So… it's been a while. Real life + video games = one great excuse for procrastination. Anyway, here's chapter four, I've got at least three more planned after this one and I will get them done eventually. Most of this was written at some point last year, the rest of it was written at 1am in a caffeine fuelled haze, so if it feels a bit disjointed that's probably why.

Please let me know what you think, even just a few words really mean a lot.

Hope you enjoy.

4. Ninja

At first the perpetual sneakiness bothers him.

Kate didn't sneak. She wasn't a sneaky person, she was as up front about everything as it was possible to get. With her, Tony never had to look constantly over his shoulder when he was typing at his computer or playing a quick game of bing ball on his phone or even standing at the urinal (Kate had been raised as a reasonably normal, fully functioning member of society, she either knew that the men's room was sacred, or, more likely, she simply never had any desire to interrupt – read: terrify – him, and anyone else who might be in there, with her sudden, unexpected presence when he was at his most vulnerable). He's sure she would've been great at scaring the living daylights out of him by appearing ominously behind him like some sort of demonic spectre of impending doom, but she was more than content to knock him on his ass with words (or with fists down at the gym). She was former Secret Service, they didn't really make them subtle over there - tough, sure (say what you want about the Secret Service, and he frequently does, but it's a point of fact even he can't deny) - but not subtle.

McGee doesn't sneak either. In his case though, Tony suspects it's because he's physically incapable of it. He's all long, awkward limbs and loud, clumsy footsteps (complete with squeaky boots you could hear from a mile off and the innate ability to crash into things at entirely the wrong moment), like a blind three legged deer on ice. Don't get him wrong, the kid's deceptively good with a gun and he's someone who has the potential to be one of the world's most dangerous hackers should he ever put his mind to it; but in the real world, not controlling a character made up of pixels, he's pretty much the opposite of stealthy.

And Abby possesses the ability (even with her clunky platform boots that could crush all the bones in someone's foot, and clanking jewellery and chains that would make Jacob Marley jealous) but, thankfully for Tony's heart and mental health, she seems to choose not to use it (most of the time).

Still, he's long since gotten used to Gibbs suddenly materialising out of nowhere in a puff of coffee fumes and barked orders (like the world's gruffest and grumpiest fairy godmother), so he guesses it's not so much the sneakiness itself that gets to him as it is the person doing the sneaking that does. Because Gibbs, though his apparating act may be outright terrifying sometimes, doesn't enjoy getting up close and personal, doesn't enjoy making him squirm with the blatant suggestiveness of his comments (the thought alone makes Tony feel vaguely sick to his stomach). But Ziva… one minute she'll be sitting at her desk and the next, she'll be leaning over his shoulder, pretending to be interested in whatever's on his computer screen, pressing her chest into his back and whispering into his ear in a way that he's sure goes against all the workplace guidelines (the next sexual harassment seminar's gonna be real interesting, isn't it?).

Observing him, that's what she calls it.

I'm observing you, Tony, she says in that husky, I know exactly what I'm doing voice and he really isn't sure what to make of that. Observing you… when said with those hungry, feral, dark eyes and mysterious, curved smirk, he isn't sure if he should be fearing for his life or booking them a room at the Adams House Hotel (or both).

It's easy to see why he was the one selected as the target of her observations – McGee's far too timid/terrified of her to provide a halfway decent challenge, Gibbs is… Gibbs, Abby can't stand her (though a man can dream…), and Ducky's about three times her age (he's not sure if he finds the thought funny or nightmare inducing; it'd probably end with Ziva giving the poor old man a heart attack).

That leaves him.

Back before they'd even met, she'd compiled dossiers on all of them, she knew his track record (his very poor, very telling track record) – always moving, never staying in the same job for more than a few years, almost never in any sort of genuinely committed relationship. He gives as good as he gets, and she knows it. (Except she somehow manages to leave him a gaping, stuttering mess every time which he can't help but find really unfair.)

"It takes a little more than an exotic accent and some stealth ninja moves to emasculate me," he claims on one occasion, hoping that he sounds authoritative (he's senior field agent, she came in out of nowhere and into a position that was created specifically for her by a new director who couldn't wait to make them into her own personal puppets; as far as Tony's concerned, he's higher up the food chain than she is, despite what the still fragile team dynamic might suggest).

