Panoply

Tony hurried to get around. He’d slept over at Gibbs again, but he couldn’t afford to have the new Probie beat him in. Plus he had a bunch of SFA reports and paperwork that needed to be completed. He needed an early start to stand a chance of going home at a decent time. He took a quick shower and threw on some clothes as he rushed out of Gibbs place.

Gibbs grabbed him before he made it out of the bedroom and gave him a soft sweet kiss.

“See you at work.” Gibbs offered with a smile in lieu of goodbye.

Tony nodded and waved, before jumping in his car and heading into the office. He made it to work maybe an hour before Kate did. It was about 30 minutes after Kate arrived that Gibbs exited the elevator, coffee in hand. “Grab your gear.” Gibbs called.

Tony immediately perked up taking off the glasses he had been wearing to complete the paperwork and reports faster. “My three favorite words.”

Tony would rather do anything other than paperwork and reports. He couldn’t wait to start the investigation. Gibbs explained they were going to a park in Maryland to investigate a drop tank.

Tony’s surprise was obvious as he asked, “We’re driving to Maryland to look at a drop tank?”

“It’s got a body inside.” Gibbs responded deadpan.

“Now that’s different.” Tony pondered what that might mean.

“Yeah, I thought so. You pick up Ducky. Tony, you gas the truck.” Gibbs directed to Kate and Tony.

Tony mused aloud. “You know, Gibbs, most agencies have people who do that sort of thing.”

Gibbs hummed giving DiNozzo a look. “Mm-hmm. So do we.”

Tony made a show of being put out, but he’d seen the look in Gibbs eyes. That meant there was a surprise for him in the truck. He wondered what it would be this time. They were always either edible, drinkable, or so small they could easily be tucked into a pocket before anyone could see what it was. Last time, it had been a keychain with a Saint Bernard on it.

Tony tucked the small heart pillow he found in the driver’s seat into his pocket. His favorite candies had also been sitting on it. Those he quickly ate, but the heart pillow he would save for later. It probably seemed girly, but he didn’t care. He appreciated the sentiment behind it.

At the scene where the drop tank landed, Tony explained exactly where the drop tank had come from just based off of his memory of the panoply of Navy equipment particularly in relation to the Navy ships.

New as Kate was she couldn’t help being impressed and said so.

Tony snarked back. “I didn’t become an NCIS agent yesterday, Kate. As a matter of fact, tomorrow is…” Tony trailed off as his memories of meeting Gibbs, becoming an NCIS agent, and all the changes that brought to his life took over.

Gibbs finished his sentence for him. “It’ll have been two years.” The best two years of his life since Shannon if he was honest with himself.

Tony came out of his memories. “That’s kind of touching, Gibbs, remembering the day you hired me.” Tony tried to brush it off, but the truth was he really was touched even more so given their personal relationship.

“Yeah, well it seemed like a good idea at the time.” Gibbs purposefully downplayed how meaningful that was to both of them, so as to not raise suspicions about their personal life as the team got down to business investigating the drop tank.

Back at the office, as they were going through the evidence and trying to put the pieces together Tony rattled off an acronym Kate didn’t understand. “RIO?” Kate questioned.

“Radar Intercept Officer. Also called a GIBs. One B. Short for ‘guy in back.’” Tony explained.

Kate being the curious sort, immediately turned to Gibbs and asked. “Why do you need two B’s?”

Gibbs not about to be outdone by a Probie responded. “Second one’s for bastard.”

Tony had to hide his smirk at Gibbs response. That had always been an internal joke between the two of them, which explained why Gibbs took such pride in being a bastard as well. Shortly after that Tony went to find out who the NCIS agent was that handled the case originally.

As he returned from his research into who the NCIS agent had been, Kate left to interview the widow. “Was it something I said?” Tony had to ask.

“Not yet.” Gibbs commented dryly.

“Well, it looks like we’re going to have to go to Hawaii, boss.” Tony chimed in cheerfully. He wasn’t desperate to go to Hawaii as he had been there before with his frat brothers and there was that one lovely trip with Gibbs. Gibbs hadn’t enjoyed Hawaii as much as Tony did. Still, Tony would have loved an excuse to expense a trip to Hawaii.

“Now it's what you said.” Gibbs stared DiNozzo down, silently demanding an explanation for that statement.

“NCIS Special Agent Afloat, Richard Owens, investigated the robbery in Ninety four. He's currently assigned to NCIS, Pearl Harbor.” Tony explained before backtracking. “Or we could always use video conferencing.” Then he couldn’t help asking as he noted the age of the NCIS agent, “You know Owens?”

“Nope.” Gibbs stated matter-of-factly.

Tony sometimes didn’t know when to stop and frankly was lucky that Gibbs had a soft spot for him. “I didn’t think you would. He’s considerably younger than you are.”

