The Art of MOAS Hunting (1/3)
Title: The Art of MOAS HuntingAuthor: Calliatra
Rating: FR13
Category: Gen
Pairing: None
Character(s): Tony, the Team
Genre: Humor
Summary: In which Tony tries to find McGee's MOAS. Written for the Ironic Much? Challenge and the All Is Discovered Challenge at NFA.
Spoilers: Season 4 (especially "Twisted Sister")
Warnings: Mild Swearing
Disclaimer: All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: I know that Abby didn’t talk to Tony about MOASs until “Suspicion” (S04E12), but it just fit so well. So just pretend they had that conversation earlier, okay?
Also, this is my very first attempt at a humorous fic. Feedback would be much appreciated, constructive criticism even more so! :)
* * *
Part 1: In Theory
Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo was bored. Very bored. So bored, in fact, that he temporarily considered actually doing the paperwork he was supposed to be completing. It was only a fleeting thought, however. Never let it be said that Anthony DiNozzo would willing occupy himself with something as mundane as paperwork. It might do irreparable harm to his reputation. And besides, there would be plenty of time to complete his report when Gibbs got back from his meeting with the Director and made it impossible for him to do anything else. No, this was precious time, valuable for its complete lack of supervision and therefore the opportunity to do whatever he wanted to.
If only he could come up with something. He had already turned superfluous printouts into paper jets and sent them soaring across the squad room, much to the delight of his coworkers (as expressed by muted grumbling and the occasional yelp when one of the missiles came perilously close to sensitive body parts or hot coffee). He had also used up all the staples in his stapler in an attempt to create a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower. Apparently engineering was not his strong point, however, as the remains of that project now lay strewn across the floor in front of his desk. Well, that shouldn’t be a problem, not unless someone walked by barefoot. Or tripped. Or knelt down to pick something up. Okay, so maybe it would be a problem, but he could always sweep the staples up later. Or, better yet, wait for the cleaning crew to do it. Yes, that would probably be best.
He really hadn’t expected Gibbs to be gone this long, or he would have come up with a far more creative and entertaining way to waste time. The fact that he was failing to do just that at this very moment did not deter him in the least from his firm belief that he would have, if only his boss had the courtesy to announce lengthy absences in advance. Then again, that was probably exactly why Gibbs didn’t announce them. That, and the fact that if Tony didn’t know how long he would be gone, he could sneak up from behind and find a reason to headslap him.
Tony tensed, fully expecting his head to be propelled forward by a hard blow. None came. He cautiously peeked over his shoulder, only to find himself terrified of thin air. Clearly, boredom was making him paranoid. He needed to do something about it. He needed a co-conspirator. And at the moment, there was really only one person to fill that role.
*
Mossad Officer Ziva David was busy. Not necessarily in the way she liked to be busy, such as interrogating suspects or demonstrating her hand-to-hand combat skills to criminals foolish enough to challenge her, but busy nonetheless. Case reports were a necessary part of the job and while she did not particularly enjoy them, she had been trained to do what it gives. Or was it “takes”?
It irritated her, the way she could speak English completely flawlessly right up until she had to use an idiom. The most complex grammatical structures posed no difficulties for her whatsoever, but the moment an idiom was involved, her brain seemed to black out. Admittedly, most of the idioms she got wrong made no logical sense at all, but that was in the nature of an idiom. Why could she not just memorize which pointless strings of words belonged together and what they meant when placed in that order? It had worked for all other languages she had learnt. Why did she always have to get English idioms so incorrigibly, comically wrong?
And why was she thinking about that, anyway? She had a report to finish. The sooner she finished her report, the sooner the case could be officially closed. And the sooner the case was officially closed, the sooner she could do something - [i]anything[/i] - else. All right, so maybe she was a little bit irritated with all the paperwork.
Her teammate’s antics certainly weren’t helping her remain calm. Tony hadn’t dared throw any of his paper planes her way - at least not after she had glanced his way while deliberately fondling a paper clip - but it was not exactly easy to work when all around her her colleagues were busy constructing makeshift air raid shelters (consisting mainly of a strategic placement of spare whiteboards to ward off the stray planes). When he had finally run out of paper, he had started clicking his stapler in a staccato just off-beat enough to make it impossible to ignore. Now that he had managed to distribute a fine sprinkling of staples all throughout the entire area, he had grown suspiciously quiet. It was the sort of quiet that usually preceded a particularly indignant squeal by McGee or at times a crash of some sort, depending on what particular prank Tony had come up with for his colleague.