She doesn't even blink, just pats his cheek and pouts. "Only a little more? How disappointing."

It's either the beginning of a beautiful friendship or it's the beginning of the end for Tony DiNozzo.

Either way, he's in for one hell of a ride.

:&:

It doesn't take long for him to realise that having Ziva David as an ally is preferable to having her as an enemy (the fact that he almost feels sorry for the guys she routinely takes down – from the petty criminals to the actual murders – speaks volumes). Tony's not exactly a slouch in the ass-kicking department (you don't go through life as a cop on three different forces without having the ability to defend yourself) but this chick? She makes him look like Willie Scott (undoubtedly the worst thing about any of the Indy movies, or almost any movie ever made, come to think of it) or that annoying little kid from the first Jurassic Park (what is it with Spielberg films and really irritating side characters?). Not to mention the (numerous) occasions where he looks up and catches her methodically and robotically cleaning her gun or sharpening one of the knives that could fillet him like a fish with nothing more than a practiced slash of her wrist, all with the same detached coldness as the freakin' Terminator. Even her arm-wrestling borders on deadly as Tony discovers one slow afternoon, almost at the cost of his shooting arm. Gibbs barely glances up from his report at his unexpected howl of pain as his arm gets very violently jerked first in one direction and then slammed down in the other, all his very supportive boss offers is a dry, "Yep, saw that one coming," and an even drier smirk, which somehow doesn't feel very helpful.

It takes him a lot longer to start seeing her as an actual person.

For months she's just the ninja who throws a knife into a woman's chest with the sort of accuracy and force and sheer nonchalance that would make The Great Throwdini jealous. (Tony may or may not have been the one responsible for spreading that story around the navy yard, resulting in every probie, most senior agents, and a very freaked out Jimmy Palmer giving their newest recruit a very wide berth for a few weeks afterwards.)

She's the ninja who picks the lock on the handcuffs wrapped around their wrists before hurling herself at the poor, hapless, McGee-lite security guard after they trip the silent alarm on a house that definitely didn't have a sign, I swear. (Some people knit, some people do crosswords, Ziva… she picks locks.)

She's the ninja who gets herself banned from interrogation barely a week after her arrival due to the very understandable concern that she might just decide to start snapping bones to get information. Considering she's someone who, Tony's certain, has some sort of as-yet-undiagnosed issue regarding her anger levels, it's a movement he's fully on board with (even when she looks at him as if expecting him to back her up, instead he offers a sympathetic shrug and exits the vicinity before she can start throwing things).

(Months later, she interrogates a man at gunpoint and he'd be lying if he said he knew it wasn't loaded. He'd be lying if he said he even remotely disapproved. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't slightly disappointed that all that happened when she pulled the trigger was an empty click and a relieved sob bursting from her would-be victim. He isn't Gibbs, and for the first time he thinks that might be a good thing.)

But there are moments, rare and fleeting though they may be, when the human side temporarily overrides her otherwise ironclad Mossad programming and she seems less knife throwing, lock picking, bone snapping, gun wielding, Tony observing ninja and more normal twenty-three-year-old who has feelings too (even if those feelings are related to things no normal twenty-three-year-old has ever had feelings about).

The first isn't much more than a ripple, a pebble in the ocean, a comment that could almost be considered a throw-away due to the level of off-handedness.

"Trust me, it's far worse when you know the person." Not a particularly earth-shattering statement in of itself but when the topic of conversation is a decapitated head in a cooler, found in the back of a stolen car in the middle of a chop-shop, well, it says a lot. Mainly, holy hell her life is dark and yeah, that explains a lot.

"You knew someone who was beheaded?" Because of course she did, it stands to reason that if she's done horrible things to horrible people (and her talking a terrified woman into spilling her deepest, darkest secrets within fifteen minutes seemed to indicate she was pretty much an expert at it) then horrible people have also tried to do horrible things to her.

"A friend. He infiltrated a Hamas cell in Ramallah. Ah… they sent his head overnight express."

Kate getting shot right in front of him had been bad, getting her head FedExed to him would've been a whole lot worse. Sure, he spent weeks afterwards swearing he could feel blood splattering across his face and trying to get the image of a bloody, brain speckled, grapefruit sized hole in Kate's skull out of his mind, but he's sure the sight of her bodiless head and dead, glassy eyes staring up at him would never have stopped haunting him. As he told McGee, a little bit of putty and, from the front, at least, it looked like she was just sleeping (albeit very stiffly and in a position that would be in no way comfortable); with a head and no body there would've been no pretending (he loves Se7en, could basically quote it to you line for line, doesn't mean he wants a starring role in the real-life version).