Gibbs blinked looking up at Tony from behind his desk. “What would you consider, considerably?” Despite the fact that they’d been dating most of the 2 years, they’d never actually discussed their respective ages. Gibbs, of course, knew Tony’s age, but Tony didn’t know his.

“The guy was young, Gibbs. Only twenty eight. That makes him thirty seven now.” Tony dug himself an even deeper hole.

“Then considerably would not be an accurate description.” A hint of warning appeared in Gibbs voice.

Tony, of course, ignored the warning and continued. “I didn't realize, boss. How old are you?”

Gibbs eyed Tony trying to gauge how important the information was to him. Seeing that it wasn’t important, he stated. “It doesn’t matter how old I am.”

Enjoying their normal bickering that let each other know they were still ok, Tony countered. “Well it does actually because it gives me a reference point for the word that you used.”

A little later, Tony and Gibbs joined Abby at the drop tank. She had some new details for them. As she was discussing these details, Tony’s mind drifted off. “If the Lieutenant was alive, that would have been one hell of a ride.”

When Gibbs and Abby just stared at him with a blank look, he defended. “Well, it would.”

Abby signed to Gibbs. “Tony’s weird.”

Gibbs signed back though he also spoke aloud, “Oh, just figuring that out now?”

Tony had followed the conversation, but instead of commenting on Abby’s statement he simply stated. “You know, it’s not polite to talk with your hands.”

Gibbs knew Tony could sign, but that wasn’t one of his advertised skills. Plus, he didn’t really mind being called weird. It was a vast improvement over boring and any number of other things he’d been called as a kid.

It wasn’t long after that, that Kate returned from interviewing the widow. “They had a child, Alicia. Nine years old and she’s as pretty as her mom.”

Tony knew he couldn’t let his frat boy mask slip around Kate or she’d start paying more attention, so he tossed out. “I knew I should have taken that interview.”

Truthfully, it had been Gibbs call. Even though they were equal partners at home, Tony tended to yield to Gibbs gut unless he had a really good reason not to. As such, he wouldn’t have been able to go even if he’d wanted to, but the comment served it’s purpose of distracting Kate.

“She’s remarried, Tony.” Kate responded dryly.

“Yeah?” Tony drawled out just to mess with Kate. Well that and keep up his frat boy mask.

“He does this just to screw with me.” Kate narrowed her eyes at Tony. “Don’t you?”

After working around the clock, they were finally getting close to identifying the murderer. Agent Owens had decided to stick around to help solve the case instead of catching his flight back to Hawaii. “Whoa, we’ve got nothing like this at Pearl.” Agent Owens commented admiring the setup in the bullpen.

The narcissistic comment just slipped out of Tony’s mouth. “This is where the big boys play.”

Gibbs yelled. “DiNozzo!”

“Speaking of big boys…” Tony couldn’t resist the double entendre. Plus, it fit in with his frat boy mask. “Yeah boss?”

Gibbs entered the bullpen surprised to see Agent Owens still there. “What are you doing here?”

Agent Owens stammered. “Uh… Well my flight’s not till nine in the morning. Since I’m here, I thought that… maybe…”

Gibbs quickly thought about it and realized this would be a great way to prove that he didn’t play favorites. Plus he loved watching Tony play fight for his affections. “You know how to do a database search?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Agent Owens replied.

Gibbs nodded. “Use that computer. Locate Martinez.”

Tony glanced at Gibbs and immediately understood what Gibbs was going for. Playing along, he commented with an undertone of confusion implied in his voice. “I’m looking for Martinez, boss.”

“Yeah? I’m getting coffee.” Gibbs get on with it and do me proud command was clear in his tone and Tony immediately picked up on it.

Discovering Martinez died in Mexico had been the final piece they’d needed to figure out who the murderer was. They’d nailed Toner and gotten her confession based on her belief that they had a fingerprint match from Mexico tying her to the murder of Martinez. Now that they’d gotten the murderer, everyone was finally able to leave and hopefully get some sleep.

“You know, in Hawaii it takes forever to get anything from the Federales.” Agent Owens mused aloud as he wondered about the fingerprint match they’d used to get Toner to confess.

Tony nodded keeping his response short and simple. “Same way here.”

Agent Owens considered that for a bit. “No, no no, guys. Don’t tell me that…that fingerprint match was faked!?” He looked around at the other agents and seeing no signs of denial, he continued. “Okay, you guys are crazy.”

Gibbs replied. “Yep.” Everyone else nodded their heads in agreement.

Personally, Tony was looking forward to some alone time with Gibbs. They’d spent way too many hours in the office on this one. He was betting Gibbs would be up for some crazy fun either before or after they conked out for 10 hours to catch up on sleep.