Fic: Rule 52, Chapter 6
Author’s Notes: Christmas shopping is driving me crazy, so I’m ignoring it in favor of posting this story while I watch the Drew Brees and the Saints annihilate the Vikings. (Dude, seriously. I’m a fair weather football fan, but a die-hard hockey fan, so go Wild!) In the interim, here’s a little chapter of craziness after all that was Ziva and Bones’ very nice, relaxing (and surprisingly intimate) dinner. Leave it to Kirk and DiNozzo to interrupt the moment. As always, comments are loved, but never required. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don’t own NCIS or Star Trek, or anything else that you might recognize in this story, like the design of Scotty's office furniture. I own only the ideas in it, and a very overactive imagination.
Chapters | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8A | 8B | 9 |
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Chapter 6
Iowa City, Iowa
Early on in their partnership, one of the things Jim discovered about McCoy was that the man was hellbent on spending a good portion of his adult life perfecting the fine art of accusation. Specifically, he would often indict Kirk on charges of ‘being’ things. Being obstinate, being helpful, being annoying, being loyal, being an infant, being wrong, being right. (Although, according to McCoy, the ratio of wrong to right was about a billion to one.) But, there was one thing of which Bones never accused Kirk: being smart.
Really, the whole world knew the sergeant was referring to all matters figurative every time he called his partner a dumbass. Jim literally had enough book smarts to embarrass half the PhDs on the planet while only using half his functioning brain cells. No, McCoy was referring to Kirk’s penchant for leaping before he looked, that instinctual gift Pike both loved and loathed. As hard as the older man tried, it was the one thing that still really hadn’t improved, even after the years under Bones’ expert tutelage.
If McCoy’s best efforts simply reigned in Kirk’s do-or-die nature to a manageable (and non-lethal) level, the sudden appearance of Anthony ‘Big-D-Little-I-Big-N-Little-Ozzo’ sure as hell wasn’t going to help matters. When Bones told him he was out on a mission for food that wasn’t divided up by a spirally piece of metal that, “Always ate his damned money anyway,” and was therefore going out somewhere, Kirk read the message of caution dancing all over his partner’s face loudly and clearly. Subsequently, he and DiNozzo promised to behave like good little children, and for the most part, they did. But, there was only so much Operation and Battleship two grown men could play before boredom invariably set in, and when it did, the pair went looking for…alternatives.
If the prospect of a budding friendship between one federal agent and one Iowa City cop wasn’t so frightening, the mirror image poses Kirk and DiNozzo sported standing outside Scotty’s office might have actually been amusing. Jim tipped his head to the side while he contemplated their next move. “How do you want to play this?”
“I’m all about the direct approach.”
“Awesome,” Jim replied. “So, I’m gonna break, and you’re gonna enter.”
Tony put his arm out to stop Kirk as he advanced on the door. Shaking his head, he insisted, “Oh, no, no, no. I am not going to let you have all the fun. Stand back and let the master do his work, Kirk.”
“You think I can’t pick a lock? I’ll have you know I was a very misguided youth, and I’m proud of it. I learned a thing or two about getting past deterrents like that,” Kirk insisted while he pulled out the knife he always carried from his pocket. He flicked the auto-lock mechanism with his thumb, and the blade sprung clear from its sheath. Jim inserted the metal tip into the keyhole and gave a little wiggle while he lifted the door handle upward. With a light ‘click’, the lock snapped back, allowing the pair access to their prize.
Tony pulled his wrist down from in front of his face and gave an approving nod. “Two and a half seconds? Not bad, Kirk. Not bad.” DiNozzo followed Jim through the threshold of the door and into the darkened room. In the basement of the building and just off the garage, the area was a little musty and damp, even for the time of year. The smell of engine oil and abrasive chemicals permeated the room; it was almost impossible to miss. There was only one small window in the far corner, which offered little in the way of light. He lost sight of Kirk, but he could hear the other man navigating through the dark across the space. “Done this before, I take it?” Tony called.
Kirk reached the light switches on the other side of the room and flicked the yellow toggle up. The hum of fluorescent lights buzzed in DiNozzo’s ears a second before his eyes were assaulted by the bright glow from the ceiling. Jim laughed while Tony squinted away, moving toward some furniture on the left side of what turned out to be a very unconventional office. “A time or two, yeah.”
With his pupils dilated to a more appropriate level, DiNozzo took a quick moment to observe his surroundings. The room was large, probably the size of a very generous two-car garage. A workbench sat against the far wall, right below where Kirk had to go to turn on the lights. DiNozzo’s eyebrows climbed to his hairline when he saw what was in the middle of the room, and he was simultaneously glad he’d had the foresight to stay put. A mechanic’s pit personified by the large, gaping hole in the floor that was surrounded by yellow and black stripes took up a large section of half the office. About five feet from the workbench against the wall, it butted up nearly to the bare concrete support beam that was probably holding up half the building. The fact Kirk didn’t fall into the thing and break his neck while he moved stealthy across the room in the dark spoke volumes about his familiarity with the placement of the obstacles and the layout.
On the other side of the room, DiNozzo’s eyes followed Jim over to the area where the most unique set of living room furniture resided. There was a couch and two chairs, but the pieces were definitely far from ordinary. The couch was made up of a grey, leather-like material, though it was much smaller than a normal couch. Two generously sized indentations were pressed into the leather with a third, albeit smaller space, stuffed almost as an afterthought in between. Tony studied it further and he realized the reason it looked so completely odd was because it was a damned bench seat from the back of a car. If the headrests bobbing on top of the back of the couch didn’t give it away, the item’s two feet of elevation off the ground on a custom pedestal most certainly did. Rounding out the look were two sweeping grey armrests that made twin crescents on each side, forming the ends of the couch. A cursory look at the other two chairs confirmed that they were also made from what appeared to be the front seats, and in the same fashion as the couch.
The coffee table was probably the central piece, though. As DiNozzo walked closer, he got a good look at what originally looked like a metal table with a glass top. But, on second glance, he realized that the rectangle shaped glass was floating on top of an engine block from a Ford V8. Polished to a high, nickel-bright shine, all the wires and plugs had been removed and the pistons that fired up through the housing were absent as well. Still, there was no mistaking the space the eight cylinders would have used, nor could he miss the distinctive presses and shapes of the engine itself. DiNozzo couldn’t help but let out a little chuckle. It was, in a word, brilliant.
With a shake of his head, he walked around the back of the furniture to join his new companion. He paused momentarily when, on the back side of the couch, Tony’s eyes zeroed in on a mangled, deformed Iowa license plate. He was able to make out a ‘P’, an ‘L’ and an ‘I’, but nothing else through the scrap of twisted metal. He let out a low whistle when, on his final walk-around, Tony saw the edge of the engine block coffee table. The engine was smashed in on one corner, and a very impressive crack ran through the area that would have held the first cylinder. DiNozzo made a mental note to try and pry the story of the one-of-a-kind furniture out of someone from the department before he asked, “So whose office are we invading now?”
“Scotty’s. He’s the mechanic around here, and he won’t care,” Jim replied, reaching into the mini fridge. He pulled out a few cans of Mountain Dew and snagged some Cheetos from the top of the appliance before he ambled over to the space and plopped down.
“There’s a lock on the door he actually uses, unlike some people I know. That implies that he might care,” Tony said with a raised eyebrow while he accepted the snacks from Jim.
“That’s for everyone else, not me. He gave me a key once, but when he figured out that I still picked the lock, he made me give it back. Scotty told me that he doesn’t care what I do, just as long as I don’t eat all the snacks and I lock the door on my way out,” Kirk answered while he dug one greedy hand into the Cheetos.
“Okay, that’s officially awesome,” Tony admitted, wondering silently just how terrible of a death Abby might devise if he were stupid enough to do the same thing to the door of her lab.
“Yeah, I thought so, too. It’s a righteous deal. In return, all I had to do was teach him how to shoot.” Jim lifted up his butt and fished underneath the vicinity of his seat. He cursed loudly, feeling around until his fingers hit paydirt. He coaxed the plastic device from the recesses of the couch and hit the ‘power’ button on his prize - the remote for Scotty’s flatscreen TV. As the screen warmed up, an orgasmically sated look washed over his face while he flipped the channel, landing on what looked like a hockey game. “Thank God. I thought I missed it.”
