AN: Occurs just after Chapter13 of "A Matter of Trust". I am marking this as complete because I can't think of any more outtakes for this series but if anyone reads the 'When Boys Play' series and you want to read something I haven't included please PM me or leave a review!

Bates rubbed his forehead as he followed his people back into the precinct. He could feel a headache coming on.

"Conference room," he grunted at them.

They have each other apprehensive looks but thankfully did as they were told. None of them looked even a little bit repentant.

"Want to tell me what that was all about?" He asked them once they had settled down.

All he got was some muttering and shrugs of shoulders along with stubborn looks.

"You couldn't really have thought that that would have worked!" McHughes explained.

Bates resisted the urge to facepalm. He was the whole reason today happened! He didn't think the detective had a right to complain and judging from all the looks that were being directed at the man, neither did anyone else.

"I think what McHughes is trying to say is that it is well know that there is a lot of bad feeling between most of us and the NCIS crowd," Grant explained.

Bates gave her a relieved look. Finally, some common sense! Now where was that earlier?

"Last time I checked you were all fully functioning intelligent adults," he scolded exasperatedly. "You've dealt with far worse attitudes from criminals for heaven's sake."

"But it's Deeks," said Jorsten as if that explained everything.

Apparently, it did if everyone's nodding heads were anything to go by. Bates looked at them in dismay. He didn't realise that their attitudes towards Deeks were this bad. What the hell? He didn't even know what to say to them so he just gaped.

"Oh, like this is such a big surprise," Whiting said impatiently, tapping her foot.

Bates gave her a look and he got an eye roll in return. He decided not to say anything to her. He hadn't wanted her to go along on this, ahem, experience but Hetty had specifically requested her. Both women terrified him but Hetty more so, so Whiting went.

"He is one of our best Detectives," Bayes said to the room instead.

If anything, that made the room more hostile. He heard an awful lot of disbelieving scoffing noises.

"As if, " McHughes snorted.

"He still has the highest successful closed case rate despite him working ninety percent of the time with NCIS," McBride pointed out with a slight frown.

McHughes shrugged his shoulders.

"But it's Deeks," he said.

No one else seemed to see the problem with this explanation. Bates sighed heavily. He wasn't getting anywhere with this lot. He waved them away.

"Get back to work," he ordered, now feeling depressed. "And for God's sake do whatever the midget fairy wants you to do first."

He did not need to be on Hetty's bad side. He rather liked being alive.

"Taking orders from NCIS, now?" Grant teased as she passed him

"Hetty Lange," Bates corrected. "Everyone takes orders from Hetty."

At least Whiting was nodding along with that.

He followed them back to their desks, curious what Hetty had done. He wasn't entirely sure what to expect. There was a small pile of what looked like lined paper on each of their desks. It didn't take long for him to find out.

Almost as one there was a lot of swearing.

"What the hell?"

"She can't be serious."

"I am not doing this!"

Bates exchanged a confused look with Whiting (she wasn't sat with these plebs) as everyone muttered angrily and they shuffled through the papers. What on earth?

"You can't expect us to do this, sir!" Grant said indignantly, marching across the office and brandishing her sheaf of papers like a weapon.

Bates took them off her before she started hitting people with them, there were a lot of them and he didn't want to write up an incident report involving a multitude of aggressively inflicted paper cuts.

There was an awful lot of lined paper but with nothing on it. He frowned in confusion until he saw what was on the top of the page then he laughed. Grant frowned at him. Whiting peered over his shoulder and dint bother to smother her chuckles.

"It isn't funny!" Grant whined.

"Oh, it is," Bates told her with a grin. "It looks like Hetty agrees with me on you guys' mental ages."

He glanced at the top page of her stack. It had the sentence, 'I must learn to form my own opinions' in impressively styled handwriting across the top with each line below numbered. Lines! She had given his people lines. Bates pushed down another bubble of laughter as he shuffled through to the last page, one hundred to be exact. Brilliant.

"Let me see yours, McHughes," he requested, handing back Grant's papers and receiving a scowl from both people.

'I will play better with others' was on his. Bates snorted. Hetty pegged him down perfectly. There were five hundred lines assigned to him. Ouch.

"I have 'I must be more respectful of all my colleagues'," Jorsten offered with a scowl.

"How many?" McBride asked curiously, clutching his visibly smaller stack of papers.

"Two hundred and fifty," Jorsten replied. "You?"

"Fifty," McBride replied smugly.

That got him a lot of outraged shouts.

"Better get cracking, then," he instructed with a grin. "You've only got two days."

Jorsten glared at him.

"You can't expect us to actually do this," McHughes complained.

Bates just raised his eyebrow and folded his arms.

"Why don't you go ask Hetty that?"

The man paled rapidly and wisely slunk back to his desk, head down in defeat. Oh look, he can be trained.

With that, Bates made sure that they started their punishment before leaving with a grin. Whiting stayed behind, probably to mock. Shaking his head in disbelief at Hetty arrogance, Bates return to his office. Once he safely shut his door and sat in his own chair for the first time today, he gave into his emotions. He laughed and laughed and laughed. Tears were pouring down his face and he was sure his face wasn't a pretty sight. He wasn't sure if it was because of stress or because of how funny the whole situation was but he didn't stop for a good ten minutes.

Then he glanced down at his own desk. There was a familiar looking stack of paper.

'I must know my subordinates' attitudes' was on the top.

A real smile broke out across his face.

"Well played, Hetty. Well played," he muttered under his breath.

He reached for his pen.