stood and paced towards his friend, who turned and headed back down the hall.
"They'd returned him to his examination room after the x-rays, but when a nurse came in to check on him, they found him missing."
There was no bustle. No security. No sign anyone was trying to find DiNozzo. "And?"
"And…apparently this happens quite often here with patients who are somewhat averse to sitting still. The nurses suspect he has not gone far; he has no shirt, for one thing."
Because he needed one damn more problem today. He pointed down the hall. "You go that way. Open every door."
"Jethro, that's hardly proper in a – "
"GO."
Ducky went.
Gibbs took off in the opposite direction, opening doors without apology. He checked behind the nurses' station, in other exam rooms, in closets, in the lobby. He opened the door to the men's room, walking in and pushing open each of the four stalls.
Nothing. The door swung closed again with a gentle swoosh.
Nothing. The door bounced at his harder shove, creaking back to its original position.
Nothing. The door jumped open and hit the stall wall, falling quickly shut again.
Nothing. The door slammed open and slammed shut again, clattering open and closed several more times before it settled back on its frame.
Though he heard nothing other than the sound of his own breathing once the doors were again at rest, Gibbs stilled. He continued on to the far wall of the room, following the pull of pure instinct. There was a place for a fifth stall that had never been utilized; instead it was just an empty space leading back to an old rusty radiator.
Which, of course, was where Tony was.
"DiNozzo!"
The man remained where he was, forehead to the cement brick wall, back to Gibbs, who slowly circled around to the detective's right side. DiNozzo's battered torso was uncovered except for a large white bandage taped in place. Mottled bruises covered his entire body, even his neck, which Gibbs had thought healed from their first fateful encounter.
"You got people waitin' on you. Get your ass in gear."
The detective rolled his head slightly, allowing him to peer at Gibbs with jaded, uninterested eyes.
It was too reminiscent of Stevie. "We gonna stand here all day?"
"Nope."
"You got a plan, then?"
"Nope."
"Mind telling me why not?"
A smile stretched across Tony's face, but it was a lifeless thing, a cringe-inducing mockery of a smile. "Maybe I'll hang out here, make some new friends."
"You have a lot of worthwhile conversations in the men's room, Tony?"
"No, but there's always room to hope."
"This your form of a breakdown?" He regretted it after he said it aloud. But he made no apology. It was a valid question. Many people who were calm in stressful situations often paid the price later. And Gibbs could think of no other reason for this odd behavior – if the man was having problems with physical pain, he'd have stayed in the exam room for whatever relief the doc could give him.
He braced himself for a torrent of emotion. Or maybe some DiNozzo deflections. Some, "I'm fine's" or a redirect to case details.
But that's not what he got.
Instead he got massive scorn.
"I don't break down. No point." Tony glared at him as though disgusted to be responding to such an obviously stupid question. His expression switched to bored indifference but his hand flexed as he asked, "Why are you here?" in a mildly curious tone.
"Because you're not out there, dumbass. You've got Ducky and me combing the halls looking for you."
DiNozzo subtly started, then shrugged and returned to his weary stare.
Gibbs was getting nowhere, so he switched to a different tact. "That was a good job out there, Tony."
The detective rolled his eyes.
Gibbs took that as a sign he'd pushed a button.
He repeated himself, trying to get some kind of normal response to his rarely-given words of praise. "That was a good job out there, Tony."
DiNozzo rolled his forehead back to the wall away from Gibbs, posture portraying only bored indifference.
That was a mistake, for Gibbs was now sure he was onto an unexpected weakness. Could the man not take a compliment?
Grabbing on to the other man's arm, Gibbs forced him to turn half around, and inserted himself next to the wall, neatly trapping DiNozzo in a manmade corner. "That was a good job out there, Tony." He'd force it down the kid's throat if he had to.
Tony's breathing suddenly quickened, his sides retracting inward with each intake of air so far that his ribs strained against his skin, as though trying to jump out of his body. Dull eyes flickered to unpredictable life, revealing brief twinges of fear and unease covered over with intense anger.
In a seething low voice, Tony hissed, "Do not fuck with me, Special Agent Gibbs. I am not in the mood." Tony removed his head from the wall and stood in an imposing, looming stance that he, though taller than most, generally avoided. The walls of his abdomen continued to inflate, collapse. Inflate, collapse.
He looked feral.
Gibbs gentled his grasp, but did not let go of DiNozzo's arm. With his left hand, he used two fingers to push up under the man's chin, forcing a steady gaze between them. "That was a good job out there, Tony."
DiNozzo tried to jerk away, though he refused to retreat. In fact, he looked ready to attack. Gibbs let go of his chin and smacked him upside the back of the head and shouted. "Hey! I am not fucking with you. I am telling you that you saved those worthless dipshit's asses."