DiNozzo coughed into his hand. “We broke into your mechanic’s office so we could watch a hockey game? You know, when you mentioned a change of venue, this is not exactly what I had in mind.”
“Please tell me you didn’t call the world’s most awesome sport just a hockey game. I was starting to like you, but if you’re nothing but another hater…” Jim replied, trailing off before he could finish the thought.
“It’s not that I don’t like it. I just don’t get it. At all,” Tony replied quickly.
Kirk’s face lit up. “Oh. Well, I can fix that!”
From the doorway, McCoy’s sharp, authoritative voice cut into the conversation. “Just do yourself a favor, DiNozzo: if he offers to teach you to ice skate, tell him no.”
Tony covered his momentary shock by schooling his face before he placed his hand dramatically over his heart. He swiveled in his seat and turned his head toward the door to see their respective partners, back from dinner and full of snow. In a very dramatic voice, DiNozzo told the Iowa City sergeant, “Aww. And here I didn’t think you cared, McCoy!”
McCoy rolled his eyes, pushed his body off the frame of the door where he was leaning and sauntered into the room. He made a ‘shooing’ motion with one hand and dropped into the remaining space on the couch next to Kirk a millisecond after his partner moved. Reaching for the Cheetos, he shot Jim a baneful look. “I don’t. But, I still have to ride in a car with him,” McCoy said, jerking his thumb toward Kirk while he bounced some of the cheesy snacks around in his palm. “And what I don’t need is to have to listen to him gloat all day long that he did the same thing to you as he did to me.”
“I did not make you fall on your ass, Bones. That was all you and your Bambi coordination.”
“There is a reason humans are land creatures. Man should not be able to walk on water. It’s just not natural,” the sergeant complained loudly as he glared daggers at his partner.
Kirk grinned widely right before he clapped McCoy on the back. “You’re just pissed you were sore for a week afterwards. Stop frontin’, old man.”
“No, I’m pissed I let you talk me into that nonsense in the first place,” McCoy retorted while he tried and failed to grab one of the unopened Mountain Dew cans Kirk lined up on the coffee table. He glared at his partner when the younger man used his body to shield the sergeant from the caffeine. “Jim, gimme. I’m not going to tell you again.”
“More?” came Ziva’s incredulous voice. “After all the food you ate tonight, I am surprised there is still room in your stomach.”
McCoy picked that moment to turn bright red as he sputtered unintelligently at his dinner partner’s well-placed, well-timed comment. Grumbling, he muttered, “Dammit, Ziva. I didn’t eat that much,” loudly enough for the room’s occupants to hear it in lieu of an actual, thoughtful response.
She snorted out loud while she dropped gracefully into the other single chair. Crossing one leg over the other, the former Mossad officer waved a hand about the air and said, “You inhaled your food! I doubt you even tasted what it was.”
“It was veal,” McCoy ground out while he sunk deeper into the couch. “And I was hungry. I told you that.”
Ziva lifted her eyebrows and smirked, causing Tony to stifle a laugh. He knew that look, and he was thankful that it, for once, wasn’t directed at him.
The room fell into a companionable silence. McCoy shifted and cleared his throat as he looked for a way to divert attention from himself and on to someone else where it rightly belonged. Glancing up at the screen, he asked Tony, “You’re willingly watching hockey with him?”
DiNozzo shrugged. “Why not? It was this or we tried to build a better mousetrap.”
McCoy shuddered involuntarily at the thought of Jim’s overly curious hands and hyperactive brain building anything. Knowing Kirk, it would end up overdone, way too big, and with the propensity to explode. “Oh dear God, please no.”
“Come on, McCoy. How bad can it really be?”
“You don’t know Jim,” was the sergeant’s flat, icy reply. “Nothing he ever does goes to plan.”
“Kind of like your life, Bones,” Kirk chimed in from across the room.
“We’re not going to talk about that,” McCoy groused while his lip curled into a fairly impressive sneer. “But we are going to talk about the two of you not building anything, especially while I’m trapped in the same building with you.”
Tony made a show and put on his best pouty face before he said, “What we’re doing right now is pretty harmless, I think. There’s nothing wrong with watching a sport with my new friend here. It’s the ultimate bonding experience.”
McCoy dropped his face into his hands while Ziva let out a little huff. “That’s exactly what I’m worried about. You two. Bonding. Something bad will come from it. I can feel it.”
DiNozzo turned to Kirk, the latter of whom still had his eyes glued on the television. “He really is a buzzkill, man. You weren’t kidding.”
“You get why I had him listed as ‘Ye of Little Faith’ in my phone for a month now, don’t you?”
“’Ye of Little Faith’, Jim? I have plenty of faith, but I tend to keep it rooted in reality,” McCoy hissed out, not liking the sudden turn of the conversation toward himself. “This is all going to blow up spectacularly, and I hope I’m far enough away not to get hit with the shit when it hits the fan.”
Ziva crinkled up her nose. “That would extraordinarily disgusting.”
“It’s Jim. Disgusting is his middle name. I put nothing past him,” McCoy said with a loud snort.
“Look,” DiNozzo started. “All the drama and the fact that you don’t like me aside, why is it so terrible that Kirk and I hang out tonight? We played nice while you two adults were doing…whatever it is you were doing. Grown up stuff.”
Kirk snickered while his mind clearly took a nose dive for the gutter. He glanced over at DiNozzo, the latter of whom looked positively smug with his not-so-faux pas. “Yeah, Bones. You got to hang out with Ziva. What’s wrong with me getting to know DiNozzo here?”
“It’s not like we’re building a potato bazooka and shooting it off the roof of the station. You know, right above the chief’s brand new car,” Tony chimed in, grinning while he watched the tips of McCoy’s ears and nose redden slightly. Somehow, the NCIS agent managed to keep a straight face when continued with, “I just told Kirk that I don’t know a thing about hockey, and he said he’d teach me. He’s been really calm about it all, so I have no idea why you’re worried--”
The sentence wasn’t even clear of DiNozzo’s mouth when Kirk, who apparently possessed the ability to both participate in a conversation and watch a hockey game at the same time, hollered, “SHOOT! SHOOT THE DAMN PUCK!!” while pumping his fists emphatically. He sprang from his seat on the bench-couch when, on the TV, he saw one of the defensemen slide the puck over to the opposite side, near the top of the circle painted on the playing surface. Without catching the pass, the defensive partner raised his stick off the ice and one-timed a slap shot that was gloved by easily the opposing goalie. Kirk’s hands flew to the top of his head and he collapsed back into his chair, groaning as the linesmen raced in to break up the scrum that spontaneously broke out in front of the goalmouth. “Augh! We have to get some traffic in front of that net! It’s too easy for him! He saw it way too cleanly.”
McCoy looked over at Ziva. The woman was doing her best not to laugh at Kirk’s outburst, and failing miserably. The sergeant let his gaze pass the former Mossad officer and wander over to Tony, whose expression clearly stated ‘troubled’ in big, neon letters. McCoy snagged another handful of Cheetos before he asked smugly, “You were saying, Agent DiNozzo?”
“I feel like I’ve fallen into Slapshot. Where’s Reggie Dunlop when you need him?” Tony mumbled under his breath.
“Slapshot is not a myth. It’s awesome, like Denis Lemieux explaining penalties, even if he got most of them wrong,” Kirk amended without looking away from the screen. Jim watched as the team in white passed the puck from near the faceoff dots of their defensive end to a player streaking down the far wing in the neutral zone. The speedy forward caught it mid stride and was on his way across the blue line when the linesman’s whistle blew. “Noo! What are you doing, you idiot? Stay on side! DIDN’T THEY TEACH YOU ABOUT SKATE CONTACT IN SQUIRTS??!!”
Ziva picked up a motoring magazine sitting on the table and began to thumb through it. Distractedly, she said with a shake of her head, “Men and sports: the love that dare not speak its name. I will never understand it.”
“That’s probably for the best, since you made ping-pong a full contact sport.” Tony said off-handedly to his partner. At the same time, he was beginning to wonder if McCoy was right about one thing: Kirk really might be crazy. He blinked through the total shock of Jim’s nearly instantaneous transition from the laid back, fun loving and easy going cop to a screaming, frothing, swearing, rabid hockey fan. It was both scary and amusing all at once, though DiNozzo wasn’t sure in what order those two events occurred. He let his eyes drift over to Kirk’s seething face and held the gaze there while he observed the young man. Pointing at the screen, he said, “You do realize they can’t hear you, right?”
