Cross-over chapter with Criminal Minds.
Because why not?
Gibbs growled as he slammed down his desk phone, causing Tony to jump and turn around cautiously. He had been at the plasma, studying the crime scene pictures to try and figure out what it was that was bugging him. There was something about the scene that just seemed... off to him, and it had been bugging him all day.
"Boss?" He asked warily. Anything that could make him that angry over a phone call usually meant somebody was incompetent, they had another body, or he'd just been ordered to play nice with somebody he didn't want to play nice with. If that was the case, though, Fornell usually showed up to explain, he seemed to be the appointed 'liaison' between Gibbs team and the other agencies, after all.
"Our investigation crosses paths with the FBI's BAU." Gibbs said shortly.
Tony winced and barely held back his groan. There were three things Gibbs hated dealing with.
Lawyers.
Spooks.
And Shrinks.
Not necessarily in that order.
Tony was going to be running a lot of interference between Gibbs and the team of shrinks. It wouldn't matter that they carried guns just like they did, if they could get into a person's head, then they were shrinks.
"Are they coming, or we going?" He asked, resigned to a long investigation.
"We're coming." He heard from behind him, and he closed his eyes with a growl.
"Please, don't do that." He demanded when he turned around. "It's bad enough the Boss does it." He leaned against Gibbs desk as said Boss stood to step around it and introduce himself to the intruders in his territory.
(All the BAU looked amused by Tony's reaction, but they also took the warning for what it was, especially since they'd all seen his hand twitch towards his empty weapon holster when Hotch spoke.)
"My apologies... I'm SSA Aaron Hotchner, this is Dr. Spencer Ried, SSA Jason Gideon, Agents Jereau, Prentiss, and Morgan." He introduced his teams, every agent waved when their name was called.
Gibbs studied them for a moment. "I'm Gibbs, this is my Senior Field Agent, Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. He's in charge when I'm not around. Agent McGee and Officer David are out chasing leads right now." The profilers could clearly hear the pride in his voice when he introduced DiNozzo to them, especially by the way he listed the SFA's full 'rank'.
"Hey, DiNozzo, you got a sec?" Another agent poked his head around the corner of some desks to ask. Tony waited for Gibbs minute nod before plastering a smile on his face and going towards the other agent with a cheerful 'sure, what ya need?'
Gibbs didn't like the way Hotchner and Gideon looked at each other over the small interaction. "The case?" He asked. He was known for not playing well with others, they would get over it.
"Over the last two weeks, there have been a string of murders in the D.C area, Virginia, and Maryland, all matching the MO of your Marine yesterday. We were called in last week when the connections were made, and a Metro officer called us this morning about a connection to your case." Hotch said simply. He glanced at the plasma screen, where Tony had left the crime scene photos up. "Is this...?" Gibbs nodded, and the BAU team immediately started discussing them in relation to the rest of their case.
"Boss!" They all looked up to see Tony on the mezzanine. "You might want to come see this. Bring the green folder in my desk, please?" He looked grim, and Gibbs was up and on his way to the stairs with the requested folder in his hands before anybody could blink.
"Those two work well together." Gideon absently commented. Hotch hummed. "But DiNozzo..." The boy had layers of masks hiding who he really was. They had all seen it.
"We'll have to observe some more." Hotch said with a shrug.
"I wonder what it was that was so urgent." Morgan wondered while watching the NCIS agents disappear into MTAC.
The two didn't come back for nearly an hour, and when they did, both men were clearly in dark moods. "Take one of them with you." He waved a hand at the BAU team that had made themselves at home in the bullpen while they were gone. Chairs had been found and pulled up beside desks, leaving the original chairs alone for the agents who actually worked here to have somewhere to sit while they worked. Hotch caught Morgan and Prentiss' eyes and nodded for them to go.
By then, Tony had already grabbed his gun and bag, and was heading for the stairs, deeming the elevator to be too slow. Especially since he didn't know which floor it was even on right now.
The two BAU scrambled to follow.
As they passed the elevator, Tim and Ziva stepped off, laughing about something. The laughter stopped when they saw the look on Tony's face. "Tony?"
