The smell hit him first.

Ears ringing, engulfed in a rushing silence, it was the smell that hit first. The filthy, acrid stench of melting rubber and blackened smoke.

He tried to clear his lungs and circulate some air through his nostrils, but it only resulted in a hacking, wheezy cough. His eyes burned as he tried to shut them, stinging, unable to gain any bearing on his surroundings.

Something damp was matted against his cheek, but he barely felt it.

He tried to move –

A stabbing, twisting pain seared his right thigh, stopping any attempt at motion. Something heavy, dense and pressing, was pinning down part of his leg. With a surge of adrenaline, muscles aching in protest, he shoved the thing off his lower body, panting and grimacing when he was finally free.

A strangled yell escaped him when he saw it was a corpse. Obviously dead, unmoving, with much of the skin burned off, leaving only black and red patches of blood and tissue around the face and arms. The mouth was hanging open, held loosely by the broken jaw practically dangling from the face.

Instinctively Tony threw himself backwards, his hands coming into contact with shards of hot metal, bits of gravel, and pieces of rubber. He did not get far, the piercing pains in his thigh now overwhelming. He tried to steady his vision and catch his breath, but he only ended up focusing on the dead body sprawled out in front of him. He could see now that half the torso was torn off, exposing a shattered mess of blood and bone.

He tore his head away, dizzy, unable to un-see.

The lightheadedness worsened as he tightly grasped his bleeding and throbbing thigh, trying to assess the damage. The acute, burning spasms did not stop, and again he pushed himself backwards, instincts screaming that he could not pass out here. He had to keep moving.

It was as his palms made contact with the curb of the sidewalk behind him that noise broke through his ringing barrier.

Panicked, chilling screams, coming from all directions, mixing with shouting – harsh, dissonant. It clouded his head, still swimming, and it was all he could do to keep forcing himself backwards to imagined safety.

And then –

His chest seized up, shock replaced with an urgent, terrifying thought.

Ziva.

She had been right next to him during the explosion, but it was all blank after that.

He craned his neck frantically to see through the thinning dark smoke and piles of burning debris, but it was futile. His vision was watery, blurred, and all of the disheveled masses strewn about the pavement were too difficult to identify. He tried to keep scanning for any sign of his partner, but the harder he strained, the more intense the pressure in his head, and he leaned back against the wall to force away the threatening blackness.

His panic surged again as his ears caught the sound of something moving, dangerously close.

In a wheezing frenzy he reached for the knife holstered at his leg, clenching his jaw and bracing himself as he gripped the handle firmly in his hand, still shaking from the adrenaline. He acted without thought, unaware, control slipping.

He almost dropped it as Ziva appeared to his right, half-stumbling then falling down unceremoniously to her knees with a low grunt, but immediately straightening herself as she found what she was looking for – him.

Her shirt was dirty and the left half was stained deep red. Blood was flowing freely out of her previously wounded shoulder. She held that same arm closely to her chest, grimacing as she kneeled next to him. He noticed these things, barely processing, attention fixed on her forearm– it was hanging awkwardly and had several red blotchy cuts contrasting with the swelling blue and purple of the broken bone.

His eyes stayed on her mangled wrist as she took the knife out of his lowered hand, not having to fight hard to pry his slackened fingers away. His focus snapped abruptly as the burning sensation in his thigh returned with renewed vigor.

Ziva had begun cutting through the ripped material in his jeans, hastily pulling out any embedded shards or splinters. He growled, deep in his throat, doing all he could not to shout or smack her hand away. He looked away as the sound of tearing denim and the sight of freshly bleeding gashes, most of them minor, or marring the outside of his thigh.

None of them, (fuck – just fuck) hit his femoral artery.

(Does that – does that count as strike four?)

He cleared his throat, dry, scratching, making a grab for her arm, stopping her.

"I know you've always wanted to get into my pants –" he began, little more than a whisper, but she jerked out of his grasp.

"Stop talking," she replied quietly yet intensely, her eyes never leaving his tattered leg.

Throat aching from speaking just those few words, he watched, stunned, as she hastily tore off her ruined shirt with her good hand, leaving her in a simple tank-top. She made quick work of cutting one of the seams of the shirt out and wrapping it around his leg.

He shut his eyes in silent agony as she lifted his leg to tie the knot in her makeshift bandage. The new throbbing and pulsing pain made his head pound harder than ever.

Gently, she squeezed his calf with her uninjured arm as he wheezed painfully against the wall, trying to ease him back into his senses and dull the pain in his leg. It worked, if only a little, his spinning vision calming as the seconds passed.

When the feeling settled, his weary attention was alerted to harsh voices coming closer, shouting undecipherable words as they shuffled through debris and dead bodies. The callous yet rhythmic tones floated through the smoke and the dust, and even with his temporarily defective hearing, it was clear that there were people approaching.

Ziva stopped trying to patch up his wounds, turning and craning her neck, alerted eyes searching for the source of the impending danger. Her heart beat steadily against her chest as she scanned the unrelenting chaos that revealed nothing. She snapped her head back to Tony and snatched his discarded knife from the asphalt, realizing she was too late to arm herself with anything else.

