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Tony hadn’t had the easiest childhood. His mother had died in childbirth and when Senior remarried… Well… Let’s just say his choice of wife left much to be desired.
Tony would swear she was a witch, though, he had no way to prove it. She spent way more time staring at her mirror than was healthy and Tony swore he’d heard it talk back to her. He spent the vast majority of his time trying to make himself scarce as his stepmother was not a nice person in the slightest.
Still he was a curious child and he heard her ask her mirror more than once, “Who is the fairest in the land?”
He was willing to bet that it was a daily ritual given the number of times he’d heard it. She’d brought her own staff with her when she married and everyone was expected to wait on her every whim, including Tony. Most of the staff weren’t bad.
All of the staff tolerated Tony better than Senior or his stepmother, now, Mrs. Jenny DiNozzo. They'd never gotten along great, but his stepmother had grown increasingly more and more upset with him as he got older for no reason he could determine. He didn't really understand what was going on until the day Kort took him out to the woods.
As soon as they were out of sight of any witnesses, Kort had raised his gun. Tony had looked at him wide-eyed. He didn’t know Kort as well as some, but the guy had snuck him pastries sometimes when he was sent to bed without dinner.
Tony couldn’t believe he was a bad guy. “Why?”
Tears streamed down Tony’s eyes as he stared at Kort, silently begging the man not to kill him. Tony couldn’t help himself as the tears grew and he begged out loud for the man to spare him. He had no idea how long he stood there before Kort finally lowered the gun.
“You’re not safe here,” Kort gruffly explained.
“What?”
“Jenny convinced your father that they would be better off if you were dead.”
“And he believed her?” Tony hiccuped, trying and failing to get control of his tears. His father had never been a great guy, but he hadn’t expected a betrayal like this at twelve.
Kort shrugged. “I only know I was ordered to kill you and bring your heart back as proof.”
”What will you do?”
Kort gestured to the surrounding sylvan area. “There has to be an animal around here that I can kill and take her the heart of. You should go.”
Tony nodded, turning to leave with no idea where he’d go.
“Wait!” Kort called out.
Tony stopped and turned to face Kort, still rubbing at his eyes in an attempt to get the tears to stop.
“There’s a monastery in these woods. You should be able to seek shelter there.” Kort pointed down the path further into the woods.
Tony gulped and nodded, running off before Kort could say anything further. Kort watched him go before heading in the opposite direction to find a suitable animal whose heart he could use. He finally found and killed a deer, packaging the heart up for Jenny and giving the rest of the deer to the kitchen for supper.
Jenny smiled at Kort and he shuddered. There was way too much evil glee in that smile. Kort knew it was time to make himself scarce before Jenny found out what he did.
Tony stumbled through the forest, pushing bushes and brambles out of his way. He really had no idea where he was going. He’d tried to follow the path Kort had gestured to, but it had disappeared on him without any sign of a building of any sort, let alone a monastery.
He was panting, out of breath, with tears streaming down his cheeks when he finally found the nuns. There were seven of them and they’d taken one look at him and immediately drawn him inside.
“What is wrong, child?”
Tony babbled the whole story out to the nuns about his stepmother and father. They exchanged looks and as one nodded, “You can stay here. We will protect you and make sure you grow up strong and healthy.”
Tony thanked them. Mother Superior waved it off and told Sister Josephine to take Tony to one of the spare rooms to rest. The first few years, Jenny would appear at the monastery looking for Tony, but the nuns were always one step ahead of her.
Frustrated, Jenny placed a hit out on Tony’s head. She’d married Senior for the sole purpose of taking advantage of some of his contacts to find “The Frog”, who had murdered her father. She’d had no luck finding La Grenouille, but as Tony continued to remain fairer than her she resorted to using those same contacts to get rid of Tony.
Every attempt failed and she grew angrier and more desperate with each passing year. The nuns had sent Tony off to school at Ohio State University under the cover of darkness to keep him safe. For the first time in Tony’s life, he actually got to spend time with people his own age, but he never forgot the nuns.
