Chapter Text
Back at the hospital, Tony was starting to wake. His head moved back and forth on the pillow, and he moaned as it jarred his injured shoulder.
Gibbs squeezed Tony’s hand watching him closely. “Tony, Tony,” he stated trying to get Tony to open his eyes and look at him.
Groggily, Tony opened his eyes. “Boss? Wha happened?” He slurred.
“We can go over that when Fornell gets here. Let me call the doctors to let them know you’re awake.” Gibbs squeezed Tony’s hand again in an attempt to express how worried he was.
Tony smiled slightly at Gibbs. “I’m ok, Jethro,” he tried to reassure Gibbs. Tony could tell that Gibbs was really affected by him getting hurt and wanted to make his lover feel better.
Gibbs squeezed Tony’s hand again not knowing how else to express himself and waited for the doctor to arrive.
Fornell arrived shortly after the doctor did and asked if Tony was up to giving his statement. The doctor gave the go ahead provided the patient didn’t get too overwhelmed or anxious. Fornell nodded in acquiescence and entered the room.
Gibbs nodded at Fornell in greeting, but otherwise paid attention only to Tony.
“Fornell.” Tony greeted. He was in pain, but it wasn’t really anything more than he was used to. Of course, he was probably still on pain medication since he was in the hospital.
“You ready to give a statement?” Fornell asked DiNozzo.
“Sure. Though Gibbs can probably tell you more than I can.” Tony reasoned, figuring that Gibbs had actually been conscious and more likely to remember things.
“I’ve already taken Gibbs statement.” Fornell stated not wanting to spend time arguing.
“Ok. Hit me with it.” Tony braced himself for the worst. While he didn’t hate Fornell, Fornell and him had ended up on opposite sides too many times for him to truly trust the man.
Gibbs glared at Fornell warning him not to step out of line.
“Let’s start with when you left NCIS, last night. What time was that? What did you do after you left?” Fornell practically interrogated Tony trying to get to the bottom of what had happened and why Tony was at Gibbs' house, in the first place.
“Is this really necessary, Fornell?” Tony really didn’t want his relationship with Gibbs to go on trial here.
“Yes. It’s possible the gunmen followed you to Gibbs house.” Fornell pointed out.
“Fine. I left work around 5:30pm. I stopped at a couple of stores to pick up some groceries and some of the bourbon Gibbs likes. Then I headed over to Gibbs. I didn’t see anyone suspicious in the stores or at Gibbs' place when I arrived. However, shortly after arriving, Gibbs and I were both shot at. I’m sure the doctor has already told you my injuries. I did notice from my vantage point which I think was better than Gibbs that one of them had brown hair and brown eyes and looked to be in his mid forties,” Tony rattled off like a soldier giving a battlefield report.
“Great, that’s more than we had to go on before. Anything else?” Fornell asked with an edge of excitement, as he began to hope that they might actually be able to find these guys now.
Thinking hard, Tony described, “It looked like there were four of them. Though there may have been more in the vehicle that I couldn’t see. I remember two blonde haired guys and a black haired guy as well.”
“Thank you, DiNozzo.” Fornell nodded to him. Turning to Gibbs, he handed him the statement he’d made the day before. “If you’ll just sign this I’ll be on my way.”
Gibbs quickly reviewed the statement to make sure everything was accurate and then scribbled his signature at the bottom handing it back to Fornell and making a shooing motion. Fornell rolled his eyes, but left as commanded.
Fornell called his FBI teams on the way to NCIS headquarters to give them the information he’d gotten from DiNozzo and get someone to start researching as well as typing up DiNozzo’s statement. At NCIS headquarters, he immediately dropped by McGee’s desk.
“DiNozzo was able to give us descriptions. We’re looking for at least four men. two blonde, one black haired, and one brown haired with brown eyes in his mid forties,” Fornell announced as he entered the bullpen.
McGee wracked his brain. He knew that last description sounded familiar. Talking out loud to himself, a habit picked up from Tony, McGee murmured, “That last one sounds like Anton Pavlenko, but I thought he was supposed to be cooperating with us.”
“Perhaps he’s not cooperating as much as we thought,” Fornell remarked snidely.