Tony halted his rage as though it were nothing and stared at Gibbs with a blank expression. "I almost didn't. What if I hadn't been able to?"
"Didn't look to me like you were struggling." Had he missed fear in the man during the fiasco?
"One word wrong, Gibbs. One less drop of blood on the ground. One more step from either of your probies. One piece out of place, and I've gotten all of you killed."
Ah. "But you didn't."
"But I could have."
"But you didn't. And you didn't cause the situation. You solved it."
"It's that simple to you, huh?"
"Well yeah, DiNozzo. It is that simple."
Silence fell between the two. Gibbs let go and both men leaned their backs against the cool cement wall.
There were a lot of things that needed doing. Leads to pursue. Suspects to interrogate. Probies to kill. But as impatient as he often was, Gibbs found it remarkably easy to stand still for a moment.
Sometimes it was easier to get your point across without words.
He had just wanted ten minutes to himself. Ten lousy minutes. Five, even. Five pintsized minutes without doctors poking him or intent eyes scrutinizing his every movement. Five minutes to give in to the pain searing across his side, so he could accept it and move on.
Rat bastard couldn't even give him five minutes.
Now Tony was embarrassed.
This wasn't his way. He didn't have emotional conversations in the bathroom with taciturn feds. He didn't need to talk shit out. He certainly didn't need to listen to half-assed compliments.
He waited for Gibbs to say something else; to snap out that time was wasting or that Tony was a pansy ass.
But Gibbs just stayed, shifting slightly so that his upper arm pressed lightly against Tony's own.
A mistake. An accident, probably. No big deal.
Tony prepared himself for the agent to start tapping his fingers in impatience, to stalk off in a disgusted huff, to get up in his face again and tell him off.
But Gibbs just stayed. Right by his side. No demands, no prods to get moving. A solid presence that demanding nothing in return.
Curious now, Tony resisted his natural impulse to fill the silence and stayed quiet himself.
He relaxed against the cool wall, letting his mind wander after a few minutes.
This bathroom smelled oddly, like goldfish crackers and mouthwash.
He imagined goldfish crackers swimming through a lake of Listerine. Would they melt?
The image of a gun pointed at the stupid probies came to mind, unbidden. He swatted it away.
Goldfish crackers – cheese – he needed to buy more cheese. Used up most of the shredded stuff on the pizzas this past weekend.
Gibbs staying at his place – now that was a surreal experience.
Gibbs nearly going over the overpass. Gibbs, with a posse of guns aimed at him.
Tony controlled his breathing and let the image stand for a moment. Sometimes shoving things away meant they only came back faster and harder. He let the mental picture fade, softening around the edges and changing to a picture of Abby.
A smile quirked at the corner of his mouth.
Damn feds were taking up all his brain space.
He surreptitiously glanced at Gibbs, who continued to stay silently in place.
Finally, he gave in. "Don't you want to get going? We need some new leads on the case."
Gibbs shrugged. "I've got some time."
Tony blinked.
That might be the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him.
The two stood in companionable silence next to the rusty radiator in the men's room for an indeterminate amount of time.
Indeterminate because for once, neither of them was paying attention to time. There was no counting of minutes, no thoughts of wasted seconds. No urge driving them to fill every moment with building inertia to attack the case.
Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs stood in silent support of his partner, letting the other man choose when he was ready to rejoin the battle. It was the first time in a very long time that he had done so.
Detective Anthony DiNozzo, Jr. stood in silent reverie of the silently offered support, accepting it and letting the undemanding presence of someone he respected bolster his flagging reserves.
It was the first time he had ever done such a thing.
The bathroom door opened. "Jethro? Anthony? Are you in here?" A pause, then a sigh. "Oh, dear. How did I manage to lose the other one as well? Worrisome as a lot of new puppies, I swear…" The doctor moved on.
Gibbs smiled, and for once Tony forgot to.
They studied each other for a moment. Then both moved toward the door in unspoken accord. As they exited, Tony regained his composure, feeling his features lighten and his mind start buzzing around the case again.
Gibbs' expression slowly returned to an impatient scowl.
But something had changed, subtly.
Tony docilely followed the older man back to the white, cold exam room and willingly plopped himself on the bed while Gibbs went to find Ducky. Again he thought, This isn't me. This isn't my way.
But was change always such a bad thing?
A little over two hours later, they returned to the Navy Yard. As they entered, the security guards on duty seemed relieved to see DiNozzo. "Tony! You okay, man? We heard what happened."
Lousy freaking talkative dispatch gossips.
Gibbs hated gossips.
Except when they gave useful information during a case.
