Chapter Text
“Coach Tony! Can I talk to you a minute?”
Tony stopped in the middle of the locker-lined hallway leading to his office and started to turn around. “Su—” was all he got out before a vicious right cross connected with his jaw.
He went down hard, his hand automatically going for his holster, which he hadn’t worn in about four years. Since Ziva’s death. Since he’d stepped down as an agent to find something more stable (less life-threatening, more 9-5) to raise Tali.
Coming up empty, Tony tried to shake the stars from his eyes while putting as much space between him and his assailant as possible. His brain scrambled for options or weapons, but per policy, all the lockers and classrooms were locked at the end of each school day, and Zac the janitor had done a bang-up job as always, leaving not a single pen or paper clip he could use to his advantage.
Tony tried to block the foot headed for his midsection but his reflexes were slowed by years of—honestly? Not needing them. He’d kept up with martial arts and boxing, but there was no substitute for the real-life fighting. And it was showing.
That and the fact he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since Tali came home with the stomach flu last Friday, and man, if he thought being sick was bad as an adult, it had all but ripped his heart out to see his little girl suffering for days on end.
Air whooshed out of Tony’s lungs as the boot made contact and he collapsed back to the very artificially-scented linoleum, gasping and gagging.
“Where is she?” his assailant demanded.
The hell?
His silence earned him another kick to the side, knocking out the little air he’d managed to bring in.
“Can’t answer… if I can't breathe,” he gasped when his lungs stuttered back into rhythm.
Then he heard a very familiar clicking—a weapon being cocked—and his blood ran cold.
“Where is your wife?”
Tony picked his head off the floor with great effort, not surprised to find himself looking down the barrel of a Glock. “Don’ have a wife.”
The next kick wasn’t unexpected, but again Tony found himself too slow to move entirely out of the way. It glanced off his arm and connected with his abdomen, and for one brief moment, Tony was convinced he was going to see his dinner again.
Thankfully, the feeling subsided, but not before Tony’s law enforcement brain had kicked in enough to realize that, as much as the blows hurt, the man wasn’t doing any serious damage. Tony would have said he was an amateur, had the man not been holding the gun with hands as steady as Gibbs’. New to the threatening and intimidation game, then.
Suddenly, there were hands on his jacket and before Tony could dislodge them, he was being thrown against the lockers. The metal grate bit into his scalp and almost instantly, he felt blood begin to trickle down his neck.
“Ziva!” the assailant hissed, fingers digging hard into Tony's shoulder. “Where is Ziva?”
Tony blinked hard to clear his vision, finding the gun inches away from his face, the stony-faced assailant not far behind it.
“Dead.” The word caught in his throat but he didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t breathe—not wanting to give the man the satisfaction.
His assailant just scoffed as he leaned in closer and knocked the gun against Tony’s forehead. “I’m not going to ask you again, DiNozzo. Where. Is. Ziva?”
Someone began to laugh and it took longer than it should have for Tony to realize it was him. “She’s dead, you dimwit,” he gasped between laughs, ignoring the stabbing feeling in his heart. “Has been for four years.”
The man stared at him for a long moment, then without moving the gun or averting his gaze, spoke into the walkie attached to his shoulder. “He says she’s dead.”
Only seconds later, the walkie hissed back to life. “See if his story changes when we secure his kid.”
Tali.
Tony saw red, letting instinct take over.
When his assailant’s attention shifted away from him for the splitest of seconds, Tony ducked low and jabbed out with his elbow, grabbing his assailant’s jaw and throwing him headfirst into the lockers. The gun skittered out of the assailant’s grip and Tony hauled himself to his feet to chase after it. He slid it into his hand, natural even after all his time away, and trained it on the man, who was staring dazedly up at him.
That made two of them.
“What do you want?” Tony demanded, sliding easily into stance.
“Ziva,” his assailant spat through bloodstained teeth. “By whatever means necessary.”
Tony flipped the gun around and whipped the man across the cheek, barely restraining himself from doing more. As the goon collapsed to the ground, unconscious, he wished, not for the first time since he’d left NCIS, that he still carried his handcuffs.
But that second was all he could spare. He had to find Tali.
Tony pulled his phone from his pocket with stiff fingers, dialing Tali’s number as he stumbled down the hallway. Yes, he’d caved and gotten her a cell phone, but his years in law enforcement had limited it to a flip phone with no social media or internet access—yet, but hopefully never—under the condition that she always, always, always answered when he called, no matter what she was doing, or who she was with.
His heart sank as the phone rang and rang and rang, while his brain spun with worst-case scenarios, crime scenes he’d investigated, things he’d seen on the force.