Kirk felt the side eye on his face from the other side of the room before he actually heard DiNozzo speak. He snapped his head toward Tony and, “Of course I know that. But yelling makes me feel better. And stop looking at me like that!”
“Like what?”
Jim glared. “Like you think I’m ready for the funny farm! I’m not crazy! Crazy is Bones watching football.”
McCoy cleared his throat loudly. “Jim, do you always have to drag me into all your shit? Wait. Don’t answer that.” To DiNozzo, the sergeant straightened as best he could and added, “I’m not crazy. I’m intense. There’s a difference.”
A hearty laugh bubbled from the dark haired woman in the chair next to Tony. She tossed the magazine back on the table and said, “If there is a difference, I do not wish to see it. I, for one, think you are all crazy!”
“Pot calling the kettle black much, huh Ziva?” DiNozzo asked. “This is coming from a woman who thinks relaxation is an advanced hand to hand refresher.”
“Tony, a hand to hand refresher is practical. Obsession with a mere game is not. Fanaticism is completely illogical and a waste of time.”
McCoy narrowed his eyes and crossed his muscled arms over his broad chest. Suspiciously, he asked, “Lady, you don’t happen to be related to a guy named Spock, do you?”
“It is possible I could have a relative somewhere out there I have not met. My father was not the most truthful man,” Ziva admitted, her dark eyes flicking down and toward her feet.
McCoy laughed lightly. The sound was low and surprisingly warm, and he suddenly felt self-conscious when he realized it caught his dinner partner off guard. Smirking from the corner of his mouth, he admitted, “That was rhetorical, Ziva.”
“Ah. I wasn’t sure if that was indeed your intent.”
The sergeant nodded his head while Ziva went back to perusing the magazine selection on Scotty’s coffee table. As much as he’d like to get to know more about the NCIS agent, he knew he couldn’t afford such a luxury, at least not until backup arrived. Out of the corner of his eye, McCoy saw Kirk and DiNozzo whispering conspiratorially to each other while they looked nervously about their surroundings. “And just what are you two children planning now?” he asked in his best condescending sergeant’s voice.
“World domination,” was Kirk’s smart-assed, cheeky reply.
McCoy replied by simply huffing and muttering out something obscene that ended in a vague threat against Jim’s ability to procreate.
“We were talking about factual stuff, Bones,” Kirk started by way of explanation while his partner simultaneously opened his mouth to offer his standard protest.
“You know what? He’s telling you the truth,” DiNozzo cut in, effectively silencing the sergeant. “See, we’re actually discussing the office paper airplane records. I have our record, and Jim here told me that he has yours. We have plenty of paper, the will to do it, and a very big, empty garage. So you know what that means?”
On the couch, Jim was positively beaming. “We’re playing for bragging rights, Bones. It’s in the rulebook somewhere that when challenged, we’re supposed to uphold the integrity of the department. Or something.”
A sigh seemed so terribly inadequate to fully express his outright reluctance to even acknowledge the pair’s existence, so he settled on a healthy serving of sarcasm instead. “Right. Because God forbid you’d turn down an opportunity to give me a damned migraine, Jim.” McCoy lifted his body up off the couch, grabbed the can of Mountain Dew he was drinking and guzzled the contents. He crushed the green aluminum with one hand before he tossed the remnants into the garbage on the other side of the table.
Kirk ducked his head and hopped to his feet. He hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his low-slung, dark blue jeans and replied, “They’re paper airplanes. I mean, how bad can it be?”
McCoy reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “How many times have I heard that, right before something goes wrong?”
“You are so melodramatic. It never goes wrong, but it sometimes just doesn’t go according to plan,” Jim laughed out in response as he ran one hand through his sandy blonde hair. “I know you think I’m crazy, but once - just once - it would be cool if you’d recognize my awesomeness. You just gotta go with the flow, man.”
“Jim, we tried that, and it ended with one very pissed off chief and an IA investigation. Remember? The indignity of being locked in interrogation with Spock is something I will never repeat,” McCoy hissed out with a shudder while his right eyebrow scaled his forehead.
“Why can’t you see it as a challenge, Bones? Besides, I covered for you.”
McCoy pursed his lips until they flattened out into a grim, straight line. “I know,” he muttered almost gratefully. Just as quickly, the appreciative expression disappeared as the sergeant’s eyes slid over toward DiNozzo, who wasn’t even trying to contain the snorts of glee coming from his mouth. As his face soured further, McCoy slowly turned his head and fixed the NCIS agent with the most intense, withering glare he could muster. It had the desired effect on DiNozzo’s mouth, but it was of little comfort when he thought about why, exactly, Tony was laughing. Straightening, McCoy brushed past the two younger men and proclaimed, “You two infants can do whatever you’d like. I just hope Pike comes to get me so I can watch him kick your asses when gets here.”
Kirk snorted and looked over toward DiNozzo. “Yep. Ye of Little Faith,” Jim said with a huge, annoying grin on his face.
Ziva held up one hand and hopped up out of the chair as McCoy walked past. “I think I will join you. Tony, if you destroy anything here, you will be taking the blame.”
DiNozzo flashed Ziva one of his trademark get-out-of-jail free smiles. “I would never dream of it, partner! I’m a big boy! I can handle it!”
“That is precisely what I’m worried about,” she replied, her voice already echoing as she walked down the long, empty hallway that led to the stairs and up to the operations center of the station. She fell into stride with McCoy as the pair disappeared up the steps.
Kirk narrowed his eyes and smirked slyly. Pointing to their partners’ retreating backs, he looked over towards Tony and asked, “Did you just see what I saw there?”
“Our partners shamelessly flirting with each other? Because if that’s what you’re going to ask, my answer is yes,” DiNozzo replied.
“It would probably be smart for us to be afraid after seeing that, don’t you think?” Kirk mused out loud.
“Yeah,” DiNozzo agreed while he raised an eyebrow. “It would be smart, wouldn’t it?”
“But are you?”
“Afraid? Not at all,” Tony answered emphatically.
Jim’s fingers wandered over toward Scotty’s workbench. He picked up a socket wrench and spun it around in his hand. The ratcheting of the tool clicked in his ear when he harrumphed out loud and said, “Hmm. Me, neither.”
Tony crossed his arms over his chest while he tipped his head to the side. He brought one hand up and tapped his lips with his index finger. As if he was thinking about a lead on a big case, he asked, “Do you think we should we be scared?”
“Probably.”
“But we’re not that smart,” the NCIS agent concluded aloud.
A slow, mischievous grin broke out across Jim’s face. “Nope. We’re not.”
“Well, at least I’m in good company,” DiNozzo proclaimed as he wiggled a piece of paper out from underneath a box of overflowing and random car parts. Tony contemplated the design of the airplane; as a civilian employee of the United States Navy, he knew that Gibbs would kick his ass from the Navy Yard to Quantico and back again if he returned to D.C. reporting that he lost in a paper airplane contest to a local LEO. He could even hear Gibbs’ voice in his head. ‘The Navy has jets and you lived on an aircraft carrier, DiNozzo. You had an advantage.’ It didn’t matter that he’d never actually been at the stick of one of those jets. Even so, Gibbs wouldn’t tolerate the excuse.
With his boss’ motivational words completely ensconced in the back of his mind, DiNozzo set to work. He folded, measured, creased and balanced. Nearly finished, Tony was inspecting his handiwork when he realized one edge was just a little off. He started looking around the organized entropy that was Scotty’s workbench for something flat and weighty, perhaps a ruler or a file to fix the raw edge. He tossed aside a few random curved wrenches that were far too large for such a delicate project and opened the drawer that was hovering above his legs.
There was so much random crap jammed in every possible place, DiNozzo wasn’t sure how the mechanic found anything. As much as the rigidity of the Navy sometimes baffled him, Tony was beginning to understand the method to the madness when it came to the military’s insane organizational tendencies. Shoving aside a bottle of vitamins and what looked like a package of Ho-Hos (smashed nearly beyond recognition), DiNozzo’s fingers closed on an incredibly fat, shiny and weighty silver pen. He flipped it over a few times in his hand and, impressed with the craftsmanship, used it to fix the crease of the plane.
