Hello! I'm Rhi and this is my first story here. I hope you enjoy it but be aware that later chapters will include non-sexual discipline spanking of adults so if this is not something that you like, please do not read. This is inspired by Gibbs's final line in 3.14 Light Sleeper: "I was going to say if either one of you two wingnuts ever disobey a direct order again, I'll kill you myself" and it is set soon after that episode.
"That is a direct order, Officer David!" Gibbs's stern voice came over the radio. "Hold position and wait for backup."
Ziva cursed but didn't respond until she heard Gibbs again, his voice even sterner and leaving no room for misinterpretation.
"Officer David! That is a direct order. Do you understand?"
Reluctantly, she pressed the button on her radio.
"Fine!" She snapped.
Gibbs frowned at her tone but decided to overlook it. As long as she and DiNozzo were going to listen to him and stay put he would ignore her attitude for now.
"Backup is on the way," He told them. "Stay there, they'll be with you in fifteen minutes."
Ziva turned the radio off and growled in frustration. "We do not have fifteen minutes. They may be gone by then. We need to go in now!"
"Boss said to stay here. It's too dangerous, we have to wait for backup," Tony said, hoping to god that she'd listen to him. No such luck.
"We don't have time!" She repeated slowly, as though talking to a particularly slow toddler.
"We will lose a people smuggler and serial killer. He will smuggle more girls into this country. We will be saving lives if we can get him. There are only seven of them and we have the element of surprise, you know I can give them."
"Take them, Ziva," Tony corrected with a frown. She was right, he hated the idea of letting Commander Farrell get away to hurt more defenceless young women but still.
"Gibbs ordered us to hold position."
Ziva looked at him in disgust.
"Fine, you stay like a good little puppy dog. I will arrest a murdering sex trafficker."
"No, Ziva!" Tony grabbed at her arm in a futile attempt to restrain her but she spun out of his grasp.
"I am going in, with you or without you."
Ziva pulled her weapon and started up the hill to the building.
"Damn it, Ziva!" Tony exclaimed in frustration before turning off his radio, pulling his own firearm and following her.
This was clearly a ludicrous and suicidal idea. He knew that if Commander Farrell and his associates didn't kill them, Gibbs would. But they were partners and, even if she was being a stubborn idiot, he couldn't let Ziva go in there alone. Rule 15 was "always work as a team" after all. He'd have to remember that when he tried to defend his actions to Gibbs.
"Ziva," he hissed as they stood either side of the door, guns drawn. "Backup will be ten minutes. We could wait."
She shook her head.
"We can't let him get away," she whispered back.
Tony sighed but nodded. "On three."
He kicked the door down and they burst into the disused warehouse.
"NCIS! Put your hands in the air!"
Unfortunately, Commander Farrell's gang didn't believe in letting their guard down and, almost before they had finished speaking, shots were fired.
Ziva and Tony dived behind some nearby crates and Tony glared at her.
"Great plan, Ziva!"
She scowled back before she darted out from her cover and took out one of the goons.
The firefight was short but intense. They had not anticipated the fire power that the men possessed and they were significantly outnumbered. By the time they'd taken out four men, even Ziva was starting to regret her decision to storm in without backup.
Tony dashed out from the crate he was hiding behind and shot at one of the men. He hit his target but not before a return shot had been fired. Tony ducked behind another crate but winced in pain as the bullet grazed past his shoulder.
To his relief, a moment later Ziva appeared next to him and soon Commander Farrell and one of his men were unconscious and handcuffed and the other five lay dead.
"Are you okay, Tony?" Ziva asked, seeing the spots of blood on his ripped shirt..
"Fine," he groaned as he sat against the wall and breathed deeply. "The bullet only grazed my shoulder."
Ziva sat next to him and smiled sympathetically. "I will radio and say we need a medic."
Tony only groaned louder as he remembered that they would have to explain to Gibbs that they had disobeyed his very clear orders. The moment she turned her radio back on it was clear that this would not be an easy feat.
"DiNozzo! David! So help me, if you don't answer…"
"We are here, Gibbs," Ziva said. Her voice sounded almost confident but there was a slight falter in it that let Tony know he wasn't the only one wary of what Gibbs would say.
"Officer David! Where the hell are you? Are you okay?"
