Tony was currently testing all of his persuasive powers, all of his uncanny wiles, his cunning, his skilful manipulation tactics. His opponent was highly skilled and used to the most brutal of techniques. He was going to have to pull out all the stops. Dig down deep and get right into the zone. Show no weaknesses. She could smell them
"No, Tony," came the very firm reply to his unasked question, dangerously flashing eyes included.
Dammit, he didn't even get the chance to say it out loud. She was too good, far better than him. Of course, he'd already known that but when had that ever stopped him?
"But I want to hear you sing," Tony complained.
Whined, more like with the way he manged to draw out all the vowels. Normally, that was a sure-fire way of getting injured. Ziva glared at him from across the bull pen. The desks protected him.
"No," she answered bluntly and looked back down at her desk.
Tony was now sporting a crestfallen expression. Ziva didn't react even though he knew she could feel it. Realising that he wasn't getting the reaction he wanted, his face morphed into a pout complete with jutting lower lip. Would making it quiver be pushing it too far? He noticed how uncharacteristically tense his partner's shoulders were. Yep, lip quiver would be too much.
Suddenly, he saw stars.
"Put that lip back in, DiNozzo!" Gibbs barked as he swept past.
"On it, Boss!" came Tony's automatic response.
He gave his head a good shake to recentre himself and took a last wistful glance at Ziva. Her head was diligently bent over her own work, the perfect little worker bee. Sighing heavily, he reached for a pen. There were reports to sign after all.
He peered through his eyelashes, observing. It was a subtle, yet effective method. No one would see what he was doing. It was silent, it was sneaky, it was all-noticing and-
"Yes, Tony?"
Dammit, of course Ziva David knew when she was being watched. What sort of ninja assassin would she be if she didn't?
"Nothing," he said far too innocently.
"Hmm," she gave him a suspicious look.
He smiled charmingly back, it never worked on her like it was supposed to but it usually - yep, there was the scoffing and the eye roll and the ignoring. Worked every time.
Now he could continue watching, or surveille as he liked to call it. Less starker-ish and creepy that way. Whatever you called it, Tony could do it to his heart's content because she was making a point to completely ignore him. Not something he usually liked but it worked in his favour this time.
He just had to figure this out and it wasn't like he got anywhere with straight up asking her. Though, when had that ever worked on Ziva? Never. He didn't know what he was thinking when he tried that. What was stopping her from singing? Was she self-conscious? Embarrassed? Scared? She didn't have to be any of those things, she was amazing. Tony thought she knew that; she wouldn't use it in missions or cases otherwise. Right?
He sighed heavily and resisted the urges to bang his fists on his desk. No matter how satisfying it would be, it would draw Ziva's attention back to him and he did not want that.
It was just, well, he needed to know why. Not just out of nosiness or obnoxiousness like Ziva claimed. Something was obviously wrong with his partner and Tony had to figure out why. He was sure it wasn't out of embarrassment or fear, Ziva David didn't feel those emotions over something that she was amazing at. Anyway, Tony could tell if she was feeling any of those things. She was an open book to him after all. There was something else. Something seriously stopping her.
A simple refusal would have been understandable, it wasn't like she could or would sing in the office. That was a ridiculous notion if he's ever heard one. It wouldn't have stopped her admitting that she could sing. But she didn't even say that. She didn't she couldn't either, just refused to even consider it without an excuse.
He needed to know that excuse.
"Tony, if you do not stop staring, I will remove your eyeballs with my knife."
He was going old school now, real old school. Like all those old cop movies and TV shows. All the greats had to do it, it was what they did, what made the chase more exciting. Tension rose and rose until you hit the climax where you suddenly got the bad guy and-
"Tony, why are you following me? Would you like to end up swung onto the floor with possible broken limbs?"
"Only possible?" he asked weakly as he clutched at his chest. "And it's called 'tailing', as you know."
A perfect eyebrow quirked upwards. "Tailing involves a measure of skill and an ability to blend into your surroundings. You were displaying neither."
Ouch. Couldn't she just leave his ego intact just this once? Was it really his fault that as he was tailing her that she somehow managed to disappear from sight without him knowing and appear behind him, giving him a heart attack? Tony voiced this concern to her.
"You do not look like you are in pain and you are not acting like you are dizzy or light headed," she dismissed before narrowing her eyes sharply at him. "You do not have any jaw or neck pain, do you?"
"Not if you discount the whiplash, you gave me," Tony grumbled.
"You are being dramatic."
"You scared me!"
"I was not trying to. It was not my fault that you were so absorbed in poorly following me that you disregarded your surroundings," she hissed indignantly.
"Because someone really expects to be attacked on one of the middle floors of a federal building," he said sarcastically.
"You are still being dramatic," she insisted.
"Oh, I'm dramatic?" he shot back.
"Yes." Ziva folded her arms and glared even harder at him, if that was even possible. "You are the once exploding this to ridiculous proportions."
"It's 'blowing'," he automatically corrected before retorting, "You're the one refusing to explain why you don't want to sing when you've done this sort of thing millions of times before!"
The glare was now upped to 'murderous' to the extent that it terrified even him. He gulped and stepped back, wanting space to flee if he had to. He did have some self-preservation when it came to his partner, after all. Not a lot. But some. The bull pen was just around the corner, he could get the or at least make noise before anything happened to him.
Thankfully, Tony didn't have to put his pathetic escape plan into practice because Ziva held her glare for only a few tantalising moments before she turned sharply away and stormed off. She wasn't quick enough to stop him from seeing the sudden sheen in her eyes.
Crap. And a hell of a lot more X-rated words.
Tony paced the confined space of the men's toilets. The two men who were in here left quickly when they saw the look on his face, Ziva was right - people were disgusting when they were in a hurry. No hand washing at all. Yuck. Maybe he should take a leaf out of Jardine's book and spray hand-sanitiser on everything. She looked far less ridiculous now. A few other men had tried to duck in but he channelled his inner-Ziva and they'd also left in a hurry.
It wasn't entirely safe to hide out in here, Ziva didn't exactly not come in here. But he needed somewhere to think where even Gibbs wouldn't get at him. Hopefully.
It just wasn't fair. Ziva sang when she had to, he'd seen that video from when she was in that Moroccan bar and heard her when she'd had to sing in that club last year. Unfortunately, he'd been relegated to the surveillance van in the alley so he didn't actually get to see her sing. Still sounded amazing but that was only half the experience. She obviously enjoyed singing, so why didn't she sing more often? Especially at somewhere like the karaoke bar he was trying to push. Everyone was going to be singing there and you could choose your song. What was so bad about that?
Apparently, according to Ziva, everything. She refused to even consider it, giving him a straight-up 'no' with no hesitation. He'd even released Abby on her with no success. And Abby refused to help him any further. Tony shook his head; he didn't know how Ziva had managed to persuade Abby to do that but it something else to figure out. Like he didn't have enough of self-inflicted things on his plate.
He pulled at his hair and made a growl in frustration. Why was this so difficult?
