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“Left something in the car. Be right back.”
Miraculously enough, he manages to keep his tone light—normal. Whatever that is. It doesn’t matter. Dropping his things rather unceremoniously by McGee’s—no…his?—desk, he turns and punches the call button for the elevator with perhaps a little more force than is necessary.
Stepping inside as the door gives its painfully cheerful chime, he thinks for a moment—just a moment—that he’ll actually make it out. Then a hand appears in the door, milliseconds before the doors themselves slide back open and ruin it for him. He says nothing as his former boss steps in, unsure of quite what will come out and opting instead to stare at the wall.
As usual, Gibbs stalls the elevator, but neither man speaks for a moment.
“That wall do something to you, DiNozzo?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Inwardly, Gibbs flinches slightly at the steely, formal tone that oozes too much rehearsed, professional courtesy in a way that Tony has never done with him.
“You’re boring holes in the damn wall.”
No shit, Sherlock. “I hadn’t realized.”
Again, silence, and Tony is perfectly happy to remain that way—something that Ziva and McGee would have probably both attested would never happen. But you’re tired of me, anyway, he thinks sardonically.
“You intend to go somewhere, or are we waiting for someone to break the door down?”
Tony levels a smooth, polished gaze on the other man, keeping his face blank. “I don’t know—why don’t you tell me? If I recall correctly, you are the one who stopped it. You seem to know vast amounts of what is going on with my team lately, anyway.”
“You trying to make a point?”
“I think I already did. You certainly made yours.”
An eyebrow quirks upward—Gibbs’ stare. “And that would be…?”
“You clearly don’t see me fit to do your job—the job you quit. I will hand in my resignation to the director within the hour.”
Where the hell did that come from? Tony himself hadn’t planned on that one, but the momentary shock in the older man’s eyes is almost worth it.
“I won’t accept it.”
“It’s my team—or rather, it was. I don’t have to have your approval to leave.” There is a pause. “You sure as hell didn’t need anyone’s approval.”
“You aren’t me.”
“I see that—you and everyone else around here have made that abundantly clear. I’m sure my resignation will not be a problem.”
“They’ve relegated you to fishing for compliments now?”
And there sparks a fire—ever so subtle, but Gibbs has spent too much time with him not to notice it—in his eyes, though the anger doesn’t travel to his expression. “It’s normal, isn’t it? Handing the cast-offs to me for safe-keeping until you see fit in your worldly mind to come back and relieve me of my burden?”
Gibbs fights the urge to slap the other agent upside the head—bastard he may be, but he isn’t stupid, and he knows that could very well be the concluding point of the conversation, along with Tony’s employment. “So this has been a burden for four months, DiNozzo? Was that it?”
“Oh, I didn’t think so,” Tony drawls out, and the flatness is back in his eyes. “Or it wasn’t until you walked back in that damn door.”
“You couldn’t handle the team?” the older man snaps back, unwilling to acknowledge the twinge of hurt those words cause. “My Senior Field Agent couldn’t run this in my absence?”
“You clearly didn’t think so—you came back. Who called you this time? Ziva again? To tell you how sick she is of my “leadership”? The Director? To tell you I fucked up so badly that you have to sacrifice that vacation or retirement or whatever disguise you’re naming it and come back to pick up the pieces?”
The bitterness surprises both of them to some degree—Gibbs because he’s never heard that tone in his agent’s voice, and Tony because he’s never thought he’d say it that way. But the dice have been cast, and they’re both too stubborn to back down now.
“You think she was going to find me out there?”
The derisive laugh he gets in answer bites deeper than it should. “You think I believe you didn’t want her to?”
Tony’s never brought up his boss’s past relationship with their Director—until now, and Gibbs doesn’t ignore the fact that he’s treading on forbidden ground.
“Watch yourself, DiNozzo!”
“Why? I quit listening to you, Jethro,” he says, and the use of his first name is an insult this time. “I quit listening, because where the hell did it get me? I did your bidding for three years, and all I got was a ‘You’ll do’?”
“What the hell did you want? An award ceremony? A medal of honor for picking up the team when I gave the order?”
“That was an order? I don’t recall you telling me anything that passed for one—or is your memory still so gone that you don’t remember that conversation?”
“I never gave you an implicit order before, DiNozzo?” He’s forgotten how good the younger man is at verbal sparring—he’s never gone a round with him like this before.
“That’s right,” Tony spits, and somehow his face remains passive despite the tone. “You took a vacation. You really didn’t quit—we all imagined that. And taking a vacation isn’t important enough for you to actually do anything before you leave!”
“And you’ve spent three years with me and still haven’t figured that much out?”
“I thought I knew you!”