"We are…" she hesitated on the word fine, looking over at Tony who was decidedly pale. "We are in the warehouse. We are okay but we need ambulances and a medic. Commander Farrell and one of his men are injured and five more are dead. And Tony… Tony is slightly injured but he's okay."
There was silence on the other end of the radio for a moment, before Gibbs's voice came through, a frantic mixture of furious and terrified.
"Define slightly injured, David!"
"I'm fine, Boss," Tony answered for himself as he turned his own radio on. "I was nicked by a bullet but it's only a scratch. I just need it cleaned up and then I'll be right as rain."
Tony tried to keep his tone relaxed and upbeat but, just like Ziva, he couldn't keep the note of nervousness from his voice.
Gibbs' voice sounded through the radio immediately and they could hear that he was running.
"I'm on my way."
A moment later the man himself appeared at the door. He hastily looked his agents over and then, relieved to see no signs of serious injury, began directing the backup team.
When the warehouse cleared as the backup team removed the surviving traffickers and set out to sweep the perimeter for any others, Gibbs turned to Tony and Ziva. He knelt beside Tony and took a look at his arm to assure himself that it truly was only a scratch.
"Ducky will be here soon," Gibbs said in the low, calm tone that all of his team knew meant he was only just containing his temper. "He'll clean and dress the wound before he deals with the bodies. In the meantime, I would like an explanation as to why I arrived at the site entrance, the position where I ordered the two of you to remain to wait for backup, only to find it abandoned."
Tony and Ziva squirmed under his steely glare but neither offered the requested explanation.
"Officer David?"
"Gibbs," Ziva responded. "Your order was wrong, these…"
"I beg your pardon, Officer David?" Gibbs thundered and Tony winced. How could she have said the worst possible thing?"
"Well, it was!" Ziva doubled down, raising her voice.. "These are sex traffickers, Gibbs! They sell girls to be raped!"
"I know exactly what despicable things they've done! But that does not explain to me why you failed to obey a direct order!"
By this point Ziva and Gibbs had stood and were facing off, both with anger shining in their eyes, while Tony sat and wished the ground would swallow him up.
"Because it was wrong!" Ziva repeated, almost shouting.
Tony shook his head. You had to admire her confidence, none of the others would dream of speaking to Gibbs that way. Still, he closed his eyes. He didn't want to see what Gibbs's response to that would be.
However, before Gibbs could get himself under control enough to respond, they were interrupted by Ducky's voice.
"Jethro."
Gibbs turned to look at him and Ducky sighed at the anger that was written across his face. These children certainly had a talent for getting the man mad.
"I'm here to patch up young Anthony," Ducky said smiling sympathetically at the obviously uncomfortable young man.
Gibbs gave a curt nod. "Ziva! With me!"
"Oh," Ducky held up a hand to stop him. "Perhaps Ziva could stay and give me a hand?"
Gibbs glared at him, well aware that the purpose of this request was that he should take a minute to calm down before he continued to talk to his bull headed agent. There was a tense moment but, realising his friend was right, Gibbs nodded again.
"I'll be outside."
"Thank you, Ducky," Ziva said gratefully as soon as Gibbs had left the building.
Ducky raised his eyebrows disapprovingly as he moved to check on Tony's arm.
"Gibbs needed to calm down but you needn't think this means I do not agree with him. You both behaved very recklessly tonight, I could easily have been doing something far more difficult than cleaning young Anthony's cut."
Neither Ziva nor Tony could meet his gaze, the scolding from the normally relaxed and jovial medical examiner stung.
"Sorry, Ducky," Tony said quietly and Ziva nodded.
"Sorry Ducky."
He smiled softly at them. "Well now, let's get this graze dealt with."
He handed his medical bag to Ziva and got started on treating Tony's injury.
Tony and Ziva were both grateful for the distraction of Ducky's chatter as he took them through a case that this reminded him of but, all too soon, he was packing his bag away.
"It's really no more than a welt, dear boy," he told Tony as he helped him to his feet. "You were extremely lucky. Keep putting the cream on it for a week and I'll keep an eye on it but you should be perfectly fine."
Tony nodded and smiled but the smile disappeared when he realised this meant it was time to face Gibbs.
"Are you sure I shouldn't go to the hospital, just in case?" he asked.
