"Every school is different, Gibbs. Just because I went to a place with a freakishly identical uniform doesn't mean I'll have any insights into what's going on here." Tony paused, glancing at the orderly little defiant ones as they paraded to and from class, bodies complying with the rules but eyes in disarray.
He didn't want to be here, but was unwilling to abandon his new partner. Especially when he was wanted.
Huh. Wanted. Gibbs wanted him to be here.
He would've thought he'd be pleased to hear that, but it was surprisingly uncomfortable to think about. Almost as uncomfortable as being back in a place like this.
He believed what he said – all schools were different – but this one was giving off major vibes of a disturbing nature.
"I'm not actually all that good with children. The younger ones especially." Not that there were anything he'd term children here.
Gibbs grunted and continued his brisk pace to the headmaster's office.
Tony cast his attention around, needing something to focus on, and landed on the kid who'd been assigned to escort them from the gate.
The young aide was doing an admirable job of keeping up and still having enough breath left to spout off school facts. Tony figured the poor guy was regularly stuck with giving tours to prospective well-off families. He would have paid more attention out of sympathy if the kid hadn't born such a striking resemblance to Rolf from The Sound of Music. It was creepy to look at him with his shiny blond hair in his perfect little uniform.
"The Maurinen Military School traces its roots back to the 1940s, the oldest military academy in the Baltimore area. While we do have a valued history of taking in troubled youths and turning out fine young men, the school is also a college-prep dream, allowing students to study full-time without the distractions of the modern day world."
The walking brochure had now focused all his attention on DiNozzo, apparently sensing a potential weakness. His pale blue eyes followed relentlessly, and his steps came closer and closer until he nearly trod on the back of Tony's shoes.
"I know it can seem a harsh environment at first to those who are accustomed, but let me reassure you that it's really –"
Tony cut him off. "Kid, are you under the impression that I'm sixteen going on seventeen?"
"Sir?"
"Answer the damn question."
"No sir."
"Then shut the hell up and show us where to find the headmaster."
"Sir." Rolf agreed, and stepped ahead of them, even increasing the pace, the cheeky little bastard.
"Fewer military schools around every year, seems like," Gibbs said offhandedly.
Assuming Gibbs never did anything offhandedly, Tony grew suspicious. "Could be."
"Might make sense if the schools on the east coast all knew a little bit about each other. Probably compete."
"Makes sense."
"You remember this school's reputation?"
"That was a long time ago."
"That wasn't a no."
"No, it wasn't."
They'd reached the headmaster's offices. Rolf led them through the reception room and knocked on a huge mahogany door.
Tony's hand flexed.
"Enter!"
Rolf led them into a room that was obviously modeled after the Oval Office. A quick check of the pictures and certificates on the walls confirmed a suspicion he'd been harboring since driving through the first set of gates.
This particular military school was run by a man who had never been in the military. DiNozzo bet himself a month's salary that at least half the staff were posers, too. They might walk the Hollywood army walk, they might talk the recruiter talk, but they really had no idea what being in the service meant.
Not that Tony did, either, but he figured being a cop was closer than being an asshole making money off of screwing with kids' lives.
A bulky man rose from behind a massive desk and self-importantly introduced himself first. "Gentlemen. I am John McGuillen, headmaster of this school." He paused so that his magnificence could be appreciated.
Yep. Asshole.
Gibbs' posture was relaxed and he looked slightly friendly, nearly approachable. He couldn't be fooled by this tool, could he?
"Gibbs, NCIS." A jerk of the head, "DiNozzo." He handily did not mention DiNozzo wasn't a federal agent with jurisdiction over this case. "Hear you lost a kid?"
Tony cheered internally. Outwardly, he allowed a smirk aimed at the asshole, now sputtering that he had certainly not lost a child.
Gibbs deceptively laconic reply was, "Okay. So we should go?"
"Go? You just got here!"
"You just said the kid wasn't lost anymore. So I guess we should go." The special agent's voice was perfectly calm and reasonable.
This was entertaining. It might even become instructional at some point. Gibbs was one impressive bastard when he wanted to be.
"He is…not yet found."
Gibbs smiled and ducked his head a little. "Well…that's just confusing. Either you've got a missing kid or you don't."
Hesitating, the headmaster finally allowed, "There is a missing child."
"So, tell me about this kid you lost."
"Falk!" McGuillen barked, which urged another staff member forward.
"Steven Vaughn, age 12, below average student. Enrolled a little over a year ago. No elected social activities. Parents' primary residence is in North Carolina, but they are currently traveling overseas. We've been unable to contact them as of yet, but Mr. Vaughn's personal assistant assures us there is no chance they came home early to see Steven."
