The team and it's most recent superhero member were setting things up in Tim's super secret storage unit. It was coming together pretty nicely. Tim had been listening to Tony hum for the last forty five minutes and it started getting on his nerves probably forty four minutes ago.
"Tony, are you humming the Rhoda theme song?" he asked, his frustration showing through intentionally.
"Was I humming it?" Tony asked, turning to look at him slightly horrified. "Sorry 'bout that. Been in my head for hours. Good catch though, probie," he said.
"Who wouldn't recognize the worst theme song of the 70s?"
"Young people, Tim. That's who."
"That's not necessarily true. I never saw it till my mom started going through her old VHS tapes she'd recorded them on."
"Having a mom who has VHS tapes makes you old."
"Watch who you're calling old, Tony. You're older than me, after all."
"There's nothing wrong with being old, Timmy. We're wiser. We've got more experience. Ultimately we're more interesting..." His sentence trailed off and Tim noticed the faraway look on his friend's face now. "Of course I probably won't age now," Tony's voice sounded in Tim's head, and his eyes widened for a second because that hadn't happened in a long time. "And I'll be around to watch all of you age and then eventually..."
"Are you doing that on purpose?"
"Doing what on purpose?" Tony asked, looking back over at Tim.
"Guess that answers that question," Tim replied with his mind, and it took Tony a second for that fact to hit him.
"So that's back," he said with a slightly crazed look in his eye. "We're seriously gonna have to work on some rules."
"Already have rules," Gibbs said as he set an item down near them.
"I meant specifically for McMindreader and me," Tony told him. "Apparently we're back to full communication capacity now. Just gotta figure out how to limit that to intentional communication."
"Either of you get any side effects using it?" Gibbs asked with narrowed eyes.
"I don't think so," Tim replied, glancing at Tony to see if he would say differently.
"I don't think that was ever much of an issue."
"If it becomes one, you let me know," Gibbs told them.
"Yes, boss," Tony replied with a quick salute. Gibbs shook his head, a smirk playing on his face before turning back to his previous task. "Movie night tonight, Tim?" Tony asked silently.
"Uh...sure I guess. If we ever get done here."
"I'm thinkin' we should try and figure out how to turn this thing off. You really don't wanna be in my head all the time."
"Maybe you should stop thinking so loudly."
"Ha! Funny, Tim. You should be a comedian."
"I'll stick to my day job, thanks."
"What are you two on about?" Bishop asked as she finished plugging up one of the machines.
"Just trying to figure out how to...uh..." McGee thought for a moment. "I guess block each other out of our heads when we need to."
"What you should do," Rhoda chimed in, "Is go to Vegas. You could fund an underground lair with the money you'd win."
"She makes a good point," Ellie said with raised brows. "If we weren't concerned with breaking the law."
"Breaking the rules, maybe," Rhoda said. "Cheating isn't breaking the law."
"But it's cheating."
"But it'd be cheating for the benefit of mankind," she argued, then looked back at Tim and Tony. "You could get a jet!"
"A jet would be cool," Tony replied with a small smile as he daydreamed about it.
"Why would he need a jet?" Ellie replied incredulously.
"Because crime isn't secluded to the DC Metro area," Rhoda told her.
"So what you're saying is that not only would we be fighting crime in DC, but all over the world?" McGee asked. "Tony's not Superman, guys."
"Which is why he'd need a jet," Gibbs chimed in. "He can't fly."
"You're entertaining this?" Tony asked with an amused grin.
"Entertaining maybe. But nah," Gibbs replied. "We already fight crime, in case you forgot."
"And Tony's got enough on his plate between this and NCIS," Tim added.
"Well I don't," Rhoda said after a moment. "I was mostly kidding about the jet. I kinda hate flying. But I wouldn't mind traveling if the moment called for it."
"Guess you're stuck standing on rooftops, waiting for someone to need help," Ellie said.
"That's Batman, guys," Tony said with a small laugh. "I thought this whole secret lair thing was supposed to negate the need to go out blind."
"It will," Gibbs stated. "And we're not playing superhero here. I wanna make that very clear to everyone," he said as he looked around the room at them. "We're a team-"
"I'm not part of your team, Agent Gibbs," Rhoda said. They all grew silent as they looked at her. "I'm not glued to DC or to conventional methods of crime fighting."
"We're not vigilantes," Gibbs replied, narrowing his eyes as he stepped toward her. "You do not get to be people's judge, jury and executioner."
"Who said anything about execution?" she said with wide eyes.
"When you're out there alone making choices and decisions on a regular basis without any rules, the lines can get blurred. There's no need for super powers to stop bad people."
"Obviously it could help," she argued.
"Yeah. Of course it can! If that's what it is. Help. You help with our guidance so the lines don't get blurry." Gibbs glanced around the room again. "Maybe we don't know what those guidelines will be entirely. Not yet. But we will learn and adapt." He looked back at Rhoda. "You will adapt, Rhoda, because sometimes that's the difference between good and...Gideon." Rhoda flinched slightly at that. "Gideon didn't start out being what he is now. He ended up like that because he was alone. He made his decisions without anyone around to keep him grounded. That's what we're here for. That's what we wanna be here to do for you too."
