Tony wiped the last utensil dry as Gibbs abruptly opened the front door.
The knot that was already tight as hell in his stomach tightened a little bit more as the door snapped shut again. Nudging the cutlery door closed with his hip, he took a deep breath and walked back out into the living room to find Gibbs slumped on the sofa with a strange look in his eyes. He hovered awkwardly for a nanosecond before the older man pointed to the armchair across from him in an unspoken order. The unfamiliar house seemed to shriek with silence around him as he sat gingerly down and worried his lip.
"Boss? You ok?"
Staring at a point directly over his head, Gibbs seemed to be in the midst of an existential crisis.
"I don't waste good."
Tony blinked bemusedly.
"Erm… ok? Look, Boss. I'm really not sure what's going on here. You bring me here, all cloak and dagger like, and then give me a surprisingly well-cooked steak. Then you disappear. Then you reappear and you're more than a little cryptic. I know I've royally screwed up here but this… this psychological warfare is not cool man. If you're going to fire me, can we just get it over with? Not to be dramatic or anything but the suspense is killing me."
Gibbs snapped out of his trance, slipping back into Boss mode like hand to glove.
"Morrow wants you gone. He chewed me out today for your latest fiasco and ordered me to show you the door. I, being the consummate idiot, fought for you. Told him that if you go, I go. He backed down and said you can stay but only on the basis that I can control you. That I can rein you in. I gave the man my word that I could do just that and I intend to keep it. Do you understand me?"
Wrongfooted by the sudden directness of the situation, Tony swallowed apprehensively as a wave of emotion he couldn't describe washed over him. Gibbs fought for him. No one had ever fought to keep him anywhere. Period. Certainly, no one had ever cared enough to join the unemployment line for him.
"Yes, Boss."
Nodding tightly, Gibbs scrubbed a hand over his eyes.
"Good. For starters then you can explain to me what in the hot house of hell happened today. What the hell were you thinking?"
Snakes writhed in Tony's gut as the events of the day flashed across his mind.
"I… don't know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn't really thinking at all. Everything just seemed to happen at once and I just reacted. I thought that guy was the perp, I really did. He fit the description to a T and I thought he was getting away. I had no idea what happened would happen and I… uhh… I guess that's it… it sounds a pretty lame excuse when you say it out loud."
Gibbs snorted like a bull on steroids.
"Ya think?"
Tony cringed and wisely kept his counsel.
"I ordered you to keep watch on the rear egress point at that warehouse for a reason," Gibbs growled. "You weren't happy with that but I don't have to explain my reasons to you in the field. I am the Boss for a reason, that reason being I am much older and much wiser than you. If I say jump you say how high. That's it. That's how this works… how this has to work… and I need to know right now if you can handle that cos' if you can't you might as well clear your desk off right now. I ain't going into the field with a Second-in-Command that cannot or will not follow orders. That's how people get killed, DiNozzo."
Tony nodded without a moment's hesitation.
"I can handle that, Boss. I understand the importance of the chain of command."
"You could have fooled me," Gibbs countered curtly. "Someone who understands the importance of the chain of command wouldn't usually abandon the post they have been ordered to cover to chase someone they wrongly believed to be our mark and tackle that someone to the ground. And who did that someone happen to be today DiNozzo, go ahead and refresh my memory?"
Tony flushed scarlet and examined his knees with a ferocious curiosity.
"Eyes up!"
Dragging his gaze upwards immediately, Tony flinched when he saw the clear disappointment mingled with controlled anger in the blue eyes in front of him.
"He was an undercover FBI Agent," he mumbled shamefacedly. "The Feds were staking out that warehouse as well. I didn't realise that… and I didn't realise he was chasing the actual perp and that my tackling him almost resulted in that perp getting away. If it wasn't for your friend… uhh… Tobias? I think his name is Tobias. Anyways, if it wasn't for Tobias the perp would've gotten away but uhh… as it is, I caused an inter-Agency incident and made NCIS look like idiots."
Gibbs' nostrils flared as he recalled the shambolic affair in vivid detail.
"You didn't know the Feds were on a joint op because it was on a strictly need-to-know basis and you did not need to know. Care to take a damn guess as to why you didn't need to know?"
Tony closed his eyes miserably.
"Because my following your orders in the field is a standard assumption?"
Gibbs nodded hotly.
"You're damn right that's a standard assumption. It's the most basic of basic assumptions and yet my supposed right-hand man, the guy I trust to have my back at all times, seems to think he is above following my commands. You see the problem with that? The problem with the rookie I recruited from a mom-and-pop PD department being so supremely arrogant as to assume he knows better than me how best to position a federal stake out?"
Tony blanched and squirmed slightly in his seat.