Not yet.
Not while he was still breathing.
As he reached his car, Tony called Mrs. Mouser, the middle-aged woman who helped look after Tali during season and who had been vetted within an inch of her life by McGee and Abby three years ago.
Same result.
He glanced at the phone screen before throwing it in the passenger’s seat. 7:30, past Tali’s bedtime, which means she and Mrs. Mouser should be back at his apartment… Unless Tali had nodded off at hers during the game shows Mrs. Mouser watched religiously…
What he wouldn’t give for one of McGee’s fancy phone traces at the moment.
Mouser’s apartment or his.
Mouser’s apartment or his.
Tony peeled out of the parking lot, hoping he’d made the right choice.
He didn’t remember anything about the drive, just that he called and called and called: Tali, Mouser, Tali, Mouser, Tali, Mouser. No answers from either party.
At his apartment complex, he grabbed the goon’s gun and popped out the magazine, checking how many bullets were left: eight. Not great, but not as bad as it could have been.
Leaving the car idling, he headed toward the lobby with a two-handed-grip, gun-trained-on-the-ground stance that would have made even Gibbs proud.
He had just stepped inside when he heard the elevator ding and turned just as the doors opened to a sight he was never going to forget.
Tali—his beautiful little girl—was bound and gagged with duct tape, her once neatly space-bunned hair flying wildly around her face. A masked man stood behind her, one arm wrapped around her shoulders, the other holding a gun casually to her temple.
He wanted to scream, shout, lunge, but his training kicked in, bringing him to a stop and the gun up to bear.
“Federal agent, freeze!” The words, untrue, slipped through Tony’s lips without his conscious thought. That part of his brain was running through scenarios about how to save Tali and then tear the man holding her limb from limb with his bare hands.
The masked man chuckled. “Not any more, DiNozzo.”
“Ziva is dead. Let the girl go.”
“Our sources indicate she isn’t.”
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I buried her. I mourned her. I ran down every lead around her death. She’s gone. Four years ago.” Tony cleared his throat as his voice cracked ever so slightly.
Tali made a sound behind her gag, the “Abba” clear even through the tape. She hadn’t called him that in years, not after the jerks at school had made fun of her for it. Still, that single word sealed Tony’s fate.
He raised his hands, shifting so he was holding the gun by its grip. He didn’t have the leverage to take the shot, not with his vision blurring around the edges, not with the gun resting against his daughter’s head. He needed to change the parameters, the location, the distance—something!—to give his daughter (and hopefully him) a snowball’s chance in hell of getting out of this alive.
“If you’re looking for leverage, let the girl go. I’ll come. Willingly.”
Tali shrieked again, struggling against the man's grip.
“It’s going to be okay, Tali,” Tony said, keeping his voice as steady as possible.
The man pulled Tali tighter against him, jamming the gun harder into her temple. “Which do you think Ziva would value more?” he asked as he stepped out of the elevator. “The father of her child, or her child herself? Sure, Ziva was an assassin, but she has some mothering instincts, no?”
“Don’t know,” Tony said honestly, but apparently that wasn’t the answer the man was looking for.
He heard more than saw the hammer being cocked and quickly amended, “Seems that way. But Tali, she’s her mother’s daughter. She’ll fight you tooth and nail. I won’t, as long as she stays safe.”
“You were in law enforcement for over two decades. I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”
“I will.” Though it went against every fiber of his being, Tony slowly knelt down and placed the gun on the floor then kicked it away. “Let the kid go.”
Tali was screaming and thrashing now, the man having a difficult time holding her.
“Shut up!” he hissed, shaking her viciously.
Tony sucked in a breath, forced himself to stay calm. He had to, to get them out of this.
Close your eyes, he then signed, using the hand farthest away from the man. He did it once, twice, not sure his daughter had seen it, but then, her eyes widened slightly and he knew she understood.
Almost immediately after, she jammed them closed and went limp.
That was enough of an opening for Tony. He threw himself after the gun he’d laid down, perfectly primed, brought it up to eye level and fired.
Tali was screaming, her words muffled but she was clearly alive. The man behind her, hole between his eyes—not so much.
Tali sprinted over to Tony, who hauled himself off the floor and over to his daughter, seeing red and blue lights behind him in the shiny reflection of the elevator.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded, easing the tape off Tali’s mouth as quickly but gently as possible. Throwing it to the ground, he pushed her hair away from her face, behind her ears, leaving his thumbs to wipe the tears from her eyes as he frantically searched her for signs of injury. Thankfully, other than looking scared out of her mind, there weren’t any cuts or bruises he could see.