“This doesn’t make sense.” McGee muttered as he pulled up Anton Pavlenko’s profile.
“What?” Fornell questioned.
“Someone has changed the data for Anton Pavlenko since the last time I looked at this about a month ago when he helped us stage the trap for Sergei Mishnev. You were there. You killed Mishnev,” McGee pointed out.
“But everything in his profile has changed except some of the basic background and photo. It’s like he’s a completely different person now,” McGee continued.
“Sounds like someone should pay him a visit. You got an address,” Fornell demanded.
McGee rattled off the last known address and Fornell sent an FBI team to check it out.
“Look into all the changes as well as his known associates. See if any of them fit any of the other descriptions that DiNozzo gave,” Fornell ordered.
McGee nodded barely paying any attention to Fornell, already engrossed in his computer and finding the information needed to pin down the gunmen who shot at Gibbs and Tony.
Fornell sighed when he realized he’d lost McGee’s attention and headed up the stairs to report to Vance.
Bishop returned from getting lunch for McGee and her to find McGee working away at the computer faster than she’d ever seen him do before. “Did we get a clue?”
McGee half nodded still mostly focused on his computer.
“Well what do we know then?” Bishop pried, attempting to figure out how she could help.
Barely glancing up, McGee listed out the basic facts, “Looks like Anton Pavlenko is one of the gunmen. I’m currently tracing anyone he’s ever been associated with, trying to find two blondes and a black haired man.”
“Great. I’ll run down his financials and see if we can find anything from there.” Bishop muttered immediately pitching in, after dropping McGee’s lunch on his desk and returning to her desk.
Shortly after looking at the financials, Bishop piped up. “I thought we killed Mishnev.”
“Fornell did. We all checked and confirmed it. Why?” McGee replied, not really paying attention as he searched for other associates that could be tied to Pavlenko.
“Because it appears he deposited two thousand dollars into Anton Pavlenko’s account two days ago,” Bishop mused out loud.
“What?” McGee gasped his attention fully on Bishop now.
“Yeah. Are we sure he’s dead?” Bishop couldn't help asking.
“We better bring Vance in on this. He’s the one who confirmed Mishnev was dead.” McGee glanced with trepidation up to Vance’s office. This was turning into a clusterfuck that he really wanted no part of, but he would do this for Tony.
When they brought these findings to Vance, he muttered. “It was confirmed by a doctor Lavrentiy Stanislavovich and then it would have followed normal procedures which in this case would have been to send his body to next of kin.”
McGee thumbed through the printouts of Anton Pavlenko’s known associates and discovered a Lavrentiy (Stanislavovich) Startsev on there with black hair. “I think someone faked his death, Vance. Tony identified a black haired assailant which would match nicely to Anton Pavlenko’s known associate Lavrentiy (Stanislavovich) Startsev. He was probably going by Lavrentiy Stanislavovich when you met him as a doctor to avoid suspicion.”
“Damn it.” Vance cursed. “That means Mishnev is still alive and still determined to get his revenge on Gibbs for Ari Haswari’s death.”
“And he’s using Tony to do it.” McGee murmured.
“I want every NCIS agent working around the clock to find Mishnev. Even if he wasn’t one of the attackers, he’s the one behind this attack.” Vance ordered.
McGee nodded as he and Ellie left to do their part in searching. Vance was on the phone with the FBI and his team leads before they even made it out of his office.
When Fornell heard this bit of information, he immediately ordered the guards for DiNozzo tripled. “No one gets in that room without Gibbs or my permission. You got it?” He demanded.
The FBI agents nodded seriously and assumed their posts at the designated places in the hospital. Four of them were stationed outside DiNozzo’s room as Fornell entered to give Gibbs and DiNozzo the bad news.
Gibbs kissed DiNozzo to cheer him up after the bad news the doctors had given him about how long he had to stay in the hospital.
“Gibbs,” Tobias complained, “I didn’t need to see that. I was perfectly happy not knowing about any relationship between you and DiNozzo.”
Gibbs glared at Fornell. “Why are you here?”
“It appears we have a problem, gentlemen,” Fornell stated.
“Spit it out, Tobias,” Gibbs commanded.
DiNozzo looked back and forth between Gibbs and Fornell worried that if Fornell didn’t start explaining fur was going to fly.
