A/N: This ended up way too long, not the way I intended, has innuendo that shouldn't be there and probably not enough snowballs for the prompt. Oh well. I sort of added the prompt "we were playing in the snow and you suddenly tackled me to the ground and now…we're just…staring… at each other…" from this Christmas list.
Day 5: Write about a snowball fight.
Sometimes Tony wondered whether he had a death wish. Like every time he stood next to Gibbs and knew, with 100% certainty, that what he was about to say would earn him a head slap, yet he said it anyway. Or this evening, lying in wait at the edge of the dark parking lot, a pile of snowballs at his side, freezing his ass off.
He would have to catch her off-guard. Which was about as easy as catching a fly with chopsticks. His best chance would be to attack her from behind. A dick-move, yes, but really, he didn't have any other options.
Well, aside from, you know, not engaging an Israeli ninja assassin—who had been cranky all day—in a snowball fight.
Why was he doing this again? Oh, right, death wish.
Footsteps approached the car he was hiding behind, and he made an extra effort to stay absolutely still. They slowed down, stopped, and he didn't need a visual to know she was looking around suspiciously.
Damn spidey sense.
But then she resumed walking.
Tony stood up slowly, hoping his knee wouldn't pop, holding two snowballs. He took aim at her back and threw.
The snowball only grazed the back of her shoulder because somehow, she had managed to duck to her left in time to avoid a full on hit. And in the split second it took for her to dodge and for him to be rooted at the spot in surprise—and awe, but mostly surprise—she had her gun trained on him.
She swore at him in Hebrew, then seemed to realize he didn't understand a word she was saying—well, he understood a few words he had looked up over the years because she kept hurling them at him—and ended her tirade in English saying she could have shot him.
Perhaps he shouldn't have tried to start a snowball fight with her the same day she had threatened to staple him to Vance's door by his Armani tie.
He let out a nervous chuckle. But when she holstered her gun, his right arm seemed to have a mind of its own and threw the other snowball he had been holding. Yes, definite masochistic tendencies.
It hit her right in the face and his eyes went wide. He couldn't resist whooping at the successful hit. How was that even possible, though, she had been staring straight at him?
But then her eyes turned to fire and she stalked towards him. He bent down, grabbed the rest of the snowballs and threw. She deflected most of them, and when he was all out of ammo, he stepped onto the snow covered patch of grass behind him to reload.
He only took his eyes off of her for a second, but when he stood up straight, she was barreling towards him. She was so close already he didn't even have a chance to react. Before he knew it, he was flat on his back, the cold snow slowly seeping into his coat.
"You know, you're not really supposed to tackle someone without even trying to hit them with a snowball."
"I will hit you in the snowballs," she said, almost snarling.
He quirked an eyebrow. "So…no 'that's not my knee' jokes this time, then?" Self-preservation really was a foreign concept.
The blaze in her eyes simmered down to a flicker, though. "Why exactly did you think it was a good idea to start a snowball fight with me?"
Her voice sounded sweet enough, but he knew better than to fall for that.
"You seemed stressed. I thought it might help you chillax."
Ziva rolled her eyes. "You thought attacking me from behind would help me relax?" she said incredulously.
"Well, if you put it like that…"
Her body on top of his was too much of a distraction and his gaze drifted to her mouth and back. When he saw her smoldering look, he was sure his increased body temperature would melt all the snow in the Navy Yard. What he wasn't sure about was whether she was just playing him or actually, seriously, giving him the smolder.
He placed his hands on her waist, convinced he could feel her body heat through all the layers of fabric shielding her from the cold, and the snow underneath him seemed to turn to water faster.
Ziva was still looking at him with eyes like smoldering coals when he heard footsteps approach. Her gaze flicked to his mouth, then to the parking lot, and back to his eyes.
They should probably think about getting up. Not in the least because his ass was going numb from the cold.
"You're still on top of me."
The corners of her eyes crinkled as she stared at his lips again for a moment. "You never seem to like it when I'm on top of you."
"That's because you're always on top of me in the wrong circumstances."
Her mouth quirked, and yes, she was definitely leaning in a little closer now. His lips parted and he smiled slowly, because maybe these circumstances weren't so wrong after all.
And if he lifted his head up just a little-
A snowball thwacked them both in the face due to their close proximity. Ziva sprang up with the agility of a snow leopard, pulling Tony with her—a lot less graceful and trying not to groan—and they watched the red taillights of Gibbs' truck disappear in the distance.
They stood in silence for a few moments, Tony contemplating what could have happened, if they hadn't been interrupted, as usual, Ziva…hopefully doing the same. He turned to look at her, anxious to find out what she was thinking. The frown he encountered was less than helpful.
He shivered, the cold from his wet clothes seeming to seep straight into his bones now that Ziva was no longer covering him like a heated blanket. "My back is freezing," he said with a whine when she finally looked at him curiously.
"If you bring over pizza, I will rub some warmth into it," she said in a voice that almost made him reconsider changing into dry clothes and drive straight to the nearest pizza place instead.
His face split into a grin, because, yes, this could be considered sport flirting, but Ziva would take that term literally, right? And snowball fights can be considered a sport. Sort of? So they had that part covered. And if her dark smoldering eyes were anything to go by, then yes, this was definitely real flirting.
Gibbs was going to kill him.
She looked at him over her shoulder with a smile before getting into her car, and the fluttery feeling in his stomach increased tenfold.
He always knew she'd be the death of him.
A/N: I'm exhausted, if I haven't already replied to your review personally; thank you. And to the guest who's one of my biggest fans; you're making me blush, I don't know how to handle compliments like that (seriously, me...having fans...does not compute).
