A/N- Never written anything like this – it's drama and romance and a little angst. Made up a little backstory in the process – try not to hold it against me. Hope it came together, and that someone connects with it. If you like it, let me know. Could have been a one shot, but I broke it up for readability.
The team had been tracking this woman for two days. High powered, wealthy, beautiful, and an arms dealer. They had her pretty much dead to rights, but were sitting on her to figure out if the man she was spending time with was a dupe, an accomplice, or an innocent bystander. Maybe she was using him to get something. Or maybe she really cared for him. Questions about their relationship had been a hot topic in a boring stake out watching her run errands.
Kensi and Deeks followed her downtown where she ran into an Italian restaurant. She emerged a few minutes later with a take-out bag.
"I didn't even think Antonio's did take-out," Deeks said with surprise.
"Why wouldn't they do take-out?" Kensi asked.
"It's Antonio's. It's impossible to get a table. They're booked for months. The food is amazing and the clientele is A-list. The presentation is a big part of the allure. I can't believe they just throw it in a to-go container."
"It's just food," Kensi pointed out.
"No, it's not just food. It's Antonio's. It's an experience."
"Is the food any good?" she asked.
"Oh my god, so good. It's like love on a fork," Deeks declared, his eyes rolling back into his head remembering an Antonio's culinary experience.
"So that would do it?" Kensi asked, but not like usual. Not with edge and sarcasm. Not the set up to a joke. "Take out from Antonio's would tell you someone loves you?" She asked like she was looking for a secret.
"Well, it would depend on the wine pairing." It was an opening, but he couldn't take it. He went for the joke instead.
Kensi didn't respond. She wanted to. He could tell. But she let him have the last word – let his smile and deflection and charm hang in the air. She was looking for a different response. But that wasn't how he was wired.
Or mis-wired, as the case may be, because he was incapable of not deflecting. In the debate between nature vs nurture he believed there had to be a little bit of both. He must have been blessed with a natural ability to joke and obfuscate or he wouldn't have been able to perfect the talent so completely when nurture made it vital to the survival of his heart and his mind.
Never let them know what's going on in your head. Or heart.
His dad was complicated. A mean, violent drunk, but sometimes a pretty benign presence. Never loving, never actually nice, but sometimes he passed as human and not monster. But Marty knew better than to be lured in in the better moments. He made jokes and never said what he really felt. His humor in the face of his dad's anger was the only weapon he had against his father, until Ray gave him the handgun.
And it all snowballed from there.
With his mom, she was constantly feeling guilty about how things turned out – the things Marty went through, the things she couldn't afford to give him. His defense mechanism became a way to keep disappointment from her so that he didn't add to her burden. In college and law school it was how he handled being the kid that didn't come from money, didn't come from the right family. It kept people at arm's length.
At the LAPD, it was how he never let them see how it felt to be universally disliked at a job he loved and wanted desperately to be good at. He couldn't earn their respect, so he acted like everything was a joke to him and it didn't matter. It didn't help bring them around to his side, either, but he wasn't trying to fix the situation, he was trying to survive it.
At NCIS it was how he got through the hazing when he started. He never returned an insult with an insult. He took each one with a smile, maybe some self-deprecating humor, and a witty response. It was unexpected to him when he started to fit in. He figured it was because at heart they were really good people. They had a hard time letting him in because he'd come on the heels of losing one of their own, but they'd given him an honest chance to prove himself and made him a part of the team. Now the ribbing was good natured and flowed both ways and it was almost disarming for him to be that comfortable somewhere.
But then there was Kensi. He didn't know how to be a partner until Kensi. And when he understood that his constant jokes and humor were hard on her he made an honest effort to reign it in. A little. She was beautiful and deadly and kind and everything he thought was good in a person. He'd fallen for her from the beginning, and he'd resigned himself to having the most amazing woman he'd ever met just out of reach. But then today he thought maybe they were closer together than he realized. She'd given him an indication that maybe she had other intentions, intentions she might act on.
And he joked it away.
All afternoon he beat himself up for it, but there was no graceful way to revisit the moment. He just resolved to not let the next opportunity slip away, because they were great together. Magic – like catching lightning in a bottle. They were already deadly as partners. He assumed they'd be amazing as a couple and explosive as lovers. He couldn't imagine how they'd be as parents, but she was the first woman that made him wonder what kind of dad he'd be.
Wasn't like he had a role model.
When his thoughts went back to his dad he had a very familiar desire to be anonymous, to be somewhere where people only knew his surface. He picked a club he used to frequent and decided to stop by..