McGee had, however, already finished his report and, after taking one terrified look at Tony, had fled to the relative safety of Abby’s lab. Now Ziva was the only one left in the immediate vicinity, which was why Tony’s silence was slightly perturbing. Not that she really thought he would dare attempt a prank on her, but a preventative measure might do wonders.
*
Tony’s head snapped up when a projectile whizzed by within millimetres of his left ear and hit the cubicle wall behind him with a thwack. Turning, he saw the handle of Ziva’s knife sticking out of the flimsy orange divider. He wondered briefly if it might have impaled whoever was on the other side, but dismissed the thought. There had been no scream, and besides, anyone who stood that close to a wall had no one but themselves to blame, anyway. Walls were dangerous. Admittedly, he couldn’t, at the moment, think of any other instances in which a wall might pose a threat, but he was sure there were some. DiNozzo Rule Number… what number was he on, anyway? Might as well make it Twenty, that sounded nice: If you stand too close to a wall, it’s your own fault.
(Tony needn’t have worried. Everyone at NCIS headquarters had learned long ago that it was best to give the entire MCRT a wide berth at all times. Crazy and dangerous things always seemed to happen to the team and anyone who associated with it. On the rare occasions that Gibbs’ team was not in danger of being abducted/tortured/killed/hurt-in-some-other-unimaginable-way by the deranged and/or vengeful criminal of the week, danger seemed to emanate from the team itself. There was the senior field agent, from whose pranks nothing and no one was safe. There was the Mossad liaison officer with the short temper and the mad assassin skills. There was the forensic scientist who responded to anything she did not like by carefully explaining how she could kill whoever displeased her without leaving behind any evidence. There was the computer geek who seemed nice enough, but was probably the worst of them all - how else could he have survived on that team for so long? Finally, there was Gibbs, the team leader, the living legend whose gaze turned the most experienced field agents into stammering probies and whose glare promised great misfortune to anyone who dared defy him. No one was entirely sure what he would do if crossed - the tales diverged greatly on this point - but no one was crazy enough to risk finding out. No, nobody at NCIS was foolish enough to get in that team’s way. If that meant occasionally slinking undignifiedly along the outer walls before sprinting to the safety of the elevator, so be it. Why oh why did the MCRT have to be in such a central position of the bullpen?)
The more pressing problem at the moment for Tony was the origin of the knife. Specifically, the pissed-off assassin who had thrown it. Ziva was glowering at him from behind her desk (Thank goodness for small barriers!) and was giving the general impression that asking her why she had just flung a pointy projectile his way wouldn’t be the smartest move. The problem was, he really didn’t know why he had nearly been speared, and the only way to avoid that fate in the future seemed to be finding out what he had done, so he could avoid doing it ever again. At least as long as Ziva had that homicidal glint in her eyes. Tony settled for giving her a questioning glance (which, to the objective observer, may just have looked a little bit like a petrified stare).
“Do not dare!” was the growl he received in return. Okay, so it wasn’t something he had done, it was something he had yet to do. But while he didn’t put it past her to have freaky ninja mindreading skills, all he had been planning to do was speak to her. Well, best to play it safe. He wasn’t sure just how many spare knives she kept on her, after all.
“All right, all right, I won’t.” When he received no violent retaliation, he added, “But come on, I’m bored!”
“Tony, you have work to do!” Ziva snapped. “why can you not just get it done quietly?”
“I’m an investigator, Zee-vah! Writing reports is a paper-pusher’s job. I should be out there, investigating. It’s what I have a gift for, it’s my calling!”
“What you mean is you like to stick your face in other people’s business, yes?”
“Nose, Ziva, nose. You stick your nose in other people’s business.”
“Why just your nose? Would it not be better to use your eyes to see what the person is doing?”
“It’s an expression. I never said it made sense.”
“Well, what would you want to stick your nose in at the moment? We have no case.”
“Ah, that’s no obstacle to a trained investigator. One as good as me can uncover secrets anywhere.”
“Really? And just where would find a secret to uncover, Tony? Finding out if Betsy from Accounting will go out with you hardly counts.”
“Everybody has secrets, Ziva. All around us, all the people have things that no one can know. Everyone has that deep, dark secret that could ruin them if someone found out.”
“Everyone, Tony? All people have something they would not like other people to know, but those are embarrassing things, not things that would ruin them. I think you are running away with your imagination.”
“It’s- oh, never mind. You may not want to believe it, Zee-vah, but everyone has a MOAS.”
“What is a moh-ass?”
“Mother of all secrets. A secret that will destroy your life as you know it if it ever gets out.”
“And you are saying that every single person has one?”
“Exactly!”
“All right, what about McGee?”
