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It’s not that Tim doesn’t like heights, so much as he doesn’t like the idea of falling from heights. He tries very hard to make Tony understand this, but it never seems to get through the older (take that, Tony-in-his-head! Not senior – older!) agent’s head.
Of course, he can’t really expect too much from a man like Tony. It’s hard to impress the danger of heights on a man who’s been shoved out of an airplane, dangled from a five-story drop by his fingertips, spent half his life clambering all over trees and rock-climbing and—if Gibbs and Abby are to be believed—hung from a very high tree by his ankle, courtesy of a rabbit trap in his first year with NCIS.
Thinking over that, Tim frowns, settling his chin in his palm as he stares over to where Tony is chatting up some girl from accounting who’s doing an excellent job of looking unimpressed. With all of that, you’d think Tony would have a healthier respect for heights. Then again, Tony does have a psychosomatic attraction to things that are bad for him, so Tim shrugs and moves on.
Ziva is very casually not paying attention to what Tony is doing with his hands and smile and so Tim turns his attention to her, content in the knowledge she won’t notice him stare at her. Ziva never comments on his respect for heights, but he doubts she understands. Not that he’s ever seen her in any high places, but he can’t really see Ziva being scared—uh, respectfully wary—of anything. And anyway, she’s so aware of herself and her body and so perfectly balanced that she could probably be a tightrope walker. Even if she fell from a five-story drop, she’d probably land on stiletto heels, flick her hair over her shoulder and walk away. Maybe she was a cat in a past life.
More likely a panther, he corrects himself as Ziva’s eyes narrow. Tony’s managed to work a smile out of the accounting girl, and Tim can definitely see pain in the older (oh, he likes the sound of that word… he’ll have to use it in conversation sometime) agent’s future. He diverts his gaze out of respect for the approaching carnage.
It’s really an inevitable accident that his eyes wander onto Gibbs, who seems blissfully unaware of what is going on around him. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. It’s hard to tell, sometimes.
Gibbs isn’t scared of heights, but Tim knows Gibbs isn’t scared of anything. Heights especially, if the way he just jumps out onto thin ledges without looking is any indication. Actually, Gibbs seems to like them, because with heights, he can look down from on high and ‘survey his domain’, as Ziva once put it. Sometimes, Tim goes back through the case files and looks at old crime scene photos. Before Kate, Gibbs was apparently often in control of the camera, and he would take pictures from high above the body, trying to get in as much of the scene as possible with an aerial shot.
Tim doesn’t think he could do that – just jump out onto a balcony or scale a tree for a good shot. Not so much because he’s scared as because of the broken bone sticking out of Davey Watchem’s leg; the smashed open face of that little baby; the blood smeared across the pavement that the city hasn’t cleaned up yet. It’s the way his brain tilts to the side when he stands on a chair; how the ground inches away when he peers over a balcony. It’s Tony’s hand slipping from his and Kate with no cover and Gibbs almost leaping after a suicidal murder victim.
Of course, there’s no reason to be scared of heights in the field, and he knows that. No matter what the height is, he doesn’t need to be afraid. Not when Gibbs will warn him of the edge and Ziva will grab for his hand and Tony will either catch him or cushion the impact.
And that’s the thing. Tim’s not really scared of heights. He just doesn’t like the idea of falling from them. That’s all.