"Hey, Probie. Put out BOLO's, Boss has details. Ziva, you get with your Mossad contacts. Gibbs will fill you in." He instructed as he held the elevator door open after rushing to get on it since it had just become available. Instructions given, he allowed the door to close on the confused faces of his team.
"What's going on?" Derek asked while they waited for the elevator to reach the ground floor.
"Our dead Marine was involved in some pretty serious stuff, and possibly stole some classified intel to sell. We didn't recover any files or anything at his apartment yesterday, so we're going back to search it again, or see if we can't figure out who he might have been selling to. We'll have to hunt down and talk to his buddies, too." Tony said with a sigh after a moment.
"Huh. That's different." Derek muttered. He couldn't think of any past cases the BAU dealt with where the victim was committing treason.
"No, not really." Tony deadpanned. "Just a normal Monday as far as I'm concerned. If we don't get something like at least once a month, then I start to worry."
"Really?" Emily questioned, and Tony nodded.
"Seems like, anyway. Military guys have access to some stuff that some people would be really interested in learning about, and those guys usually have the heavy wallets to get what they want." He explained. And, oh did money open doors and mouths. It was really pathetic what people would sell for just a little bit of extra cash, they would even sell out their comrades.
"What kind of military secrets would he be selling? I didn't think he was high up, or in a position where he could really access anything." Emily asked, thinking through what she'd read of his file.
"Classified above your security clearance. And you'd be surprised what they could figure out about our military from our supply shipments." He was quiet for a minute before leading them out the elevator and to the car. "It's not really anything that could cripple National Security or anything, but it will cause a lot of problems for our boys overseas." He finally said. "As well as put a few NCIS undercover operations in jeopardy." Unsaid was the lives of the agents working undercover.
It had already blown the undercover operation Tony had been prepping for, the guy that came to get him earlier, was the MTAC operator who often was in charge of tracking Tony's movements when working. That was how they knew their Marine, or somebody close to him, was selling intel he shouldn't have access to.
"His death was probably unconnected with his side-deals then, either that or the last two weeks have been somebody cleaning house. But we haven't found anything in the vics' lives to suggest that they were involved in anything like that." Derek speculated. The others nodded.
"I hate traitors." Tony muttered. Dirty cops, traitors, they were one and the same.
Derek looked up sharply at that and studied Tony's face. "Partner?" He asked. The file they had on him said he was a detective before transferring to NCIS unexpectedly after two years at Baltimore.
"Yeah... but then, I was probably the only clean cop in Baltimore." He snorted. "Why is it so easy for people to betray their friends, family, and brothers in blue for a little extra cash?" He asked, bitterly.
"Good question." Derek said with a sigh. They saw too many police officers go rogue, or start killing people themselves. Too many police officers turn on each other, the ones they were supposed to be able to depend on the most.
The drive was silent, each lost in thoughts about the case.
"Well, here we are. Again." Tony was honestly a little annoyed over it, he hated missing things the first time a crime scene was gone over.
"Don't want to search the place again?" Emily asked, a little surprised.
"No, not really. Because that means we missed something the first time. I pride myself on being thorough, which means not missing things." Tony sighed before going inside.
"Well, you weren't searching the place earlier with wrong-doing on the vics part in mind. You were searching for evidence of the killer. This time, you have a new perspective to search with." Emily reasoned.
"Yeah... I suppose. Doesn't mean I gotta like it, though." Derek and Emily just exchanged looks while following the NCIS agent in.
"What do you think?" Gideon asked Hotch the next day when they were alone. Hotch didn't need to ask what Jason was asking. DiNozzo, Prentiss, and Morgan had come back the day before without any files, but they did have a list of names to run down that they hadn't had before, along with a detailed record of every scrap of information he'd ever sold, and to who. Turned out he was kind of paranoid that his customers would turn on him, so kept records as an insurance policy. It had been hidden very well, Tony had almost missed it.
They combined that list with the suspect pool the BAU already had, and all the names were currently being run through the system while Garcia looked up other search parameters based on the profile.