"But Boss, I-"
"But Boss nothing, DiNozzo," Gibbs interjected sternly. "I know exactly why you did what you did. You think you're the first twenty-something to think they know better than their Agent in Command? You think I didn't think I knew better than the people above me when I was your age? You abandoned your post because you thought it was beneath you. It's as simple as that. You look me in the eyes and tell me I'm wrong and I'll believe you but I'm willing to bet this house that I ain't wrong."
Tony wondered briefly how effective he would be at faking his own death.
"You're not wrong," he mumbled miserably. "Boss… I'm so-"
"Don't you dare," Gibbs interrupted. "You've broken more than enough rules for one day."
Nodding, Tony drew a deep breath and steeled himself.
"It won't happen again, Boss. If you let me stay, that is. It won't happen again. I've learned my lesson."
Gibbs raised a brow.
"How can that be?"
Tony looked at him blankly.
"How can what be?"
Sitting forward in his chair, Gibbs leaned closer to his recalcitrant charge.
"How can you possibly have learned your lesson when I haven't taught you it yet?"
Something changed imperceptibly in the older man's tone that made Tony instinctively lean away. Memories of desk duty from his Baltimore days flooded his memory and the all too familiar and accompanying misery rushed his gut. He lived for the field and loathed his desk. Unable to contain the puppy dog eyes, he looked beseechingly at Gibbs.
"You're gonna make me ride a desk, aren't you?"
Gibbs looked at him in askance before a strange, unidentifiable emotion flitted across his face.
"That would be the standard NCIS disciplinary measure," he said slowly. "For something like this, I would say the equally standard sentence would be five weeks with zero field privileges. Plus a permanent note in your jacket. A suspension is not out of the question either."
"Five weeks! A suspension?!" Tony yelped. "Boss, please, no. Anything but that. I can't be chained to my desk for over a month or be suspended. I'll go insane. I'll go completely-"
"Silence," Gibbs instructed quietly and Tony immediately fell mute. "You think I want to do that, DiNozzo? You think I want to work cases in the field with my hands tied behind my back when literal lives depend on our joint ability to get the job done? I don't want to put you on desk duty any more than you want to be put on desk duty but your screw up today was on the upper end of the scale. You brought the Agency into disrepute but more importantly you put your life in danger. You tackled a damned Fed. They tend to shoot first and ask questions later. You're lucky to be sitting there with all your limbs still attached. Do you understand that?"
Tony nodded, shame and guilt mingling inside him like a perverse cocktail. Something in Gibbs' tone made it clear to him this was what he was really mad about. Not the damage to the Agency's reputation but the potential for damage to him. Something about that made him feel… odd. No one had ever cared about his well being or safety back in Baltimore. He was the one who made their numbers look good and deep down, Tony knew that's all he had been to his Boss back home. His physical safety or general well being wasn't a consideration.
Gibbs sighed and felt a highly unfamiliar sense of nervousness dog him.
It was now or never.
"DiN- … Tony. You been around me long enough now to know that I don't care much for regulations this and regulations that. Would that be a fair statement?"
A quizzical look shot across the kid's face but he nodded in answer.
"Yes, Boss."
"You also been around me long enough now to know that I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy. Yes?"
Feeling totally bewildered now, Tony offered another nod.
"Yes, Boss."
The man was a T-Rex with a coffee addition after all.
Gibbs felt mildly nauseous as he looked into the wide green eyes across from him and the implicit trust for him that they held. The idea that he could, with the wrong word or action, break that trust was abhorrent but he knew it was a risk he had to take. Feeling a deep sorrow for all the grief he had put Mike Franks through as a rookie, he swallowed deeply and carded a hand through his hair. It was time to bite the bullet and he knew it.
"Good. So it won't come as any surprise to you that I have no time for the paper punishments that the Agency loves. I have no time for restrictions and reassignments, reprimands and retraining. I only got time for swift, sharp shocks and the clean slate that comes right after that shock's been meted out. I only have time for swift, sharp shocks and the clean slate that comes right after that shock's been meted out because the men and women that depend on us every single day are real short on time. Right?"
Tony looked at him with bewilderment but followed his train of thought with ease.
"Right."
Gibbs nodded.
"Good. Then I need you to listen to me closely. I need you not to interrupt me or ask questions until I'm done talking. Do you understand me?"
Tony raised a brow but not an objection.
"Yes, Boss."
Gibbs guzzled down more air than any pulmonologist would recommend and steeled himself.
"The sort of shocks I'm talking about are physical ones, Tony. They're the sort of shocks that I was taught by and that I think I now need to teach by but only if that's the road you want to go down. I'm talking about giving you a choice. There has to be repercussions for the stunt you pulled today but those repercussions can either be Agency led and on the record or… they can be "me" led and off the record. Do you see where I'm going with this?"
Tony's upper and lower jaws had never been further apart as he gawked at Gibbs.
"Uhm… no. I have no idea where you're going with this, Boss."
