Taciturn

Ziva and McGee didn’t know what happened. Their boss had always been taciturn, but now it was like he was mute. He’d nod to DiNozzo and Tony would give them directions and if they protested Gibbs would simply glare them down. There was still no doubt that Gibbs was still the boss, but Tony was clearly second in command in entirety, not just in name as he’d appeared before.

Ziva didn’t like it. Gibbs was supposed to be indebted to her, not raising this joke above her and making her do his bidding. She was the superior one here. She should be the one giving the orders. Not Tony. This was unconscionable.

McGee too was unhappy with the current state of affairs. Unlike Ziva, he did not protest giving Tony the respect he’d always known he deserved. He did wish that in the process he hadn’t lost the teasing relationship he had with Tony. They used to be friends. He didn’t know what happened, but he knew that even though he still thought of Tony as a friend, he was definitely not a friend in Tony’s book anymore.

Any gestures of friendship he made were met with suspicion or sarcastic, “What you can’t handle the heat, McGoo?” responses.

Tony and Gibbs couldn’t go too crazy as they weren’t willing to quit their jobs or get fired quite, yet. That didn’t stop them from giving Ziva and McGee all the worst jobs. Randomly sending them on food or coffee runs for the two of them while they went and interviewed suspects and many other things that pointed to Ziva and McGee no longer being trusted and barely letting McGee and Ziva help solve the cases.

Every time Ziva tried to do something useful, she was told to sit back down in her chair or that they could manage just fine without her. She was about ready to blow her top and wished that she had as good of blackmail and hold over Vance as she did over Jenny. While Eli and Vance were friends, Vance held her in more suspicion than Jenny ever did. Vance also was suspicious by nature and it was harder to pull the wool over his eyes.

Ziva really didn’t know how much more of this she could take. Transferring to another team wouldn’t work because only the MCRT had the access she needed. Frustrated, she growled and stomped off to the girls restroom for once. McGee watched her go and shook his head. Tony and Gibbs weren’t around to witness it, but he knew that it wouldn’t have bothered them that she was so frustrated.

McGee still hadn’t figured out what game they were playing, but he knew Tony and Gibbs were trying to accomplish something in regards to Ziva and him, especially Ziva. It was definitely working, if that anger was any indication. Ziva needed to step up her game or she’d lose this round.