Grrrr to uploads not working again, or this would've been posted sooner! Well, a couple of hours sooner.
If you notice any missing section breaks in my stories, please let me know. The little guys keep disappearing on me. I might have to consider other options for noting section breaks in the future, but I don't want to start a different format in the middle of a story... Or I'm lazy. Take your pick.
Fair warning: This next section does overlap the end of the last chapter in a different POV and may not make much sense if you don't remember the last chapter.
It wasn't that he wasn't affected by what Gibbs had said. He was. It didn't feel good to have his father's words thrown back into his face by his current partner.
But it was not as devastating as it should have been.
When he'd climbed the stairs, he had intended to leave. Maybe never come back. But during his slow progress to the top, he'd realized he was annoyed. Grumpy. Miffed.
Gibbs had repeated Tony's own self-doubts, his worst fears aloud, and Tony was miffed?
Something didn't smell right.
He sat on the couch, reanalyzing. Since the pizza was handy, he took it down and munched.
He needed more interaction with Gibbs to figure out what was going on. Judging the quickest way to get the man upstairs, he jumped up and hopped over to the tv, snapping it on quickly, then hopped back, silently swearing the whole way.
His embarrassing tumble down the stairs had been no prank.
The top of his beer snocked open just as Gibbs arrived at the top of the stairs, looking like an enraged bull searching out a red flag to steamroll.
Tony was again surprised at his own reaction. He was calm. Contemplative. Amused, even. Yet Gibbs was no lightweight. There was no question he could be a mean bastard, that he was potentially a dangerous one.
DiNozzo studied his opponent briefly, flashing back to the first night they'd met. He wouldn't come out on top of or equal in a fight right now. He couldn't even stand. One tussle on the floor with his injured knee under him, and he'd be crying like a little blonde girl from a 1940s movie. Plus, Gibbs had kicked him right in the middle of his lovely bruise/scrape/scab side, which now pounded in counterbalance to the throbbing of his knee.
He discarded fight since it wasn't an option. And he discarded flight – he didn't want to leave or he would've already done so.
Instead, he engaged. Taunted the berserker forward.
He half-expected Gibbs to be egged on by the reference to divorce; to find himself in a Marine-whammy headlock and smashed against the coffee table head-first.
Gibbs stopped in his tracks and dropped, defeated, onto the sofa, staring at Tony as though he were the alien here.
Maybe he was. He felt oddly unemotional, even detached. He should be upset, angry.
More than likely there was something wrong with him. Broken Tony, pretending to be a real boy but never getting it quite right.
He forced the situation again. Crammed a whole piece of pizza in his mouth and smiled widely. It would have infuriated his father.
Gibbs groaned and covered his head with his arms. When his stomach gurgled, Tony tossed a box of pizza on his lap, silently encouraging the soaking up of too much hard liquor with the pretty damn good pizza.
Gibbs ate.
Suddenly he muttered, "You're not a waste of time, Tony. You're just supremely irritating sometimes."
Contradictory information was not helpful from someone who'd been drinking. No way to know which version was the real one. "I don't care what you think right now. Tell me when you're sober, and maybe I'll listen. After we catch the killer."
The agent stared at him for a moment, then abruptly rose and left the room. Heart falling, DiNozzo thought he'd gone too far, driven the man away.
Failed again at making a human connection. Served him right for trying. He was only good for surface friendship. He knew that.
Tony was halfway to standing when Gibbs returned to the room, crossing quickly and settling two bags of frozen veggies on either side of his knee.
What the hell was this?
Gibbs sat and reclaimed his pizza box, shoving most of a slice into his mouth and trying to copy Tony's earlier smile.
It was a gruesome sight.
Tony laughed without intending to. Had Gibbs just crossed his eyes? Gibbs? Impossible. The man must be drunker than he thought.
Silently, the two started a different kind of battle. A manly man's battle.
An eating contest.
Tony won. He raised his hands in victory as the last swallow went down, with Gibbs still a slice and a half behind.
Gibbs rolled his eyes, but smiled. He clapped his greasy hand on Tony's shoulder.
There was an air of relief in the movement, an easy gesture of subtle relaxation. A certain unspoken pleasure at the fact that they had so quickly gotten beyond the nastiness of before. The satisfaction of a stubborn man realizing he wouldn't have to push himself to actually apologize.
But that would mean the temptation to actually apologize existed.
Suddenly, Tony realized why the earlier words had annoyed, but nothing more.
"You didn't mean it, did you? What you said downstairs."
Gibbs shrugged, looking away, uncomfortable.
Oddly, Gibbs looking uncomfortable made Tony more aggressive, more sure of himself.
"How did you know what to say? That's pretty quick investigating, pushing all my buttons like that."
"You're still here."
"Not because you didn't use the right words. Because you were trying to drive me away."