"I'm sorry. I didn't…"

"That's when I decided that I'd… I'd never be captured alive," she says decisively, the look on her face just daring him to challenge her.

For once he can't even bring himself to try.

You know the sound a fork makes when it's jammed into a garbage disposal? Yeah, that's pretty much the noise that screeches through Tony's brain at her words, loud and piercing, and all he can do is watch her stride away, open-mouthed and feeling inexplicably light-headed.

He makes the mistake of glancing down at the severed head, and for a spilt second Ziva's blank brown eyes stare back at him and he's convinced he's cracking up. The next second Gibbs is calling for him and everything's back to normal.

The second bullet point on his Ziva might actually be a human after all list comes off the back of a possible suicide bomber that turned out to be not quite as suicidal as first appearances suggested.

She'd told him about her younger sister the day they met, sheltered from the rain, eating burning hot pizza and drinking lukewarm coffee.

'I lost my little sister, Tali, in a Hamas suicide bombing. She was sixteen and the best of us.'

(What exactly Ziva's definition of 'the best of us' was, he didn't know, and he hadn't dared to ask, but it was clear she got along with her own sibling far better than his cousins got on with each other – the shouting and the screaming and the hair-pulling was pretty much a Thanksgiving staple out at his Aunt Gina's place – and Lord knows his dad and his aunt have never seen eye to eye in their lives as far as Tony can tell (he's fairly sure at one point his aunt wrote his dad out of her will just to be petty); he supposes he assumed that was just what all siblings were like.)

Figures a case about a high school kid with a bomb strapped to his chest would get under her skin a bit.

Mind you, it hadn't exactly been fun and games for him either – he'd been the one in charge of deciding whether to give the order to shoot a fifteen-year-old kid in the head or running the risk of said fifteen-year-old blowing up not only himself but also the class of terrified teenage hostages (and the not so terrified Gibbs, who had done the typical Gibbs thing of putting himself directly in harm's way). It'd been one of those days for everyone involved, really. One of the days where no matter what you decided to do, it was always going to be the wrong thing (except they'd somehow gotten out of it completely unscathed thanks to some quick thinking and Tony's extensive movie knowledge).

They'd gotten lucky. So unbelievably lucky. Because nine times out of ten, a situation like this would end with at least one person dead and they all knew it. He'd like to say he'd known how it would play out, that his order to hold off on taking the shot was down to some psychic inkling, but the truth of the matter was that he simply did not want to be the one to be responsible for the kid's death (no matter how homicidal, suicidal, or genocidal that kid may have turned out to be). The fact that Kody was just as traumatised as the kids he'd been forced into holding hostage was nothing but a massive lightning bolt of pure luck.

He'd always been good at poker, always been the master of the bluff (his natural ability for deflecting and doubling down and sticking to his story no matter how unbelievable and no matter what the truth actually is, just happens to be one of the few things he's glad he inherited from his silver-tongued devil of an old man). It was a skill that'd helped him out of more than a few sticky situations from the mundane talking himself out of getting a ticket, to the less mundane managing to commandeer (steal) Air Force Freakin' One.

"Why so purple?" Ziva's voice cuts through the blur of alcohol and melancholy.

He snorts into his empty glass as he lifts his head to look at his drinking partner, a rush of affection flooding him at the mutilated expression. Why so purple? Oh, Ziva, please, never change. "Okay, either you've had too much to drink or you're not even trying anymore."

She smiles unashamedly and Tony isn't sure if it's the beer, the warm haziness of the bar, or the events of the past twenty-four hours, but he realises he's never noticed before exactly how breath-taking that smile is. "I figured it would get your attention."

"You've always got my attention," he says, with a smile that doesn't come easy even with close to four pints settling in his empty stomach.

