"Come on, Tony! I think we've been here long enough! When are you going to stop calling us 'Probie'? I haven't been a probationary agent in years!" McGee almost yelled, exasperated.
Tony stopped going through his filing cabinet and turned to him with a raised eyebrow. Gibbs stopped just out of sight from his team to listen in. Everybody else on the floor made no effort to hide or disguise the fact that they were listening in to the latest argument between the three agents of Gibbs team.
"Yeah? So? Doesn't matter how long you've been here, or how long you've been off probationary status. You'll always be my probie." He shrugged. "Pretty sure Franks still calls Gibbs that, anyway." He pointed out after a moment.
"Yeah, I don't hear Gibbs calling you that, wouldn't it be the same for you?" Tim challenged while Ziva came to stand next to him, silently supporting him in his efforts to get Tony to stop calling them that.
"Yup. Gibbs and me? We have an understanding." Tony grinned mischievously. "He doesn't call me 'Probie', and I... behave myself."
The two of them exchanged a confused look while everyone else nearby that overheard, and had been here for that confrontation, snickered or groaned in remembrance.
"But you don't behave yourself!" Tim exclaimed, put out. "You glued my keyboard yesterday!"
Tony snorted. "Probie, that's tame compared to what I used to get up to." He smirked at Balboa, who was groaning, obviously remembering something Tony had done.
"And jamming every drawer in my desk? I had to get building maintenance to fix it so I could do my work!" Ziva reminded. "And then when we got them open, everything I needed was gone!"
Tony gave her a strange look. "I had everything you needed in my desk, all you had to do was ask me about it." He shrugged. "I play pranks, I don't interfere in cases or your ability to do your job right."
"Gluing my keyboard isn't interfering with my ability to do my job?" McGee deadpanned.
"Nope! Because if you had ever bothered to look, you would have found a non-glued, perfectly working keyboard to switch it out with nearby. And," Tony held up a finger. "I never do that when we are in the middle of a hot case."
"How are those tame?"
Balboa finally couldn't help it, he burst out laughing, loudly. "David, be grateful you weren't here for Tony's first month on the job. It was... messy." He finally said once he got control of himself. Confetti all over the room, streamers and balloons that were so numerous and just kept popping up out of nowhere so often that nobody even bothered to take them down... agents covered in silly string, whipped cream, glitter, feathers... Not even Gibbs was safe, so yeah. What DiNozzo did to his probie's was very tame.
"And it all stopped the moment Gibbs finally figured it out." Another older agent came up behind them all, smirking.
"Figured what out?" McGee asked slowly.
"That everytime he called DiNozzo 'Probie', something would happen in the building. Nobody could ever catch him at it, but most of us worked out what was going on after a while. Eventually... Gibbs caught on and made a deal with Tony here." Balboa slung an arm around Tony's shoulders, who merely rolled his eyes.
"A deal for what?" Ziva asked, confused.
"He behaves himself with the pranks, and I don't call him 'Probie' any more." Gibbs said suddenly from behind them, causing them both to jump.
"But... he doesn't behave himself, he pranks us every day, so he's broken his side of the deal." Ziva said, desperately trying to get Tony to stop calling her 'Probie'.
Gibbs shook his head. "And he's very well behaved about them, too. As far as I'm concerned, he's held up his end of the deal nicely." He quirked a grin at Tony, who beamed back.
"Back to work, Probies." Gibbs said after a moment, sitting down at his desk, and smirking when he heard their quiet groans.
He stiffened slightly when Tony leaned over his shoulder to mutter in his ear. "Only I can call my probies that." He gave Gibbs a narrowed eye look of warning before going back to what he was doing before Tim confronted him.
Ten minutes later, he smirked when his computer started malfunctioning on him, a glance in McGee's direction let him know who was doing it, and his smirk widened when he pulled out a flashdrive and plugged it in, letting the program on it take care of the problem for him. Thank you, Abby.
Tim groaned when it became apparent that it failed.
Better luck next time, Probie.
