This is Why Secrets are Secret!
Summary: What a man does in his spare time should be his own business. What would they say if they caught the Man of Steel building boats by hand in a basement?
Disclaimers: You've probably heard them all before anyways, so I'm not going to bother with it. No money, no profit. Just entertainment and trying to have a productive muse.
Three- Confusion
Something was very, very wrong DiNozzo decided. The boss was late, and Ducky was currently seated at Gibbs' desk reading over some sort of report. Had the boss skipped his physical again and Ducky was lurking here to corner him into an exam? Kate was apparently thinking the same judging from the expression she flashed his direction. Then there was the noise, the soft ding of the elevator announcing the arrival of the person everyone but McGoo was waiting impatiently to arrive. Gibbs stepped off the elevator, he was on the phone with someone who could almost be heard clearly from where Tony was sitting. Gibbs' face had a look of understanding, but slight irritation.
The male caller sounded more like Gibbs' ex-wives should have sounded when they called, or at least more like DiNozzo thought they should. Gibbs never answered his phone for them anyways, so it wasn't like he had anything to compare it to. Soon enough Gibbs closed the phone, and DiNozzo had to fight to keep the smile off his face as Gibbs stole his own coffee and dropped his phone in it. Wait… Where was Gibbs' ever present cup of coffee?
"Boss, where's your coffee?" he asked nervously. The lead agent walked over to where Ducky was waiting with a raised eyebrow. The ME exited his chair slowly as if he was examining him with his eyes. Gibbs took his seat and ignored the ME as he started to type on his keyboard, then he did the unthinkable. Kate's jaw dropped and DiNozzo felt his own mirror it. He smiled, Gibbs smiled and the only coffee in sight held his now un-repairable cell phone. Hell was freezing over, he exchanged glances with Kate passing her his coffee as she made an excuse to go see Abby. Hopefully the peppy goth would have some sort of answer for this madness.
The former secret service agent had barely been gone two minutes when the line to Gibbs desk rang. Steely blue eyes looked down at the line, leaning back just far enough to read the caller ID. He smirked as he answered the phone, DiNozzo pulled out his reports he was supposed to be working on, and did his best to overhear the conversation going on kitty corner from his desk.
"I wasn't expecting to hear from you again so soon Terri," Gibbs smiled turning towards the windows, "oh, is he now? He was quite crabby with me this morning, I bet half the office could hear him as he shouted at me. You'd think I was stealing his wife or something…" He looked over at DiNozzo with a suggestive smirk, before returning his attention to his call. DiNozzo ran the possibilities over in his head. The events leading to this morning's puzzling so 'unlike Gibbs' behavior remained a mystery.
The only facts he and Kate had were that someone was royally pissed at their boss to the point they were shouting loudly through a phone. They had originally suspected it to be Fornell, only that the lack of coffee would only have made Gibbs' attitude worse. Here it was improving at a scary rate to all but the oblivious McGoo who was sitting there… typing away at his computer tracing a call? Perhaps the probie was paying more attention than DiNozzo was.
"Hey Tony could you help me out here for a moment?" McGee called him over pointing to the information on the screen, "did we have this address on file for that last witness we interviewed?" Tony looked at the trace, which just happened to be the Gibbs' desk phone, writing the number down as McGoo scribbled something down on his own paper before writing off to the side… Is it just me or is the boss… Tony nodded taking the number back with him to his desk, he sent the number to both Abby and Kate's emails asking them to identify who the caller was. After several moments he felt his text alert go off. The message was from Kate, simple, brief, and to the point. 'Abby's lab, NOW!' DiNozzo walked over to Gibbs' desk before he noticed the look of humor gracing the man's face.
GIBBS
"Hold on Terry," Gibbs didn't bother placing a hand over the receiver as looked up at Tony who was shifting nervously, "go. Obviously you're more interested in whatever it is Kate and Abby are up to." He tried his best not to laugh at their attempts to figure out what was going on. He had forgotten how cheerful he was prior to coffee and what his was designed to do, his team was probably noticing things were off already. Ducky had seemed amused at least.
"Gibbs, the old man is about ready to take the private jet and me down to Norfolk to wring your neck. Do you really think this is a good time to hang up him?" Terry's voice held no small amount of amusement as well, "Needless to say I hope you're prepared to deal with him." Gibbs found himself smiling at the phone staring at the windows again. McGee seemed the least concerned out of the group, but he hadn't needed to trace his phone call. Gibbs would have answered if they had simply asked. Although it would be interesting to see how they reacted to knowing exactly who he was arguing with.
Not that they'd really understand the whole thing, except Ducky, the ME had the missing puzzle piece that would answer all the questions. What would he think of Bruce Wayne's arrival at NCIS?