DiNozzo grinned easily, "No big deal, just a scrape. Honestly, I think it would've been fine with a band-aid."
Gibbs snorted, and they moved through the checkpoint.
They took the elevator to the bullpen. Gibbs was wary; if those damn fools had disregarded his orders and were lounging behind their desks rather than in the hard, uncomfortable chairs of interrogation…
Thankfully, they were not in sight. But he still had to deal with them, and quickly, in order to get focused on the case again.
He took the stairs two at a time, aware that DiNozzo was following behind more slowly.
Morrow met him in the hallway to interrogation just as Ducky, newly returned to the Navy Yard himself, emerged from the elevator.
Gibbs raised an eyebrow, letting them know he was aware and unimpressed with their attempt to pen him in.
"Jethro," Morrow warned.
"Director," Gibbs acknowledged, without giving way.
"Party!" Tony exclaimed from behind them, dodging Ducky and neatly inserting himself next to Gibbs.
"Detective," Morrow softened slightly. "I'm glad to see you up and around."
Gibbs gave a short laugh, diffusing the tension in the group by a great deal. "You try to keep him down."
Tony beamed a winning smile at no one in particular.
Gibbs shot a look at Morrow. "You sure got information about the shooting pretty fast, sir."
"Yes, well, as I told DiNozzo, I do have a family connection on the Baltimore force. You know how quickly word travels."
Damn gossips.
Something clicked. "Your familial connection wouldn't happen to be in IA, would it, sir?"
"Whatever would give you that idea, Gibbs?"
Gibbs let it go. Of all this problems, this didn't even rate. "Let me pass."
"Perhaps we should discuss the proper punishment before you –"
"You wanted me to build a team, director. My team, my consequences."
Ducky piped up, "Yes, well, as it does not seem like these two young men will be on your team much longer, perhaps their reprimand would best come from the director himself?" Though his voice was hopeful, it was clear he knew there was little chance of this actually happening.
"Let me pass," Gibbs reiterated.
Reluctantly, Morrow turned to the side.
Gibbs swept past him, then turned into the observation room, much to the surprise of the other three men.
He nodded towards interrogation. "DiNozzo."
Tony's expression flickered with what Gibbs thought was true amusement. "Yeah?"
Shrugging, Gibbs acknowledged, "Your turn."
Tony took off.
Morrow stage whispered to the medical examiner, "Gibbs is taking turns?"
Even the tech in observation broke protocol long enough to stare in disbelief.
"This should be good," was all Gibbs said.
They watched as Tony entered the small room where the probies sat, dejected.
Wadusky brightened when he saw DiNozzo walk in on his own two feet, then looked like he might puke. "Tony! Are you okay? I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" He blabbered on.
Greene just watched, cautious.
The detective ignored them, pacing the boundaries of the room and casting his glance everywhere, learning the space. On this third lap around the room, he stopped and smoothed out his hair in the mirror, straightening an imaginary tie and winking at the observers.
"Cocky," Morrow noted.
"I would call it more playful," Ducky returned. "Jethro, do you have any idea what the boy has planned?"
"Nope. Just figured if it were me in there, I would kill them." And since he got to read the riot act to the rookie cops, Tony might as well have a go at the probies.
His face tightened. It wasn't really a fair trade. The Baltimore rookies may have screwed up his crime scene and potentially set the case back, but they'd done so in a lame attempt to help someone. The NCIS probies had no such excuse.
And they had hurt someone.
Tony finally sat down and smiled lazily across the table.
Both men smiled tentatively back.
The lazy smile sharpened. "Report," he commanded.
Gibbs chuckled at the detective's tie back to his own interview, days before. Everyone should pick up pointers on the fly like that, but it was rare to find in practice.
Greene started. "I found a connection between some tattoos. But I couldn't reach either of you, I left messages, even tried the Baltimore station since I know neither one of you have working cell phones." He said this with emphasis, as though Gibbs and Tony were to fault for the entire ordeal.
Tony didn't say anything, but Gibbs saw the shift in his posture. He was less amused now.
Greene continued, "Couldn't reach you. So Wadusky and I thought we'd just case the place out, drive by, maybe watch the comings and goings, see if anything looked suspicious."
Wadusky looked over at his partner, surprised. "You said we were going to interview the suspects."
God bless fools.
Greene issued a pained smile. "You heard me wrong. I said maybe Gibbs would let us sit in on the interview this time. He doesn't normally, you know. He just leaves us at our desks, wasting agency resources."
Gibbs was disgusted with himself for not paying more attention to internal matters. He had preferred Greene to Wadusky – at least he could remember the kid's name, and he'd seemed smarter and a little more seasoned.
He was also apparently a manipulative (not in a good way), backstabbing ass.