“You thought wrong,” Gibbs snaps, and he can almost hear the shutters fall over the younger man’s eyes.
“I guess I did.”
It’s a monotone now, and that scares him, because when Anthony DiNozzo puts up the glass walls, no one gets through, and it’s no longer of any importance that he broke his two-year track record if he can’t keep him on.
He sees the hand moving toward the button that will release one of them—though which of them exactly remains to be seen—and says the only thing he can think of that might get him to stay. If he’s honest with himself, he should have said it long ago, but experience has taught him well that hindsight is a bitch—and she bites hard.
“Because if you had, DiNozzo,” he continues then, as if the other man hadn’t spoken, “you’d be damn well aware that I would never have given you the team if I didn’t know you could do it. The others want to bitch and moan at you, let them, for God’s sake! You want their respect, you work for it!”
And the faint tie established by the first words breaks again with an audible snap as Tony spins to face him directly, and though he hasn’t taken a step forward, he may as well be standing on Gibbs’ shoes.
“They don’t respect me because you didn’t! As far as they’re concerned, you handed it to me because you had to—because if you’d handed it to Ziva or McGee the rest of the agency would have gone ballistic!” he snaps, and how anyone can be so loud while hissing is utterly incomprehensible.
“And since when have I given a damn about protocol?” Gibbs snaps, and it is he who takes that step forward, forcing himself into the other agent’s space. “If I wanted to give the team to Ziva, I’d have given the damn team to Ziva! To hell with what the agency wants! But she’d have gotten herself in trouble for recklessness, and McGee would have done the same cause he’s too damn cautious. You had that balance—or maybe you don’t have it anymore, and that’s why you’re acting like such a—”
“Bastard?” Tony cuts him off coldly. “What can I say? I learned from the best.”
“You did. Now use it.”
Silence falls for the briefest moment, and Gibbs is suddenly aware of how bad a headache he has—listening to the words bounce off the interior of an elevator will do that to you, and he’s desperate for another cup of coffee. If, that is, he doesn’t end up pouring it all over Tony’s head.
“Fine.” The one word breaks Gibbs’ wandering line of thought, and he glares. “I’ll use it to get myself fired, since you obviously see fit to exercise your power and keep me here. The Director can fire me instead.”
“I still don’t have to take it.” He’s too tired to fight this one further—they can go for another six hours and still not be done—and yet he’s too much a stubborn ass to back down.
“And what—hire me back under an alias? Should I be getting a fake ID in line because that’s what Leroy Jethro Gibbs wants from me?”
Gibbs fights the urge to roll his eyes. “Stop acting like a petulant child and pick up your brain from wherever you deposited it.” He takes another step forward, getting right in his agent’s face—and he’ll be damned if Anthony DiNozzo ever stops being “his agent”, regardless of where either of them are—as he braces his hands on either side of his shoulders, boxing him in. “You’re a damn good agent, Tony; remember that and start acting like it.”
Cornered as he is, part of Tony still won’t back down, though he curses himself for softening at that compliment. “You ever think that a phone call would have been nice?” he asks instead of responding. “Something acknowledging us? Something telling me you were back?”
“No. I left for a reason—and that wasn’t so the world could track me down. If I thought you needed the assurance, I wouldn’t have left.”
Tony sighs now, and it’s as though he’s deflating: the anger’s dissipating, replaced by something akin to misery.
“You don’t want me back.”
The words are obvious, he said them to Jen Sheppard not five hours ago, and they should have been said to Tony a long time ago. But he says them anyway, because he knows too well that he ignored his agent’s last question—the one that should have been answered—and has nowhere else to take this conversation. Neither of them do, now that they’ve both had two extra seconds to take half an extra breath and think.
“I don’t know what I want. We picked ourselves back up and somehow managed to find a way to plow forward after you left,” Tony tells him, and though his speech is calmer now, the accusations still lie in his eyes. “We managed—we came back without you there. And then you show up again like nothing happened. What the hell are we supposed to think?”
Gibbs just watches him now, not answering, and Tony searches his face like he’s looking for the answers to the universe. God only knows if he finds them, and Gibbs won’t bother to ask, because Tony gives the slightest shake of his head and smacks the button to set the elevator back on track.
Just before the doors open, he casts a sideways glance at Gibbs—right after his boss has just done the same to him. They both know that they each have questions to answer, that the spoken and unspoken comments will not be held against the other.
“I should have had that notarized,” Tony mutters half to himself, and Gibbs doesn’t have to ask what he’s talking about.
Instead, just as the doors slide open, he reaches up and whacks his agent on the back of the head.
“Your memory’s like an elephant, DiNozzo,” he adds. “You don’t need it notarized.”
Finis.
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