"I think they are a very good team. Agent DiNozzo hides a lot of himself, but Agent Gibbs seems to be able to bring him out, and is very protective of him. The two junior agents seem to take him at face value, though, and don't seem to hold much respect for him as a fellow agent, let alone their superior." Hotch said with a grimace. That made the whole team a ticking time-bomb waiting to go off any moment.
"DiNozzo is very good at easing the tension, too. He is very experienced with the horrors of being a law-enforcement officer."
"Well no wonder, you saw his file. Undercover in the Macaluso Family, youngest officer to get his gold shield, he's an expert at undercover... and several of his past partners have snapped under the pressure, or were found to be dirty." Hotch pointed out. "He's about seen it all." DiNozzo's records were rather impressive, actually.
"He jokes around to both hide, and to make sure his teammates don't let the job get to them."
"They sure don't appreciate his efforts." They shared a look and went to rejoin the two teams. Prentiss, Morgan, and Tony seemed to have hit it off fairly well, while Ziva and JJ seemed to be having an argument about something. Ried and McGee were having an intense discussion about... something. Gibbs was alternating between watching the teams interact and studying the file in his hands.
Suddenly, he shut the file and barked, "What we got?"
His team jumped up in a well-choreographed move. McGee grabbed the remote, shooting Tony a smug look when he got to it first (Tony just rolled his eyes), and clicked a button, bringing up images on the plasma. "The most probable buyers are these guys here. Abdul Samar, James Pritchard. They are the only ones in the country right now, and the most recently contacted. Oh, and this guy... his name wasn't listed in the notebook, and there's no picture of him on any database, but he's called the Chameleon."
None of the BAU missed how Gibbs and Tony jerked around and glanced at each other for the last one. After an intense silent discussion, involving many mini glares, small head shakes, shrugs, and eyebrow raises, Gibbs interrupted McGee's presentation (which he had continued, ignorant of the by-play between his two teammates). "Forget about the Chameleon. Focus on the other two."
"But... Boss, he's a potential threat to the United States military, and countless covert ops officers." McGee protested.
"No, he's not." Gibbs said shortly. "Move. On." He said slowly, glaring.
McGee gulped, but moved on, showing financials, phone calls, and emails. When he was done, Ziva jumped in with chatter from her overseas contacts, and then Tony jumped in with everything he dug up that supported McGee's findings and pointed to which of the two likely's was the most likely, along with the current location for both of them and a third party that McGee and Ziva both missed. Along with a possible suspect for the murders themselves, which everyone else seemed to have forgotten about in the excitement of needing to find stolen intel.
"Any of these guys fit your profiles? Or your suspect list?" Tony asked the BAU for their input, giving Gibbs a small glare to remind him that he was supposed to be playing nice with the other kids.
Garcia had been on the computer (the BAU team video conferenced her in as soon as they realized that Gibbs was demanding an update on his teams findings). "James Pritchard has been in frequent contact with two of the people on our suspect list." She informed those in the room, digging deeper into records that McGee never thought to look through. "There are no connections to Abdul Samar that I can find... and the third guy does have contact with somebody else on the list." She looked up, waiting for somebody to request additional information.
"Ok... we'll go pick up our guys. You want to handle bringing in the three bigger fish?" Hotch suggested.
"Three? But only two of them have been in contact with the guys who might have actually pulled the trigger." McGee protested, looking confused but pulling his gun out anyway.
"It's called being thorough, Probie." Tony said, exasperated and slightly condescending sounding. "We don't want to ignore him and go after the others, only for it to have been him all along."
"Besides, it's not like he's not wanted for anything else." Gibbs muttered under his breath.
"If we're being thorough, then why don't we dig deeper for the Chameleon?" Tim asked, still indignant that his hard work had been dismissed like that.
"Because we know that he's not a threat. And because I told you to drop it." Gibbs snarled, turning on him with a glare. Tony snorted, but didn't say anything.
As they were getting off the elevator, Hotch's phone rang. "Hotchner." He answered without even looking at the caller ID.
"Don't put me on speaker." Garcia's voice came through. "I know who the Chameleon is. It's Agent DiNozzo." She'd hacked a highly classified file to find out that much, and her servers would be wiped clean of it as soon as Hotch gave the word.
He hummed at the confirmation. "It's classified intel?" He asked.
