Work Text:
Punching Bag
by Waldo.
Tony’s arms were getting a little sore, but he continued to pummel the punching bag. He really was his own worst enemy.
He gave the bag everything he could with a hard right hook, jumping back just in time as it swung back towards him. He really wondered why Gibbs put up with him. He was a decent agent; he knew that. But he also knew that he was a pain in the ass. And just being ‘decent’ really shouldn’t have been enough for Gibbs to keep him more than a year or two. No one else had ever wanted him for longer. He’d never been anything special in Philly or Peoria or Baltimore. It had been a damn fluke that he’d found the guy who’d killed Gibbs Lieutenant from Baltimore, and for three days and five phone calls he’d been sure Gibbs was kidding when he’d offered him a job after that case. Hell, usually just being him was enough to annoy the hell out of people and have Captains making suggestions that he might ‘feel more comfortable’ in a different division, or station. Or state.
No longer content to just use his fists to take out his frustration; he spun around and side-kicked the bag.
He might be able to understand why Gibbs kept him around if he did his job and shut the hell up. But he couldn’t fathom why Gibbs hadn’t shown his smartassed… ass to the door.
And it grated on his last nerve that he knew he needed to tone it down more often than not and still couldn’t manage it.
As the bag slowed, he turned a little further and reverse-kicked it before spinning back and catching the wildly swinging target of his frustration. Maybe there was something to those papers he’d found when he’d been goofing off and running his own background check a few months ago. His school records had been kind of enlightening. He hadn’t even been aware schools had started scanning in old paper records from the eighties until he’d gotten bored with Google results and started running the deeper law enforcement searches.
He’d always figured there was something his parents weren’t telling him as they moved him from school to school until he was accepted at Rhode Island Military.
Anthony shows aptitude in school, and is generally friendly, but he should be evaluated by a physician for A.D.D. his third grade teacher had written on his permanent records.
His eighth grade homeroom teacher had written a letter of recommendation to the kind of high schools his dad wanted him to attend, but he had some vague memories of his dad being furious when he’d handed over the envelope while ‘reporting’ one night, and it being burned in the fireplace. A copy surfaced in his file, …excels at sports, history and literature, but struggles with math and occasionally with writing due to mild dyslexia and what seems to be undiagnosed/untreated attention deficit disorder…
It had occurred to him when he was wrapping up his second year with NCIS, when he’d normally be moving on, that his pattern of not staying anywhere too long had started way back then. He let out a frustrated sigh as he realized his four years at Ohio state was the longest he’d stayed anywhere before NCIS.
He’d gone from public school in third grade to private school in forth grade. By sixth grade he was in another school and in seventh still another. Seeing that letter from his eighth grade teacher had made him wonder if his mother wasn’t moving him to keep him ahead of one diagnosis or another. He’d never had medication or been in special classes, but his records had indicated that more than once that someone thought he needed both.
It would explain a lot, he thought as he began punching the bag again. Why every random thought that passed through his head came out his mouth. Why he couldn’t sit still without finding something to occupy his hands. Why he didn’t spell worth crap and Gibbs had to keep sending back his reports. Why he hadn’t been able to see the “Untied” mistake in the counterfeit money last year.
He began slamming the bag again. Or maybe he was just making excuses for his own shortcomings. If he was able to get through school with more than just passing grades, get through the police academy, the detectives’ exam and FLETC, then he couldn’t be too ‘challenged’. And one thing his father had been adamant about was that Tony quit making excuses for when he screwed up.
Which meant his issues were just that. His issues. And he needed to cope.
And he needed to quit advertising to the whole fucking world that he felt like he was constantly second-guessing himself. That he was never sure that he was doing the right thing. That he was never sure he’d figured out exactly what conclusion Gibbs had expected him to draw.
He wiped his face off on his gym t-shirt and went back to his random-ass attack on the helpless punching bag. He couldn’t believe he’d made such a stupid spectacle of himself in the squad room earlier. Couldn’t believe he’d actually told Gibbs he wanted to hear him say ‘atta boy’. He wasn’t fucking six years old. He knew when he’d done something right. He didn’t need to hear someone else say it. He didn’t need to go begging for scraps of praise.
It wasn’t as if he’d had some brilliant insight that let them move the case along. All he’d done was stick around to ‘supervise’ the dredging of a lake, so he could pick up any remaining evidence for Abby to actually do the hard work on.
Gibbs never held back. Gibbs had no problem telling him if he’d screwed up, but he also let him know when he’d done well. Sometimes it was a backhanded kind of thing like telling him to get to work on the last of a list of eight things. And then saying loud enough for the rest of the team to hear, “Because you’re doing all the work anyway!”
So, how fucking pathetic did he have to look by basically asking Gibbs to say ‘good job’?
No wonder he ragged on McGee, he thought. Christ, he was that schoolyard bully he’d fought for the first three weeks every time he transferred into a new school. But he did to McGee what they had done to him. Asserted his position in the pecking order by being unreasonably nasty and demeaning. Boosting himself up by tearing someone else down.