Gibbs prodded the assistant, "Last time he was seen?"
"0600 for roll call and breakfast. He has an independent workout scheduled for his 7am class, and so was not reported missing until he failed to show up for his 8am class. His roommate, a Peter Donners, claims to have no knowledge of Vaughn's whereabouts."
"I want to talk to his friends."
"No friends to speak of."
Gibbs' own freakish friendliness began to look more like menacingly irritated.
Tony shot out a question. "What kind of problem kid is he?"
Falk tried to scowl, but it was a pathetic attempt to someone who'd spent the last three days with Gibbs. "What do you mean by that?"
"Military boarding school – all your kids must have some kind of problem, right? Parents couldn't handle them, or didn't want 'em around?"
Falk kept up the disapproving glare, but his boss' eyes held a spark of interest.
Tony sidled up to the desk and leaned in towards McGuillen as Rolf tensed behind him. Interesting. "It's okay. You can tell me. I know the score. Bunch of lazy little shits whose parents couldn't be bothered to keep them in line. I get it." He nodded slowly. "You deserve a medal for mopping up other people's messes. Making their trash smell better, really. A public service."
As Gibbs moved to advance – possibly to smack him a good one – Tony gave him a low hand gesture. Stay.
Amazingly, he actually did.
"Who wants to ship off a kid that's not a pain in the ass? Come on, headmaster, what was Vaughn's poison? Theft? Drugs? Fire?" Tony held the other man's eyes as he talked, voice getting quieter and faux-silky as he talked, exuding scum.
He crooked a cruel little smile. "Did he like to peek in windows? Pull the wings off of bugs?" Eyelids half-closed as though the thought disgusted him – or excited him – he lowered his head below the headmaster's level. Voice as smooth as chocolate crème, he continued, "I need to know what kind of a piece of shit we're dealing with."
McGuillen liked what he was seeing. He nodded, and tried to twist into the same sinister, sinuous pose Tony held. It didn't work; he looked like a fool in a ringmaster's uniform. "He was damaged. From birth, his parents said. Always needy, always crying, always hanging off of them like a monkey. A disease-ridden little parasite monkey." Spittle flew with the last sentence.
This guy was a real treat.
Tony shifted slightly, enough to catch Gibbs' eye. If he read the look right, Gibbs was cognizant enough of what Tony was doing to let him keep at it, but not fully comprehending the tactic.
The special agent moved to stand in front of Rolf, which DiNozzo found naively sweet. Rolf did too, judging from the nearly imperceptible smile gracing his face.
"Needy," Tony drew out the word, making it feel like filth in his mouth. "Disgusting."
Falk was probably not a stand-up guy considering he was working for a sleaze like this, but he was smart enough to start inching back, away from the rabid creature McGuillen was so close to unveiling himself as being.
"You could smell it on him. The stench of worthlessness."
"Have you trained him out of it yet?"
"You can't eradicate an inborn flaw, but yes, you can train them not to show it. And he's taken to the training fairly well." McGuillen collected himself, restraining whatever he almost said next. "I am actually surprised he went missing. He doesn't have the ambition to run away. Something may have happened to him."
Weakling, his tone implied. You can train the boy how to behave, but you can't make him worthwhile.
Tony smiled, face full of teeth. "I'll find him," he promised. What happened after he found the kid, though – that might not be so pleasant for the asshole. They smiled at each other, McGuillen pleased to find a seemingly like mind, DiNozzo contemplating fantasies of a not-nice nature.
"He dormed in the Browne building, 134A. His roommate's there right now, waiting in case you have questions."
Tony nodded his scum-self's appreciation and turned to go, collecting a remarkably mute Gibbs as he left.
Rolf chose to follow them.
Tony strode out of the administration building and down the walkway, back to the main directory, carved in bronze and situated under an imposing statute of what looked like a marble Mussolini.
Quietly, Gibbs pointed out a spot on the map. "Browne building."
"Don't need it." Tony rotated his head to look frankly at Rolf. "Did you get that?"
Rolf broke protocol and grinned widely, suddenly looking more like a seventeen-year-old Dennis the Menace rather than a perfect 1960s Hollywood ideal of a blonde boy solider. He held up a small recorder that had been tucked in his pocket.
DiNozzo matched the grin for a moment. He gestured around him and turned back to Gibbs. "These places are expensive. The parents that take the time to actually visit the campus before they send their kids here, they care a little about where their kids end up. At least lip service. The tour guides, usually seniors, carry recorders with so they don't have to remember every little thing or be seen taking notes. Then they can send follow ups with personal details, write up reports for the recruiters. Results in more sales."