DiNozzo looked across the room to see Kirk working diligently away as he finished up his project. Jim’s tongue was poking out of the corner of his mouth while he concentrated on the design. Picking up his entry, DiNozzo pocketed the pen and sauntered over toward Kirk. He plopped down in the chair next to the Iowa City cop and asked, “Ready to get your ass handed to you yet?”
“I just have to finish one thing here, and then I’ll be able to show you how we do it Iowa,” Jim fired back. Trash talking was his specialty, and Kirk would be damned if he’d allow a fed to show him up. He brushed off some of the residual Cheeto powder from his fingers and grumbled when he noticed an orange streak on one of the corners of his plane. Shrugging, Jim stood and walked with DiNozzo out the door of the office and into the underground garage. He led the NCIS agent over toward the side of the massive structure, away from the small army of squad cars and toward a recessed, fenced-off area.
Tony laughed when he looked down at the floor running parallel to the long line of chain link fence storage. Marked in white electrical tape were measurements, set in increments of five feet a crack, from zero all the way down to one hundred at the other end of the garage. DiNozzo pointed. “Your chief lets you keep that on the floor? Man, my old boss in Baltimore would have killed us, never mind what Gibbs might do.”
“Honestly?” Jim answered. “We’ve never asked. The guys that are involved in this contest figured it’s easier to grovel for forgiveness than it’d be to ask for permission. Barnett would have said no anyway, so why bother?”
“But he has to know about it,” DiNozzo hypothesized out loud.
Kirk nodded emphatically as he looked down range. Formulating a strategy in his head, he answered DiNozzo with, “I know he does, but I think he figures if this keeps us occupied, he won’t complain. If he outlawed this, we’d just come up with something different.”
A flash of headlights and the rumble of an engine interrupted the compliment Tony was about to give. Kirk had balls - that much was certain, and he’d earned DiNozzo’s respect. He let the thought roll around in his head as Tony watched a dark SUV, caked liberally with snow, pulled through the door of the station’s garage and into one of the open parking spaces. The engine cut, the door opened, and the driver stepped out.
Over his head, Jim waved the new arrival over. From a distance, Tony was able to file away some basic data. About the same height as Jim and McCoy, the new man was visibly older, though the spring in his step belied the grey collected at his temples and sprinkled throughout his otherwise light brown hair. He was dressed similarly to Kirk - very casually in a grey sweater and a pair of jeans, but his garb did absolutely nothing to hide the authority that radiated off him in waves. It was only because of the years on Gibbs’ team that Tony was able to repress the instinctual need to step back as a set of ice blue eyes bored into him as the older man studied the NCIS agent. ‘Refined’ was probably the best word DiNozzo could come up with as the man drew closer, ignoring him completely in favor of Jim.
Kirk stuck his hand out and greeted the stranger warmly. “Lieu,” the younger man said.
“Kirk,” he answered, nodding while he gave Jim’s hand an emphatic pump.
Jim turned to face DiNozzo and pointed toward the new stranger. “Tony DiNozzo, this is Lieutenant Chris Pike. Lieu, Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, NCIS.”
Pike arched one eyebrow while his gaze flicked down to the badge clipped to Tony’s belt. A deep, powerful but strangely soothing voice emanated from his chest when the lieutenant answered, “NCIS, huh? God, that makes me feel old.”
DiNozzo tilted his head to the side while he thought about Pike’s words. He took into account the ramrod straight posture, the natural born leadership vibe, and the military bearing. Snapping his fingers, he said, “You served when it was NIS I’ll bet.”
“Very good,” Chris answered, clearly impressed. “I never had any need for you guys back when I was in the Corps, but I’m glad to know that the Navy doesn’t hire idiots to investigate their crimes.” Pike shook his head and extended his right hand to DiNozzo. “I’m sorry, it’s been a long night already. Chris Pike.”
“Tony DiNozzo. Nice to meet you. I wish I could say I’m enjoying your city, but that’d just be a load of bullshit. I’m not. This is horrible,” Tony admitted. He tilted his head to the side as a couple more pieces slid into place. “Let me guess: two tours with the Corps, which I’d also bet makes you McCoy’s old partner, right?”
“You’d be right,” Pike said. He motioned for the pair to follow as he slowly ambled toward the door to Scotty’s lair.
“I’m sorry,” DiNozzo quipped before he could hold it back.
“Why?” Pike asked, stopping in mid stride. Sharply, he asked, “That I served? Because let me tell you, son. I have never and will never regret my time with the Marines.”
Eyes wide, Tony held up both hands and spit out in a rush, “No, no, that’s what I meant at all. I work for NCIS. I have respect for the military.”
Pike narrowed his eyes suspiciously in Tony’s direction. “Then what were you talking about, Agent DiNozzo?”
“I was actually talking about your former partner.” Tony coughed uncomfortably, cursing himself for the thousandth time for letting his mouth get ahead of his brain. He scoffed a couple of times while his eyes darted around the grey walls of the garage, clarifying his previous statement with, “You know, because he isn’t exactly the nicest guy in the world. I’ll bet your conversations during patrol were fun to non-existent.”
To DiNozzo’s shocked surprise, Pike waved his hand and laughed. “Len’s not that bad. He just has to warm up to you, that’s all.”
“How long did that take?” DiNozzo asked.
“Oh, a few months,” he replied, purposely vague. He slowed his stride and pointed his index finger toward Tony. “Whatever you think of him now, just know that he’s a good man, and a better cop. I trust him.”
Tony wordlessly nodded before he fell back in step with Kirk and Pike.
The lieutenant stopped in front of the door that led out of the garage and into the station proper, pulling a folded up piece of paper from his pocket. He flipped it open, and, addressing Jim, told him, “Kirk, I forgot to sign off on your last few hours of overtime when you turned in your time card, and I want to make sure you get paid. Chapel said she wasn’t going to do it without my signature.” He patted down his pockets and sighed. “Anyone have a pen?”
DiNozzo reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out the pen he’d borrowed from Scotty’s workbench earlier in the evening. He extended his arm and handed it to Pike. “Yeah, here. Use this.”
Pike clicked the plunger three times and flipped the writing device over in his hand. At the same time, he leaned up against the door to Scotty’s office and unfurled Jim’s overtime request. Plastering the paper against the metal, he was just about to start the flourish of the ‘C’ in his first name when the top of the silver tube unexpectedly blew off. It bounced off the lieutenant’s neck and clattered to the floor. Pike opened his mouth and managed a surprised grunt a second before bright red foam started spewing from the end of the pen he was holding.
It was akin to opening a joke can, the one with the spring form snake hiding inside it. The foam propelled itself from the pen at a volume that shouldn’t have been possible from such a small source. It hit the lieutenant in the face, cascaded down his neck and soaked completely through the grey knit sweater he was wearing. What didn’t hit his face, shirt or pants dripped off Pike and landed with a splat on the floor below. Pike turned, mouth agape as he tried to wipe off the blood red dye from his face. His expression aghast, the lieutenant tried to clear the substance from his eyes and spit out what managed to invade his mouth.
“GODDAMMIT!! WHAT THE SHIT IS GOING ON HERE??!!” the lieutenant yelled. The sound bounced off the walls of the garage and sent all the little mice (or scared police officers) scurrying for cover. The only remaining souls left were Kirk and DiNozzo, both frozen in place by dumbstruck shock.
Tony never thought that it would have been possible for someone who looked like a red Oompa Loompa to be so intimidating, but Chris Pike was making it happen quite sufficiently. The older man’s eyes bulged from his head and his lips curled into the meanest, most impressive scowl DiNozzo had ever seen. The crimson stain to his skin against the color of his eyes made him look that much more maniacal, never mind the fact that he was fucking pissed. The NCIS agent looked over toward his Iowa City companion, and from the corner of his eyes, saw the Kirk was just as dumbfounded as he was. “I’m guessing there was a reason that pen was buried in the bottom of that drawer, huh?” DiNozzo asked, cringing through the entire sentence as he stood stock still next to Kirk.
Jim’s face was pinched up into an equally pained expression. “If it was that big silver one, yeah. There was a reason.”
“We are so dead,” Tony breathed out while his posture deflated.