Sometimes Fornell really hated his job. “We believe that Mishnev is still alive. It appears that despite my having shot him point blank, he somehow survived and the attending physician a Lavrentiy Stanislavovich is better known as Lavrentiy Startsev one of Anton Pavlenko’s known associates.”
“What?” Gibbs yelled.
“So Mishnev is still after Gibbs for revenge?” DiNozzo asked trying to keep his cool. “And he’s chosen me as the way to hurt Gibbs the most?”
“Well given your relationship, I’m sure it makes sense,” Fornell replied.
“We make damn sure to keep our relationship low key, Tobias,” Gibbs growled.
“Nonetheless, he seems to have found out about it. Why else would he target DiNozzo?” Fornell pointed out.
Gibbs snarled at a loss for an answer.
“What’s being done to find him?” DiNozzo queried.
“Vance has all NCIS agents searching for him and I’ve got my FBI team looking as well,” Tobias explained.
“Well what are you doing here?” Gibbs glared. “Go find him and put him away for good this time.”
Fornell sputtered as he left. “This is the thanks I get for keeping them in the loop.”
Once Fornell was gone, Tony turned to Gibbs. “Jethro. Jethro. Calm down.” He patted Gibbs hand as well as he could connected to the bed and all the machines.
Too worried about Tony to keep his thoughts in his head, Gibbs spouted. “We need to get Pitt in here and make sure that only doctors and nurses he trusts are allowed in. He’ll understand when I explain the situation to him.”
Tony rolled his eyes as Gibbs ignored him and focused on trying to protect him. It was sweet, but it could also be very annoying. “Fine. Go ahead and call Pitt, but only if you promise to calm down and stay put after he’s been informed.”
Gibbs turned his glare on DiNozzo, who was too used to it to be phased by it anymore.
“You know that doesn’t work on me. Besides if this really is Mishnev, who better to stay here with me than you. I know you’ll stop him from getting to me if he does try to kill me again in the hospital.” Tony calmly reasoned.
Just then Dr. Pitt entered the room. “What can I do for you Gibbs?”
Gibbs quickly explained the situation and Dr. Pitt nodded. “I’ll see to it. Get better, Tony.” Pitt smiled at him.
“Now can you relax, please?” Tony begged. “You know I hate seeing you get worked up like this.”
Gibbs grumbled, but stopped his pacing and settled in the chair by Tony’s bedside again.
Tony smiled slightly at Gibbs knowing that was the best he was going to get for now until Gibbs believed he was out of danger. He’d be lucky if he could even get the man to leave to feed himself or shower or anything like that now.
Unfortunately for Tony, he’d been correct about how difficult it would be to get Gibbs to leave. “You stink,” he complained.
Gibbs glared.
“If you won’t leave me alone at least get someone you trust to guard me while you take a shower in my bathroom or something,” Tony muttered.
“Fine.” Gibbs would have pouted, except that was against his nature, so his lips just turned down in a frown instead.
Gibbs called Ducky knowing that despite his appearance he was a lot more skilled at defending someone than he let on.
Fornell’s glare deepened as he listened to the person on the other end of the phone. He hated having to tell other agencies that the FBI screwed the pooch, but apparently the team that he’d sent to check out Anton Pavlenko’s house was full of idiots. Instead of making it seem like a random visit, they’d revealed that they suspected Pavlenko.
Now, he had two dead FBI agents and two dead gunmen, two blondes named Rasim Kipriyanov and Borislav Butylin, and he suspected that Pavlenko and Mishnev had gone to ground with the doctor who was also probably the fourth gunmen. This was going to make finding them even more difficult.
Fornell headed over to the FBI office to let NCIS know what had happened before he headed to the hospital where he dreaded telling Gibbs that the FBI had managed to screw it up and let Pavlenko get away so that he could warn Mishnev and Startsev.
As expected Gibbs snarled and glared and stomped around like a wounded bear at this news.
Tony poked fun at Fornell. “This is why we don’t like you Feebies messing with our crime scenes. You always screw something up.”
Ducky tried to calm Gibbs down. “I’m happy to stay with Tony if you feel you need to be involved in this investigation, Jethro.”