Not a split-second too soon.

Five shrouded figures emerged from behind a smoldering pile of wreckage, their hands gripped around their rifles, gazes hardened at their new find. They wore cargo pants and simple fitted shirts, the only contrast being the scarves around their necks.

Yet – they were unscathed.

Every function in Tony's body seemed to freeze.

"Get up," one of them hissed in his native language, his dark features blazing, glaring.

It took only a second for every single gun to be pointed at the two people on the ground.

Tony stole a glance at Ziva, having felt her grip against his calf tighten dramatically. She was breathing calmly, but her eyes were narrowed, calculating. She slowly raised her uninjured arm above her head in a nonthreatening position, as if in a gesture of surrender. The knife remained concealed under the fingers of her broken, unmoved wrist.

The man took a menacing step closer.

"Get up, or the American dies," he spat, pushing the end of his gun closer to Ziva's head. Her eyes flickered to his face with worry, as if she could feel the warning racing through his thoughts.

Slowly she rose to her feet, still not averting her gaze.

(Don't try anything, don't fucking try anything.)

Too late.

Impulsively she flung herself around, thrusting the sharpness of the blade into the hilt of the one man's shoulder. He yelled in surprise and staggered backwards, his gun clattering out of his hands. She kicked another man in the stomach and knocked his weapon to the pavement.

That was as far as her luck went.

A man from behind her, seeing his opportunity, grabbed her broken wrist and twisted it backwards, eliciting a sharp cry of pain that made Tony's heart jump to his throat.

The knife slipped out of her hand.

She tried to twist around and release her arm from her attacker, but she was stopped halfway by the sudden and crashing impact of a rifle butt to the side of her face. She collapsed to the ground, only inches away from where she started, her upper body lying awkwardly on top of her partner's legs.

Tony stared horrified at his unconscious partner, his sweating hands raised above his head, half in compliance, half in shock. His head throbbed and his leg was on fire, but still he could not take his eyes off Ziva.

He didn't even realize the men had moved until they roughly threw a thick black hood over his head. He coughed involuntarily as they shoved his hands together and bound them, coarse rope chafing painfully.

More shouting, and Ziva was pulled off him. They yanked him off his feet and thrust him forward.

The air was damp and thick.

Sweat beaded up on his forehead and he could feel it soaking through his shirt, but he was helpless to do anything about it. His hands were bound behind his back, useless against the salty moisture stinging the corners of his eyes.

Although, it was preferable compared to having a scratchy hood covering his face.

He looked around again as his eyes finally adjusted to the current lighting, which was poor, to say the least. There was only a tiny window, about the size of a shoebox, resting at the top of the wall just below the ceiling. But he couldn't see any more from where he was sitting on the floor.

Nor could he remember exactly how he'd gotten here, to this – prison cell? Is that what this was?

His stomach dropped.

He remembered being shoved into a vehicle, but he must have finally passed out soon after because the only thing he recalled after that was waking up in this basement. Or, part of a basement. It was more like a dingy walk-in closet. Only it was empty except for a few wooden crates and the two people currently being held there.

Two people.

His eyes sought out Ziva, who was slumped on the ground from where she had been thrown.

She was still out.

Another memory, hazy, began working through his mind. He must have woken up at some point – or had he imagined it, feared it? He thought he remembered Ziva being dumped on the concrete next to him. One of the men had turned her face over with his boot, making a joke in a language Tony couldn't understand.

They must have left after that, leaving him to hover between being awake and not.

Ziva hadn't moved since then.

Tony went back to examining his surroundings, as if maybe this time it might yield different results. But no epiphany struck him, no weakness to exploit. The room was exactly the same as it had been just moments ago. The heavy steel door was bolted from the outside and the surrounding concrete was bleak and gray. The floor was covered in a thin layer of dust, the spots where it had been disturbed clearly visible. A couple wooden crates lay undisturbed in the far corner, covering up the lower half of some piping crawling up the wall.

Just some shit room in a normal basement.

Only this wasn't a normal basement. Normal basements weren't suited for captured federal agents. Who conveniently has a room in their basement with a door that locks from the outside? And – better than that – who just wanders around suburban streets with automatic weapons?

That explosion was no malfunction or accident, it was a bomb. Or an RPG.

They'd been followed, watched, ambushed. Their capture was planned, or at least hoped for. Why else would their pursuants have fired on the wrong vehicle? Why else would they have been taken off the street, instead of killed instantly, or even ignored? They had been wanted here, Tony was sure of it. They were not collateral damage. They were the target.

But, he was in a locked room with his hands tied and a bleeding leg, so that information was now worthless. With a scowl he turned back to his partner, and was surprised to see her awake and sitting against the wall to his right. When had he missed that?

She glanced back at him with dull discomfort.

"You are bleeding," she said quietly, nodding her head to indicate his thigh, where blood had soaked through his temporary bandage.

"Yeah, I noticed," he replied without much expression, glancing back down at his medley of gashes and minor burns.