Jim chewed nervously on the inside of his lip as he watched his lieutenant swear and curse at the dye coating him from head to toe.
“Yep.”
========
Next Up: Ziva and McCoy attempt to eavesdrop on Pike’s “conversation” with Kirk and DiNozzo, and IA gets involved.
Disclaimer: I don’t own NCIS or Star Trek, or anything else that you might recognize in this story, like the design of Scotty's office furniture. I own only the ideas in it, and a very overactive imagination.
Chapters | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8A | 8B | 9 |
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Chapter 6
Iowa City, Iowa
Early on in their partnership, one of the things Jim discovered about McCoy was that the man was hellbent on spending a good portion of his adult life perfecting the fine art of accusation. Specifically, he would often indict Kirk on charges of ‘being’ things. Being obstinate, being helpful, being annoying, being loyal, being an infant, being wrong, being right. (Although, according to McCoy, the ratio of wrong to right was about a billion to one.) But, there was one thing of which Bones never accused Kirk: being smart.
Really, the whole world knew the sergeant was referring to all matters figurative every time he called his partner a dumbass. Jim literally had enough book smarts to embarrass half the PhDs on the planet while only using half his functioning brain cells. No, McCoy was referring to Kirk’s penchant for leaping before he looked, that instinctual gift Pike both loved and loathed. As hard as the older man tried, it was the one thing that still really hadn’t improved, even after the years under Bones’ expert tutelage.
If McCoy’s best efforts simply reigned in Kirk’s do-or-die nature to a manageable (and non-lethal) level, the sudden appearance of Anthony ‘Big-D-Little-I-Big-N-Little-Ozzo’ sure as hell wasn’t going to help matters. When Bones told him he was out on a mission for food that wasn’t divided up by a spirally piece of metal that, “Always ate his damned money anyway,” and was therefore going out somewhere, Kirk read the message of caution dancing all over his partner’s face loudly and clearly. Subsequently, he and DiNozzo promised to behave like good little children, and for the most part, they did. But, there was only so much Operation and Battleship two grown men could play before boredom invariably set in, and when it did, the pair went looking for…alternatives.
If the prospect of a budding friendship between one federal agent and one Iowa City cop wasn’t so frightening, the mirror image poses Kirk and DiNozzo sported standing outside Scotty’s office might have actually been amusing. Jim tipped his head to the side while he contemplated their next move. “How do you want to play this?”
“I’m all about the direct approach.”
“Awesome,” Jim replied. “So, I’m gonna break, and you’re gonna enter.”
Tony put his arm out to stop Kirk as he advanced on the door. Shaking his head, he insisted, “Oh, no, no, no. I am not going to let you have all the fun. Stand back and let the master do his work, Kirk.”
“You think I can’t pick a lock? I’ll have you know I was a very misguided youth, and I’m proud of it. I learned a thing or two about getting past deterrents like that,” Kirk insisted while he pulled out the knife he always carried from his pocket. He flicked the auto-lock mechanism with his thumb, and the blade sprung clear from its sheath. Jim inserted the metal tip into the keyhole and gave a little wiggle while he lifted the door handle upward. With a light ‘click’, the lock snapped back, allowing the pair access to their prize.
Tony pulled his wrist down from in front of his face and gave an approving nod. “Two and a half seconds? Not bad, Kirk. Not bad.” DiNozzo followed Jim through the threshold of the door and into the darkened room. In the basement of the building and just off the garage, the area was a little musty and damp, even for the time of year. The smell of engine oil and abrasive chemicals permeated the room; it was almost impossible to miss. There was only one small window in the far corner, which offered little in the way of light. He lost sight of Kirk, but he could hear the other man navigating through the dark across the space. “Done this before, I take it?” Tony called.
Kirk reached the light switches on the other side of the room and flicked the yellow toggle up. The hum of fluorescent lights buzzed in DiNozzo’s ears a second before his eyes were assaulted by the bright glow from the ceiling. Jim laughed while Tony squinted away, moving toward some furniture on the left side of what turned out to be a very unconventional office. “A time or two, yeah.”
With his pupils dilated to a more appropriate level, DiNozzo took a quick moment to observe his surroundings. The room was large, probably the size of a very generous two-car garage. A workbench sat against the far wall, right below where Kirk had to go to turn on the lights. DiNozzo’s eyebrows climbed to his hairline when he saw what was in the middle of the room, and he was simultaneously glad he’d had the foresight to stay put. A mechanic’s pit personified by the large, gaping hole in the floor that was surrounded by yellow and black stripes took up a large section of half the office. About five feet from the workbench against the wall, it butted up nearly to the bare concrete support beam that was probably holding up half the building. The fact Kirk didn’t fall into the thing and break his neck while he moved stealthy across the room in the dark spoke volumes about his familiarity with the placement of the obstacles and the layout.
On the other side of the room, DiNozzo’s eyes followed Jim over to the area where the most unique set of living room furniture resided. There was a couch and two chairs, but the pieces were definitely far from ordinary. The couch was made up of a grey, leather-like material, though it was much smaller than a normal couch. Two generously sized indentations were pressed into the leather with a third, albeit smaller space, stuffed almost as an afterthought in between. Tony studied it further and he realized the reason it looked so completely odd was because it was a damned bench seat from the back of a car. If the headrests bobbing on top of the back of the couch didn’t give it away, the item’s two feet of elevation off the ground on a custom pedestal most certainly did. Rounding out the look were two sweeping grey armrests that made twin crescents on each side, forming the ends of the couch. A cursory look at the other two chairs confirmed that they were also made from what appeared to be the front seats, and in the same fashion as the couch.
The coffee table was probably the central piece, though. As DiNozzo walked closer, he got a good look at what originally looked like a metal table with a glass top. But, on second glance, he realized that the rectangle shaped glass was floating on top of an engine block from a Ford V8. Polished to a high, nickel-bright shine, all the wires and plugs had been removed and the pistons that fired up through the housing were absent as well. Still, there was no mistaking the space the eight cylinders would have used, nor could he miss the distinctive presses and shapes of the engine itself. DiNozzo couldn’t help but let out a little chuckle. It was, in a word, brilliant.
With a shake of his head, he walked around the back of the furniture to join his new companion. He paused momentarily when, on the back side of the couch, Tony’s eyes zeroed in on a mangled, deformed Iowa license plate. He was able to make out a ‘P’, an ‘L’ and an ‘I’, but nothing else through the scrap of twisted metal. He let out a low whistle when, on his final walk-around, Tony saw the edge of the engine block coffee table. The engine was smashed in on one corner, and a very impressive crack ran through the area that would have held the first cylinder. DiNozzo made a mental note to try and pry the story of the one-of-a-kind furniture out of someone from the department before he asked, “So whose office are we invading now?”
“Scotty’s. He’s the mechanic around here, and he won’t care,” Jim replied, reaching into the mini fridge. He pulled out a few cans of Mountain Dew and snagged some Cheetos from the top of the appliance before he ambled over to the space and plopped down.
“There’s a lock on the door he actually uses, unlike some people I know. That implies that he might care,” Tony said with a raised eyebrow while he accepted the snacks from Jim.
“That’s for everyone else, not me. He gave me a key once, but when he figured out that I still picked the lock, he made me give it back. Scotty told me that he doesn’t care what I do, just as long as I don’t eat all the snacks and I lock the door on my way out,” Kirk answered while he dug one greedy hand into the Cheetos.
“Okay, that’s officially awesome,” Tony admitted, wondering silently just how terrible of a death Abby might devise if he were stupid enough to do the same thing to the door of her lab.
“Yeah, I thought so, too. It’s a righteous deal. In return, all I had to do was teach him how to shoot.” Jim lifted up his butt and fished underneath the vicinity of his seat. He cursed loudly, feeling around until his fingers hit paydirt. He coaxed the plastic device from the recesses of the couch and hit the ‘power’ button on his prize - the remote for Scotty’s flatscreen TV. As the screen warmed up, an orgasmically sated look washed over his face while he flipped the channel, landing on what looked like a hockey game. “Thank God. I thought I missed it.”
DiNozzo coughed into his hand. “We broke into your mechanic’s office so we could watch a hockey game? You know, when you mentioned a change of venue, this is not exactly what I had in mind.”
