Emolument

One didn’t become a cop even a Navy one because of the pay. Nonetheless his mom’s trust fund was not enough to support his preferred lifestyle of awesome suits. Thus he needed some emolument to supplement it. He’d tried the regular police in Peoria, Philadelphia, and Baltimore but it just wasn’t quite the right fit. Even once he’d made detective, he stood out and not just for his personality. In the end he’d moved on after each of them. The last time landing him in NCIS’ sights particularly a Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

His first day on the job, he wore his best business suit and was pleasantly surprised to see he wasn’t the only one in fancier clothes. Of course, Gibbs didn’t wear a suit and supplemented his education with many head slaps. It still beat the first day at any of the previous police departments. Gibbs despite the head slaps seemed to see that he wasn’t as stupid as he pretended to be which was also a first for him.

Now Gibbs had run off to Mexico leaving him to do Gibbs job of leading the team. Even though it was a promotion in responsibility the emoluments did not increase. He didn’t have time to worry about that, however, with the undercover op Jenny had him running. In fact, it wasn’t until Gibbs returned and unceremoniously dumped his things back on his desk that he realized he wasn’t being compensated well at all for putting up with Gibbs shit.

Before he could address it with Jenny, however, she was replaced with Vance who immediately split up the team where not only did his pay not increase, but it actually decreased as he was dumped to agent afloat. Unhappy in that decision, he sent out feelers to other agencies and other job possibilities sure that there had to be something that would at least pay better if not be more enjoyable than this crap.

By the time Gibbs had gotten him back and why was he the last one, he’d already had offers from the FBI and CIA. The very first thing he did once he was back on land again involved marching into Vance’s office and demanding an increased emolument something to the effect of “Too many hazards. Too many asshole bosses. Too much crap deserves better pay and the FBI and CIA agree. What do you think Vance?”

Normally Vance wouldn’t have given it a second thought shoving DiNozzo out the door to one of the other agencies, but he knew if he did he’d have to deal with an unhappy Gibbs. Gibbs was already pissed at him for the agent afloat thing. Plus it would ruin NCIS reputation if FBI or CIA picked up one of theirs and then started excelling. So reluctantly as shown by the tremendous glare on his face, he simply replied “Fine.”

Tony had already opened his mouth to start arguing and his jaw dropped further at this response.

Vance simply raised an eyebrow.