First Incident

It was obvious he was being tested.

He may have toed the line of work appropriate apparel pretty tenaciously (and rather dashingly if he did say so himself) in Baltimore Homicide, but he'd never seen anyone- no matter how gifted- get away with a PVC mini-skirt and dog collar.

Not that he was complaining, it wasn't exactly the kind of thing that blew his skirt up, but Abby Sciuto was uniquely suited to the, uh... look. She sure wasn't a submissive, no matter how many leashes she attached to her body, but she did suit them in an abstract kind of way. Or something.

And she was certainly gifted. He'd gathered that fairly instantly when he realised the huge, three layer laboratory was apparently her exclusive domain, not so much as an assistant to cramp her style. And it wasn't like she was just running concurrent tests in one field, oh no, she was a whole one-woman forensic arsenal. Wait until he emailed the Baltimore lab monkeys. They probably wouldn't even believe him.

Besides her being scary smart (which she had to be, because one science degree was definitely enough for him), she was some kind of uber special mascot of NCIS. Everyone he walked past on his first day tour mentioned her, like he was due to be taken before the Emperor for thumbs up or down. And Gibbs just stood silent behind him, smiling his almost imperceptible, enigmatic smile.

Yes, he was clearly being tested, judged, measured. Either the wonder Goth's reaction to him or his reaction to the wonder Goth would be used as some kind of yard stick determining the length of his stay as an NCIS Special Agent. At least, one who was under Leroy Jethro Gibbs' command. Which yeah, it was a command, not a civilian team; he was pretty sure he'd unwittingly joined the CORPS the day he met Mr. High and Tight. Not that he was totally opposed to the idea, Gibbs' brutally demanding, no-excuses attitude had the warmth of familiarity. After six years of the paramilitary police force, six years in a frat house, and four in military school, he figured it was just meant to be.

Weird as it was to think of himself as the type of guy who'd do well in the military.

He was still suppressing the impulse to call Gibbs 'sir'. He doubted he'd be all that successful in the long run, no matter how many times he got snarled at. The ex-marine had the misfortune of reminding him of both his DI and his father. Not that Gibbs was anything like his father, but he was enough like a father that Tony found himself deferring instinctively to the treatment he'd been trained- by his unfatherlike father- that fathers were owed. Basically the same treatment his DI was apparently owed. It was thick soup. He might develop some new neuroses even. That was always exciting.

The old hard ass dragged him through the NCIS building on tour the same way he'd dragged him around on the case they'd just worked back when he still had a job as a detective: by sheer force of personality. Tony was on his gruff unpleasablility like white on rice. Mostly it was Tony's dedication to the case, the job itself, that pulled him along for the ride, but he couldn't deny that embarrassingly large part of his psyche that sought approval from people like Gibbs. Men like Gibbs. He didn't know why the tasks he set himself were always the impossible ones. And, of course, just like there hadn't been time to clean up before he left Baltimore to be debriefed by NCIS, there apparently wasn't time before his Trial by Abby to look less like the sleaze bag he'd spent the last eight months pretending to be. If he never saw a Mafioso again, it'd be too soon.

Gibbs beckoned him into the domain of the Sciuto for the first time and he mumbled to himself about being about to die and saluting her.

God save us from the Queen.

Of course she'd hated him on sight. Judging by Gibbs' reaction, he had known all along she would hate him on sight. That the harder he tried to turn up the- usually fail-safe- charm, the harder she would hate him. And he knew that the test wasn't her reaction, because her reaction was obviously a foregone conclusion.

No, the test was clearly his reaction.

Well, if NCIS thought he'd never worked with an eccentric before, they clearly hadn't spent much time in Baltimore. He wasn't one to judge people for their armour, his own was so thick he wasn't sure he was capable of taking it off any more. The version he'd perfected in college worked so well, he felt little motivation to change it. He'd tried in Peoria and he'd found just because he'd finally arrived in his chosen profession didn't mean it was going to choose him back. Not naked him, not Anthony. So Anthony went back in the lock box at the bottom of his Freudian sock drawer. He'd save Anthony, keep the shine on him, and maybe some day he'd give someone the lock box key willingly. Maybe.

Anyway, Abby Sciuto was far from the scariest or strangest woman he'd ever tried to kiss up to, and he felt like he'd given Gibbs very little to find fault with. His expression didn't shift or freeze unnaturally when he walked into the Lab of Horrible Noises and Long, Long Legs. But of course it didn't, he was a professional. Abby could have been half elephant or Meryl Streep or something and he wouldn't have missed a beat. That's what he did.

She wasn't, though. She was brightly pretty under her dark make-up, tall and slim, and she had stick people tattooed on her back. Really, really pretty, actually. She had great big eyes of glittery green and he already liked her even though she hated him (especially because she hated him?). Child-like sense of fun and wonder with a worldly, gravelly voice and a knowing look? Sign him up. A little hypocritical about care for the personal appearance (unless she was going to tell him that was her natural hair colour and therefore debase herself with an outrageous lie), because after all the effort that clearly went into her outfit (putting it on alone...) for her to sneer at his Hugo Boss was a touch on the ironic side.

And look, she had a row of toys above her computer and gas chromatograph. He might be in love. It'd be like Romeo and Juliet without the parents. So more like West Side Story, hopefully skipping out on dance fighting. It'd be Goths vs Jocks, or Nerds vs Preppies if she liked that better. His social group, like his mind and his job title, was fluid.

Her hypocrisy didn't bother him that much. If she liked Gibbs- which, yeah, obviously- he was pretty sure she'd like anyone once she'd decided they'd been around long enough. And he was easier to like than Gibbs, fire breathing dragons were easier to like. That made her instantaneous dislike for him funny somehow, but he had a twisted sense of humour and nothing entertained him more than a woman hating him before he'd done anything to deserve it. It made it all a bit more of a challenge to worm his way into their good graces.