She rolls her eyes and signals to the bartender for two more of the same. It's a slow night (not really a lotta people looking to get wasted on a Tuesday night) and she's a hot woman (who, for some reason's choosing to sit with him while he throws himself a pointless pity party instead of trying to get herself some action like most early-20-somethings would do on a night out) so they get served quickly; the bartender placing two pints of imported beer down in front of them and smiling appreciatively as Ziva slides him a generous tip along with a sultry wink. It's their third order in the last hour, the guy must know where he's going to be making the bulk of his money tonight. Abby had bailed after a single round, claiming she had to be clear headed for bowling practice (since when did Abby bowl?) and McOneAndDone had trailed after her like a lost little puppy (supposedly he was her ride but Tony didn't buy it, personally he thought it was more likely that the whole 'on-off-sometimes friends with benefits' thing between them was still going strong long after it seemed to have fizzled out), leaving just him and Ziva sitting at the bar in a mostly companionable silence.

In the background Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark turns to Tom Petty's Free Fallin' and for the first time in his life he feels old. This came out in what? 88? 89? He'd have been in college. Oh man, college. Those were the days. Young, carefree, and still trying to figure out who he was, he'd thrived in that environment. Sure, his already unrealistic dream of making it in the NBA was over (probably for the best, to be honest, if he'd had access to basketball player wages, he'd most likely have ended up… well, exactly where you'd expect – prison, rehab, the gutter, or dead), but he quickly found that the college lifestyle suited him (even if it didn't suit his liver).

He'd spent that Fourth of July camping with a few of his friends. He'd never been one for roughing it, he cared about his life of meagre luxuries too much for that, but after some deliberation he'd given in (when it came down to it, it hadn't taken much; just the thought that the alternative was spending his Fourth of July alone, or worse, with his father had been enough to get him to go along with it - if he was signing up for two days of hell, at least he'd be there with people he could call his friends). They'd loaded up his buddy's old Caddy with illegally procured fireworks, as much booze as they could carry, and a few ancient sleeping bags found in someone's dad's shed and hit the open road, the top down and the radio blaring. It wasn't glamorous and they probably thought they looked a lot cooler than they really did, but Tony was having too good a time to care.

It was only after they'd arrived at their planned campsite (they may or may not have had an actual permit) that they realised they'd forgotten to pack tents so 'camping' really equated to lounging on some rolled out sleeping bags (that smelled of damp and mothballs and stale cigarette smoke, and one of which had a very suspicious stain covering the back) in an empty field somewhere. In the end, it hadn't mattered too much; drunk on the sweet, warm summer air and equally warm beer, Tony had been far too buzzed to care about sleeping that night. He remembers sitting around an ill-advised campfire (drunk college kids, spirits, an almost endless supply of flammable items, and crackling flames were usually a very poor combination), stuffing himself with sickly, half-roasted, anaemic-looking marshmallows, occasionally puffing on a dubiously-rolled joint they passed around between them. Somewhere underneath the crackling of flames and raucous laughter, music was playing on a battered old boombox – he remembers the loud chorus of off-tune singing that accompanied the overplayed strains of Sweet Home Alabama, the almost sloppily sentimental rendition of Piano Man, the stoned sing along to Three Little Birds.

The whole thing had felt a bit surreal, almost like an out-of-body experience, like he was floating above himself. If asked now, he'd probably say that was one of the best nights of his life (even if he doesn't remember anything past 3am or so). It wasn't overly wild and the night didn't end with a drunken hookup (there wasn't enough alcohol in the world), but if he's totally honest with himself, it was probably the last time he can remember where he felt truly free.

He had his whole life ahead of him, with no idea of what was coming down the line.

It feels like another lifetime.

"You did well today," he vaguely hears Ziva say and he gets the impression that it's not the first thing she's said since he zoned out (and the fact that Meatloaf's now wailing perishingly over the speakers about what he would and wouldn't do for love tells Tony it's been a good few minutes). "Even if you did get all your ideas from a movie."

Not all of them, he wants to defend, but for once he doesn't have the energy to argue with her, no matter how playfully.

"And you say movies are unrealistic," he says instead, realising she's staring at him as if expecting a witty retort.

She shrugs. "I suppose sometimes, reality can be unrealistic too."

Sometimes? Try most of the time.

"Mmm, like the fact that, apparently, you've seen Speed. I gotta say, I really didn't see that one coming."

"We do have movie theatres in Israel, you know."

"Yeah, but you would've been, like, 11 when it came out, pretty sure it was rated R."

