They were back in the car, heading down Interstate 95 toward the District. Gibbs pulled in at the first rest stop they came to, knowing instinctively that Tony would want to lose the suit as soon as possible. Gibbs stopped the car and found Tony looking at him with an odd expression.
He was mostly just wondering how his boss kept reading his mind.
Gibbs was about to say something when Tony whispered a soft "thanks" and grabbed his bag from the back seat of the bright yellow car. He watched Tony's back as he walked slowly through the lightly falling rain, and Gibbs wondered if he even noticed he was getting wet. He leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes, thinking about all Tony had said during the trip. He realized the revelations of abuse and neglect hadn't really surprised him all that much, and that made him angry with himself.
He had always known Tony was damaged, but the younger man was so good at hiding it that Gibbs often forgot that there were deep scars lurking beneath the shiny, happy surface. And so he rarely felt guilty when he found himself tossing out hurtful words or holding back deserved praise—because he knew why he did it. He knew he had gotten closer to his senior field agent than he should have, than he had ever planned to, but Tony had a way about him of being so likeable that he felt close even across a room, even after you'd just barely opened the door for him. It was a skill that served him well undercover—but made him a danger to someone as closed off as Gibbs desperately needed to be.
Gibbs still marveled at the times when he realized how much Tony meant to him despite his best efforts to keep the irrepressible man at arm's length. He didn't know exactly when it had happened, but Gibbs knew he sometimes resented Tony for sneaking his charming way into a heart Gibbs thought he'd boarded up years ago.
And the headslaps were a pretty good representation of all of that: an outwardly harsh manifestation of deeply complicated feelings that often came off lighthearted and affectionate.
Gibbs found himself thinking of a moment between them about a year ago when Tony had been going on about some volcano movie or some such, rambling to the point of excess, and Gibbs had reached over and headslapped him. Tony had mentioned the lack of physical contact in his life, and Gibbs had picked up on the deeper meaning in his words and offered up some useless advice: "Snap out of it."
Great job, Gibbs thought, staring blankly at the steering wheel. No one touches him for months and the first thing you do is smack him in the head.
That thought made Gibbs sit up straighter just as Tony slipped into the car beside him.
"Thanks for stopping, Boss," Tony said, reaching for the seat belt. "I feel a thousand times better, and… What?"
Gibbs saw Tony eyeing him suspiciously, and he knew his dismay was showing on his face—and in the bouncing of his leg as his thoughts swirled guiltily.
"Maybe you should lay off the coffee some, Gibbs," Tony said, looking a bit dismayed himself. His earlier levity, forced as it was, was completely gone as he watched his boss look at him with an unfamiliar expression.
"Haven't had any," Gibbs said slowly.
Tony grinned, looking relieved. "Oh, well, then maybe we need to get you some coffee," he said, running a hand through damp hair and wondering how he'd gotten so soaked. "You were scaring me there for a minute."
Gibbs nodded blankly and turned back to the wheel. He felt Tony go tense beside him as soon as he opened his mouth. "Does it bother you?"
Tony knew he wasn't talking about coffee so he just kept his mouth shut and waited anxiously, trying not to fidget.
"When I hit you?" Gibbs said softly, turning to face his passenger.
Tony smiled again even though he felt a little seasick from the rollercoaster emotions. "Not at all," he said, waiting for Gibbs to start the car and stop acting like a stranger. He finally recognized the expression as guilt and realized he'd never seen Gibbs look guilty before. Gibbs didn't say anything or make a move to turn the key so Tony said, "A tap on the back of the head is not a punch in the face, Gibbs. Don't worry about it. It's not the same thing."
Gibbs nodded and started the car, pulling back onto the highway without a word. He sensed the return of Tony's restlessness and cursed himself for even bringing up that subject. He thought about apologizing but stopped himself, knowing that would unsettle Tony even more.
So he just drove, glancing sideways every now and then, and noticing that Tony's eyes were practically glued to the clock on the dash. Gibbs realized the funeral would be ending soon so he wasn't surprised when Tony rubbed a hand over his face and opened his mouth to speak but snapped it shut so fast Gibbs heard the click of his teeth.
"You okay?" Gibbs asked, letting his gaze linger on Tony's broken hand even though they both knew that wasn't what he was asking about.
Tony closed his eyes and shook his head. "I really don't want to tell you what I'm thinking."
Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "Then don't."
Tony sighed. "I'm sorry," he said with a wince. "It's not that… I wouldn't mind telling you but… I mean I appreciate… Goddamn."
A slight smile touched Gibbs' lips at his usually confident, articulate agent's floundering. "McGee? When'd you get here?"
Tony huffed a little laugh, but he said, "Nah, that's not right. Probie may have been a green, stuttering kid when we first got him, but he's all grown up now. Says exactly what he's thinking now."
"Wonder how that happened," Gibbs commented, making Tony blush bright red and smile at the indirect praise.
"I was thinking," Tony started, deciding to just get it out. Gibbs had been amazingly supportive of him so far, and Tony doubted he'd start judging him now. "Was something really shitty, and I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I was glad it's raining. And not for some stupid movie cliché reason about the sky weeping or some crap like that, but because it would piss him off—that it would dare rain during his funeral."
Gibbs didn't respond immediately, and Tony said, "That sounded even more horrible out loud. I really need to learn to keep my big mouth shut and stop broadcasting what a shitty person I am."