Gibbs stoutly refused to leave, “No, no. I’m staying with Tony. I need him. I can’t trust his safety to anyone else. Sorry, Duck.”
Tony rolled his eyes, but secretly he liked how worried and possessive Gibbs got whenever he was in the hospital.
After Fornell, left Gibbs immediately called Balboa demanding that he take over the investigation and search for Pavlenko, Mishnev, and Startsev stating that the FBI had already screwed up once and they couldn’t afford another screw up.
Balboa sighed, but agreed. He didn’t want someone out after DiNozzo with revenge in mind anymore than Gibbs did. Tony had helped him out many times. He’d often, in his free time, taken a look at a case that Balboa’s team was stuck on and found the missing piece. Plus, he was one of theirs and they didn’t take kindly to one of theirs being hurt or targeted.
Vance backed Balboa taking over saying they’d share the investigation, but NCIS would have lead now. McGee and Bishop immediately started searching for any sign of the three remaining suspects. Abby was also searching. They all wanted to visit Tony at the hospital, but knew that with Gibbs there it was better for them to remain at NCIS unless they wanted Gibbs yelling at them for not being 100% focused on finding the people after Tony.
One of the many computers McGee had set up beeped letting him know that it had something. He’d set up so many computers trying to find anything on the three remaining that they knew of that they’d even taken over Gibbs and Tony’s desk. If Gibbs had been here he’d probably have a fit, but since Gibbs was still at the hospital, McGee felt safe for now.
“I’ve got something!” McGee yelled.
Balboa, Bishop, Fornell, and Balboa’s team all came running. They’d been waiting for a break. “What have you got, McGee?” Balboa asked.
“Pavlenko has a property under an alias that’s associated with both him and Mishnev from their college years. It’s mostly been unused, but right now the electricity readings indicate at least one if not more than one person is present,” McGee reported.
Vance came downstairs as well and nodded. “Balboa, setup a strike team and coordinate this. We need them alive. If Mishnev won’t die at least we can put him in jail for the rest of his miserable life. Plus, I want to know why they’re going after DiNozzo. Revenge on Gibbs isn’t a good enough reason in my book.”
Balboa nodded and had McGee pull up the schematics for the house as he immediately started planning the best way to make sure everyone came home alive while still capturing all the expected enemies. “Can we get satellite on the house and find out how many occupants it actually has? Are all three of them there? Do they have more bodyguards?”
Abby raced down to her lab. “I’ll see to it,” she called over her shoulder.
Finally, Balboa felt they had enough information and were ready to strike and arrest those present in the house. He’d even gotten a warrant for searching the house, so that nothing could be thrown out in court.
Fornell had provided two FBI teams. Balboa had them stationed on the two sides of the house that didn’t have doors only windows to catch any would be escapers via the unexpected escape routes. NCIS had the main escape routes covered as they snuck up behind the house carefully so as to not reveal they were there.
Balboa made sure everyone was in position on all sides of the house before he ordered the team at the front of the house to enter. They knocked on the door and immediately kicked it down when the response was the people in the house opening on them with gunfire.
They had snipers positioned around the house who were picking off anyone who’s gunfire made their position obvious as the rest of the teams worked to clear the house. In the living room, they found Mishnev. As expected he didn’t go down quietly. In fact, he almost pinned the entire front team down by himself.
Fortunately, they had a second front team that had swept the other side of the building first where they found no one before running into one of the teams that had come in through the back. The second front team then continued to sweep the front of the house ending up doubling back and covering Mishnev from the other side of the room so that they could get in and arrest him though not before someone shot him in the leg to make sure he couldn’t run away.
The back teams found Pavlenko in an office of some sort and the doctor, Startsev, immediately surrendered when they found him in a bedroom claiming that he didn’t want to do it and that he was sorry. Pavlenko snorted at him in disgust as they brought him into the same room as Pavlenko.
Once the prisoners and the remaining gunmen had been sent back to NCIS and FBI holding cells respectively, the teams swept the house more thoroughly looking for any evidence they could find. Balboa was surprised when one of the teams found a handwritten note purporting to be from Ari.
They bagged it and took it back to NCIS for further research as well as anything else they could find. Fornell was happy to be able to tell Gibbs that the three were in custody and that it wouldn’t be much longer now before it was over and Tony and him were safe again.
