Work Text:
He knew the moment he saw Ziva’s face fall. He’d suspected—he had put four in Michael’s chest, after all—but the man had still been breathing—barely, critically—when the ambulance had arrived. More than Tony had expected.
Someone was approaching, footsteps barely audible even on the squeaky linoleum: Gibbs.
“Tony.”
It was said so softly, so gently, so un-Gibbs-ly.
Tony didn’t turn around, not sure he could handle the un-Gibbs expression that went with that tone of voice. He watched Ziva step back against the far wall, tuck her head against her chest and close her eyes.
“I’m okay. Got a fractured radius, a subluxed shoulder, and some bruised ribs, but…”
Ziva’s breathing picked up, her chest rising and falling at a quicker interval than before. She was crying then, a pain he had put there.
“I had new intel,” he said to Gibbs, who hadn’t yet moved any closer. Not like when Franks had attacked him, and Gibbs had confirmed the EMT’s verdict by checking his pupillary reaction for himself. It was so rare, his boss touching him—his face especially—in a way that wasn't a head slap.
“I went to talk to Ziva. Question Ziva.”
“DiNozzo.” Still soft, still gentle. And for some reason, that made him angry.
Tony whirled around, red tinging at the edges of his vision—red for this whole stupid, fucked-up situation where he’d had to shoot his partner’s boyfriend because Ziva had withheld evidence, because Rivkin, super assassin that he was hadn’t stopped, hadn’t left him a choice.
“When I saw him there, I tried to arrest him. He attacked me. We fought. He broke my arm, fell on a table, had this huge piece of glass stuck in his side. I begged him to stop, but he pulled the glass out and came toward me. I had no choice.”
“DiNozzo.”
Damn, couldn’t Gibbs say anything else? I believe you. Are you sure you’re okay? Neither were very Gibbs-like, but then again, neither was this robot-Gibbs in front of him. Sure, they hadn’t been quite in sync for a while, especially since Jenny’s death—realistically, since Gibbs had come back from his hiatus—but Tony didn’t know it had gotten this bad. Gibbs had had his back during the Remy situation, but he’d also sent him on a war game blind a few months back: a war game which had garnered him yet another head injury without so much as an ‘you good?’ from Gibbs when he’d finally been released.
“It was justified,” Tony finished, the anger dying out as he saw absolutely nothing on his boss’s face. Fine. He’d pulled himself through on his own before—last year especially, alone on a ship full of five thousand people who hated his guts. He could pull himself through this one too.
“There are going to be a lot of people wanting answers.”
“Tell them to read my report.”
He stepped forward, ready to walk past his boss, who finally moved, holding out his hand to slow Tony’s progress.
“Hey, DiNozzo!”
“Can you say something other than my name for once!” Tony snapped.
“Like what?”
“You believe me, for starters.”
“I believe you.”
Tony rolled his eyes, pinched at the bridge of his nose to ward off a rapidly building headache. “2/10 for believability there, Gibbs. Plus, it would have sounded a lot more genuine without the prompting.”
“You didn’t give me much chance—”
“You had plenty of chances. You chose to just repeat my name!”
“—to get the whole story. The call from the ambulance was all staticky.”
That gave Tony a brief pause. “Oh.”
Gibbs stepped closer, looking Tony over with a critical eye. “You need a cast for your arm?”
“What?”
“Your arm. Does it need a cast?”
“Well, yeah, eventually. But I had to—”
Gibbs shook his head. “Go get that taken care of, now, before something shifts. Then write up what happened before you forget.”
“I won’t forget.” He wasn’t likely to ever forget.
Gibbs didn't respond, staring silently at Tony.
“I know, though, boss,” he sighed after a beat. “Dotting ‘i’s and crossing ‘t’s. All that fun stuff for the IA bloodhounds…” He trailed off, letting the ambient sounds of the ER wash over him, before asking, “What are you going to do?” When Gibbs looked over at him, silently, Tony bit back a groan. “Super-secret team leader stuff. Got it.”