"Ornery much?"
"Could be. But in my experience, if people really think you're a waste of space they cut you out. Ignore you. Distain you. You don't get close enough to be driven away. And you're not considered worth the effort."
Silence ensued as both men realized what the detective had unconsciously revealed. No wonder Gibbs had the right fodder to throw at him. Dealing with that damn "missing" kid this morning had presented half his insecurities on a freakin' silver platter.
The relative emotional detachment he'd been surfing on ended. His full stomach suddenly roiled, hungry piranha eager to teach him a lesson by destroying his insides.
He tried to shift back to humor. "You were putting an awful lot of effort into getting me out the door. I must be something special."
Tony was unprepared for Gibbs' eyes to catch his and hold. He was completely and utterly caught off guard by the man's next words, echoing his own. "Could be."
Suddenly coldly furious at being played with, Tony rose, disregarding physical state. He breathed in, ready to release his own barrage of foul words when Gibbs swept the ankle of his good leg out from under him, effectively tumbling the detective back onto the couch.
Gibbs tone was mild. "Don't much care for explaining myself, Tony. But I'll say this once, just to be clear. You're not wrong."
He wasn't? About what?
"I yell at you, you take it as a sign that you're worth the effort of yelling at. I decide you're not worth the effort, you won't hear from me anymore. Clear?"
Actually, it was. He liked it. It was like they had their own little secret handshake.
Tony shrugged an unconcerned agreement.
Gibbs smirked at him, not fooled.
Tony started bracing himself to stand, to leave. Hell with this. The guy was just messing with him. He didn't need this shit. The doubts, the hopes, the anxiety. This wasn't him, from detached self-assurance to a fucking panic attack in mere seconds. He didn't need Gibbs' approval. He didn't even want it.
Gibbs replaced the frozen veggies on either side of Tony's abused knee. "Never liked peas much. Wife kept buying them." He grunted, stopping himself. "Ex-wife. Glad to see the end of them."
Tony stayed.
Ducky pulled into Gibbs' drive at ten o'clock that night, concerned when he saw the detective's car parked out front.
Surely if the two had gotten into a fight and one had been incapacitated, the other would have called him.
Right?
He hurriedly exited his vehicle and mounted the stairs, letting himself quietly into the house. He had intended to go straight to the stairs leading to the basement and rap against the wall at the top. If Gibbs yelled, "Go away!" he would proceed downstairs. If a glass flew through the air and smashed against the wall at the bottom of the stairs, he would leave. It was their unagreed-upon signal.
If his knocking was met with silence – well, that would not be a good sign this evening.
He stopped in his tracks only a few steps into the house, seeing the television was on, the volume very low. He was not sure he had ever seen the television on in Jethro's house before.
Movement drew his attention.
Gibbs' head rose from the back of a chair, where it looked as if he'd been napping. "Duck?"
At the sound of his voice, the bleary head of young Anthony popped up over the back of the couch, hair all askew.
Gibbs rose with a wince – served him right for falling asleep in an armchair – and approached the sofa.
The detective turned to look at him, eyes squinted against the low light.
Gibbs lightly smacked him on the back of the head. "Go back to sleep, DiNozzo."
With a "Mmmph" of agreement, the young man flopped back down, pulling a couch cushion over his head.
Gibbs reached down and removed two bags of something, disappearing into the kitchen.
Approaching closer as to see over the back of the sofa, Ducky realized Anthony's injured knee was propped up on several pillows, likely inflamed again due to whatever the two had been up to this evening. The coffee table was scattered with empty cans of beer and a mostly-empty bottle of bourbon. Gibbs' personal pain remedy.
Alone for a moment, Ducky allowed himself to briefly speculate on who the remedy had been for. Was it too much to hope they'd partaken together?
Gibbs returned from the kitchen, bearing two new bags of frozen food. He placed them on either side of Anthony's knee, then yawned widely. "Problem, Duck?"
Momentarily speechless, Ducky declined to immediately answer.
"You got the right machines in your lab to look at his knee?"
"If you can drag him down there, yes, I can take a closer look at it tomorrow."
"Oh, I'll drag him." The expression that accompanied the look was as close to gleeful as Leroy Jethro Gibbs ever got.
Ducky gracefully exited the house, making his apologies for waking both men up.
As he walked back to his Morgan, he let his speculation run even further.
Had Tony ended up staying because the state of his knee did not allow him to drive the manual transmission on his car? Or was it possible that Tony stayed – at least in part – because he recognized that Gibbs could use some company? Some frustrating, hard-to-ignore, hard-to-hate company?
Either way, Gibbs had let him stay.
Ducky smiled the whole way home.
The next morning found Gibbs driving and Tony riding, though the detective protested his knee was fine enough to drive.