()()()()
"You can do this. You can do this. You can do this," Kensi repeated to herself as she grabbed the bag and the hundred dollar bottle of wine from the passenger side of her car. She'd done her hair, and put something special on under her jeans and shirt in case the evening went a certain way. She bumped the car door closed with her hip. With the take-out from Antonio's in one hand and wine in the other she made her way to his front door.
She thought about bolting for a split second, but steadied her nerve. And knocked.
That was the point of no return. She exhaled a long, slow breath and waited for him to appear. It felt like forever. Then she knocked again, but started looking around. It was late, and quiet. The house was dark. And his car wasn't in the driveway.
"Nice going, Kensi," she said as she put it all together. She was standing there with food and the most expensive bottle of wine she'd ever purchased and he wasn't even home. Her plan had fallen apart, but it did give her one more chance to bail. Just as she turned to leave she felt the glow of his headlights stream across the yard. Now there wasn't even a graceful way out. She put a smile on her face and waited.
She heard the engine cut off. She heard a car door open and close. But then she heard a second door open and the unmistakable sound of a woman giggling as Deeks helped her out of the car.
"Come on, Elena. Let's go."
"Oh Marty. You ordered food. You think of everything."
Kensi froze in place, unable to face to him. She looked at the bag in her hand and knew there was no way around the humiliation that was closing in on her. Finally, she gave up maintaining any semblance of self-respect and turned to walk back to her car.
"Kensi?" Deeks asked, squinting in the dark of the lawn but easily making out the shape of his partner. And then he looked at the bag that clearly said Antonio's in one hand and the bottle of wine in the other, and his mind flashed back to his joke that afternoon. His mouth opened but no words came out. He tried again, desperate to stop her departure.
"Kensi, wait." She stopped but didn't make eye contact.
"It's not what it looks like."
"Did you go out tonight?"
"Yes, but….."
"Did you bring a woman home with you?"
"Yes, but it's not what you think….."
She put her hand up and flashed him a look that stopped him in his tracks, because past the embarrassment and the anger her eyes were glassy and he could see the hurt.
She steadied her face and handed him the bag of food that was meant to say so much. He took it not knowing what to say. She looked at the bottle of wine in her other hand and decided to bring that home.
"You can pair a wine to it yourself."
She walked to her car.
"Kens."
She never turned back to look at him, and he called again.
"Kensi!"
But nothing. He stood on his front lawn between a drunk ex he couldn't stand and the love of his life and the wrong one was leaving.
"Is the Door Dash lady stealing your wine?" the drunk blonde asked as Kensi closed the door to her car. She hit the steering wheel with her hand, and drove away.
"Absolutely freaking perfect," Deeks yelled in frustration as he tossed his keys and quickly snatched them out of the air.
It took him ninety minutes to beg a favor from a cop at the station and get Elena's current address. He didn't let her eat the food Kensi brought, and he wouldn't make her another drink. Eventually she got the picture that nothing was going to happen, and she let him take her home. Once she'd safely been delivered to her own place he started texting Kensi.
Deeks: Can I come by?
Deeks: Kens, I need to talk to you.
He drove by Kensi's on the way home, but her car wasn't there. He parked and waited, but there was no sign of her.
Deeks: You ok? Starting to worry me, partner.
Finally his phone gave the tone of an incoming text.
Kensi: I'm fine. Goodnight.
He shook his head knowing that was all he was going to get from her, and drove himself home. He put the Antonio's leftovers in the fridge and grabbed himself a beer.
He remembered the look on her face, apprehension and hope in her eyes when she asked her question that afternoon.
"So that would do it? Take out from Antonio's would tell you someone loves you?"
And he couldn't bring himself to just say yes. He made it a game, conditional, not revealing himself. And eight hours later she was at his house with Antonio's take out and found him with someone else. Well – not with her, but from her reaction she didn't get that nuance and certainly didn't give him any chance to clarify.
He needed to explain what happened. He was just being a friend and a cop – looking out for a woman who had a history of not looking out for herself. It was innocent, and honorable, and she should like that about him and not be pissed.
Yeah. That wasn't going to work.
He promised her once he would try to take things more seriously. It was meant as an olive branch, a hint that their partnership was worth making accommodations for. It was meant to let her know that he valued what they had. And now their partnership meant so much more to him. She meant so much more to him, and as he drained his beer he worried he'd blown it, because Kensi doesn't open up easily.
He might not get a second chance.