Ducky looked at him in surprise. One thing that all of Gibbs's brood had in common was that getting them to set foot in a hospital was an unenviable and exhausting task.
"Well, if it starts to show any sign of infection that might be necessary but, as I said, it's really only a welt and there wasn't much bleeding. You should be perfectly fine as long as you let me redress it."
"Oh. Well, I think I hit my head too," Tony said and Ducky chuckled as he realised what was happening.
"I don't think you need to hide from Jethro at the hospital."
"No," Tony agreed. "That's not far enough. Perhaps Mexico? Or you could just tell him I'm horribly injured and there's no way he should think of punishing me for at least a few months. Or years."
Ducky laughed and tousled his hair. "Come on now, it's time to face the music. You'll both be fine."
Ziva and Tony were not so sure but, nevertheless, they followed Ducky from the warehouse.
Outside, Gibbs had paced back and forth, fetched his car up the hill to the doors and then paced some more but he had calmed very little. Every time his blood pressure seemed to be returning to a healthy level he would remember arriving at the entrance gates to find Tony and Ziva M.I.A and it spiked again.
He heard a noise behind him and turned to see Ducky emerging from the warehouse trailed by his mournful looking agents.
"Jethro, Anthony is perfectly fine. I'll keep dressing the wound but he should heal beautifully."
"Thanks, Duck," Gibbs said gratefully before he opened the back door of his car and turned to glare at his agents.
"Both of you in the car."
They hesitated for just a moment.
"Now!" He bellowed, and the two of them nearly fell over themselves to get into the backseat. They gave one last beseeching look towards Ducky before the door was closed.
"Now, Jethro," he said, taking pity on the nervous young agents. "Don't be too hard on them. Their hearts were in the right place."
Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "Their hearts are always in the right place, Duck. It's their heads I'm worried about. They could have been killed tonight."
Ducky nodded in agreement. "You're right, of course. Just leave them in one piece!"
He chuckled and squeezed Gibbs's shoulder supportively before returning inside to deal with the bodies.
Meanwhile, Gibbs took a deep breath to steal himself before he yanked the car door open and sat in the driver's seat. The moment he entered the car, Ziva and Tony began to talk simultaneously.
"Gibbs, you have to understand…."
"Boss, we were only…"
"Enough!" Gibbs said firmly, turning to glare at them. "I gave you a chance to explain yourselves already and we all saw how that went. I don't want to hear it right now."
Ziva, who had calmed a little herself by now, had the good grace to blush and look a little guilty at this and they drove in silence until the car pulled up at Tony's apartment.
"Boss!" He exclaimed, sitting straight up and looking towards the man an expression of horror clear on his face. Next to him, Ziva's emotions were less obvious but there was a hint of confusion and worry in her eyes.
They had both expected to be driven straight to Gibbs' house to be spanked and, as much as they hated the prospect, this new idea, that Gibbs would just drop them home and not address what had happened was somehow far, far worse.
"Boss! Are you not going to… to…" Tony blushed, no matter how many times he had gone across his boss's knee, it never got any easier to talk about it. "I know we screwed up and I get it if you think we're too much bother and just want to fire us but I.."
"Hey," Gibbs cut off his anxious rambling and he turned to face them. His expression was still stern but it had softened a little when he realised their confusion. "What's rule 5?"
"Don't waste good," they responded in unison and Gibbs nodded.
"You're both good. You're damned bull headed and you've both given me way too many of these gray hairs but you're good agents. And what you never are is too much bother, you hear me?"
Both heads bobbed up and down and he smiled slightly.
"You just need to learn to follow orders and I intend for you both to learn that lesson. It's late and it's Friday so you two knuckleheads are staying at my house this weekend. We're here for you to pack a bag. Tony, you've got ten minutes."
The momentary relief that the two agents felt when they realised Gibbs was not just too pissed off to deal with them "in house" was quickly replaced by a sense of dread when they thought of what a weekend at Gibbs's house would mean.
"Tony," Gibbs repeated. "Ten minutes."
Tony jumped out of the car and rushed into his apartment throwing things haphazardly into a bag as he rushed to not be late. After a quick stop at Ziva's for her to do a similar mad dash of packing, they were soon pulling into Gibbs's driveway.
The moment the house came into view, both agents began to seriously rethink their earlier opinions on being fired and, as Gibbs left the car, they both remained stock still.