It did disturb him that he'd tried, legitimately tried, to make her like him after she was so upset by his standard routine and she still didn't. This did not happen often. Or... ever. If there was one quality he possessed that he had total confidence in, it was his ability to be what the other person wanted him to be. He was cursed and blessed with this power of blankness and it had earned him a life-shorteningly fast ride up the career ladder as he slid under and out of cover, trailing collars like he was Sam Spade and James Bond put together (making detective at age twenty-eight hadn't earned him many friends at the precinct, either). It had fucked up his personal life- such as it was- but good. He cared less about that, though, he figured himself as a lost cause for the side of normalcy whether he wanted to be normal or not.

Anyway, why shouldn't she like him? He was a nice guy! She hated the suit, he could respect that (not understand it, but it took all kinds), so he'd tried to meet her half way, but nope.

.

"Twenty questions time."

"Newbies don't get to ask questions, Not-Stan. Stay behind the invisible line! This is a Gibbs-Abby-Ducky only zone! Alarms will sound!"

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"Someone who doesn't have to answer questions from the newbie."

"I want to be a quarterback slash rock star."

"Don't be silly, Not-Stan, being a rock star is a full time job."

"I thought that's what you did with your free evenings."

.

He'd made her smile and her smile made him smile.

.

Abby orbited Gibbs as she rambled off her findings on their mystery hairs, but Tony was banished to the doorway because the brand of shoes he was wearing wasn't allowed in the lab. Just like his shirt had contained a synthetic harmful to the lab's air balance the day before. Or some other arbitrary mumbo-jumbo she'd made up. He wasn't keeping track any more, it was too ridiculous.

"Hey, Abigail! Pop quiz!"

She turned from her evidence mojo dance (which had started as soon as Gibbs stormed off on a coffee run) and glared at him with more exasperation than malice.

Tony grinned at her, "What's the one thing you've never wanted to be?"

Abby rolled her eyes and turned back to the computer, her foot bobbing along to the noise she called music, "Average."

While he probably should have, he didn't really expect that answer and he fell quiet, leaning against the door-frame.

She glanced over her shoulder, "Existential crisis, Agent Four Eyes?"

"Nah," he laughed a bit and waved her off, "I don't have much exist to stential over, do I?"

He felt stupid. 'Average' was the one thing he'd always wanted to be. He was sure he'd probably hate it if he ever attained averageness, knew he also kind of wanted to be a superhero and a secret agent and a movie star, but since he was very young, he had had a weird sense of having missed something very important. Something crucial. By not being average.

She seemed to have had a pretty normal childhood, but she still held on to childish things. Maybe he was understandable and she was the one who was screwed up? But no, he was always the one who was more screwed up. This was a well-attested fact of his life.

"Are you okay?" Now she was so close to him all he could see was half a pale green iris and plumes of thick black eyelashes.

He leaned away from her and covered his whole aura in a mantle of sleaze, "Better now."

She frowned at him and shook an admonishing finger in his face. Then she was gone, back at work.

Tony thought he got why she was friends with Gibbs.

.

He hated so much to be seen in his glasses. It could not be worse for his image. He caught sight of himself in the elevator doors and winced at his reflection. He looked like all the high culture, intellectualism and sharpness he had spent years completely purging from his persona.

He'd been an intellectual once, a very long time ago, and it was still too close. It sucked, he wasn't doing it again. People didn't need to see this and get the idea anywhere near their head. No matter how much he'd prepped them, taught them not to see it, they still might. They still might.

Damn it. Abby definitely would. He couldn't get anything over on that girl once he'd gotten the very first thing over and she'd held it against him ever since.

She obsessively ferreted out the damage in people like some kind of demented, prickliness-seeking missile. He had a terrible, terrible suspicion that she wouldn't stop digging or accept him into her little family until she'd seen the truth. And what could be worse?

Lasik was soon, soon, soon. And then he wouldn't have to worry about this. But it was too late, now, much too late to stop Abby from seeing this and she would see so much more than just corrective lenses. She'd see all that fucking history, all that truth and the adding of corrective lenses was somehow- ahahahaha- the stripping away of masks.

He was snapping a little bit. He could admit it.

But when people knew he was money and high education, it tended to ruin his life.

Bad enough to be pretty and a little too good at his job. Sob sob, life is so hard. Well, fuck, it was. Things are rough all over, especially when everyone hates you for being 'ahead'.

She already hated him just for the pretty thing. Could he help that? He tried to, he made himself awfully repulsive (was that why he did it? He was getting confused) and anyone who would have cared tended to forget about it. Except the people that cared for reasons other than appreciative ones. They still saw it and they still hated him, possibly more. Lose lose.

There she was, summing him up. Seeing too much.

And suddenly it was all hanging out and she was smiling at him with a bright, beautiful loveliness that knifed him in the heart.

She saw too much (maybe all of it), and she liked it.

Maybe even liked him.

Not a him he had made for her, a him that showed through the cracks.

He pushed his glasses up his nose and briefly loved them, briefly loved her, and felt more like himself than he could remember ever feeling. He'd still get the surgery, he'd still need to hide, but there was something here, a flash of something that told him the understanding she extended to the damaged and the downtrodden- the truth she sought- would remain. And she'd always see him this way.

And maybe even like him for it.

"You know this is sort of unprecedented."

Abby looked up from filling out the chart on her evidence bag, "What?"

"Knowing what underwear a woman wears without..."

"Well," she interrupted, using his hand to lever herself up from the floor, "we'll have to have an unprecedented relationship."

He smiled gently, "No worries there."