The kid slipped the recorder back into his pocket, as though afraid they might take it from him.
Fat chance. Tony would revel in taking down someone like McGuillen, but Rolf needed the experience.
Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "You can get him removed with that?"
"No. He didn't give enough away for that. And half the parents would agree with what he said. Most of the other half wouldn't pay any attention."
Rolf spoke up, "But we keep files. Sometimes you get enough to make a case to the school board, get someone removed. Sometimes you use it for…persuasion."
"You mean blackmail," Gibbs frowned.
Tony was fairly certain he'd grown up differently than his new partner.
Expression sobering, he addressed Rolf. "Where's Vaughn?"
"Decent chance he's in the equipment room off the fencing salle." The kid cast a meaningful glance at Gibbs.
Tony shook his head, "He's okay. Let's go see what kind of shape Steve's in."
"Stevie. He still goes by Stevie. He's not holding up so well." Rolf paused, as if unwilling to admit a grave secret aloud. "He's just a kid."
Understanding, Tony indicated Rolf should lead the way. He had a good idea of what to expect.
Gibbs kept up a stream of curse words in his head. He wasn't even sure what he was cursing. Everything. This entire situation was wrong.
He'd had a peg on the buffoonery of the headmaster from the moment he set eyes on the man. DiNozzo had warned him before they arrived at the school that military boarding academies followed what they considered a military way of life. That didn't mean that the majority of their staff had ever served.
Gibbs would eat his entire dead car if McGuillen had ever been in the service. Or if the man had ever been of service. To anyone.
Falk was trained to react like a military man, but his training didn't last when he felt fear – if he knew his commanding officer was going to blow, he should have worked to stop it, worked to expose the bastard the jerk actually was, or stuck by him. Backing off like a coward was no military method. And he'd slipped from military time to civilian.
Then DiNozzo had slithered into a different self, at home with endearing himself to scuzz.
It was effective, but repulsive.
It was also impressive. Not that he'd ever tell the detective that.
He followed behind the young man and Tony as they entered a gym of some kind and continued to a door on the far side of the room.
Their guide rapped twice against the heavy mahogany door and opened it.
DiNozzo flexed his hand again.
Propped in a large window allowing copious amounts of light into the storage room, a young boy stared at them from dull, colorless eyes.
He may have been twelve, but he looked nine or ten, and small even for that age. His uniform jacket was slung over a nearby shelf, but the rest of him looked clean and unrumpled.
Though he didn't consider himself prone to being a bleeding heart, Gibbs did feel an immediate pull towards the boy.
Kids were different.
He glanced over at DiNozzo, who had shuttered his expression and seemed inclined to let Gibbs take over.
Fine with him.
Approaching slowly, he tried to keep his voice easy despite the fact that he could now see the boy's crossed arms held what looked like an old-fashioned dagger. "Lotta people out lookin' for you."
Silence.
"You okay? Hurt anywhere?"
Stevie shook his head no. He returned his dead gaze to the window. What the hell was he looking at? There wasn't anything out there but overly manicured lawn.
Gibbs sat on a stack of floormats and considered his options. "Don't suppose you want to pass that knife over to me for safekeeping?"
The little head snapped back to watch him warily. "No."
"Okay. I'm kinda hungry. You hungry?" Kids always seemed willing to eat. Maybe he could trade the weapons for food.
Stevie shrugged.
DiNozzo tilted his head to the side, eyes never leaving the boy outlined in the window. "Rolf, can you scare up some grub?"
When had the detective learned the kid's name?
The blonde kid nodded and slipped out the door silently. Gibbs half expected another "Sir!" from the boy acknowledging Tony's near-command, but none came. Maybe a purposeful omission, for Stevie moved his gaze to Tony as if questioning his position.
Tony lifted his chin at the boy in acknowledgement, but said nothing. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall.
Gibbs tried again. "You got something troubling you, Stevie? Somebody after you?"
Nothing.
"You want to talk to your parents?"
"You found my parents?" That got a bit of a reaction out of him.
"School office is trying to reach them. Were you afraid they were lost?"
"No. They're not lost. They left. There's a difference." He deflated.
"When was the last time you talked to them?"
"Few months ago." Stevie seemed near tears, though he turned his head to hide it, pretending indifference.
"I'm sure they miss you."
The boy let out a strangled half-laugh, half-sob, staring at Gibbs in amusement and despair. "You're new here."
DiNozzo laughed at the deadpan delivery. "He is," he agreed.
"You're not?" Stevie clarified.