"Very much so. If it didn't come up as part of a case, I wouldn't have touched it." She answered.
"Scrub the servers, and then go to Chief Strauss to let her know. She'll want to inform the NCIS Director and then probably have you sign something." He sighed. Garcia already knew so much classified information, he wasn't sure what the point was in having her sign anyway was, he's long since proven that she wouldn't talk about anything that she knew.
"Yes, sir." She hung up, and Hotch glanced over to find Gibbs watching him with a knowing look in his eyes.
"She stumbled across something, she won't say anything." Hotch assured.
Gideon spoke up from behind them. "She'll probably make sure the file she looked at is even more protected now than it was when she opened it." DiNozzo let out a small sigh of relief, but otherwise didn't react.
Not even Abby knew about that, only Gibbs and former-Director Morrow did.
"James Pritchard! NCIS, we have a warrant!" McGee announced themselves, waited a few seconds, and then got out of the way so his impatient Boss could kick the door open and go in, followed closely by Tony, who gave him a small smirk/smile.
They were going after him first, thinking that he would probably be the easiest 'catch', and sure enough, he wasn't in any way prepared to fight back. He was a business-man, not a killer. The fact that he was involved in some shady dealings actually kind of baffled McGee once they actually met the guy.
"Moving on." Gibbs said, scoffing as James Pritchard was driven away in an agency car to be delivered to an interrogation room while they got the other two on their list.
"That was... I was expecting a fight." Tony said blankly while they followed Gibbs back to their own car.
"Careful what you wish for, DiNozzo." Gibbs muttered under his breath later on while Tony sat in the E.R getting his arm looked at after being shot.
They'd left Abdul Samar for last, because all indications from his file said that he would be surrounded by at least two other men, and would certainly not come quietly. He didn't come quietly, all right. Tony got a bullet lodged in his arm, and would be on desk duty for a couple of weeks, while Tim had barely avoided being grazed by the same bullet. Ziva and Gibbs both had some bumps and bruises, but were otherwise unharmed.
"I'll go get your paperwork to get you out of here." Gibbs said with a sigh. They'd already assured him that Tony wouldn't need major surgery, it was all tissue and muscle damage. They just sewed everything back together again, took X-rays, and pumped him full of painkillers, which meant that things in the squad area would be very interesting for a while. And it looked like his guest room was going to be in use for a while.
"Ok, Boss! Hey, did you know that John Wayne..." He smirked and left, leaving the doctors to enjoy Tony's drugged rambling. He would enjoy some peace and quiet while he still could.
"Uh, is he alright?" Prentiss asked when the BAU team came back into the squad area after making sure their suspects were safely in holding.
"Yeah... they gave him painkillers at the hospital." McGee said simply, not even looking up from his computer. It was nothing new, this happened every time somebody at the hospital failed to read the little warning on Tony's medical records that they shouldn't give him certain kinds of medication.
"Yes... and it's on his Do Not Give list, too..." Ducky stated, coming around the corner and eyeing Tony.
"'Do Not Give' list?" Morgan asked the doctor, concerned.
"Yes... oh, it won't do him any harm, or cause any adverse physical reactions, no. But he's always reacted rather strongly to opiates like these. As you can tell." Everyone turned to eye Tony, who was currently rambling on and on about something. Nobody really knew what he was talking about, he seemed to be following a train of thought that only he knew existed, and was leaving out all the contextual clues they might have been able to use to work it out, and then he kept jumping between topics... "No, he's better off with a local numbing agent, and Advil. Anything much stronger, and I'm afraid he gets... well, interesting is one way to put it."
"Yeah, he's got to be under constant supervision while he's like this. Those drugs seem to give him selective amnesia of sorts... he tends to completely forget he's injured, and then tries to act completely normal, even when that could make his injury worse. Or he'll be acting worse than a happy-drunk." McGee explained further. "He's not exactly... all there. Gibbs is the only one who can drag him back to reality when he's like this." He side-eyed Tony for a moment, then went back to his work.
