Gibbs tasted the rusty tinge of blood as it coated his tongue in outer bodily astonishment. The searing pain shot across his jaw line grew as he stared at his flushed protégée. Rubbing a hand across his face gingerly, he couldn't quite connect the pain with the man in front of him. He caught an intense flashback of the last time anything resembling fisticuffs between the two had occurred. Back when Kate had still been with them, back in the training ring at the Navy Yard. As he looked into the darkened with rage eyes staring back at him, he suddenly felt like that playful day was many, many lifetimes ago.

And all of a sudden, the rage flared. He was always angry these days, but in this instance the venomous anger was so strong he could almost taste it intermingled with his own blood. That he, the one he had taught everything to, the one he had dragged up could come into his house and throw punches in his basement tore a growl from his throat. He tilted his head to the side, eying Tony carefully. He could see that the younger man was actually as amazed as he was that such a blow had been landed. For some reason, that fact seemed to enrage him further.

He took one step towards his once upon a time second in command. No step backwards was taken. Tony looked him straight in the eye, and held his head high. "Go on then, old man," he laughed eerily, without the faintest trace of amusement, "Do it."

Gibbs felt the anger, barely controlled as it was, tear and claw viciously at his chest.

Tony laughed quietly once more.

"Coward?"

And that…that was when all hell broke loose.

Snarling, Gibbs stormed forward and caught Tony roughly around the neck. He wasn't as fast as he potentially used to be, but he was still fast as hell. Expectant as he was for the blow, and despite his able attempts to dodge it, Tony caught the full force of the first punch to his face. Reacting quickly, he wrenched himself out of the heavy grasp, as the blood trickled sluggishly from his nose. The two circled each other for a moment, each man's chest rising heavily as they stared at each other with narrowed gazes. Tony's heart was beating wildly, and yet he felt a strange calm encase him. It was like he was looking at and attempting to take down a perp.

Not the man he would once have died for.

Not the man who had once meant nearly everything to him.

Gibbs swallowed with difficulty as the adrenaline coursed through him like wildfire. His chest ached with the extreme beating of his heart. He felt empty and yet full of vitriolic rage as he looked at Tony squarely. Blood was smeared over the younger man's face, and he found that it didn't elicit the same response it had done so often before. He didn't feel that gruff, but caring instinct emerge at the sight of his protégées wounds. He felt only a savage satisfaction, and that was the feeling that propelled him onwards.

Tony expertly dodged the next blow, causing Gibbs to stumble slightly into his workbench.

A burst of indignant anger surged through him as he snarled and dragged his mentor roughly upwards. Turning him around, he drew back his fist and landed it squarely into the lined face. Blood that was not his spurted over his hands, and a primal rejoicing occurred deep within him. Drawing his fist back again, he landed it mercilessly into the older man's stomach. Gibbs buckled over, winded, before coughing blood onto the sawdust strewn floor.

He looked up at Tony and all the field agent could see was venom in his eyes.

Gibbs seized Tony's moment of speculation to his advantage. Hissing, he threw the younger man off him with a strength and a facial punch that belied his age. The visitor went hurtling across the floor, banging squarely into a wooden press. A low guttural groan escaped him as he desperately tried to right himself. The shadow of his mentor fell upon him as he lay winded upon the dusty floor.

"Get up," Gibbs spat through clenched teeth, "You want to come in here and fight me, big man?"

He stooped down and seized Tony with indecent force around the scruff. They were bloodied face to bloodied face.

"Then get your dumb as hell ass up and fight me."

Tony shuddered in his grasp. Throwing his hands off him in disgust, he jumped to his feet with a pronounced wince. Blood obscured his eyes, and he wiped it away impatiently only to have it return with a spring like force. He realised with a grimace that he was sporting a large gash above his right eye. Gibbs was right in front of him, with an odd expression on his face. Tony couldn't decipher it; he'd never seen it before. He searched desperately within him for the anger that had erupted within him, the one that had led to the first blow, the anger he needed to protect himself.

Instead, as the blood trickled into his lips, all he found was a desperate sadness.

Sadness so intense, so powerful it hurt more than all the physical blows that had been traded in the once safe basement. Gurgling over his split lip somewhat, he felt the rigidity drain out of his broad shoulders. Standing in front of the man who'd once been his stability, he shrugged with a moroseness that was almost impossible to measure. His vision of Gibbs was slightly obscured, as he rubbed a hand over his most certainly bruised ribs. The expression on the older man's face was just as incomprehensible. His voice was thick with laden down and conflicting emotion.

"How the fuck did it come to this?"

He swallowed some of his own blood, and spread his seeping lips once more.

"Why the fuck did it come to this?"

Gibbs stared. And stared, before staring some more. The rage he had felt was still there, but it was a different rage. It was a hollow rage that was coated with a suffocating guilt and sadness. He didn't know how in the hell to answer Tony's question, because he himself couldn't understand the answer. A trickle of bloodied saliva agitated his throat, and he coughed raucously. Running a hand through his hair, that was sticky with wood chippings and congealing blood, he shrugged with a seismic emotional conflict.

He couldn't take this.

This was too much.

He winced as he threw a hand in the direction of the dimly lit staircase.

"Get yourself and your fucking questions out of my house, while you still can."

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A/N: Gentle reminder, this is not a bashing fic. Another two or so chapters and I hope to write my own explanation of Gibbs' change in behaviour. Thanks for reading. Thoughts?

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