"Next campus over." Tony strode over and sat next to Gibbs on the piled floormats, though he pushed himself until his back was flat against the wall.
"Thing is, no matter what you're up to right now, or what you're planning to do – doesn't do you any good."
"How's that?" The young boy hardened suddenly.
"Well, say you're really thinking about hurting yourself. That doesn't do you any good. It won't affect the staff here, they'll just say you were unstable. And it probably won't affect your parents much."
"DiNozzo!" Gibbs would have smacked the detective a good one if he hadn't been sure it would not endear him to Stevie.
Tony shrugged, eyes as dead as the boy's. "It won't. He knows it. You want to keep treating him like a child? You'll probably talk him down, get him out. But he'll just be "behaving" again, you're not going to fix anything that's going on under the trained act."
He turned back to Stevie. "We could start a troupe. A traveling acting troupe."
The boy snorted, "More like a circus."
"I bet I could swallow fire. I always wanted to try. I blew fire once at a frat party, but I don't recommend it if you like your eyebrows." His mouth ticked up in a grin, but his eyes stayed as dull as the boy's remained.
He returned to his previous topic, undeterred. "So hurting yourself gets you nothing. And if you do a half-assed job of it, you get what – stuck in the infirmary with even less to occupy you and more time to think about the fact that they aren't coming for you?"
Stevie seemed riveted in place, unable to look away from Tony.
"So option two, hurt someone else. Strike out. Physically, maybe, but that's just cruel and stupid. And you don't strike me as cruel or stupid. Option three, misbehave, try to hurt your parents by giving a bad reputation to their name."
Tony paused, raised his feet up to rest on the windowsill by Stevie's. The boy tensed, but didn't object when Tony made no further movements.
"I tried that. It took me a while. I was mostly stuck in the mindset of, 'if I behave, they'll come for me.' But after a while, when no one came, I tried my damndest to get their attention. To get anyone's full attention."
"What happened?" the boy asked.
"Got disowned," Tony said shortly. "No more hurting the family name. Well, not as much, anyway. If he'd been smarter, he'd have had my name changed first."
"Just 'he?' What about your mom?"
"She died."
"Oh." Stevie seemed on the verge of saying something, but stopped himself. Instead, he turned the dagger over and over in his hands, as though searching it for answers.
"I see you're more a knife man," Tony said approvingly. "So's my partner, here. That one yours?"
"Sort of. I'm not big enough to compete against the other kids my age in a lot of sports. But I'm good at fencing. My weaponsmaster is teaching me to fight with a parrying dagger."
"Nice!" Tony's eyebrows shot up and he infused a great deal of enthusiasm in his voice. "That's impressive."
Gibbs wanted to speak up, but was afraid he'd break whatever tenuous connection the two had going.
"Thanks. What about you?" Stevie asked, almost shyly.
"Oh, I was the more traditional jock. I wasn't as small as you when I was twelve, but I was scrawny as all hell until I hit fifteen. So mostly I ran. I was fast. Then when I started bulking up a little, I played basketball, baseball, eventually football too."
"Did you play…before?"
"No. I didn't. I didn't even go to school regularly. That was one thing that was really hard for me to adjust to. Going from basically no schedule at all to an unforgiving schedule that left pretty much no free time at all."
"That does sound like it would suck. I guess at least I had school and lessons before. A lot of this isn't so different."
"No," Tony agreed seriously. "A lot of this isn't really so different when you think about it. How often were they home?"
Stevie shrugged. "One week out of the month. Something like that. But at least I saw them. Could pretend…" He turned to face the window again.
Gibbs could feel Tony gathering himself. In another person, he'd take it as preparation for some massive impending physical action. For DiNozzo, apparently it was working up to sharing buried emotion.
"We didn't know my mom was sick until too late. Cancer. I guess she didn't feel good for a long time, but covered it by drinking more and more. Can't blame her, really. She went to the doctor a few times but they passed it off as fatigue, told her to take a vacation." He smiled a scarily blank smile. "Because another vacation was obviously going to make all the difference."
Stevie straightened a bit in the window, pulling himself up straighter and moving to sit cross-legged, attentive.
Gibbs was tempted to do the same. Or to run away. Tony sounded twelve himself for a moment.
"So by the time they caught that it was cancer, it had eaten through half her body, and on top of that she'd killed most of her liver herself. But I was the sickest person in that household. Because I was happy when I got to play nursemaid. When she'd lay in bed, too weak to get out, and I'd fetch her whatever she wanted, read to her, entertain her. She called for me when she needed something, because she knew I'd be close by. It was heavenly. If your version of heavenly is darkly twisted."
Jesus.