"I get it, Gibbs," she replied. "I do. But it doesn't seem fair that we're only helping locally."
"I didn't say that. We just can't take a jet to New York City because someone's robbing a liquor store. And even if you were Batman, you forget he protected one place."
"Gotham. Nice, boss," Tony said.
"Who are you to decide which crimes we fight and which we ignore?" Rhoda asked, shaking her head in frustration.
"We can't save everybody," McGee chimed in. "Even if we all had these powers, there's no way we could expect to save everyone. That's not fair. It's not about choosing who, it's about how many we can help."
"And even though our jobs usually don't begin until someone is already dead," Ellie said, "The more help like this that we can have, the more we can save from being hurt by the same people."
"Unless you wanna be a government weapon," Gibbs said. "You think they wouldn't recruit you and force you into terrorist cells? You're reusable material. You think they'll give a damn about the pain as long as you can't stay injured, or worse dead?"
"You think they could force me to do anything?" she replied cockily.
"You've really got no idea what they're capable of, do ya?" Gibbs said quietly. Rhoda looked back and forth between his eyes, eventually settling them somewhere on the floor. "I wanna be clear again, no one is forcing you to stick with us. You wanna be part of this, you're welcome to be. But if you're not gonna play by the rules, we can't help you."
"What are the rules?"
"Like I said, we don't have them all just yet. But Contingency Rule 1: Don't be a vigilante."
"Rule 2," Tony said, "Never run out of milk."
"Wait wait...what?" Rhoda questioned.
"Milk helps when there's pain from over-usage of abilities," Tim told her. "You haven't used it?"
"I haven't needed to...but either way, I'm lactose intolerant. I doubt it'd help. In fact, the few times I've had dairy in the past several years I've actually gotten more sick than usual with it."
"Curious," Ducky exclaimed under his breath. "I wonder if the type of exposure or a certain element of the serum differed enough from Tony's that you would have such different responses, not only in your abilities but the way your body interacts with it." They were all looking at him now. "Of course, in order to figure that out, I'd have to get some information from Gideon himself, if he should even remember."
"And it does beg the question," Jimmy chimed in, "Could there be more people like the two of you out there, having survived—maybe even unknowingly—the experiments Gideon's been conducting all these years?"
"Gideon was trying for a survivor, Mr. Palmer," Ducky replied. "The way he aggressively sought out Anthony after he survived the exposure suggests that, as far as he knew, there were never any others. Our new friend here is likely the one exception."
"Let's hope so," Tony said. "I'd hate to think there's been others that've been found and locked away in some government facility or worse..."
Ducky fished out his phone from his pocket when it began to vibrate suddenly. "Ah. Well, my dear friends, it seems that the substitute MCRT is in need of my and Jimmy's assistance. I'm afraid we'll have to bid you farewell for the evening."
"Substitute MCRT?" Gibbs questioned with furrowed brows.
"Director Vance and Agent Dorneget for the time being," the doctor replied. "Abigail is already on her way into the office."
"If you need anything-" Gibbs began, but Ducky finished for him.
"Call you, yes. I'm sure we won't need to do that, Jethro, but of course one of us will call if we find it necessary."
"Don't do anything super cool without me, okay, guys?" Jimmy said quietly to Tony and McGee before he headed out with Ducky. McGee smirked at the statement and looked down at his watch.
"Wow, it's later than I thought," he said. "Are you guys hungry?"
"Wouldn't mind eating something," Gibbs replied.
"Yeah," Tony said. "We should call it a night here anyway. We can pick it back up tomorrow." Then he looked at Rhoda. "You gonna stick around?" She looked at him for a moment, then to Gibbs and McGee, and back to Tony.
"If you're really serious about wanting me here," she replied. "I don't know how I can help, but-"
"Your existence is already help," Tony told her.
"Probably been a while since you stayed in one place for long," Gibbs added. "Longer than that since finding someplace you might belong." Rhoda swallowed and her eyes shifted back and forth between his for a moment.
"Can I stay here?" She gestured to the room they stood in.
"There's nowhere to sleep," Tony said with a raised brow.
"No bathroom either," Tim added.
"I told you I don't sleep," she said. "And I don't need to eat or drink either. I mean...I can, but I don't ever feel the need to, and it doesn't seem to adversely affect me. So no bathroom is okay for the time being, as long as one of you'll let me use their shower. Besides," she said with a sigh, "Seems like I could find something useful to do in here. I just need to make a trip to grab some of my things. I'd be back in a day."
"Is there a way to contact you while you're gone?" Gibbs asked. "In case something comes up."
"I'll give you my number," Tony told her. "You text me. That way I'll have yours, and if something happens, you can call us for help."
"Don't usually need anyone's help," Rhoda said with a lopsided grin. "But I guess it'd be kinda cool to have an actual saved contact in my phone for once..."
tbc...