“Please tell me you didn’t call the world’s most awesome sport just a hockey game. I was starting to like you, but if you’re nothing but another hater…” Jim replied, trailing off before he could finish the thought.
“It’s not that I don’t like it. I just don’t get it. At all,” Tony replied quickly.
Kirk’s face lit up. “Oh. Well, I can fix that!”
From the doorway, McCoy’s sharp, authoritative voice cut into the conversation. “Just do yourself a favor, DiNozzo: if he offers to teach you to ice skate, tell him no.”
Tony covered his momentary shock by schooling his face before he placed his hand dramatically over his heart. He swiveled in his seat and turned his head toward the door to see their respective partners, back from dinner and full of snow. In a very dramatic voice, DiNozzo told the Iowa City sergeant, “Aww. And here I didn’t think you cared, McCoy!”
McCoy rolled his eyes, pushed his body off the frame of the door where he was leaning and sauntered into the room. He made a ‘shooing’ motion with one hand and dropped into the remaining space on the couch next to Kirk a millisecond after his partner moved. Reaching for the Cheetos, he shot Jim a baneful look. “I don’t. But, I still have to ride in a car with him,” McCoy said, jerking his thumb toward Kirk while he bounced some of the cheesy snacks around in his palm. “And what I don’t need is to have to listen to him gloat all day long that he did the same thing to you as he did to me.”
“I did not make you fall on your ass, Bones. That was all you and your Bambi coordination.”
“There is a reason humans are land creatures. Man should not be able to walk on water. It’s just not natural,” the sergeant complained loudly as he glared daggers at his partner.
Kirk grinned widely right before he clapped McCoy on the back. “You’re just pissed you were sore for a week afterwards. Stop frontin’, old man.”
“No, I’m pissed I let you talk me into that nonsense in the first place,” McCoy retorted while he tried and failed to grab one of the unopened Mountain Dew cans Kirk lined up on the coffee table. He glared at his partner when the younger man used his body to shield the sergeant from the caffeine. “Jim, gimme. I’m not going to tell you again.”
“More?” came Ziva’s incredulous voice. “After all the food you ate tonight, I am surprised there is still room in your stomach.”
McCoy picked that moment to turn bright red as he sputtered unintelligently at his dinner partner’s well-placed, well-timed comment. Grumbling, he muttered, “Dammit, Ziva. I didn’t eat that much,” loudly enough for the room’s occupants to hear it in lieu of an actual, thoughtful response.
She snorted out loud while she dropped gracefully into the other single chair. Crossing one leg over the other, the former Mossad officer waved a hand about the air and said, “You inhaled your food! I doubt you even tasted what it was.”
“It was veal,” McCoy ground out while he sunk deeper into the couch. “And I was hungry. I told you that.”
Ziva lifted her eyebrows and smirked, causing Tony to stifle a laugh. He knew that look, and he was thankful that it, for once, wasn’t directed at him.
The room fell into a companionable silence. McCoy shifted and cleared his throat as he looked for a way to divert attention from himself and on to someone else where it rightly belonged. Glancing up at the screen, he asked Tony, “You’re willingly watching hockey with him?”
DiNozzo shrugged. “Why not? It was this or we tried to build a better mousetrap.”
McCoy shuddered involuntarily at the thought of Jim’s overly curious hands and hyperactive brain building anything. Knowing Kirk, it would end up overdone, way too big, and with the propensity to explode. “Oh dear God, please no.”
“Come on, McCoy. How bad can it really be?”
“You don’t know Jim,” was the sergeant’s flat, icy reply. “Nothing he ever does goes to plan.”
“Kind of like your life, Bones,” Kirk chimed in from across the room.
“We’re not going to talk about that,” McCoy groused while his lip curled into a fairly impressive sneer. “But we are going to talk about the two of you not building anything, especially while I’m trapped in the same building with you.”
Tony made a show and put on his best pouty face before he said, “What we’re doing right now is pretty harmless, I think. There’s nothing wrong with watching a sport with my new friend here. It’s the ultimate bonding experience.”
McCoy dropped his face into his hands while Ziva let out a little huff. “That’s exactly what I’m worried about. You two. Bonding. Something bad will come from it. I can feel it.”
DiNozzo turned to Kirk, the latter of whom still had his eyes glued on the television. “He really is a buzzkill, man. You weren’t kidding.”
“You get why I had him listed as ‘Ye of Little Faith’ in my phone for a month now, don’t you?”
“’Ye of Little Faith’, Jim? I have plenty of faith, but I tend to keep it rooted in reality,” McCoy hissed out, not liking the sudden turn of the conversation toward himself. “This is all going to blow up spectacularly, and I hope I’m far enough away not to get hit with the shit when it hits the fan.”
Ziva crinkled up her nose. “That would extraordinarily disgusting.”
“It’s Jim. Disgusting is his middle name. I put nothing past him,” McCoy said with a loud snort.
“Look,” DiNozzo started. “All the drama and the fact that you don’t like me aside, why is it so terrible that Kirk and I hang out tonight? We played nice while you two adults were doing…whatever it is you were doing. Grown up stuff.”
Kirk snickered while his mind clearly took a nose dive for the gutter. He glanced over at DiNozzo, the latter of whom looked positively smug with his not-so-faux pas. “Yeah, Bones. You got to hang out with Ziva. What’s wrong with me getting to know DiNozzo here?”
“It’s not like we’re building a potato bazooka and shooting it off the roof of the station. You know, right above the chief’s brand new car,” Tony chimed in, grinning while he watched the tips of McCoy’s ears and nose redden slightly. Somehow, the NCIS agent managed to keep a straight face when continued with, “I just told Kirk that I don’t know a thing about hockey, and he said he’d teach me. He’s been really calm about it all, so I have no idea why you’re worried--”
The sentence wasn’t even clear of DiNozzo’s mouth when Kirk, who apparently possessed the ability to both participate in a conversation and watch a hockey game at the same time, hollered, “SHOOT! SHOOT THE DAMN PUCK!!” while pumping his fists emphatically. He sprang from his seat on the bench-couch when, on the TV, he saw one of the defensemen slide the puck over to the opposite side, near the top of the circle painted on the playing surface. Without catching the pass, the defensive partner raised his stick off the ice and one-timed a slap shot that was gloved by easily the opposing goalie. Kirk’s hands flew to the top of his head and he collapsed back into his chair, groaning as the linesmen raced in to break up the scrum that spontaneously broke out in front of the goalmouth. “Augh! We have to get some traffic in front of that net! It’s too easy for him! He saw it way too cleanly.”
McCoy looked over at Ziva. The woman was doing her best not to laugh at Kirk’s outburst, and failing miserably. The sergeant let his gaze pass the former Mossad officer and wander over to Tony, whose expression clearly stated ‘troubled’ in big, neon letters. McCoy snagged another handful of Cheetos before he asked smugly, “You were saying, Agent DiNozzo?”
“I feel like I’ve fallen into Slapshot. Where’s Reggie Dunlop when you need him?” Tony mumbled under his breath.
“Slapshot is not a myth. It’s awesome, like Denis Lemieux explaining penalties, even if he got most of them wrong,” Kirk amended without looking away from the screen. Jim watched as the team in white passed the puck from near the faceoff dots of their defensive end to a player streaking down the far wing in the neutral zone. The speedy forward caught it mid stride and was on his way across the blue line when the linesman’s whistle blew. “Noo! What are you doing, you idiot? Stay on side! DIDN’T THEY TEACH YOU ABOUT SKATE CONTACT IN SQUIRTS??!!”
Ziva picked up a motoring magazine sitting on the table and began to thumb through it. Distractedly, she said with a shake of her head, “Men and sports: the love that dare not speak its name. I will never understand it.”
“That’s probably for the best, since you made ping-pong a full contact sport.” Tony said off-handedly to his partner. At the same time, he was beginning to wonder if McCoy was right about one thing: Kirk really might be crazy. He blinked through the total shock of Jim’s nearly instantaneous transition from the laid back, fun loving and easy going cop to a screaming, frothing, swearing, rabid hockey fan. It was both scary and amusing all at once, though DiNozzo wasn’t sure in what order those two events occurred. He let his eyes drift over to Kirk’s seething face and held the gaze there while he observed the young man. Pointing at the screen, he said, “You do realize they can’t hear you, right?”