At first, he’d thought to make a career of football as he was positive that neither his stepmother nor his father would ever think to look for him there. Unfortunately, that dream bit the dust when an injury during one of the games guaranteed he would never be able to go pro. Tony wrote to the nuns about it and they reminded him that if he went into law enforcement that neither of his parents would be able to touch him anymore.
Tony finished his physical education degree and signed up for the police academy. He easily passed and started work at Peoria. What he didn’t count on was someone finding out where he was and trying to kill him and make it look like an accident.
Needless to say, he decided to move on before someone actually succeeded in killing him. He thought he would be safe in Philadelphia, but after a couple of years he soon found himself running into the same problem again. He managed to get a job in Baltimore before anyone who could actually assassinate him showed up.
Of course, Baltimore turned into an entirely different shit show. Having his partner, Danny, turn on him, when NCIS Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs showed up, ruined his desire to work there. Tony didn’t know whether he should be happy or sad when Gibbs proved that Danny was part of the money laundering scheme going on at the Baltimore PD.
Gibbs offered him a job and Tony accepted, having no idea the effect this decision would have on his life. He didn’t think anything of hearing about Abby’s nuns as he chatted her up. It wasn’t until he went bowling with them one time that he realized that Abby was friends with the same nuns who had kept him safe.
They had a joyful reunion and Tony and Abby were as tight as one could get without being blood relatives after that. Tony actually thought he’d escaped his stepmother’s reach for good at NCIS. He never expected her to become the Director of NCIS.
Still as an agent under her command, he couldn’t exactly refuse her when she ordered him to seduce Jeanne Benoit. It wasn’t the first time, he’d dodged death as an NCIS agent, but having his car explode right in front of him when Jenny was the only one who knew where he was filled Tony with fear.
Honestly, every few years he still had someone try to murder him on Jenny’s behalf. One year, it had been a crazy waitress who chained him to a sewer. Another year, someone had actually sent him the plague.
It was insane that he was still alive and he mostly had Gibbs to thank for that. He wondered if Jenny would succeed in killing him now that she was head of NCIS. It was obvious from the way she interacted with Gibbs that not only was she jealous of Tony’s looks, but she wanted Gibbs as hers.
Tony wondered what she intended to do with Senior, but didn’t spend much time worrying about it. Senior had turned his back on Tony over twenty years ago and made the bed he was lying in. Tony felt no need for revenge against Senior, but he wouldn’t be sad if Senior died because of his own selfish desires after choosing his new wife over his son.
Tony wanted to refuse the summons to Jenny’s home, but couldn’t. The Frog was there as well and Tony hoped this wasn’t going to turn into a complete disaster. Jenny poured them all wine and Tony sipped his, watching Benoit and Jenny.
He wasn’t sure what was going on here. Was Jenny planning to murder Benoit in front of him? Was he supposed to be guarding his stepmother?
He blinked in surprise when Benoit fell over dead. He didn’t see anything that could have caused his death. A minute later, Tony was aware of nothing more as he too fell onto the ground.
Jenny’s smile grew. She had defeated both of her enemies and was free to continue her evil reign. She didn’t count on Gibbs showing up.
“What have you done, Jenny?”
Jenny faked her innocence. “They were like this when I found them.”
Gibbs glared at her as he bent to listen to both of their heartbeats. “How long have they been like this?”
“I have no idea. I just found them.”
Ignoring Jenny, Gibbs started CPR on Tony, covering Tony’s mouth with his before pressing his hands down on Tony’s chest to bring him back to life. Tony coughed and Gibbs breathed a sigh of relief. Jenny cursed under her breath.
An investigation into La Grenouille’s death and Tony’s almost death revealed that they’d both been poisoned and that Tony should have died. No one could explain why Tony was alive. They did know one thing, though, and that was that Jenny was responsible.
Ducky revealed that she was dying anyway and she was placed in a mental hospital for the rest of her life. She was, however, invited to Gibbs' and Tony’s wedding despite her illness and seethed in the corner as true love blossomed between them. Neither Tony nor Gibbs were bothered by her glare, they were too happy with the new relationship they’d discovered when Abby pointed out that true love’s kiss had to be what had saved Tony since he’d drank the same poisoned wine Benoit had.