She turned away, grimacing as she tried to readjust her bound hands, twisted carelessly behind her back, into a less painful position. Considering the broken wrist, he guessed she was wasting her time.

He got a glimpse of the busted side of her face as she struggled with her bonds, but he quickly dropped his gaze as she turned back to face him.

"How long have we been here?"

"Not sure. Maybe an hour? You've been out for a while though," he added, this time nodding and indicating her injuries. She found she could not stomach his penetrating gaze, and turned her attention elsewhere.

"They have not come back?"

"Depends on what you mean by 'they'."

"Who else could I possibly mean? Gibbs?" she asked sarcastically, clearly frustrated at their situation.

Tony didn't miss a beat.

"Well for a second I thought you were talking about my hunger pangs. But now that you mention it, I don't wanna know what Gibbs will do when he finds us here."

She arched an eyebrow at his choice of his words.

"You think it will be that easy for him to find us?"

"Remember when we were trapped in that shipping container? Or when we hid in the evidence locker after that one prank went wrong? Not to mention how he single-handedly got all our jobs back. He always finds us. Hasn't failed yet," ranted Tony, forgetting the pain in his leg for a second and sending a confident smile at Ziva.

"I am not so sure he would agree with you," replied Ziva, shifting her position to better examine her oozing shoulder.

"Wait a minute, are you saying the great jefe has failed before?"

She continued observing her shoulder, frowning.

"I am saying he blames himself for things, yes?"

He tilted his head, studying her, wondering just what she meant by that. He watched silently as she slowly rolled over onto her knees and rose to her feet. She began moving around the room, examining the walls and ceiling.

"I thought you'd be out of that by now," he said half-mockingly, indicating the thick rope binding her hands together.

She didn't bother looking at him.

"I do not want to further injure my wrist trying. I may need both hands later."

Oh. And – he knew there was a trick, especially if you had a pin or a clip or something, to most handcuffs, but rope? That probably meant a lot more joint dislocation than he was comfortable with.

"Right."

He neglected to point out that she could probably kill someone with one hand if she tried.

"Uh, what…exactly, are you doing?" he questioned lightly, watching her push furiously against the door with her good shoulder.

"Trying to find a way to get out of here," she replied, taking a step back and putting more force into her shoulder-shove. It still didn't move.

Shocking.

"Oh. Knock yourself out," he added sarcastically, having already inspected the entire room multiple times and not coming up with anything that didn't involve Hollywood.

"I do not think that would help. They could easily revive me," she replied quickly, as if his comment was completely normal and they were swapping suggestions in all seriousness. He rolled his eyes, but said nothing.

She moved over toward the empty crates in the corner.

"So what are our chances?" asked Tony, again interrupting her investigation. The look he received in return was one of confusion.

"Chances of what?"

"Oh come on, Miss Mossad, I thought you were an expert on these situations," he chided lightly, shifting his position against the wall in a failed attempt to get more comfortable.

"Not really. Any past situations I have been in were very different from this one," she corrected, tone unnaturally casual.

Finally, she gave up on trying to bust out of their room and started pacing the floor across from him.

"Oh, do tell."

She cocked an eyebrow at his sarcastic tone but indulged him.

"The first time was an extended exercise as part of my military training."

"I'm guessing you passed with flying colors," he muttered darkly.

"Flying – what?"

"It means you excelled."

She snorted.

"My commanding officer failed me because I lost control too easily. It took me four times to pass."

Tony smirked to himself, trying to picture it. It was odd, thinking of her as anything less than someone that had popped out of the womb highly skilled. He spoke up to ward off the reprimand he could see forming on her lips.

"Any others?"

"I was working with Jen on a joint op – in Cairo, actually. We found out too late that our intel was bad. She received most of the…penalty…before we were released."

At the shadow that passed over her face, Tony felt like someone had swung at his gut. He had no idea Ziva and Director Shepard went that far back. Or that they had gone through something like that.

Wait a second.

"Released?" he doubted, hardly believing that guys being hunted by two different countries' intelligence were likely to just let their prisoners go.

Her face remained determinedly stoic as she answered.

"I was able to subdue one of the guards and eliminate the rest of the cell holding us."

Unsettled by that line of thought and her lack of elaboration, Tony cleared his throat.

"Are those that different from now? I know you still have ninja skills, right?"

This, to her irritation, was not what she wanted to hear.

"Because, Tony! This time the only people capable of extracting us are hundreds of miles away and don't even know we are missing! And we have no means of getting out or communicating with anyone. You cannot even stand, and I can only use one arm! So even if we did manage to somehow escape, we would not be able to go anywhere!" she spit out rapidly, pacing around the confines of their room.

No – cell.

She ended her rant with a furious kick at the wooden crates, which scuffled across the concrete with an echoing rattle. She slid to the floor and shut her eyes, breathing deeply. Her expression turned to a frown and she opened her eyes to find Tony staring softly at her.

He shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.

"We're not dead yet," he reminded her quietly, not bothering to hide that he was looking at her bruised and bleeding cut from the rifle on her cheek.

Her expression was uneasy, doubtful, yet sad.

Like she didn't believe him.

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