"Tony," Gibbs said, his tone more appropriate for the squad room than a small car. "Knock that off. He hurt you—with his words, his actions, emotionally, physically. Any man who turns his back on a grieving child, any man who takes a baseball bat to a twelve-year-old kid—to his own son, for Christ's sake—deserves to rot in hell. You didn't deserve what he did to you, and he didn't deserve to have you for a son. You bailed him out when he came crawling back to you after all these years when you could have called him out and told him to shove it. But you didn't. I might not understand the why, but I do know the how—because you're a good person, Tony. So don't beat yourself up for even a second because you hate him."
The speech seemed to have taken as much out of Tony as it did Gibbs, and they rode in silence for several long miles.
When Tony finally spoke, his tone was laced with so much pain that Gibbs almost flinched.
"But what if I don't hate him?"
Gibbs breathed deeply for a moment, biting down on his shocked protest at that. He couldn't imagine how Tony didn't hate the man because while Gibbs hadn't been there, he could imagine a young Tony waking up alone in a hospital bed, his bones as broken as his ability to trust. Gibbs knew the wrist Tony had been unconsciously rubbing in the hotel that night—and god knows what else—had healed, but Tony's capacity for trusting those around him was still badly fractured.
A thought suddenly occurred to Gibbs and he asked softly, his eyes never leaving the wet road, "Was he ever good to you?"
Tony flinched, turning his eyes to the window. "Yeah," he said, his voice small and faraway. "Before she died. I mean, he was never very affectionate and mostly only paid attention to me when I got in trouble, but he talked to me, even let me hang around them sometimes. I always felt like he just tolerated me because she loved me so much. It was like he was allergic to dogs but just couldn't deny her the puppy she wanted so badly. He loved her enough to not show how much he disliked me, I guess. And not to mention she was just as scary—sometimes even more so—than him when she was drinking. I wasn't lying when I said she drank my sea monkeys once."
Gibbs was reeling, trying to decide what part of that wreckage of a childhood he should try to tackle first. He decided to focus on the worst of it, wondering if his words would even penetrate the walls he saw Tony hastily erecting as he realized how much he had just revealed.
"So he was 'good' to you before she died," Gibbs said, wincing when he realized he'd used a tone that should have stayed in the interrogation room.
And Tony misread his sarcasm. He blushed again, turning his face away to stare out into the rain. "I didn't mean to sound ungrateful," he said automatically, giving Gibbs the distinct feeling it was something he had been called a lot in life. "He gave me anything I ever wanted, and—"
"No, Tony, he didn't," Gibbs cut him off. He forced his tone calmer. "He may have provided for you, but I doubt he ever gave you anything you really wanted."
Tony just stared out the window, stone-faced but inwardly terrified of Gibbs all of a sudden. The conversation had quickly become too much for him so he decided to just shut down since a one-sided conversation couldn't last very long—especially with Gibbs as its sole participant.
But he was wrong.
"Listen to me," Gibbs said, still watching the rain-soaked road because he knew Tony wasn't looking at him—and because killing them both would seriously defeat the purpose of what he was about to say. "You might have had anything money could buy in that big house, and it might have made things easier for you in some ways. And I might have been jealous of my classmates' new shoes every year, but I never wanted for the things that were important. Our own fathers aside, I'll tell you this with the conviction of a father, Tony. If I'd had to give up Kelly to a foster home, for whatever reason, I'd have picked one like mine over one like yours every time. Because even knowing that she might have to wear ratty sneakers for a year too long, at least I would know that she would have real love. All the shiny new bikes in the world aren't worth crap if there's no one there to scoop you up and kiss scraped knees when you fall off."
The raindrops on the window were wet mirrors of the tears in Tony's eyes, but he shut them tightly, willing the moisture away with such ferocity it was a wonder the glass didn't clear as well. He didn't speak. He wasn't sure he could for all the thoughts swirling through his head. He banished thoughts of Gibbs tending to his daughter's bloody knees not just because of the pain that accompanied those visions, but because he didn't have the right to be envisioning that anyway.
"You said he was good to you before your mother died," Gibbs said gently, with no hint of sarcasm. "But you also said he tolerated you for her sake. That might be the best you ever got from him, but that's not being good to someone. And either way, it's no real feat to do the right thing when it's easy, when times are good. But it is damned hard to do the right thing when times are tough. She died, and instead of being there for you, he shut you out. That's unforgivable, Tony, and irresponsible—"
"We see where I get that from, then," Tony said bitterly, completely missing the humorous tone he was trying so hard to produce.
"No, Tony, you're not," Gibbs said firmly, ignoring the incredulous look even as a slight smile crept over his own face. "Yeah, you might drive me up the wall with your endless chatter and movie references and pranks on your teammates, but when things go to hell, there's no one else I'd rather have watching my back." He continued, not letting that sink in because he was just as uncomfortable with the raw emotion as he knew Tony would be. "Like I said, it's easy when things are easy. You always step up when things get tough."
Uncomfortable as Gibbs had predicted, Tony said softly, "When the going gets tough, the tough go clubbing."
"Perfect example," Gibbs said, smiling. "I wasn't surprised in the least when Abby told me you were the one who pulled McGee out of his funk after he shot that cop."
Tony shrugged. "He just needed a little reassurance."
"And you saw that and gave it to him," Gibbs said, having gone quiet again. "That's something I can't even do."
Tony smiled suddenly, meeting Gibbs' eyes for a moment. "Sure you do," he said. "You just have a different method of delivery."
Gibbs reached over and tapped him on the back of the head. "Don't know what you're talking about, DiNozzo."
Tony smiled crookedly, looking hesitant again.
"Spit it out," Gibbs said, seeing the look.
"I just..." Tony started, trailing off. He smiled sheepishly. "I don't think I've ever heard you speak so many words all at once."
Gibbs just shook his head and cast him a sidelong glance. "You've just never shut up long enough for me to do it."