Chapter 22
Tony had let Michael persuade him to go out for an early dinner, so they didn't get to his apartment until after six. He opened the door and stepped back to let Michael in. "I see your father finally released your grandma's furniture," he said.
"Six months ago," Tony replied. "And he didn't release it, he ran out of legal options to hang on to it."
Michael snorted. "Sounds about right."
Tony threw his coat down and adjusted the heat upwards. "Want a beer?"
"Sure." Michael walked across the room and looked out the window. "So, how much of the bruising is from my dad?"
"None directly," Tony said, pulling a couple of beers out of the fridge. "And not much came from the kidnapping, honestly. I was on a deep cover assignment before that."
"On which you ran into my father?"
Tony handed Michael a beer. "More accurately, your father saw me, and I heard his voice. We didn't recognize each other immediately."
"You haven't changed that much, Tony."
Tony shrugged, and his lips tightened when the movement hurt. "I was blindfolded and wearing a gag shaped like a bit. My face was a little distorted." He remembered the senator's remark about checking the yearbook, and wondered if it was really Michael's yearbook he'd checked. "Did you know he had photos of me?"
Michael had already opened his mouth to say something, but now he closed it and his brows knit. "Photos? What do you mean?"
"I mean naked photos, from the bathroom at the house in the Hamptons."
"You're shitting me!"
"Someone e-mailed seven of them to me at work earlier." Tony downed his beer. "And that reminds me, I need a shower." He repressed the shudder that thought called up.
Michael leaned forward. "Tony, are you –"
"No!" Tony said, his voice louder than he'd intended. Softening his tone, he shook his head. "I went straight from the kidnapping to work for a debriefing, then to the hospital, then back to work. I really just need to get cleaned up."
"Oh," Michael said. "Sure, go on and take a shower, don't mind me. I'll just start looking through your caller ID to find the names of all the girls you've been dating."
Tony snorted and grinned at him. "Password for the computer is bikini," he said. Michael raised his eyebrows. "E-mails are a lot more telling, Mikey," he said. "Besides, I have five or six games you could occupy yourself with."
He headed into the bedroom and tossed his clothes in the general direction of the hamper. A few of them got inside, but he was beyond caring much. He stopped in front of the mirror, ruthlessly suppressing the desire to hide from it. That bastard wasn't going to change his behavior. The bruises on his arms and torso were some of them turning entertaining shades of green and yellow, and the bites Gibbs had given him for their cover were going to be Technicolor before long. He turned on the water and climbed in, enjoying the heat and steam a little too long for politeness to his guest. He thought Michael would understand, though. He heard the doorbell when his hair was full of soap.
"I'll get it," Michael called.
Tony bent and rinsed his head as fast as he could. Unless it was a neighbor asking for sugar, it almost had to be someone from work. Wouldn't they just call, though? He grabbed his robe, a thick, terry-cloth indulgence, and stomped his feet on the bathmat to keep from tracking too much water through the apartment.
There were voices out in the front room, two men. He knew better than to assume that meant it wasn't a request for sugar, though. Lots of guys discovered a sudden need for ingredients when they invited a woman over for a home-cooked dinner. Rubbing his hair with a towel, he went out into the living room, expecting to see either Gibbs or the neighbors he saw from time to time, but didn't really know. He didn't expect what he found.
Michael was sitting on the floor in the dining area, his hands cuffed behind him around the heavy leg of the sideboard. A bruise was darkening around a cut on his cheek. He was staring in shock up at his father, who was pointing a gun at him, his back towards the rest of the apartment. Tony aborted the apology he'd been about to make about his less than optimal appearance and darted a glance towards the box he kept his gun in. It was only about fifteen feet off, and the senator didn't seem to have noticed him yet.
He had taken one silent step towards it when Senator Webber turned towards him, the gun following his gaze to point directly at Tony's chest. He remembered visits to the shooting range with Michael and his father and froze. He knew that the senator was an excellent shot.
Webber's eyes widened and warmed when he saw how Tony was – or rather wasn't – dressed. "Tony!" he said by way of greeting. "Our conversation was interrupted by your overzealous colleagues, and then no one would tell me where you were."
"Yeah," Tony said, a little stunned by this turn of events. "Sir, what are you doing here?"
Webber smiled. "John, Tony," he said. "You agreed to call me John."
Tony nodded. "Right. John. I forgot."
"Of course, you were also bound hand and foot and probably humoring me."
Tony didn't want to address the truth of that statement. "You didn't answer my question, John," he said.