“Tali, talk to me, baby. Did he hurt you?”
“No,” was all Tali said before vomiting all over him.
Tony quickly stripped off his half-zip then pulled her in close as she began to sob into his shoulder. Her words were totally incoherent, switching languages, apologizing, but “scared”, “afraid”, “left”, “alone”, and “gone” were the common themes, and Tony was torn between continuing to comfort his daughter and going over to empty the rest of the magazine into the man who had done this to him—to them.
But the man couldn’t hurt them, not anymore, so Tony dropped onto his ass, pulling Tali with him, and rocked her as she cried herself out in his arms.
An hour later, after Tali had been given the all-clear by the paramedics, Mrs. Mouser taken to the hospital for her concussion, and his apartment sealed off by the LEOs, Tony stepped away from Officer Friendly, who he had been careful to build a relationship with after moving into the neighborhood three years ago—just in case—to tend to Tali, who had been signing frantically to him with the arm that didn’t have an IV attached to it. She was sitting on the bumper of the ambulance, in Tony’s direct eye line, a bag of saline and anti-nausea meds flowing into her little arm.
Tony crouched in front of her, resting his hands on her shoulders. “Officer Friendly is going to sit with you for a few minutes, okay, sweetie?”
“No,” she said, panicked. “¡No me dejes!” She threw herself to her feet, immediately wincing as the movement tugged on the catheter in her arm.
Tony gently pushed her back down on the bumper. “I have to, baby, just for a few minutes. Officer Friendly isn’t going to let anything happen to you.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “He’ll have to answer to me if it does.”
That tone of voice usually convinced her, but today, Tali shook her head so quickly Tony saw the greenish tinge rise back to her face. He grabbed the sides of her face gently, forcing her to stop before she threw up yet again.
“I have to, Tali. I’m sorry. I’ll be back lickety split.”
“But—”
“I need you to be brave,” Tony said in Hebrew. He was 100% sure he’d butchered the pronunciation, but he’d heard Orli say it often enough that he hoped he’d gotten it at least partially right.
Tali stilled then pulled herself to her full height—all 3’9” of her—and shook her head solemnly.
“Someone brought me an extra hot chocolate,” Friendly said from over Tony’s shoulder. “Do you know of someone who might want it?”
Tali looked at Tony and rolled her eyes high to the heavens—so much like Ziva that Tony’s breath stuttered in his lungs.
“Be. Nice,” Tony warned.
Tali nodded unhappily, then turned to Officer Friendly and plastered on a smile, making grabby hands at her favorite drink. Her eyes though never left Tony as he headed back into the apartment complex to a quiet nook in the glass-windowed lobby with a direct eye line back to his daughter.
He let out a long breath, then pulled out his phone and dialed a familiar number.
“Yeah, Gibbs.”
“Boss,” was all he could get out before a large lump lodged in his throat. He hated doing this, pulling people in to his family drama, getting others involved. If it had been just been him, he could have managed on his own. Taken leave, solved this case.
But it wasn’t just him now. And he couldn’t be in two places at once.
And he needed—
“Everything alright, DiNozzo?”
Tony let his head fall back, looking up at the stucco ceiling. “No.” Then he cleared his throat and straightened back up. He could do this: force out the words he’d never said to anyone before. Not at the tender age of eight when he was curled up in his closet, holding his broken hand to his chest; not at ten when he’d fallen out of a tree, broken his arm, and walked himself to the doctor; not when he’d been accepted to OSU on a scholarship and had to move his admittedly meager possessions across several states and get set-up in a new city by himself. Not after the plague or Jeanne or Paula or Ziva. Not when he’d become a single father overnight to a daughter he hadn’t known existed. Not when Tali had been running a 101-degree fever in Paris, only comforted by Moana, so they’d watched it on repeat while he dosed her with grape-flavored medicine until her fever broke. Not when he’d had to pull every favor he had with the other schools in the district so his basketball team only played Tuesday and Thursday, so he could play in his own league on Monday for his own sanity and sit through Tali’s ballet class—non-negotiable—after practice Wednesday.
Not once had he ever opened his mouth to say these four words. The four words he desperately needed to say now.
“Tony, talk to me.”
Tony swallowed hard, jamming his fingernails into his palm. “They came after me and Tali tonight. Looking for Ziva.”
There was a commotion in the background, what sounded like stairs being climbed. “You two alright?”
“We are. This time.” Tony cleared his throat—be brave—and forced out, “Boss, I—I need your help.”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
It was only after they’d hung up that Tony realized he’d never given Gibbs his location.