Gibbs supressed a groan, aware of his ham-fisted efforts.
He needed to be more direct.
"I'm talking about corporal punishment, Tony," he said quietly, forcing himself to maintain eye contact with the kid. "I'm talking about you paying for today with a sore ass instead of a month or more on the bench. It'd be just between you and me. No one else. Completely off the record. Once it's over, it's over and your slate is clean again. Do you understand better now?"
He felt his stomach hitch as raw confusion and shock and… something else, ballooned across the kid's face. The silence that followed seemed to stretch into years and decades as Tony's brow furrowed in confusion, his brain working double time to try and comprehend the incomprehensible. Finally, just when Gibbs thought he had been rendered mute for life, the kid spoke.
"You… you want to uhh… beat me?"
Something that Gibbs had always suspected was suddenly confirmed and he was amazed at the pain it caused him. Swallowing deeply, he made a silent vow to himself. That vow concerned Anthony DiNozzo Senior and it was not a pretty vow. He moved forwards slowly so that he and the kid were practically knee to knee and spoke gently.
"Tony. I need you listen to me now? To really listen to me, ok?"
The young man nodded without hesitation but the fear in his body language was clear as a bell.
"I would never beat you," Gibbs said with an odd vehemence. "Nor would I ever allow you to be beaten. By anyone at any time. A beating is an out-of-control act by a coward. It's a form of abuse. What I'm talking about is different. I'm essentially talking about a spanking. It'll hurt, sure, it has to… but I'd never cross that line where it would become a beating. I would never abuse you. Never. If you ever believe a word I tell you, I need you to believe that. Ok?"
Tony, still with a slack jaw, somehow managed a confirming blink. A stark quiet descended like a net over the two men, each lost to their own thoughts whilst trying desperately to read the thoughts of the man before him. Gibbs, an intense fan of silence for the most part, was beginning to hate the fact that he could practically hear his own heartbeat.
"I guess," Tony mumbled suddenly. "I guess what you're saying isn't anywhere near as surprising as my face makes it seem right now. I mean… you do slap me upside the head ten times a day…."
Gibbs, despite the slightly surreal situation, managed a small smile.
"Only ten? I thought it was more. I must be slipping."
Tony snorted.
"My neurologist would agree with you."
He looked down at the ground for a second before forcing his gaze back up, a seriousness settling in his wide green eyes.
"What if I say no?"
"Then you say no," Gibbs said immediately. "That would be totally ok, Tony. This is entirely your choice and just so you know, you are well within your rights to go to Morrow in the morning and report what I have discussed with you tonight. I won't stop you and I won't blame you. I am totally outside proper procedure and protocol right now and it's your absolute right to bring that to the Agency's attention. I wouldn't hold it against you. Just because I think a sore ass is the quickest, cleanest way to handle youthful stupidity… doesn't make it the best way for you. This is your call and I will respect your decision, one way or the other."
Tony studied the older man for a moment.
"Boss?"
Gibbs inclined his head.
"Yeah, Tony?"
"I had no idea you could say so many words in such a short space of time."
Gibbs rolled his eyes with a sigh.
"Always the smartass, huh?"
Tony nodded with a small grin but then turned sombre.
"I have to make a decision now, don't I?"
Gibbs inclined his head with an odd sadness that the younger man had never seen before.
"Yeah, Tony, you do. Look, like I said, there is no pressure. I am suggesting what I am suggesting simply because I think it's for your own good and will protect your jacket from stupid, juvenile crap like today's fiasco. You got the potential to make it far in this game and I don't want bureaucratic bullshit getting in the way of that. But I am not pressurising you one way or the other. This is your call and I can only advise you to go with your gut. Your instincts are good, Tony, just trust them."
The kid chewed his lip before suddenly blurting out what Gibbs could tell was his one real question.
"Would… uhh… would it be with a switch? I erm… switches… I don't…. just… would it be with a switch?"
Gibbs felt his vow against Anthony DiNozzo Senior harden into a lifelong grudge.
"No, Tony. No switches. I'd probably use my belt… nothing barbaric. Just enough to make my point, no more and no less. I ain't gonna lie to you though. If I take my belt to you, you're gonna feel it. It'd be a real punishment and one that I'd want you to remember at that. Although it would hurt… I would never hurt you, if that makes sense."
He looked away then, uncomfortable with all this talking and emotion.
Silence settled between them and stretched with a surprising level of comfort until Tony broke it.
"Boss?"
"Uh huh?"
Green eyes steeled themselves. Tony knew this was a risky question, but he had to know.
"Did… uhh… did your old Boss… ever take his belt to you?"
Gibbs stared, weighing up the question, before trusting the kid meant no harm by asking. He hadn't intended on ever divulging the answer to the question as posed but, then again, he hadn't ever intended on giving this much of a damn about the boy before him.
"Yeah, Tony," he sighed. "He did. Many times."