She shakes her head as if he's being particularly stupid on purpose (it's a look she only ever seems to use in connection to him – he isn't sure whether to be offended or flattered or, just because it's Ziva and her grasp on human emotion is more than a little messed up, both at the time). "Please," she scoffs derisively with the over-confidence and slurred enunciation of someone well on their way to drunkenness, "slipping by cinema security is child's play. They don't even have guns, how am I supposed to find them in any way threatening?" She pauses thoughtfully, tapping her chin with her index finger, "I don't think I ever paid for a ticket."

"So, you were a ninja even back then, huh?"

"I suppose it is genetic," she says with a small smile.

(Roughly a decade later, he learns first hand just how genetic the ninja gene must be when a certain two year old someone comes into his life and he swaps hanging out in smoky bars and trying to talk some leggy blonde into sharing a taxi, for spending most of his time trying to locate his daughter during games of hide and seek that could last hours at a time; even though there's only so many hiding spots in their place she somehow manages to not be in any of them, where the hell could she be this time?)

"Anyway, stop trying to change the subject."

"What subject?"

"I asked you why you were feeling so down."

Trust Ziva to not let anything go.

He lets out a half-laugh that lets him know that he's reached That Point, the point where the booze starts to control his speech a little more than he would otherwise like. "I realised that I actually felt a little jealous of that kid."

"I think most people like to imagine the people they love coming back from the dead, Kody is one of the lucky few who got to experience that."

(Years later and a continent away, he sees her sitting on a cheaply built wooden chair across from him, expression vacant, face bruised, and her words play back through his mind. He knows he's just become part of a very exclusive club.)

"So, you're a member too, huh? Of the dead moms club?"

"Yes, but I was actually talking about Tali."

"Your sister."

She nods once and the smile on her face is so soft, so sad (he realises it's the first smile of hers that he actively doesn't like). "My best friend."

And that's all that's said on the matter. She didn't say much but then, she didn't need to. All he needed tonight was some company, some company who knew how he was feeling. Gibbs would be too Gibbs – stoic, glaring, closed-off to any attempts at casual conversation, far too intuitive, and way too good at getting him to spill his secrets; Abby would be too Abby – unwilling to let him go, too chatty, too eager to try and get him to talk about what was on his mind, speaking at a pitch which would only hurt his head; and McGee… no, just no.

Later, she kicks his ass at darts (no shock there, if it's a game that involves throwing a projectile at a small target, chances are Ziva would win nine times out of ten) and he, surprisingly, returns the favour with a game of pool (he's about 99% sure she let him win, he can't bring himself to feel at all emasculated by it).

Afterwards she buys them both a round of beer, chicken wings, and nachos, and for a minute or two, it's almost like he's hanging out with one of his college buddies (though she's more attractive and far more lethal than anyone he hung around with at college). She asks him a question about the basketball game playing on the TV screen behind the bar, and he's all too happy to answer. He knows she probably doesn't care, the only sport he's ever really heard her talk about is soccer ('for the last time, Tony, it's called football') and he knows she outright hates football (American football, proper football… even if they don't always use their feet). But she nods along anyway and he can tell she's actually listening to him when she gestures at the screen, exclaiming that the referee's an idiot and that wasn't a foul, is he blind?

Tony smiles wider than he has all night as he nudges her with his elbow, a little too hard judging by the way she has to steady her glass to stop it toppling over, and comments that we'll make a proper American out of you yet even though she appears to cheering for entirely the wrong team.

(Later, he points out her grievous mistake as gently as he can.

"They are wearing green. I like green," she says as if it's a valid justification. He rolls his eyes because you really don't understand how sacred basketball is, do you? and pelts her with a handful of bar peanuts. She steals his last remaining chicken wing in response, ignoring his loud whine of protest.)

That night, when he finally collapses into bed (far, far later than intended, he's got work again in about four hours for God's sake, what was he thinking? He's not twenty anymore and it's becoming more and more obvious; he's reached the age where hangovers last for two days and sleeping in a slightly awkward position means he can't move his neck properly for a week) he's surprised to find that the images playing in his head as he drifts off to sleep aren't of exploding bombs and dead teenagers, but of the smile on Ziva's face as he sunk the 8-ball into the far left pocket and her awful attempt at covering it up.