Gibbs finally wandered back in after making sure their dirtbags were all where they should be for interrogations. "DiNozzo." He gave Tony a light head slap to get his attention. "You think you can handle Pritchard's interrogation?" He asked, knowing full well that Tony without drugs in his system would get him talking in no time at all. A drugged up on painkillers Tony would get him talking in half that.
"Yeah, sure. You doing the other two first?" He asked, blinking rapidly, which was Gibbs sign that he was working to focus.
"Hm-hm." Gibbs nodded and walked back towards the interrogation rooms, DiNozzo bouncing along behind him. The BAU looked at each other in concern and followed, not sure about letting Tony in an interrogation room while drugged up on painkillers.
Two hours later, the BAU's main suspects were in holding while the 'big fish', as Hotch called them, were in interrogation rooms. Needless to say, the BAU were kind of impressed with Gibbs interrogation tactics. Tony's...
"Gibbs... what is he doing?" Emily asked, confused about why Tony was just sitting there, playing on his phone, making idle conversation with their prisoner.
McGee was right, though, Gibbs did seem able to keep his focus on something. In this case, the interrogation that Gibbs tasked him with carrying out.
Gibbs smirked. "It may not be pretty, but it's effective." He murmured in pride as Tony's seemingly idle chatter relaxed their prisoner enough that he accidentally revealed everything. "Bingo."
"Can we steal him from you?" Derek asked, shocked and impressed.
"Nope." Gibbs said simply and watched as Tony pounced on the slip-up. Suddenly, the phone disappeared and he was all business.
"So... you've been buying and selling United States military intel to terrorists overseas? You know... that sounds to me like a one-way ticket to Gitmo." Tony said calmly, noting something down on the notepad in front of him.
"What?" James Pritchard acted startled, but they could all see the sudden shifty look in his eyes and the sweat on his brow. "I never sold anything like that!"
"Yeah you did, you just said you did." Tony raised an eyebrow. "It's all on tape." He gestured towards the camera mounted in the corner of the room.
James glared at the offending camera as he paled.
"But you know, we might be able to speak to somebody, get you in minimum security at least, if you tell us everything you know." Tony leaned over his notepad, pen ready.
Thirty minutes later, he walked into observation to see stunned and impressed FBI agents while his boss stood there impassively except for the proud glint in his eyes. Without a word, the notepad was placed into his bosses waiting hand before he walked back out.
He was hungry.
"Where is he...?"
"Food." Gibbs grunted while scanning the notepad's contents with satisfaction. A moment later, he leaned out the doorway. "Take Palmer with you, DiNozzo!" He called. Tony couldn't be left on his own when he was on painkillers, after all.
"Lets go break our guys and hand this intel off to those who can use it." Morgan finally said after a moment. He was ready to close this case and go home. Unfortunately (or not) the military and treason side of this case was way out of their jurisdiction, so they could leave NCIS to deal with the fallout and majority of the paperwork.
"None of you are leaving until your share of the paperwork is done." Gibbs said absently while leading them back to the office area. He didn't once glance up from Tony's interrogation notes. He was going to make sure the BAU got more paperwork than the Director would probably be happy with, but if they were going to work a case with them, they were going to do their fair share of the work afterwards.
Derek groaned while Emily laughed. Derek always tried everything he could to get out of doing paperwork, even going so far as to foist it all off on Spencer. The two followed him back to the bullpen area, where they were surprised to find the ME and forensic scientist all standing around in the area.
"What's up?" Gibbs asked.
"You got the guys?" Abby asked, eager as always.
"Yup." Gibbs said. The BAU had a confession from the killer, and everything.
Turned out, the killing itself was simply the work of a serial killer, with no connection to the treason whatsoever.
"Where's Tony?" She asked. She'd heard that Tony was on painkillers right now, and he was always interesting when he was drugged up from the hospital.
"He's out with Mr. Palmer getting something to eat, I believe. The painkillers from the hospital should be wearing off soon enough." Ducky said, shaking his head and taking a bottle of pills out of his pocket. "These, Jethro, are his new prescription." He handed them to Gibbs. "They won't cause any adverse reactions like the other kind." He huffed.
