When Tony arrived home that afternoon, he immediately knew something was wrong. Usually his eldest, Alex, was either skating down the street or playing basketball with the neighbors. Today, the children were nowhere to be seen.
Opening the front door, Tony was greeted with a rare silence. He heard neither his daughters fighting, nor his wife humming a Hebrew lullaby that he was often greeted with. Looking around, he finally located his wife in the kitchen cooking dinner.
"Hello my sweet cheeks," he greeted leaning into peck her cheek.
She spun around and pulled him against her, lips meeting and held that position for a few seconds.
Sighing she pulled away, "You're late, Tony."
"I know babe, but Gibbs was really pushing us on this case and wouldn't even let Abby leave. Now, where are the kids?"
Once again, Ziva signed clearly agitated by this topic, "Tali is next door at Hannah's for dinner and Ellie is in timeout upstairs"
"What did she do this time?" Tony asked, knowing that their youngest had her mother's stubbornness and his temper.
"She yelled at me when I told her that she needed to clean up her toys in the living room before going outside, and do not even get me started on your son!" She added hand movements to the end of her sentence.
Tony flinched at the tone, "My son? What'd he do?" Genuinely confused at what had his wife in such a mood.
"The school called again. They said that he has detention for the rest of the week for disrespectful behavior. He called her a hag, Tony! A hag! I mean there is no excuse for his behavior."
"Calm down, Sweet Cheeks. He probably had a reason. He is never blatantly disrespectful."
"Oh, he told me the reason. Ms. Phillips implied that our son was dumb! He is not dumb!"
Now Tony was confused. Was she mad at her usually respectful son or his outright rude teacher? Either way he knew that he needed to have a chat with his son.
"I'll go talk to Alex while you make dinner. He is usually very kind and never really is rude without reason so there is probably more to the story ." He replies leaning in for one more kiss before exiting the kitchen.
Making his way upstairs he peeked into his daughter's shared bedroom. Ellie, his youngest and mother's namesake, was now quietly drawing but from her stained face he could tell she was crying. Tony would deal with her after getting to the bottom of Alex's behavior.
Finally, he reached his son's room. Drumming his knuckles against the door he waited for the "come in" before entering. Tony remembered how important privacy was to him at that age and while Ziva didn't care, Tony was always very respectful towards that.
"What's up, Kid? Heard ya got into some trouble today." Said the father, getting straight to the point.
Alex sent a small smile his way, "I was disrespectful to my teacher."
Tony sighed, knowing that their son was already beginning to feel bad. He always had a level of empathy Tony never understood. One minute, Alex would say something either to be rude, or just because he didn't realize it was but then he would start to feel bad and let it eat at him.
"Yeah, Mama told me what happened, but I want to hear your side before we decide on punishments."
Alex's face fell. His mother already decided on a punishment and his dad might add to that? He kinda hoped that Tony would be on his side once realizing what happened but it didn't look too good.
"It wasn't my fault, Dad. Really! Ms Phillips started it by insinuating that I was dumb! Me! I'm not dumb, I just struggle to pay attention." Tony watched as his son exclaimed pleading to have his father believe him. Alex has never been a good liar.
"It's okay bud," Tony sat next to him and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, "Your teacher was in the wrong for that. She shouldn't have embarrassed you or made you feel bad about yourself. However, you could have maybe not got in trouble. That would have been better." joked Tony trying to lighten the mood.
"Hey, I'm a DiNozzo, trouble really follows me." Alex said with a smile plastered on his face. He was beginning to feel relieved that his father understood. "Are you adding any consequences? Mom already gave me some!"
Tony felt for Alex, he really did. Alex always struggled with school, and while he was a very smart boy, his mind wandered from sitting still much like his father. " No, whatever your mama said will stay but I won't add. Only because your teacher acted inappropriately. Next time you can expect a worse punishment."
Alex nodded almost shamefully before adding, "Mama says I have to apologize. Can you maybe try and make her understand so she's not mad?"
"I'll talk to her but I don't think she's that mad at you," Alex's face looked puzzled, "She's not happy with what you said but she's more pissed with your teacher."
A breath of relief came out of Alex before nodding. "Can I come out of my room now?" He asked hopefully.
Tony though for a second before confirming. "Yes, you can but go apologize to your mother."
His son smiled before bolting downstairs. Tony could hear him saying he's sorry before offering to help with dinner.
One kid down, one to go. He thought as he headed down the hallway.
Even though her door was open due to her fear of being completely alone, he still knocked gently against it. Ellies head immediately shot up and she ran full force into her father's legs. Looking down, he already knew it would be hard to discipline her. She was just the cutest kid he'd ever seen. With her tear stained face and curly light brown hair she was the perfect mix of the two parents. Everyone always said that Alex looked like Tony while Tali was Ziva's clone.
Tony picked up the young child and carried her over to the set of bunk beds. Laying down on the bottom bed he rubbed her back in a comforting manner. Much like their eldest, Ellie felt remorse nearly right after the crime. Ever since she could talk she was extremely stubborn and constantly testing her mothers patience but she always ended up on her father's lap crying her little heart out after a consequence.
"I-m...I'm so-orry, Daddy," She whimpered trying to control her sobbing. "I won't ne-ever be rude to Mama again! Just let me outta timeout."
Tony saw straight through her plan, "Ellie-Belly," he started, using one of the many nicknames, "If you were really as sorry as you are faking then you wouldn't constantly disobey your mother." He smirked as he watched his daughters tear almost immediately dry up and she began to pout.
"Hmph! Daddy it's not fair! I always gotta pick up my toys and Tali never has to!" the girl screeched clearly displeased by the whole situation. "Mama even let her go play with a friend but she never lets me! She didn't even listen when I told her the markers were not mine!"
Tony began to understand the situation more. Tali had asked to go to Hannahs while her mother was still stewing over their son's incident, and then she sprinted right out the door without cleaning up after herself. Then when Ellie wanted to go outside, Ziva had told her to first clean up and the youngest didn't know how to express the confusion in the fact that it was not her mess so instead yelled at the stressed mother which resulted in a timeout.
"Oh bug, your mother just was very stressed and instead of explaining what was happening you yelled at her." The father tried to explain to Ellie, as gently as possible. "So here is what we are gonna do. Me and you will go downstairs and you will tell mama about the markers nicely, and then you will apologize (is it with a z or s) for yelling," his daughter cut him off with a grunt. "Hey now, I know that you were frustrated but you can't yell at mama, it's mean and you are way too sweet for that." He stood up and set his daughter on his hip before trekking downstairs. Once in the kitchen, he saw his wife pulling the meal out of the oven while his son chopped veggies. Setting his daughter he nudged her to go to her mother. Ellie walked up to her before tugging at her pants. Ziva looked down and smiled at her before crouching to receive a hug. The little one through her arms around her mama, while Ziva stroked her hair.
"I'm sorry for being mean Mama but the markers were not mine but were Talis." she said with a small hint of accusation at the end. Ziva felt guilty for assuming that the markers were Ellies.
"It is alright, sweet girl. I am sorry for blaming you."
"It's okay Mama, I forgive you."
And with that the family sat down to eat dinner