Gibbs grunted. “Good. You better not mess this up, now, Tobias,” Gibbs growled menacingly.
Tony rolled his eyes and grabbed Gibbs hand as soon as he slammed his cell phone shut. “Calm down. I still have a few more days in this icky hospital. Keep me company and cheer me up?” Tony asked hoping to appeal to the softer side of Gibbs and chase the growly Gibbs bear away, at least temporarily.
Balboa and Fornell questioned Pavlenko together. They wanted to know when exactly he had double crossed them. Pavlenko laughed in their face, he’d been double crossing them from the start. Mishnev had always had his loyalty over NCIS. In fact, he ended up going into great detail about how easy it had been to pull the wool over their eyes so that Mishnev had time to heal and they could plot a better way to get back at Gibbs.
Mishnev and Pavlenko had returned to the summer home they found them in while Mishnev was supposed to be dead to allow him to rest and recover. While they were there, they stumbled on the note Ari had apparently left them. Ari didn’t spend much time at the summer home, but he had frequented it during his breaks from college and he knew that it was one of Mishnev and Pavlenko’s favorite places.
In the note, he’d detailed out all the information he’d found on Gibbs including his suspicion that Gibbs and DiNozzo were in a relationship. Mishnev had run with this information and demanded that Pavlenko take DiNozzo out. Mishnev had been pissed at what had gone down at Gibbs’ house since they’d not succeeded in taking out DiNozzo and Gibbs was still alive and well forewarned now.
Startsev spilled everything including how Mishnev and Pavlenko had had a falling out over the failure as Mishnev saw it at Gibbs’ house. Pavlenko had thought that it could be used to their advantage, but Mishnev disagreed. They’d spent so much time arguing that Startsev was convinced that prison would be less painful than remaining with them.
Mishnev refused to sign a confession. He wasn’t sorry for what he did. In fact, he yelled, "Gibbs deserved worse!" when they tried to get him to sign a confession based on his interrogations. Fornell just rolled his eyes and carted Mishnev off to their holding cells to await his trial. They had enough evidence they didn’t need the idiot’s confession.
Startsev signed his confession and pledged to take the stand for the state on the other two’s trials for a lesser sentence though he’d still be in prison most of his life.
Pavlenko was even crazier than Mishnev. He also wouldn’t sign despite having given them plenty of evidence against him in interrogations. He just kept ranting about how awesome he was for having pulled the wool over their eyes.
Abby, McGee, Bishop, and Balboa’s team took charge of gift wrapping the evidence and handing it to the DA with a bow tied around it. They didn't want any chance for the DA to lose the case. By the time they were done, all the loose ends were tied up and proven via evidence.
Then it was time for Tony to get out of the hospital. Led by Balboa, McGee, Bishop, Abby, and Jimmy had pitched in to clean up Gibbs’ house along with Balboa’s team, so that it was livable again. They replaced the broken window glass with a more bullet resistant glass. They also made a few other minor improvements, while they cleaned up the rest of the place. McGee had tried to replace everything that had gotten broken as best as he could and all the items they’d taken for evidence that weren’t needed had been returned except for the ones no one would want back, like the food Gibbs had been cooking that night.
Once the house was hospitable again, McGee, Bishop, Abby, Ducky, and Palmer all headed over to the hospital to give hugs and wish Tony a swift recovery. They also planned to help get him settled in at Gibbs’ house now that he was being released.
They all came bearing excessive gifts to apologize for not visiting him while the case was still active. He waved them off saying it wasn’t a big deal that he knew they were working on the case and that they’d already given him the best present by doing such a good job that Gibbs felt comfortable staying at the hospital and by allowing Gibbs to stay at the hospital during the case without bothering either of them to help with the case.
He even said he was proud of them. He gave each of them a hug before allowing himself to be bundled up into Gibbs car and taken back to Gibbs house. He couldn’t wait to get home. He hadn’t been able to talk Gibbs into any fun at the hospital.
Now that they’d be sleeping in the same bed together again, he’d stand a better chance at seducing Gibbs. Plus Gibbs had promised to make up for their ruined date night before Tony returned to work. Tony couldn’t wait for that either.