The third presents itself as nervous anger, after a loud mouthed, jumped up little bastard of a drug dealer dies in her custody and she's temporarily benched. (He's not sure what bothers her more – the dead body lying in the NCIS elevator, or the benching.)

It isn't normal Ziva anger, that's probably the first red flag.

Normal Ziva anger isn't, as you would probably expect, an increase in yelling or shouting or cursing or punching things (oh, don't get him wrong, he should watch out for that too, but it's not an indication that the first person to speak gets their throat sliced like a bagel). Nope, normal Ziva anger leads to her going all quiet and rigid and steely-eyed (which is really freakin' annoying because really, it's not too much different from her normal, everything is fine behaviour) because a silent assassin is a plotting assassin and a plotting assassin is a dangerous assassin (any assassin is a dangerous assassin, but it's the plotting ones you really gotta watch out for).

This isn't like that.

This is the opposite.

He never thought he'd be able to describe Ziva as talkative but as he watches her pace around behind her desk like a caged puma, carrying on a hypothetical conversation between Gibbs and Ducky (complete with an absolutely adorable attempt at Ducky's accent and a slight tinge of hysteria), that's the only word he really can use. He exchanges a slightly-concerned, slightly-amused look with McGee as Gibbs rounds the corner midway through her very impressive performance. (The slightly-concerned, slightly-amused look becomes all concern a minute later when Gibbs strides off leaving the very cryptic and not entirely hopeful statement of, 'now I have to go and talk to the director,' hanging in the air, at which point Ziva looks uncharacteristically agitated and a heavy weight settles in the pit of Tony's stomach.)

The day ends with Tony's head in a dead guy's lap as he tries to steer based on Ziva's incredibly unhelpful directions (turns out she's just as awful a navigator as she is a driver) so they can make it look like the guy Ziva maybe accidentally, maybe purposely killed, is alive enough to drive the car under his own power, all so they can get the director away from the drug dealers who were insane/desperate enough to think that abducting the head of a federal agency was a foolproof way to get their comrade back.

So, all's well that ends well, right?

:&:

He starts dating Jeanne and though it really screws up their rhythm for a while, makes it hard for him to talk to her without feeling squirming discomfort and repressed guilt, she's still the person he wants watching his back more than anyone else (not that he'd ever tell her that, the smugness would be unbearable).

She gets herself framed for murder (well to be fair she was due a turn) and Ziva, being Ziva, meant there was absolutely no doing it halfway, resulting in a manhunt by at least three different agencies, a hint of international espionage, and a very unwanted reunion with FBI Agent Sacks. When he finds her standing in Gibbs's basement, weapon already aimed in his direction, he isn't sure whether to yell or hug her; the end result ends up being something along the lines of unofficial staring contest with comments they almost certainly don't mean, coupled with a familiar modicum of sexual tension.

('I don't remember asking your opinion, Officer David,' he bursts out, a combination of anger, worry, authority, and something he can't quite put his finger on.

'You see? He's been completely insufferable since you left,' she says with an expression that tells him that she actually hadn't found it all that bad.)

She disarms bombs as he openly stares down the front of her top, until she notices and he says completely the wrong thing. In his defence, how was he supposed to know that saying that the sight of her cleavage possibly wasn't worth dying over would lead to her zipping up her top (it was one hell of a view while it lasted).

She tries to teach them the art of knife throwing (he's not bad, McGee's terrible, and Lee almost kills Gibbs, so overall he'd say it went entirely as expected).

She drives too fast and takes corners on two wheels all to the soundtrack of McGee loudly dry heaving in the back of the truck while Tony chokes out a laugh and tries not to notice how fast the scenery whizzes by out the window. (Next time McAuthor decides to release a thinly-veiled story of their lives, Tony'll try to ride with Gibbs to the scene instead because as amusing as it is listening to the probie sob out broken apologies, he's sorta fearing for his life too.)

Then she just has to go and develop feelings for a man dying of radiation poisoning and he's reminded of how much things have really changed. Not just with her, with him too, because instead of making fun of her, or pointing out that you know this a terrible idea, right?, he has to go and help her (because if this whole thing's taught him anything it's that you really, really can't choose who you fall for - life would be so much simpler if you could).

Despite dating a doctor, Tony categorically does not like hospitals.