"Good." Gibbs said. As much as he cared for Tony, not even he could stand drugged-up Tony for long without wanting to shoot the man. "They still going to be strong enough?" He didn't want Tony in unnecessary pain because he had adverse reactions to the stronger stuff. That, and it would be hard to sleep if his arm was hurting.
"Yes... there might be some discomfort, but it won't be anything he can't handle." Ducky assured. Gibbs nodded and started getting paperwork around for the BAU to fill out, pointing them to various unused desks and computers throughout the room to use.
"Why don't we all go out for dinner tonight?" Emily suggested later on. Tony had returned with lunch for both teams roughly an hour before. "Both our teams."
"Oh, there is a new restaurant here in D.C I was actually wanting to try out." JJ immediately agreed.
Gibbs put down the pen he was holding and looked at the girls incredulously. He could see that the men on the BAU team weren't too thrilled with the idea (they'd been more thrilled before Agent Prentiss made it a combined-team dinner), but they were readily agreeing, anyway. He could have sworn that his reputation and general attitude would have been enough to scare them back to their own building as soon as the case was over. Now they wanted to go out for dinner with him and his team?!
"Sounds like a good idea to me." Tony said, raising an eyebrow at Gibbs. The painkillers had, indeed, worn off shortly after he and Palmer returned with food. Gibbs just stared at Tony in betrayal, especially when he saw the amusement in his agents eyes.
Seeing that Tony was agreeing, and knowing that he would somehow be able to talk Gibbs into agreeing to go as well, McGee and Ziva reluctantly agreed, too. "Want me to call Abby and Ducky, Boss?" McGee asked, reaching for the phone. After a brief stare down with Tony, Gibbs slowly nodded. A few moments later, all three scientists agreed.
"Want me to call Garcia?" Derek asked Hotch, who agreed.
"Nobody goes anywhere until all paperwork and reports are on my desk." Gibbs demanded, knowing full well that his two junior agents would try to put everything off long enough that Tony got annoyed and just did it himself just to get Gibbs to stop asking where his reports were. The last time he caught them doing that, well... lets just say the truck had never been cleaner. It even got a good ol' wash on the outside for once. When the BAU looked at Hotch for his input, he nodded for them to get to work. Clearly he was in agreement with Gibbs that all the work get done before they left (then again, he was well aware of Derek's paperwork tendencies).
"He's demanding." Emily muttered.
"He also has ears like a bat." Tony hissed in her ear as he passed on his way to the printer. She looked up at Gibbs slowly to find him eyeing her like a predator would his prey. She smiled hesitantly and went back to her work, after a minute she could feel his stare leave her.
Tony was the first one to drop reports on Gibbs desk, before he went back to his own and started working on something else. "Add a few more cases to that req. order, DiNozzo, we seem to be going through it more than usual." Gibbs said without looking up.
"Already did, Boss. I also booked us for the range next weekend and took us off normal rotation, we have our fire-arms requal. coming up, figured you'd want us to get some practice time in. The guys at the armory have also emailed wanting us to bring down our bullet vests down for maintenance checks." Tony said, looking over at him. "Also... got another email from HR." He got up and went back to stand in front of Gibbs desk.
Now Gibbs looked up, wary. "What for?" He asked slowly.
"Same thing the last ten emails were for." Tony said, not wanting to air the Bosses business in a room full of gossiping schoolgirls, er- fellow agents, and the FBI. "You ever going to get around to it?" Tony asked.
"Yeah... Yeah, I'll get around to it. I'll take care of it before coming in tomorrow morning." He decided with a sigh.
"I will email them back and let them know." Tony promised, going back to his desk. A moment later, an IM chime sounded and Tony shot an annoyed look at McGee while pressing the delete button, not even bothering to grace that with a response. "Also... made reservations at that new restaurant for tonight. Open time, they are holding a table for whenever we get free." He glanced up and smirked.
"When do you do all this?" McGee asked, incredulous. Honestly, he messed around half the time, but somehow always seemed to have all the answers, and his work done before them!
"Work smarter, not harder, Probie." Tony smirked, and the BAU all glanced around at each other, eyebrows raised and impressed.