Gibbs pulled the door open. "DiNozzo! David! Today would be nice!"
Reluctantly they left the car and followed their boss into the house. As they entered, Gibbs pointed at the stairs.
"Drop your bags in your rooms and then come down."
The two agents hurried up the stairs, grateful for the brief reprieve.
Ziva put her bag down and then sat on her bed in the room she shared with Abby. She was not scared. Of course not. But she was certainly… apprehensive and had no wish to hurry the inevitable conclusion of the evening.
There was a knock on the door and Tony poked his head round.
"I get wanting to sit while you still can, Ziva, but we shouldn't keep the bossman waiting."
Ziva nodded. "Tony, I know you didn't want to disobey Gibbs. I'm sorry you're in trouble and I'm really sorry you got hurt."
He smiled softly at her. "Don't sweat it, sweet cheeks. Come on, we'd better go."
Moments later, they were sitting together on the couch while Gibbs paced up and down in front of them. It felt like the silence had lasted forever when he finally spoke.
"What did I tell the two of you after that North Korean bomb?"
Uh…," Tony winced as he remembered his boss's warning. "You said if either of us disobeyed a direct order again you'd kill us yourself."
"Right," Gibbs agreed. "And were either of you even slightly unsure of what I meant by disobeying a direct order?"
They both shook their heads.
"Use your words," he demanded.
"No, Boss."
"No, Gibbs."
"Good. So why, exactly, is it that tonight both of you disobeyed a direct order?"
"Gibbs, this is my fault," Ziva said quickly. "Tony told me to obey and wait for back up. I told him I would go in with or without him. He only came so that I would not go in there alone and I…" She hesitated for a moment, knowing she was signing her own death warrant but not wanting to see Tony punished for something that she'd done.
"I goaded him. I called him a "good little puppy dog" and… I knew it would make him come with me. You should not punish him Gibbs. It is my fault that we went in there and my fault that he got hurt. I gave him no choice"
"Tony, was your radio broken?"
"No, Boss," he said glumly. "I turned it off."
"So at any time you could have called for help? Told me what she was doing?"
"Yes, Boss."
He turned back to Ziva. "Tony is responsible for Tony's actions. Let's be clear, I am not happy that you goaded him like that and we will talk about it but we all make our own choices. Understood?"
"Understood," Ziva agreed, realising that arguing Tony's case anymore was futile.
"That being said, I am proud of the loyalty you have shown each other," Gibbs admitted and both agents looked up in surprise at the unexpected praise. "That is far from something I want to discourage but when it comes to obeying orders and especially when it comes to putting your lives in danger, I expect you to come to me no matter what. Are we clear?"
"Yes, Gibbs," they chorused.
He looked at Ziva again.
"Do you still think my order was wrong?"
She thought for a moment. "I should not have yelled at you."
"No, you shouldn't have but that is not up for discussion and it is not the question. Do you still think my order was wrong?"
Ziva wanted to say yes but, remembering the angry red welt on Tony's arm and knowing that it could so easily have been much worse, she resigned herself to telling the truth.
"I thought it was wrong at the time, but I did not mean for Tony to be hurt. I did not realize that they were so heavily armed."
"Exactly. That's why I ordered you to wait for backup. You don't go into a situation where you know you will be outnumbered without any knowledge of whether your target is armed and to what extent."
"I was only trying to do my job," Ziva couldn't help try to argue, but this was not well received and Gibbs fixed her with a hard glare.
"Your job, Officer David, is to follow my orders."
She dropped her gaze to her lap. "Yes, Gibbs."
He sighed. "Both of you, upstairs and get ready for bed. I'll be up soon."
When Tony and Ziva had hurried to do as they were told, Gibbs sat on the couch and ran a hand through his hair, knowing that they were all in for a difficult evening.
He opened a drawer and took out a wooden hairbrush, one universally hated among the three agents and one forensic scientist who had become well acquainted with it, and grimaced at the thought of what he was about to do. Reminding himself of the fact he could have lost them both tonight steeled his resolve and he put the brush down to go and make some coffee while he gave Ziva and Tony a chance to get ready.
It would be a difficult evening but then they could put this behind them and, perhaps, they would finally stop giving him heart attacks like they had tonight.
He chuckled softly at that thought as he poured his coffee. Some hope.