"Did you set out to trap me?" Webber asked. His eyes were dark with emotions Tony couldn't quite untangle. Anger was there, but it wasn't that simple.
Tony's mouth was dry. "Set out? Your guys tasered me and stuck me in the back of a van. I didn't set out to do anything more than go to work and get chewed out by my boss."
"If they hadn't interrupted, you probably would have gone straight to that Gibbs and told him everything, though, wouldn't you?" How did he play this? Truth might be his best bet since Webber seemed to have sussed it out on his own, but it might be the worst possible choice. "I guess it doesn't matter," Webber said, taking him off the hook. "I'm screwed now either way."
"So, why are you here?" Tony asked. "What do you want?"
Webber smiled, and there was no mistaking the heat in his eyes now. "Well, first, I'd like you to take that robe off."
Tony stared at him. "That is so not happening," he said.
"I guess I should have checked the peephole before I opened the door," Michael said suddenly. He sounded a little slurry, so the blow to his head had to be pretty serious.
"You didn't check the peephole?" Tony asked incredulously, playing it up to see if they could distract Michael's father. If he could get the drop on him, maybe he could get the gun away.
"So sue me! I thought they had everyone locked up."
"You didn't check the peephole!" Tony repeated.
"Boys!" Webber said, and it sounded so incredibly familiar that Tony's gut twisted again. It sent him back fifteen years to some of the happier times of his high school years. "Behave. Now, Tony, come over here."
"John, this is crazy," Tony said. "What do you –"
Webber turned, pointing the gun back at his son. Once his aim was true, he turned his head to look at Tony who had taken two steps towards his own gun. "I will shoot him," Webber said in a calm voice. "I've given up on him entirely."
Tony froze again. He could risk his own life, but he couldn't risk Michael's, and there was a light of determination in Webber's eyes that made him believe the flat statement. "John, what do you want?"
"I want what I've wanted since I first saw you in 1985," Webber replied, smiling. "And this is my last chance to get it. Michael stopped me then, now he's going to help me get what I want."
"Dad, this is nuts," Michael said.
"Shut up," Webber snarled. "Now, Tony, I'm aiming at his leg, and I'm sure you noticed that I've got a suppressor. This is a very nice building, good thick walls. No one will hear a thing." Tony had noticed the suppressor, and it was a low caliber gun. The bullets also wouldn't penetrate the walls.
"Dad, you can't honestly –"
Webber turned towards Michael and Tony dodged towards his gun. A bullet whizzed past his head and shattered the mirror hanging on the wall above the table where his gun box stood. Tony froze again. "I'll shoot you, too, if you make me," Webber said.
Tony turned around slowly. "You know, that's seven years bad luck," he observed.
"I'm going to prison, Tony. You don't get much worse luck than that. Come here. Now."
Breathing deeply to control incipient panic, Tony started walking towards the gun. He really wondered how the hell Webber had gotten loose. Gibbs wouldn't have let it happen, and if it had happened on his watch, he would have let Tony know. He wouldn't have left him to be surprised like this.
The phone rang, and Tony glanced towards it as he came to a stop about two feet away from Webber. "I should probably get that," he said. Another pair of cuffs sat on the dining table, and Tony had a feeling he knew who they were for.
"I don't think so," Webber replied. "Take off the robe."
"You've seen it all before," Tony said. "It's not like anything's changed."
"There's always been glass between us before," Webber said. "Did you like the photos?"
"Not so much, no," Tony said.
"I thought they'd make you feel special," Webber said, and Tony could see he really meant it. "I cared about you, Tony," he said softly. "I gave you opportunities. I wish you'd taken that internship. We could have had such fun."
Tony looked over at Michael. His friend's eyes were closed. "He needs medical attention," Tony said.
"And he'll get it when I've gotten what I want," Webber said, his voice going sharp again. Tony's muscles were all so taut he could feel himself starting to shake from the tension. "Take off the robe." The answering machine picked up the call. Tony's voice informed the caller that they'd reached him and that they should leave a message. "Now, Tony."
The beep sounded as Tony put his hands on the tie to his robe and loosened it. Gibbs' voice, sharp and hard with anger, filled the room. "Tony, some idiot judge freed Webber after the FBI took over his custody. I'm trying to track him down, but call me when you get this."
Tony decided that he was going to punch the next FBI agent he ran into and then he dropped the robe.
Author's Note: This is Chapter 22 of 24. As we grow ever closer to the end, I'd like to let you know that another story will follow. It's a crossover between Supernatural and NCIS, and I hope you will enjoy it. Not a sequel, just another story.