"How did you get an 'open time' reservation?" JJ asked. She was the teams liaison with media and police, which often left her as being the one to liaise with local civilians as well, and she could never have gotten something like that. Restaurant's didn't like having empty tables, an open time meant they didn't know when the party was coming, which meant they had to keep the table empty all night so that it was ready for them at all times.
"I know some people." Tony smirked.
"Probably slept with one of the waitresses." McGee muttered, slightly bitter.
"No, Probie. I did not." Tony glared lightly. "The owner happens to be my neighbor. She's seventy."
"She's pretty old to be opening new restaurants." Derek said, slightly impressed. Again, the BAU all exchanged significant glances over the exchange between Tony and one of his teammates.
"Well, it's a family business, and her grandkids mostly run things now, but..." Tony shrugged. "I take care of her cats every now and then when she's gone, and she always brings me cookies."
"If we're going to make our reservation, I suggest we get some work done." Gibbs said, staring around at the group. McGee and Ziva immediately turned back to their work, the BAU moved more slowly.
Twenty minutes later, McGee handed his reports off to Tony to check over and sign off on before handing it off to the lead agent. Ziva's reports followed five minutes later. After handing off their reports, they each turned back to some other work that they'd been doing before the case got called in.
"Ziva, I still need your weapons discharge paperwork." Tony said after glancing through the file she handed him.
She huffed, and glared, but one look at Gibbs stare was enough to have her printing out the right forms. "I still do not understand why we need to fill out a paper for every bullet fired. It is a waste of time." She exclaimed, just like she did every time they reminded her to fill it out.
"Those bullets are the property of the United States government. They like to know what happens to the things they spend money on, especially if those things have the capability of killing somebody or causing property damage, depending on the skill of the person shooting them." Tony said absently, holding out her report for her to take so she could add the paperwork to it. McGee's paperwork was looked over and signed off on without problem, and handed back to McGee so he could turn it into Gibbs.
"Ziver." Gibbs said. When she looked up, he continued. "You forget that form again, you're being written up and being sent back to FLETC for a refresher course on proper procedure and paperwork protocols." He was tired of hearing Tony constantly telling her to fill out that form.
She grumbled. "Yes, Gibbs." She couldn't believe she had just been scolded like that... and in front of the FBI!
Fortunately, the FBI didn't appear to be paying them much attention. They were currently busy handing in their reports to their unit leader, who skimmed through them to make sure everything was there (he didn't even bother to check the work itself!) before laying the appropriate forms on Gibbs desk and trusting Reid to hold onto the rest in his ever-present bag.
By this point, Ziva was the only one still doing paperwork, everyone else was doing some sort of busy work or chatting quietly among themselves.
"Garcia just arrived at the restaurant." Hotch informed the group after checking his cell phone, right when Abby, Ducky, and Jimmy came up to see where everybody else was, and to inform the group that they were ready when everyone else was.
"And... done!" Ziva said, finishing the report and handing it all off to Tony to sign. "You do not have to check every page!" She exclaimed when she turned back around after gathering her things to see that Tony was looking through it page by page.
"You have a tendency to... show off your multilingual skills when you're in a hurry or stressed about something. I'm just checking that it's all in English." Tony said, finally signing off. "Last I checked, the Boss doesn't speak all the same languages that you do." He said, handing it back to her to give to Gibbs. For instance, the Boss spoke Russian, last he knew, that wasn't one of Ziva's many languages.
As soon as Gibbs looked through the file, he locked all the reports away in his desk to be filed later, then looked around at his team while he slowly gathered his things. They were standing around his desk, belongings gathered, looking at him hopefully. "What?" He asked, fond exasperation in his voice. "Go." He waved towards the elevator. "DiNozzo, you're riding with me." He called before Tony got on the elevator with the rest of the NCIS team along with those of the BAU who managed to fit on it. The rest of the group would have to either take the stairs, or wait for the next elevator.
An hour later, he shook his head fondly. Tony was talking animatedly, waving his hands (well, hand, the other one was currently trapped in a sling) around in that way he had when he was excited about something and wasn't paying attention to what his body was doing. He hadn't seen his boy this excited by something in a long time... at least not while Tim and Ziva were around.
Maybe... maybe working with the BAU wasn't so bad, after all.