Sure, a hospital is where he went when he broke his arm trying to perfect the ultimate bike trick when he was a kid, and the nurses there fed him jello and told him how brave he was being (come to think of it, that might've been where his… fondness… for medical professionals started). It's where he spent time after his favourite little cousin was born, and for the first, and possibly only time in his life that he can remember, every single member of his dad's side of the family (and in true Italian-American fashion, it was a massive, massive family; seven year old Tony had quickly lost count of the number of cousins and aunts and uncles and people whose relation to him remained a mystery crammed together in the small hospital room) were in the same place at the same time on good terms. And, how could he forget, it's where he woke up with a stitched-up forehead and a leg cast after he did a head dive down the stairs at his first real house party when he was fifteen. The doctors had obviously taken one look at him and decided to take pity because rather than calling his dad or the cops (he isn't sure which one would be worse) they called his elderly grandmother (God rest her soul) instead. If he hadn't been hungover, doped up, and beyond tired, the sight of an eighty year old, five foot nothing Italian woman wearing a nightgown and slippers shuffling through the hospital corridors to collect him would've been pretty funny.

But it's also where he spent a lot of time when his mom was dying. And of course no one had done the hard but decent thing of giving it to him straight; no one explicitly came out and told him why he was spending his weekends sitting silently on a hard plastic chair in a sterile antiseptic prison, watching movies on the crummy black and white TV in the corner of the room with the sound turned all the way down because every little thing, even the sound of his voice, hurt his mom's head. No one told him to appreciate the time he had left with her… so, of course, he didn't (he hasn't stopped regretting it since).

It's where he found himself after opening an envelope sealed with a kiss that could only have been for him and instead of the love letter he'd been expecting, he received a faceful of white powder (sadly not the good kind of white powder either, nope, just his luck it had to be an envelope full of genetically altered pneumonic plague). All the odds suggested he shouldn't have walked out again.

It's where he forced himself to sit when his boss was knocked into a coma by an explosion he should've seen coming, while simultaneously having to deal with the stress of not only having to run the MCRT team (the MCRT team that felt on the verge of fracturing) but also trying to find a terrorist before more people ended up like Gibbs (he failed and honestly, he feels like he still hasn't made up for it).

Yet he puts up with it.

He puts up with the doctor poking at him with needles and shining blinding lights into his eyes and constantly checking his blood pressure. He puts up with the questions and the total invasion of privacy despite the fact that he's in more or less perfect health (he's well aware his diet could do with a few less burgers, and pizzas, and units of alcohol per week). He puts up with various things being stuck in various places where things should not be stuck (he'll make sure no one ever, ever finds out about that part).

And he does it all for one reason and one reason only. He does it so that Ziva can have a few minutes in private with a man who'll be dead in a matter of days.

Dammit, he's really goin' soft.

(But then again… it seems like she is too and he's not sure either of them are completely comfortable with it.)

He's released from the doctor's custody an excruciating half hour later with the expected all clear ('must've just been imagining things, y'know, paranoia, hypochondria, and all that, sorry for wastin' your time, doc,' he'd claimed upon noticing the doctor's narrowed eyes and questioning expression, already inching towards the door) by which time he's received a text from McGee letting him know that they had taken the travel coordinator into custody. Apparently she hadn't been trying to kill the guy after all, just trying to stop him from leaving the country (he doesn't even have the energy to feel anger at the woman's downright stupidity - though seriously, what did she thinking slipping thallium into someone's system would do?). At first he contemplates looking around for Ziva, maybe asking her if she wants a ride back to the Navy Yard now that the case is done and dusted, until he realises that his presence likely wouldn't be welcomed at the moment. Instead he sighs, shrugs on his jacket and heads for his car alone.

That night he meets with Jeanne at a small restaurant around the corner from her apartment and it takes all the energy he has left to act like he's having a good time. Each time it gets harder and harder to look her in the eye and claim that work was really difficult today, that's all because she doesn't know the half of it. He ends up leaving with a doggy bag full of Chinese food and an uneasy feeling in his stomach that for once has nothing to do with overeating or badly cooked kung pao chicken. He kisses Jeanne on the cheek in the street outside her apartment and hails a taxi all in the same motion, he rushes out an excuse about early morning tomorrow and think that food wasn't right, leaping into the cab before he's even finished speaking.

He doesn't sleep at all that night.