Kirk felt the side eye on his face from the other side of the room before he actually heard DiNozzo speak. He snapped his head toward Tony and, “Of course I know that. But yelling makes me feel better. And stop looking at me like that!”
“Like what?”
Jim glared. “Like you think I’m ready for the funny farm! I’m not crazy! Crazy is Bones watching football.”
McCoy cleared his throat loudly. “Jim, do you always have to drag me into all your shit? Wait. Don’t answer that.” To DiNozzo, the sergeant straightened as best he could and added, “I’m not crazy. I’m intense. There’s a difference.”
A hearty laugh bubbled from the dark haired woman in the chair next to Tony. She tossed the magazine back on the table and said, “If there is a difference, I do not wish to see it. I, for one, think you are all crazy!”
“Pot calling the kettle black much, huh Ziva?” DiNozzo asked. “This is coming from a woman who thinks relaxation is an advanced hand to hand refresher.”
“Tony, a hand to hand refresher is practical. Obsession with a mere game is not. Fanaticism is completely illogical and a waste of time.”
McCoy narrowed his eyes and crossed his muscled arms over his broad chest. Suspiciously, he asked, “Lady, you don’t happen to be related to a guy named Spock, do you?”
“It is possible I could have a relative somewhere out there I have not met. My father was not the most truthful man,” Ziva admitted, her dark eyes flicking down and toward her feet.
McCoy laughed lightly. The sound was low and surprisingly warm, and he suddenly felt self-conscious when he realized it caught his dinner partner off guard. Smirking from the corner of his mouth, he admitted, “That was rhetorical, Ziva.”
“Ah. I wasn’t sure if that was indeed your intent.”
The sergeant nodded his head while Ziva went back to perusing the magazine selection on Scotty’s coffee table. As much as he’d like to get to know more about the NCIS agent, he knew he couldn’t afford such a luxury, at least not until backup arrived. Out of the corner of his eye, McCoy saw Kirk and DiNozzo whispering conspiratorially to each other while they looked nervously about their surroundings. “And just what are you two children planning now?” he asked in his best condescending sergeant’s voice.
“World domination,” was Kirk’s smart-assed, cheeky reply.
McCoy replied by simply huffing and muttering out something obscene that ended in a vague threat against Jim’s ability to procreate.
“We were talking about factual stuff, Bones,” Kirk started by way of explanation while his partner simultaneously opened his mouth to offer his standard protest.
“You know what? He’s telling you the truth,” DiNozzo cut in, effectively silencing the sergeant. “See, we’re actually discussing the office paper airplane records. I have our record, and Jim here told me that he has yours. We have plenty of paper, the will to do it, and a very big, empty garage. So you know what that means?”
On the couch, Jim was positively beaming. “We’re playing for bragging rights, Bones. It’s in the rulebook somewhere that when challenged, we’re supposed to uphold the integrity of the department. Or something.”
A sigh seemed so terribly inadequate to fully express his outright reluctance to even acknowledge the pair’s existence, so he settled on a healthy serving of sarcasm instead. “Right. Because God forbid you’d turn down an opportunity to give me a damned migraine, Jim.” McCoy lifted his body up off the couch, grabbed the can of Mountain Dew he was drinking and guzzled the contents. He crushed the green aluminum with one hand before he tossed the remnants into the garbage on the other side of the table.
Kirk ducked his head and hopped to his feet. He hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his low-slung, dark blue jeans and replied, “They’re paper airplanes. I mean, how bad can it be?”
McCoy reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “How many times have I heard that, right before something goes wrong?”
“You are so melodramatic. It never goes wrong, but it sometimes just doesn’t go according to plan,” Jim laughed out in response as he ran one hand through his sandy blonde hair. “I know you think I’m crazy, but once - just once - it would be cool if you’d recognize my awesomeness. You just gotta go with the flow, man.”
“Jim, we tried that, and it ended with one very pissed off chief and an IA investigation. Remember? The indignity of being locked in interrogation with Spock is something I will never repeat,” McCoy hissed out with a shudder while his right eyebrow scaled his forehead.
“Why can’t you see it as a challenge, Bones? Besides, I covered for you.”
McCoy pursed his lips until they flattened out into a grim, straight line. “I know,” he muttered almost gratefully. Just as quickly, the appreciative expression disappeared as the sergeant’s eyes slid over toward DiNozzo, who wasn’t even trying to contain the snorts of glee coming from his mouth. As his face soured further, McCoy slowly turned his head and fixed the NCIS agent with the most intense, withering glare he could muster. It had the desired effect on DiNozzo’s mouth, but it was of little comfort when he thought about why, exactly, Tony was laughing. Straightening, McCoy brushed past the two younger men and proclaimed, “You two infants can do whatever you’d like. I just hope Pike comes to get me so I can watch him kick your asses when gets here.”
Kirk snorted and looked over toward DiNozzo. “Yep. Ye of Little Faith,” Jim said with a huge, annoying grin on his face.
Ziva held up one hand and hopped up out of the chair as McCoy walked past. “I think I will join you. Tony, if you destroy anything here, you will be taking the blame.”
DiNozzo flashed Ziva one of his trademark get-out-of-jail free smiles. “I would never dream of it, partner! I’m a big boy! I can handle it!”
“That is precisely what I’m worried about,” she replied, her voice already echoing as she walked down the long, empty hallway that led to the stairs and up to the operations center of the station. She fell into stride with McCoy as the pair disappeared up the steps.
Kirk narrowed his eyes and smirked slyly. Pointing to their partners’ retreating backs, he looked over towards Tony and asked, “Did you just see what I saw there?”
“Our partners shamelessly flirting with each other? Because if that’s what you’re going to ask, my answer is yes,” DiNozzo replied.
“It would probably be smart for us to be afraid after seeing that, don’t you think?” Kirk mused out loud.
“Yeah,” DiNozzo agreed while he raised an eyebrow. “It would be smart, wouldn’t it?”
“But are you?”
“Afraid? Not at all,” Tony answered emphatically.
Jim’s fingers wandered over toward Scotty’s workbench. He picked up a socket wrench and spun it around in his hand. The ratcheting of the tool clicked in his ear when he harrumphed out loud and said, “Hmm. Me, neither.”
Tony crossed his arms over his chest while he tipped his head to the side. He brought one hand up and tapped his lips with his index finger. As if he was thinking about a lead on a big case, he asked, “Do you think we should we be scared?”
“Probably.”
“But we’re not that smart,” the NCIS agent concluded aloud.
A slow, mischievous grin broke out across Jim’s face. “Nope. We’re not.”
“Well, at least I’m in good company,” DiNozzo proclaimed as he wiggled a piece of paper out from underneath a box of overflowing and random car parts. Tony contemplated the design of the airplane; as a civilian employee of the United States Navy, he knew that Gibbs would kick his ass from the Navy Yard to Quantico and back again if he returned to D.C. reporting that he lost in a paper airplane contest to a local LEO. He could even hear Gibbs’ voice in his head. ‘The Navy has jets and you lived on an aircraft carrier, DiNozzo. You had an advantage.’ It didn’t matter that he’d never actually been at the stick of one of those jets. Even so, Gibbs wouldn’t tolerate the excuse.
With his boss’ motivational words completely ensconced in the back of his mind, DiNozzo set to work. He folded, measured, creased and balanced. Nearly finished, Tony was inspecting his handiwork when he realized one edge was just a little off. He started looking around the organized entropy that was Scotty’s workbench for something flat and weighty, perhaps a ruler or a file to fix the raw edge. He tossed aside a few random curved wrenches that were far too large for such a delicate project and opened the drawer that was hovering above his legs.
There was so much random crap jammed in every possible place, DiNozzo wasn’t sure how the mechanic found anything. As much as the rigidity of the Navy sometimes baffled him, Tony was beginning to understand the method to the madness when it came to the military’s insane organizational tendencies. Shoving aside a bottle of vitamins and what looked like a package of Ho-Hos (smashed nearly beyond recognition), DiNozzo’s fingers closed on an incredibly fat, shiny and weighty silver pen. He flipped it over a few times in his hand and, impressed with the craftsmanship, used it to fix the crease of the plane.