A self-deprecating smile contorted the detective's face. Though he continued to carefully keep his gaze from Gibbs, he did meet the boy's eyes regularly.
"That doesn't sound half-bad. I don't think you should beat yourself up so much about being happy you had some time with her before she died," Stevie said, voice young but remarkably confident. "You helped her, you didn't hurt her. And…it might have meant something to her, too."
Man and boy looked at each other, searching for something. Gibbs wasn't sure what it was, but they both looked away at the same time, seemingly satisfied with what they found.
Rolf slipped back into the room, a stack of plastic-wrapped sandwiches in his hands and a canvas bag full of small milk cartons and apples slung over his shoulder. He sat at the floor by Tony's feet and passed out the bounty.
For someone who claimed he wasn't good with children, Tony certainly had a way with these particular pups.
Stevie, somewhat livelier than he had been, bit into a ham and cheese. "So then what?"
"So then my dad couldn't stand looking at me. He left for about a year, and I didn't see him again until he came home and told me to pack up and get ready for summer camp. I was actually excited. Then I ended up at a place just like this," he waved his hand around, "and stayed there until I went to college."
He perked up. "Now college, that's something to live for."
The three boys discussed college frats and sports and courses and girls with more and more animation while Gibbs slowly made his way through a chicken salad sandwich, trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do next.
Maybe his thoughts showed on his face, as a few minutes later Tony again turned the conversation to serious matters. "So here's the options, kiddo. We can spring you from this joint, say you were hurt, take you to the hospital so you can have some time to think outside of the campus. Or, I can probably get you transferred to another school if you think a change of scenery would help."
Stevie shook his head. "No, if I have to stay at one anyway, I'd prefer to stay here. At least I'm used to it."
"Then you're going to have to start being smarter about how you handle your emotions."
Gibbs internally started at the harsh command. The kid had barely started puberty. What the hell kind of advice was that?
Rolf nodded. "You're not alone here, not completely. You can't trust anybody – that's fine. Nobody here trusts someone else completely. But that doesn't mean you can't make friends. Even if they're just good-time friends. People to bitch with, play video games with, whatever."
Tony picked up, "It makes a bigger difference than you might think. Not just in taking your mind off of other stuff, but it makes you feel like you belong. At least a little. And a little goes a long way sometimes."
Gibbs had the uncomfortable impression that DiNozzo's life motto might be something close to, "A little goes a long way." He shoved the thought aside, it didn't matter to their case and it didn't matter to this situation. Dammit.
Rolf continued, "You picked up on how they want you to act really fast. That's good. Now just don't fall into the mindset of it. Keep yourself safe, inside."
"Pick something to work towards – pick it yourself, make it hard but not impossible to get. A place you want to go, something you want to be good at, a school you want to attend, whatever. Don't settle for other people's ideas of what you should be. You'll kill yourself to get there, and it won't be satisfying." Tony paused, then flashed the megawatt smile. "And it sure won't be any fun."
The young boy watched DiNozzo's face intently, as if memorizing it and the words coming out of his mouth.
Maybe he was.
Tony passed Stevie a business card with some handwritten info on the back, and elicited a promise from Rolf to at least check in on the younger boy from time to time.
Stevie stood. "I'll go find a teacher, say I fell asleep cleaning my gear in here." After a pause, he added a stiff, "Thanks," to Tony, as though he were unfamiliar with saying the word.
Then he put the dagger back in its case and slipped out the door.
Rolf followed, hopefully to keep an eye on the younger boy.
Gibbs turned to Tony, anger in his voice. "If Rolf and the other senior classmen knew where he was, why didn't they help?"
Tony shrugged, face slowly taking on pleasant features again. "More than likely he would have rejected it. Wasn't ready to hear it, not from his classmates."
He stretched.
"Better get going, back to the case. I want to check on the shrink's alibi."
Gibbs found himself working up to enraged, though he couldn't articulate to himself why. He grasped on to an easier reason, close at hand. "So we just leave? And if the kid takes off again, or decides to take his little experience with the knife any further?"
"I don't think he will."
Truth was, Gibbs didn't think he would either.
He stormed out of the small room, headed back towards the car.
Tony followed, hands in pockets, seemingly without a care in the world.
On the way back to the station, far away from the prying ears of the young cadets, Tony tried to sooth the new tension. "Gibbs, you know I was just talking back there, right? Making up whatever suited the situation." He gave a half laugh, bright and cheerful. "It's not like any of that was real."
At Gibbs' continued imposing silence, he shrugged and went to sleep.
Maybe.
Who could take anything about Detective Tony DiNozzo at face value?