(The next day, he pretends not to notice Ziva's conspicuous absence. To distract himself he chews almost rabidly on the end of his pen until it bursts in a sea of black ink and chipped plastic and listens to McGee mourning the loss of his expensive Armani jacket as if that was the take-away from the last few days.

The day after that she's back, sporting bloodshot eyes, no makeup, and a neon orange running cap that he knows wasn't originally hers.

He pretends not to notice that too.

She seems all too happy to let him.)

:&:

By the time she returns from Israel with a newly topped up tan, a boyfriend, a fresh scar at her hairline, and a slightly different outlook on life, (none of which he can bring himself to ask about, chances are he wouldn't like the answers he received) he's tired of pretending and for the briefest of moments, he could swear she is too.

Stuck together in a storeroom, chest to chest and with barely enough room to draw breath as alarms blare all around them and footsteps thunder down the corridor inches away from their hiding spot, time slows down to a standstill. It's hardly the time or the place (pretty much the opposite actually, trapped in the middle of a war game he would later find out they were destined to lose from the get go, it absolutely isn't the ideal time to be thinking about his love life (or lack thereof)) but as he looks down into her eyes (which he's alarmed to see don't look entirely calm) he can't help the direction his mind wanders in. It'd be easy, so easy (except almost nothing about them has ever been easy).

He swallows audibly as the heat in the tiny room cranks up several hundred degrees (he's fully convinced that if they don't get out of here soon he's going to spontaneously combust). He watches as she does everything she can to avoid meeting his gaze – her eyes flicking first to a spot on the wall behind him, and then landing square in the middle of his chest.

There's a split second where their eyes meet and he could swear that the tension between them is finally going to be resolved, but Ziva, in true Zive style, doesn't appear to be reading from the same script he is.

"Stop breathing," she hisses into the dark. He holds his breath and desperately hopes she can't hear how fast his heart's beating against his ribcage.

And then everything's in fast forward. The mad dash for an exit any exit dammit, the sudden realisation of this really isn't a game, isn't it? when they get cornered by real soldiers with real guns, and the thought of this so isn't like the movies, why can't this be like the movies? Because instead of him and Ziva doing the whole back to back badasses routine (like he's pictured more times than he'd care to say) what actually happens is he tries to surrender (because he may be immature and more than a bit crazy but he sure isn't suicidal) while Ziva… proceeds to try and ninja her way out of there. He earns himself a gun butt to the face and a nice little trip into blissful unconsciousness.

The last thing he sees before the darkness takes over is something that'll surely never leave him for as long as he lives (which with the way the situation's progressing might not be too much longer). Ziva's always had this amazing ability to make kicking ass look no different to dancing, she ducks, and spins, and throws a kick as if it was nothing more than a well rehearsed, well practised routine that she'd performed a million times before. She may be outnumbered and outgunned, but that doesn't seem to factor into her mind at all.

He hears her yell out his name in a tone hovering somewhere between worry and anger (he really, really hopes she's not angry at him, for once he genuinely didn't do anything) before snapping into what he likes to mentally refer to as Ziva: Warrior Princess mode.

No power in the 'verse can stop her.

Also? She can kill you with her brain.

That's his ninja...

When he comes to with a pounding head and wounded pride, he learns that it'd taken four soldiers to finally stop her roaring rampage of revenge, that they'd handcuffed her to a pole just in case she woke up and decided to resume her onslaught. Despite his irritation, at Ziva, at the situation they've found themselves in, at the fact that he'll have to make yet another dental appointment, he can't help but feel a twist of satisfaction in his gut as he catches the eye of the soldier who'd knocked him out – the guy's left eye's completely swollen shut and his lip has to be at least twice it's natural size (he flashes the man a crooked, blood smeared grin as he flips the coin that ensures he'll never have to pay for another drink for as long as he llives; he receives a haughty glare and a rude gesture in return) – as he follows a stern looking soldier through the corridors to where they're keeping his partner ('for her own safety,' he'd been told).

Later, as they ride the elevator (which seems spacious when compared to the cramped closet), he pretends his foul mood is solely down to the politics involved in the situation (he's so damn tired of pretending).

He's not sure if she buys it (she definitely doesn't), but she agrees anyway and if her eyes seem just that little bit more wistful afterwards then he thinks he can put that down to the knock to the head he took.