DiNozzo looked across the room to see Kirk working diligently away as he finished up his project. Jim’s tongue was poking out of the corner of his mouth while he concentrated on the design. Picking up his entry, DiNozzo pocketed the pen and sauntered over toward Kirk. He plopped down in the chair next to the Iowa City cop and asked, “Ready to get your ass handed to you yet?”
“I just have to finish one thing here, and then I’ll be able to show you how we do it Iowa,” Jim fired back. Trash talking was his specialty, and Kirk would be damned if he’d allow a fed to show him up. He brushed off some of the residual Cheeto powder from his fingers and grumbled when he noticed an orange streak on one of the corners of his plane. Shrugging, Jim stood and walked with DiNozzo out the door of the office and into the underground garage. He led the NCIS agent over toward the side of the massive structure, away from the small army of squad cars and toward a recessed, fenced-off area.
Tony laughed when he looked down at the floor running parallel to the long line of chain link fence storage. Marked in white electrical tape were measurements, set in increments of five feet a crack, from zero all the way down to one hundred at the other end of the garage. DiNozzo pointed. “Your chief lets you keep that on the floor? Man, my old boss in Baltimore would have killed us, never mind what Gibbs might do.”
“Honestly?” Jim answered. “We’ve never asked. The guys that are involved in this contest figured it’s easier to grovel for forgiveness than it’d be to ask for permission. Barnett would have said no anyway, so why bother?”
“But he has to know about it,” DiNozzo hypothesized out loud.
Kirk nodded emphatically as he looked down range. Formulating a strategy in his head, he answered DiNozzo with, “I know he does, but I think he figures if this keeps us occupied, he won’t complain. If he outlawed this, we’d just come up with something different.”
A flash of headlights and the rumble of an engine interrupted the compliment Tony was about to give. Kirk had balls - that much was certain, and he’d earned DiNozzo’s respect. He let the thought roll around in his head as Tony watched a dark SUV, caked liberally with snow, pulled through the door of the station’s garage and into one of the open parking spaces. The engine cut, the door opened, and the driver stepped out.
Over his head, Jim waved the new arrival over. From a distance, Tony was able to file away some basic data. About the same height as Jim and McCoy, the new man was visibly older, though the spring in his step belied the grey collected at his temples and sprinkled throughout his otherwise light brown hair. He was dressed similarly to Kirk - very casually in a grey sweater and a pair of jeans, but his garb did absolutely nothing to hide the authority that radiated off him in waves. It was only because of the years on Gibbs’ team that Tony was able to repress the instinctual need to step back as a set of ice blue eyes bored into him as the older man studied the NCIS agent. ‘Refined’ was probably the best word DiNozzo could come up with as the man drew closer, ignoring him completely in favor of Jim.
Kirk stuck his hand out and greeted the stranger warmly. “Lieu,” the younger man said.
“Kirk,” he answered, nodding while he gave Jim’s hand an emphatic pump.
Jim turned to face DiNozzo and pointed toward the new stranger. “Tony DiNozzo, this is Lieutenant Chris Pike. Lieu, Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, NCIS.”
Pike arched one eyebrow while his gaze flicked down to the badge clipped to Tony’s belt. A deep, powerful but strangely soothing voice emanated from his chest when the lieutenant answered, “NCIS, huh? God, that makes me feel old.”
DiNozzo tilted his head to the side while he thought about Pike’s words. He took into account the ramrod straight posture, the natural born leadership vibe, and the military bearing. Snapping his fingers, he said, “You served when it was NIS I’ll bet.”
“Very good,” Chris answered, clearly impressed. “I never had any need for you guys back when I was in the Corps, but I’m glad to know that the Navy doesn’t hire idiots to investigate their crimes.” Pike shook his head and extended his right hand to DiNozzo. “I’m sorry, it’s been a long night already. Chris Pike.”
“Tony DiNozzo. Nice to meet you. I wish I could say I’m enjoying your city, but that’d just be a load of bullshit. I’m not. This is horrible,” Tony admitted. He tilted his head to the side as a couple more pieces slid into place. “Let me guess: two tours with the Corps, which I’d also bet makes you McCoy’s old partner, right?”
“You’d be right,” Pike said. He motioned for the pair to follow as he slowly ambled toward the door to Scotty’s lair.
“I’m sorry,” DiNozzo quipped before he could hold it back.
“Why?” Pike asked, stopping in mid stride. Sharply, he asked, “That I served? Because let me tell you, son. I have never and will never regret my time with the Marines.”
Eyes wide, Tony held up both hands and spit out in a rush, “No, no, that’s what I meant at all. I work for NCIS. I have respect for the military.”
Pike narrowed his eyes suspiciously in Tony’s direction. “Then what were you talking about, Agent DiNozzo?”
“I was actually talking about your former partner.” Tony coughed uncomfortably, cursing himself for the thousandth time for letting his mouth get ahead of his brain. He scoffed a couple of times while his eyes darted around the grey walls of the garage, clarifying his previous statement with, “You know, because he isn’t exactly the nicest guy in the world. I’ll bet your conversations during patrol were fun to non-existent.”
To DiNozzo’s shocked surprise, Pike waved his hand and laughed. “Len’s not that bad. He just has to warm up to you, that’s all.”
“How long did that take?” DiNozzo asked.
“Oh, a few months,” he replied, purposely vague. He slowed his stride and pointed his index finger toward Tony. “Whatever you think of him now, just know that he’s a good man, and a better cop. I trust him.”
Tony wordlessly nodded before he fell back in step with Kirk and Pike.
The lieutenant stopped in front of the door that led out of the garage and into the station proper, pulling a folded up piece of paper from his pocket. He flipped it open, and, addressing Jim, told him, “Kirk, I forgot to sign off on your last few hours of overtime when you turned in your time card, and I want to make sure you get paid. Chapel said she wasn’t going to do it without my signature.” He patted down his pockets and sighed. “Anyone have a pen?”
DiNozzo reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out the pen he’d borrowed from Scotty’s workbench earlier in the evening. He extended his arm and handed it to Pike. “Yeah, here. Use this.”
Pike clicked the plunger three times and flipped the writing device over in his hand. At the same time, he leaned up against the door to Scotty’s office and unfurled Jim’s overtime request. Plastering the paper against the metal, he was just about to start the flourish of the ‘C’ in his first name when the top of the silver tube unexpectedly blew off. It bounced off the lieutenant’s neck and clattered to the floor. Pike opened his mouth and managed a surprised grunt a second before bright red foam started spewing from the end of the pen he was holding.
It was akin to opening a joke can, the one with the spring form snake hiding inside it. The foam propelled itself from the pen at a volume that shouldn’t have been possible from such a small source. It hit the lieutenant in the face, cascaded down his neck and soaked completely through the grey knit sweater he was wearing. What didn’t hit his face, shirt or pants dripped off Pike and landed with a splat on the floor below. Pike turned, mouth agape as he tried to wipe off the blood red dye from his face. His expression aghast, the lieutenant tried to clear the substance from his eyes and spit out what managed to invade his mouth.
“GODDAMMIT!! WHAT THE SHIT IS GOING ON HERE??!!” the lieutenant yelled. The sound bounced off the walls of the garage and sent all the little mice (or scared police officers) scurrying for cover. The only remaining souls left were Kirk and DiNozzo, both frozen in place by dumbstruck shock.
Tony never thought that it would have been possible for someone who looked like a red Oompa Loompa to be so intimidating, but Chris Pike was making it happen quite sufficiently. The older man’s eyes bulged from his head and his lips curled into the meanest, most impressive scowl DiNozzo had ever seen. The crimson stain to his skin against the color of his eyes made him look that much more maniacal, never mind the fact that he was fucking pissed. The NCIS agent looked over toward his Iowa City companion, and from the corner of his eyes, saw the Kirk was just as dumbfounded as he was. “I’m guessing there was a reason that pen was buried in the bottom of that drawer, huh?” DiNozzo asked, cringing through the entire sentence as he stood stock still next to Kirk.
Jim’s face was pinched up into an equally pained expression. “If it was that big silver one, yeah. There was a reason.”
“We are so dead,” Tony breathed out while his posture deflated.
Jim chewed nervously on the inside of his lip as he watched his lieutenant swear and curse at the dye coating him from head to toe.
“Yep.”
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Next Up: Ziva and McCoy attempt to eavesdrop on Pike’s “conversation” with Kirk and DiNozzo, and IA gets involved.