“Ha! Ha, I see what you’re trying to do, here. Trying to throw me by playing the old ‘Look-At-This-Upstanding-Citizen-And-His-Innocent-Puppy-Dog-Eyes’ card. Well, it won’t work.
Even our oh-so-harmless little McGeek has secrets. Hell, he probably has skeletons in his closet that we don’t even begin to suspect because of that wholesome air of his.”
“And you are sure of this?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, then prove it.”
“…what?”
“Prove it. If your theory is correct, McGee has a big secret. You said just now that you are good at sticking your nose into other people’s business to find out what they are hiding. So do that with McGee. If you really are as good as you say you are, you should have no trouble finding his secret. If he has one. If you prove that McGee has a… moas?... I will believe that your theory is correct. If he is not hiding anything, clearly your theory is wrong. And since you are so certain that you are right, I am sure you would not mind taking a little bet with me on this, yes?”
“Er, well…”
“Or would you rather admit right away that you were telling a high tail?”
“Tall tale,” Tony corrected automatically. (At first, Ziva’s tendency to get expressions mixed up had been entertaining, but after telling her for what felt like the hundredth time that it was needles you looked for in haystacks, his amusement had faded. These days, unless her mistake could be misconstrued as a double entendre, he merely offered a correction in the vain hope that she might someday get it right.)
“Whatever kind of tail you have-” (Here Tony opened his mouth, because that one was really too good to pass up…) “-I want evidence of it!” (…and shut it again, needing a few seconds to file away those particular mental images.) “Or are you a chicken?”
She would get that one right. Well, close enough. “DiNozzos are not chicken. Bring it on!”
“You have one week to prove that McGee has a secret. If you do not, I want you to do whatever I tell you to for the next week.”
“And when I do find McGee’s MOAS? Do I get to order you around for a week?”
“If you could prove it, which you will not, I would do whatever you told me to for a week.”
“Whatever I tell you to?”
“As long as it is does not interfere with our jobs. Or break Gibbs’ rules.”
Damn, there go those possibilities. “But if, for example, I told you to make me breakfast every morning…”
“I would have to do that. If you win.”
“Miss David, you are on.” Tony held out his hand and Ziva shook it formally.
*
“What I don’t get,” Tony said out of the blue, minutes later, “is why you would do this to McGee. I though you were friends?”
“We are. What does that have to do with anything?”
“You just bet me to find his MOAS. You do realize that once a person’s MOAS gets out, their life is destroyed forever?”
“It is because I am friends with McGee that I know he is too good a person to have a secret that could destroy his life.”
“I’m not saying that you’re right, but even if you are, he definitely has some things he wouldn’t want other people knowing about. Are you so focused on beating me that the feelings of your friend don’t matter to you anymore?”
“I see what you are trying to do. You are trying to get me to forfeit. It will not work. I told you to prove that McGee has a secret, not to share it with everyone. In fact, if I find out that you are using what you find out to hurt McGee deliberately… it will not be pleasant for you.”
Tony gulped.
Then he set to work. He only had a week to find McGee’s deepest, darkest secret. Even for a world-class investigator like him, it was going to be a challenge. He grabbed a piece of paper that had miraculously escaped being requisitioned for his air show and started scribbling down ideas.
*
So it came that when Gibbs returned to the squad room, prepared to headslap his senior field agent into the next millennium, his hand stopped midair. DiNozzo was, unbelievable as it seemed, hunched over his desk, busily writing. It wasn’t the act he put on when he noticed his boss approaching, he was actually honestly engrossed in the work he was doing.
To say that Gibbs was surprised was an understatement. He had fully expected to find his team’s area in DiNozzo-induced chaos, but instead it seemed to be the most orderly in the whole bull pen. Apart from several handfuls of staples that were scattered around DiNozzo’s desk for no apparent reason, nothing was amiss. There appeared to be pieces of paper scattered throughout the entire rest of the squad room, however, and several other teams had chosen distinctly odd positions for their whiteboards. Gibbs had the distinct feeling that any investigation into the matter would lead him right back to where he was now, preparing to deliver an almighty headslap to his senior field agent.
Then he spotted the knife sticking out of the partition wall. Ah, that would explain the curiously docile DiNozzo. Evidently Ziva had beaten him to the punch. Or the knife throwing. In any case, DiNozzo had clearly been discouraged from doing whatever it was he had been doing. Gibbs decided not to spoil his perfectly good mood (meaning the uncommon absence of a desire to throttle someone) by looking a gift horse in the mouth. And if DiNozzo seemed just a little too interested in the report he was writing, well, it was better than having him trying to find creative ways to avoid paperwork.
Part 2: In Practice