Bitch of it all was, he wasn’t sure he’d remember this epiphany the next time he got one over on McGee. Wasn’t even sure he’d actually feel the same way tomorrow. He’d just as likely go back to convincing himself that he was just toughening the probie’s hide, helping him to be able to blow it off when a suspect made a personal comment or unflattering observation. He kicked the bag one more time as hard as he could, barely getting re-balanced in time to catch it before it knocked him on his ass. He stopped the bag and grabbed his waterbottle before dropping to the floor against the wall. He was going to feel it tomorrow for not cooling down, but he was tapped.
What really sucked hard was the fact that when Gibbs had given him what he wanted – had said ‘atta boy’ and stroked his head – Tony had been unreasonably overjoyed. He’d been truly elated at the words and little touch. Jesus, he was a needy bastard. Why the hell didn’t Gibbs kick him to the curb?
A pair of old, scuffed up gym shoes stopped in the blank space of mat he was staring at.
“You done taking out whatever you’re pissed about on the bag?”
Tony looked up to see Gibbs staring down at him. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to deal with anyone at this point, least of all Gibbs. He was in a piss-poor mood; it had to be nearly ten at night and if Gibbs started asking what was wrong, Tony wasn’t sure he wouldn’t spill his miserable, selfish, needy guts all over the mat. After all, this fit right into his issue, didn’t it? Give Gibbs his whole sob story over how much he sucked so that Gibbs would tell him that he didn’t and stroke his ego?
“Want to tell me whose face you see on that thing?” Gibbs asked, staring down at him with a quizzical look.
Tony just shrugged without looking up.
Gibbs hand was suddenly curled around his wrist and he was being pulled up. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’. Come on,” Gibbs reached down and grabbed his hand, hauling him back up. “I’ll hold, you hit.”
Tony felt the need to talk bubbling up within him again. His need for attention and affection warred with his recent realization that he needed to just shut the hell up and cope like everyone else did.
He wiped his face off on the hem of his t-shirt and looked up to see Gibbs holding the bag, waiting for him. He had to admit, it would be a hell of a lot easier to really pound the crap out of the thing when he didn’t have to worry about it hitting back. He jabbed at it a couple times, but found that his heart really wasn’t in it any more. Judging by the look on his boss’ face, he was about to be called every name for ‘pathetic wimp’ the Marines had ever taught Gibbs. He began punching a little more forcefully.
He had finally found a rhythm and a thought pattern that allowed him to start really working out the pent up energy and aggravation when Gibbs threw him a curve ball.
“I need you to have a word with McGee tomorrow.”
Tony faltered, almost falling into the punching bag as he dropped his arms before his body lost momentum. “Huh?” He wasn’t up to a more coherent response.
“McGee. I need you to talk to him tomorrow. His lack of time on the streets is starting to show again.”
Intrigued by the idea that he wasn’t the only screw up on Gibbs’ team, Tony cocked his head and waited for Gibbs to give him the details.
“As we were leaving the La Vida Mala headquarters, I was saying – for the sake of whoever they had spying on us – that Ziva needed to get us the Israeli proof of their ties to Al Queda and that McGee needed to get us a warrant for tapping their phones and email accounts. That bonehead yells out, ‘but I thought we were just saying that to scare them. We can’t get a judge to do that!’”
Tony winced. Okay, that was bad. Of course, he wasn’t sure what the probie had been doing in gang territory anyway. Even if Ziva had said he’d done well. Apparently Ziva didn’t think announcing that they were just bluffing and/or that they were going to fabricate evidence to get a judge to agree to what they wanted was so bad.
Tony signaled to Gibbs to change places with him and braced himself against the bag. “Go for it, boss. You couldn’t hit McGee for being stupid. Take it out on the bag. It doesn’t seem to mind too much.”
Gibbs stretched his arms before grabbing the gloves he’d tossed on the bench and pulling them on. “It’s probably better that you’re beating on the bag than whoever pissed you off, but, really, DiNozzo, gloves would make it hurt a hell of a lot less tomorrow.”
Tony shrugged. Better not to go there. Gibbs hadn’t asked again what was wrong, so he probably didn’t really want to wade hip deep into this with him, so he just looked at his knuckles. A little scraped from the canvas, but he’d be fine.
“At least you had the sense to tape ‘em,” Gibbs said, nodding towards Tony’s hands when Tony didn’t answer him. Gloved up, Gibbs began warming up, hopping up and down and lightly tapping the bag, left, right, left, right. “You’ll talk to McGee tomorrow?” Gibbs asked.
“Yeah, sure, boss. Knock some sense into McMouth, got it.”
“You’re a good example for him, Tony. I’m not sure I would have taken on a book-smart kid with no street time if I hadn’t known you’d be there not only to get his back, but kick his ass when he needed it.” Gibbs stopped swinging and made eye contact with Tony. “The kid seems to think rules and regs and numbers will keep him in one piece against some guy who’s killed someone and has nothing left to lose or who’s coked up and thinks he’s Superman or some damn thing.”
Tony tried to hide the smile that he felt creeping up on him. He hadn’t had to ask for this one. And a speech of that length from Gibbs was practically unheard of. “Thanks, boss,” he said pretending to shift his stance to better brace the bag, so that Gibbs wouldn’t see how much his words meant.
Gibbs just nodded in response. “All right. Hold that thing. I’m ready to go.”
Tony leaned a shoulder into the bag and held it as still as he could as Gibbs went to town on it. McGee would make a better punching bag than he did. And who knew, maybe if he did his job well enough, McGee might even start hitting back some day.
end