Precocious

Tony learned how to put on a mask at a young age. It was the only way he survived. He didn’t know at that point in time just how important his precocious ability to fit into any situation would be. As he grew, his ability to hide his true self and show only what people wanted to see only grew stronger.

By the time he’d completed Police Academy training, his masks were fine tuned to perfection and a true art. The gold shield he got? It marked the time when his masks became completely subconscious. He no longer had to work even the slightest to hold them in place. In fact, some people theorized that he was never his true self and only showed masks.

Tony knew better though. The secret to making under cover and masks natural was to amplify a part of your natural personality and focus on that trait until it was practically annoying. He wondered if he would ever meet someone truly honest that he could be himself around. He had thought going into a police officer career would introduce him to lots of honest people.

Instead at every corner he turned he only met more corruption. All 3 police departments had had something rotten to the core in them that he had had to weed out and yeah some of the people left behind were more honest, but that kind of cleansing only left him feeling tainted. He knew it wasn’t the remaining people’s fault, but he just couldn’t stay.

When Danny, his partner at Baltimore, turned out to be dirty, he almost gave up hope, but fortunately there was a blue eyed marine to kick his butt in gear. He showed up at NCIS and interviewed if you could call it that. That began a couple of the most intensive, but also the most fun years he’d ever had. It wasn’t until he looked back on the previous years at NCIS that he realized here he could actually be himself for once.

It was safe to let go of his masks here and it was all because of one blue eyed marine.