"So we got in the car, sped up to Baltimore, even stopped at your precinct, Tony, but no one was around. So we drove on to Max's and were just gonna take a stroll by when we turned the corner and saw that guy about to shoot you."
DiNozzo cocked his head to one side. "So you were sure he was about to shoot me?" he asked curiously.
Wadusky frowned, sensing something fishy was up and trying to anticipate where Tony's line of questioning was going.
Greene nodded, confident. "That's sure what it looked like. We were just protecting you."
"That's interesting," came the predatory, silky reply. "Then why didn't you shoot?"
Morrow blinked. "That's not the line of questioning I expected."
It wasn't what Gibbs had expected, either, but it was a good damn point.
"I…uh, what?" Came Greene's graceful reply.
"You rounded a corner ahead of your partner, and saw two fellow agents facing a rather large number of hefty gang bangers, one of whom you thought was reaching for a weapon."
"Yes!"
"So naturally, you waited for your partner to call out, 'Gun!' and fire, doing nothing yourself but raising your own weapon and edging back towards the corner of the building."
"I was just practicing restraint. Wadusky got trigger-happy…he jumped the gun."
Tony let out a little incredulous laugh, "Oh, way to throw your partner under the bus! Very cool. That's classy. I wish I could be classy like you."
"I'm just telling it like it is!" Greene looked alarmed.
"Right. And how it was, was that you were so sure Gibbs and I were in danger that you had to protect us. But your own partner, who did try to protect us, was out of line?" Tony was still leaning back in his seat, at ease, but his words dripped with scornful sarcasm.
"You're putting words in my mouth!"
Wadusky looked cold now; he backed his chair away from his partner's and kept his mouth shut.
"Look at your partner, Greene. He knows you'd toss him to the wolves – or worse, to Gibbs – to protect your own ass. And look how quiet he gets. He's not eager to sell you out even after all you've done to encourage him to." DiNozzo stood and walked around the table, leaning in next to Greene's face.
The probie remained staring straight forward.
Tony quietly spoke to the side of his face. "It was Abby's lead on the tattoo, asshole. And it was your idea to go chase it down, not your partner's. It was your idea to break with Gibbs' orders and leave the office, drive into gang territory and assume you could blend in. Your idea to potentially screw up an interview that could crack the case."
Leaning in even closer, he spoke directly into the pale man's ear in a tone made all the more menacing for its false tone of amusement. "And it was you, Greene, who rounded that corner and ducked behind your younger partner when you saw the big, bad man reaching for a gun."
The next word was too soft for the microphones to pick up, but Gibbs could read lips.
"Coward," Tony breathed into Greene's ear.
"Coward."
At this second utterance, he backed up a step with a cheerful smile. "I got some really good advice the other day. I'm paraphrasing here, because I'm a little less taciturn than my wise friend. But the essence is this: If I spend my time yelling at you, you can take it as a sign that you're worth the effort of yelling at. I don't really like yelling, it gives me indigestion," Tony paused, as if considering this. "So if you're not worth the effort, I'm not going to bother to do the yelling. I'll just wash my hands of you and you won't hear from me at all anymore. Clear?"
Greene nodded, clearly bracing himself to be yelled at.
Tony sat on the table between the two men and stared at Wadusky, who was nearly as pale as he had been immediately after the shooting, but he looked Tony straight in the eye.
"Wadusky!"
The kid jumped at Tony's loud, harsh tone.
"What the hell were you thinking! Do you think you're ready to go interview a suspect on your own? Do you think it's a good plan to walk into a situation where the bad guys have weapons and shoot before announcing yourself? Do you think this job is a caper, Wadusky?"
DiNozzo continued to berate the youngest agent, raising his voice to what one could definitely call a yell.
His back was to Greene the whole time.
Gibbs had been expecting an entertaining DiNozzo interrogation scene like he'd witnessed back at Baltimore.
He should know better by now than to assume.
"Director," Gibbs said with his eyes still fixed on the detective. "I recommend suspension of Agent Greene, with probably dismissal following a full investigations of his conduct."
"And Wadusky?" Morrow asked.
"Send him back to FLETC for another round of training. That ought to be embarrassing enough."
Morrow nodded, thoughtful.
Ducky added, "This is not at all what I expected of today."
In that, they were all in agreement.
Through the window, they watched DiNozzo wrap up his verbal castigation of Wadusky and stalk out of the room.
A moment later he bounded into observation and looked at Gibbs expectantly. "Can we go talk to the tattoo parlor guys now?"
"Yeah, Tony. We can go talk to the tattoo parlor guys now." He collected his detective and left observation, leaving the probies for Morrow to deal with.
They weren't his problems anymore.