He was not expecting an answer at all, but to his great surprise, Gibbs said, “First, I have to talk to Ziva. Get her side of the story. Then, check on Rivkin.”
“He’s dead. Doctor told Ziva before you got here.”
Gibbs’ expression didn’t change. Not an eyebrow, not a lip purse, nothing to let Tony know what he was thinking. Which is what made his next statement all that more surprising: “You’re coming to stay with me, tonight.”
“What? Gibbs, no!” They hadn’t had that level of closeness in a long time, and especially tonight, after everything that had happened, Tony wanted anything but being the person who filled an otherwise silent house with meaningless conversation. He wanted to go home, take some Tylenol, and lick his wounds in his own brand of silence.
“You just killed one of Mossad’s best assassins, Tony.”
“You think someone might come after me?”
Gibbs finally allowed an expression to come to his face: a single eyebrow lift, slight head tilt, a classic and silent ‘what do you think?’ that Tony cursed he could still read so well.
“I’ll manage fine on my own, Gibbs.”
“Did I make it sound like a question?”
“No. But you weren’t expecting a real answer either. I’m. Fine.”
“You won’t be once you take the painkillers I know you refused.”
“Aaaaand I won’t be taking them now, not after you just said you think someone is after me.”
“You need to be at your best, Tony. We have a long road ahead of us.”
“Do we? Really?” Tony all but spat. “From where I’m sitting, I just teed up Vance another opportunity to fire me. You don’t have any involvement with this.”
“Because you didn’t come to me.”
“You told me to stay on it! Which… spoiler alert, I did! Nowhere in there did you say check in with you before I go do my job.”
Gibbs’ expression changed again: furrowed brows, one corner of his mouth twitching. Was that… concern? “What’s this really about, DiNozzo?” he asked calmly, as if Tony hadn’t just word vomited all over his boss.
Everything. Nothing. Tony exhaled, feeling the weight of every one of his years.
“I’m just tired, boss.” Tired of being lied to, tired of being hung out to dry, tired of being the whipping boy, the red-headed stepchild. Tired of doing a job where orders were orders, but also sometimes not? That grey area he really hated, more and more every day.
“Tony.”
“What?”
A calloused hand was under his chin, lifting slightly, gently, keeping Tony from looking away. “I believe you.”
“Gibbs...”
“Tell me I’m lying.”
He wasn’t. It was plain to see, no polygraph or special training needed. It was equally exhausting, though, that they even needed to have this check.
“I have your six on this, Tony. But we—you—have to be smart. Staying by yourself, up all night, in pain, is not that.”
“Gibbs…”
“We’ll order in, put on a movie, or you can go straight to bed. No talking unless you want to.”
Tony supposed that all made sense, and to get an offer of a movie from Gibbs meant the boss was really, really trying. “We should talk, though,” he said. “One day.” See if they couldn’t get back in sync.
Gibbs nodded. “But not tonight.”
The way Tony’s arm and shoulder were aching, he knew he didn’t have long before he would be forced to resort to those painkillers, despite how weird they made him feel. Before that though, he had an IA report to fill out, and an interview not long after, hopefully in the morning if he was lucky.
He let out a long breath, shifted his weight to ease some of the pressure on his lower back. “I gotta be honest, I’m not very hungry.”
“Eat what you can. You need your strength.”
Short, simple. No grey area. He could do that. “Okay,” Tony acquiesced.
Gibbs’ hand moved to his shoulder, resting there for a long moment. “Go write it up. Balboa is going to stay with you until I can get to my place.”
Another order. No hidden agenda, no ulterior motive. One he could follow. “Okay, boss.”
Gibbs smiled, genuinely, leaving Tony blinking at the sight. It was gone as quick as it’d come, however, Gibbs clasping his shoulder gently yet supportively before he walked through the swinging doors to talk to Ziva.