Gibbs snorted and pointed at the passenger side of the motor pool Dodge, and in one of his strange moments of easy compliance, Tony simply got in without further fuss.
They stopped for coffee and donuts, where DiNozzo purchased more pastries than a normal man could eat in a week, then went straight to the office. Tony greeted both security guards at the entrance by name, surprising Gibbs. When had that happened?
Tony slipped them a bag of donuts with an overly secretive flourish before leaving.
Hmm.
He headed straight for Ducky's lab at a slower than normal pace, and Tony followed willingly along. "Think Ducky's got something?"
"Worth checking on."
As they exited the elevator and entered autopsy, DiNozzo cheerfully called out a greeting to the doctor.
Gibbs braced himself in the doorway, arms crossed.
"Gibbs, you look like a bouncer." Tony's cheerful tone started to fade, replaced with suspicion. "What exactly is going on right now?"
Ducky advanced. "This, young Anthony, is an intervention. Now take off your pants."
Someone clapped and hooted from Ducky's office, and Abby emerged. "Take it off!"
Gibbs raised a single eyebrow. She could be mocking DiNozzo, but it sure sounded like friendly mocking. Had he missed something?
"I got you a donut, Abs, but you can't have it if you're in cahoots with these guys." The kid plastered a hurt look across his clown face.
Ducky was slowly pulling on plastic gloves, letting each settle with a snap of the latex against his wrists. "Abby, you had best leave now."
Gibbs concurred. "Abby, scoot."
"I want to stay for the show. Especially if I'm not getting breakfast."
Scowling, Gibbs repeated his order. "Abby, get your butt in gear."
She fake pouted at him, not unlike the face Tony was making right now. Though the detective's expression held a tinge of green realness as he eyed the doctor's advance.
"It's not like he's gonna get totally naked," she protested. Then pulled off a lascivious grin. "Hey Ducky, are you gonna make him get totally naked?"
Gibbs barked, "Hey! I said move your ass!" When had he lost control? Abby always did what he said. Asked. Possibly he should ask. He was about to, when DiNozzo spoke up.
"What's the matter, Abby? Is the bad man picking on you?" He released that god-awful magnetic grin, the one that made everyone in the room want to smile back or hit him.
Abby smiled back, striding over to him to rifle through the donut bag. "It's okay, you get used to it. He means well." She shot a grin over her shoulder at Gibbs while continuing to take liberties with DiNozzo's pastries.
Well, shit. He liked it better when the two of them didn't get along. This new development felt like trouble personified.
She tossed a meaningful glance at Gibbs that he refused to acknowledge, then officially restated her opinion of the detective by stating, in front of Gibbs, "You were right, Tony. Collins' tattoo was less than a month old. It's the work of a real artist, not a tattoo chop shop, so I should be able to find who inked him assuming he got it close to home."
Abby kissed Tony on the cheek and Gibbs considered killing him. "But they're right. Intervention time."
The detective squawked as she turned on one foot and sauntered to the exit with a cinnamon twist, leaving him with one less shield. Gibbs let her past, and she kissed him on the cheek as well before leaving. "You boys have fun!"
"Abby!"
She turned.
Tony tossed her the rest of the donuts. "Feed the probies."
"Will do!" She exited, headed upstairs.
Resigned, Tony watched her go. Resignation changed to mutiny as Ducky ordered him to the x-ray machine. He backed towards the door, where he met a solid Gibbs, who merely said, "Do it."
Reluctantly, he did.
Ducky telegraphed every move he made well in advance, yet here and there, little moments of unease showed through in the detective's demeanor.
Did he expect them to lock him up? Kick him off the case? Hurt him more? Ridicule him for getting hurt on the job?
In truth, he hadn't gotten hurt on the job. Not in the course of chasing the killer. He'd been hurt – more than once – dealing with Gibbs. Watching out for an ungrateful, bastardass special agent who tossed scathing words in his face as thanks.
And yet the kid kept coming back for more. He didn't even have enough sense to protect himself.
Refusing to acknowledge the gloominess of that realization, Gibbs returned to his post as bouncer.
"Tattoo?" Gibbs asked, as they both finally left autopsy a half hour later. Tony now had a small bottle of pain pills – which he would not use – and a stern lecture to rest his knee more often and use his crutches when he did move about – which he would not do.
"Noticed Collins had one. Thought Abby might be able to dig up more, since she seems to be a fan." Tony's terse statements were a sign of his sulking. He didn't care for being poked and prodded.
Not that Gibbs blamed him.
They rode the elevator up to the bullpen in silence, only to learn that the probies had unearthed no new leads to follow.
Scrubbing one hand across his bottom lip in frustration, Tony glanced at Gibbs. "I really, really, really need to interrogate someone right now."
Gibbs nodded. "Okay. Let's go pick someone up."
They headed back to the car.