"Oh I am, you know what they used to call me," Gibbs couldn't help but smile wider at the idea, "I'm wondering what my team is going to think when he walks in here. If I know Bruce as well as I used to this ought to be quite interesting." McGee's heartbeat picked up from where he was sitting, he seemed to put two and two together to make four, he didn't have the other two to make it six though. "I'm going to have to let you go, there's a case. You have my sympathies for the next couple days." There was a soft 'later' as Gibbs placed the phone on the cradle and made for the elevator. He made his way down to Autopsy where Ducky was on a speaker call with Abby, Kate, and Tony. As Gibbs walked in he pressed a finger to his lips telling Ducky he already knew what they were up to.
"Who was that?" Kate questioned. Gibbs smiled at the ME cleared his throat and did something he hadn't done in years after checking that Ducky was only other person in Autopsy.
"Is that Special Agent Todd?" Gibbs mimicked Gerald's voice perfectly, "Tell her hello for me." The team on the other end of the line sighed. Ducky shook his head laughing silently at Gibbs' antics.
"That was close, well Duckman what do you think? Is it a coincidence that the last number that called Gibbs' cell was from Gotham?" Abby's voice rang through, "or the fact that he just got a call from that person's assistant on his desk line? It seems like Gibbs is hiding something from us again!" The Kryptonian couldn't help the smile that crossed his face, he hadn't expected them to connect him and Bruce so quickly, but he was impressed that they had done so.
"I believe that if you really think he's hiding something you should just come out an ask him," Ducky answered neutrally, a smirk crossing his features as well as Gibbs put a finger to his lips again, "perhaps McGee could put your theory to rest as well?"
"Hey guys, you'll never guess who I think is headed here!" McGee announced rather loudly on the other side of the line. There was a small scoff from DiNozzo, before he broke the probie's bubble.
"Let's take a wild guess, Bruce Wayne?" the senior field agent spoke up. McGee's expression was probably priceless, and Gibbs was terribly irritated he couldn't use his X-Ray vision to sneak a peek at the expression. The unanimous giggles and laughs from the other side of the line confirmed what he suspected. Gibbs walked out of Autopsy and then stealthily snuck to the doorway to Forensics, Abby was facing her computer bringing up images of said Billionaire. There were even photos of him shaking hands with other well known figures. Gibbs was surprised at how much the man had aged, but the hard expression remained the same even after almost thirty years.
"Who said it was a wild guess?" Kate finally spoke, "he called Gibbs this morning and yelled at him before he even had his coffee. Which I really hope he's gotten some by now, otherwise he'll be positively dreadful."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence Kate," Gibbs announced from the doorway.
"No problem Gibbs—" she cut herself off, turning to give him the best impression of a deer in the headlights he had ever seen. Well besides that time he told Sharon who he really was, that was comical too. The rest of the team was just as wide eyed, and Gibbs walked in non-chalantly ignoring their looks of nervousness.
"I'm taking a break from coffee," Gibbs announced, "Duck's orders based on what he saw on my physical… Now if you're all done gossiping there's a case to be dealt with." With the most suppressed smile he could manage he stepped back out of the room. He could just barely make out the snickers coming from Autopsy as Director Shepard made her way to down to his desk.
"Jethro," she started, her tone spoke of who she had just gotten off the phone with, "should I be worried that you have a pissed off Billionaire coming to Norfolk just to reprimand you?" Gibbs shrugged and sat down at his desk before looking back up at the director with slight irritation.
"Did you need anything else Director?" he asked raising eyebrow at her. She frowned, crossed her arms into lecture mode just as the rest of the team made their way back to their desks.
"How did you manage to keep this a secret? How does an estranged gunny like you know Bruce Wayne?" she questioned. His team was now entirely focused on him, he managed not to scowl at being the center of their attention.
"You'll find out when he gets here, what's the case Director?" Gibbs redirected the conversation. She handed him a manila folder, he glanced over it and went to grab his badge and gun. "Get your gear, and someone pass on to Ducky he's about to have a new occupant." He was in the elevator before the rest of his team could shake the shock off, he was starting the Stratus before McGee finished packing the gear. The case looked interesting enough, Gibbs wondered how different solving a case would be without his coffee be…
Crimson Choucho- This is really just because I really want to see a Ziva as Catwoman fic. In all honesty I have weird ideas like this all the time. I apologize for any character misinterpretations for Abby. It was a long hard fight to decide whether Gibbs would be Batman or Superman, but in the end Superman won. There's another muse with Ironhide as the Tumbler. Feel free to steal the muses for your own. :) Just send me a message, 'cause I wanna read 'em!