He offered no further explanation and Tony knew instinctively not to press any further. His mind whirred under the onslaught of new information. Predominately, he was surprised by his lack of real surprise. Gibbs was a physical man it made sense that he would have recourse to physical methods of keeping his house in order. Blurred images that he had worked very hard to repress from his childhood surged to the forefront of his mind and residual fear came right along with them. Panic began to dog him as he grappled with the decision in front of him and the fear of his past within him. He glanced over at Gibbs who was looking at him with an expression of complete calm and composure and felt his childhood fear leave him like a punctured balloon.
His instincts really were impeccable.
They were what made him the Agent he was.
And his instincts told him he was safe as it was possible to be with the man in front of him. He had no way of knowing the impact the decision he was about to make would have on his life for many, many years to come. He had no way of knowing that he was setting in place a chain of events that would come to shape him as an Agent… and a man.
His voice, when he spoke, was quiet but it was sure.
"I don't want to ride a desk, Boss. I belong in the field. With you."
He took a deep, steadying breath.
"I'll take the Gibbs-led repercussions, Boss."
Pride, unexpected and intense, ballooned in the Team Lead. Staring at the kid in the moment, he had no way of knowing just how important he would come to be in his life but he was more than important enough in the moment nonetheless.
"You understand what that means, Tony?"
The boy nodded bravely but Gibbs knew he was sacred as hell.
"It means you're gonna tan my ass."
Gibbs nodded before tilting his head in question.
"And then?"
Tony's brow furrowed in confusion.
"Boss?"
"And then your slate is clean," Gibbs explained quietly. "Your stunt is dealt with and done, never to be mentioned or used against you again. Also, you are free to tell whomever whatever you want about this but know that I will never speak about it to anyone. This is between you and me and then it's done. That's the whole point of this and I need to know you understand that?"
Tony nodded, relief blooming across his face.
"I don't think I'll be speaking about it with anyone, ever. Ever."
Gibbs let out a small chuckle.
"Understandable."
Tony rubbed a hand across his eyes and felt the sudden, overwhelming need to grab a hold of that clean slate Gibbs had offered. Gritting his teeth in resolve, he tried not to think about what was coming down the tracks for him by reminding himself over and over that he had full trust in Gibbs. He wasn't… wasn't like him. He would never do to him what had been done to him before. He knew that in his gut and so clearing his throat, bit the bullet.
"Can we get it over with, Boss?"
Gibbs nodded automatically but felt fear of his own bubble inside him. He hadn't had to physically reprimand anyone since his days in the Corps and he had had no real feelings for any of the men he'd worn out. Tony, on the other hand, … he evoked a paternal side in him that he thought he'd buried with Kelly many years ago… making what he had to do so much harder. Selfishly, he felt a sudden wish that Tony had chosen the desk duty. Rebuking himself for the thought, he dug deep to find the resolve that needed to be found.
"Sure, Tony. We can get it over with… but… you need to understand that it's over when I say it's over. You choose this option; your butt gets whatever I decide. You don't get to duck out halfway through. Is that clear?"
Tony swallowed but didn't miss a beat.
"Yes, Boss."
"And you know exactly why you're being punished? You don't have anything you want to say in your defence?"
Again, Tony was faultless.
"Yes, Boss, I understand and no… I think we both know I don't have a defence. Trust me, if I thought I had one right now, I'd use it"
Satisfied, Gibbs nodded and stood up with Tony instinctively following suit. Gritting his teeth in extreme distaste about what he was about to do, he reached up and unbuckled the thick leather belt around his waist. Pulling it out through the loops with one swoosh, he felt his heart break slightly when Tony's tousled head ducked to the ground in misery. The belt felt outrageously heavy in his hands and he felt a surge of hatred for it as he carefully tucked the buckle into his hand, folding the strip of leather in two. Suddenly, and acting on impulse, he reached out and gently pushed Tony's chin upwards with his thumb before letting his hand drop away when the green eyes met his. Seeing nothing but a mixture of fear and trust in them, which was to be expected, he uncharacteristically patted the kid on the shoulder.
"If it's any consolation, Tony, it takes serious balls to make the decision you've made. I'm…"
He swallowed uncomfortably but persevered.
"I'm proud of you."
The bashful happiness that crossed the kid's face was cut short when Gibbs suddenly went full Boss mode, pointing to the arm of the sofa that neither of them could know would play a heavily recurring role in their lives for years to come.
"Now bend over. You got some serious learning to do."
…..
TBC.
Probably two more chapters left of Tony as I don't want to rush it! I'm really enjoying delving into the first time realm.
Hope you guys enjoyed – if you have any requests/suggestions for Tim's first time which is coming up next, let me know!
BTW – there is no correlation between this and any of my other stories. This is a standalone AU and so it may contradict other stories already written.
Inks x
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