Work Text:
Black Op
by JustJeanette
“Jack’s safe,” Gibbs commented as he entered the house hoping to head off whatever plans Tony had for tanning his hide. At work he might be the Boss but here at home they were equals and that meant Gibbs expected to be finally called on the saga that had been the last couple of months; called on it, painfully.
“Good,” Tony murmured as he looked up from the report he was reading. “I’m glad you had someone looking out for your old man.” Tony was calm, polite, apparently unmoved.
Gibbs started planning his escape route.
“So, he’s all tucked in? Safe and sound at Abby’s?” Tony got up and approached the front hallway where Gibbs was still standing.
“Yep, Vance was true to his word and had someone standing guard at the store,” Gibbs replied evenly, escape route now planned. “Jack was never in any danger.
“Good, good,” Tony move in closer, stepping right into Gibbs space. “Now, I’ve only got a couple of questions then we can put this incident to bed.”
“Uh, huh,” Gibbs realised, too late, that he’d left his escape too long.
“Yeah, like,” and then Tony roared, “what the hell were you thinking, Jethro?” Tony practically vibrated with restrained anger. “Jesus, were you even thinking at all?”
Gibbs didn’t back up as he looked down at the finger currently poking his chest, hard. “Leave it, Tony, leave it.” Gibbs wasn’t begging but that was only because Gibbs never begged.
“Leave it! Leave it, he says.” Tony followed up the finger poking with a full bore hand to the chest pushing Gibbs back against the door. “I find out that you’ve murdered someone and I’m just supposed to leave it?”
“It wasn’t murder,” Gibbs ground out.
“It wasn’t murder?” Eyes almost bugging out of his head Tony glanced over at the table and the report he’d been reading. “Want to explain to me how that,” Tony nodded his head at the table just in case Gibbs hadn’t caught onto what was upsetting his life-partner, “isn’t murder?”
Tony was way passed ticked. He knew Gibbs was a bastard; hell everyone knew that, second B stood for bastard. But Tony was also a cop, first and foremost, and to find out that Gibbs wilfully murdered someone... Tony was almost afraid this would break them, a betrayal to great to overcome.
“Rule number four, Tony.”
“What!”
“Rule number four. Best way to keep a secret? Keep it to yourself. Second best? Tell one other person - if you must. There is no third best.”
“I know that, Boss.” The use of Boss was not a good sign, not here at home. Tony wasn’t going to back down on this.
“Shit, Tony. It was a black op.”
Tony looked at Gibbs, really looked at him. “Shit, Jethro? How the fuck?”
“Hernandez was going down, no matter what. He’d been supplying drugs and Intel to people he really shouldn’t have been. Shannon’s testimony would have put him away but they always had a backup plan. I still don’t know how Franks organised it but using me as the killer was meant to make it look like a vengeance killing.”
“And it was, wasn’t it?” Tony had to ask.
“Did I enjoy killing that bastard, you mean? Yes. Would I have killed him anyway? No.” Gibbs didn’t like opening up to anyone, that was another well known fact, but this was too important to stuff up. “Taking out Hernandez in a way that looked like a revenge attack allowed the CIA to get one of their own higher up in the organisation without anyone looking too closely at how Hernandez died. That was what I was tasked to do; the payoff was I got seconded permanently to NIS.”
“And the ballistics?”
“Tony,” the head slap was a given, “I always police my brass. Hell, I’ve used that rifle enough times since that even if I hadn’t policed my brass there is no way the ballistics would match.”
“Then.”
“How? M Allison Hart,” Gibbs grinned that feral grin of his, the one that turned Tony’s insides to mush and usually meant that Gibbs has pulled one over on someone. “Sometimes you have to let someone think they’ve played you. Her working backflip was nice but that just means I’ve got something on her, for later, if necessary.”
“Gods, you are a bastard among men, and I mean that in the nicest possible way,” Tony was grinning now. “Should have known, ouch.” Gibbs hadn’t been gentle with the head slap this time.
“Yes, you should have known.”
“Sorry,” the puppy dog eyes might have been a bit of overkill but Tony was feeling rather disgusted with himself for even doubting Gibbs for a moment.
“Hey,” a lightning fast kiss to the nose disabused Tony of the idea he was in too much trouble, “sometimes I need you to doubt me. I’m not perfect and as my second in command you are supposed to question me.”
“Oh, so I get to question you, do I?” The nudge-nudge-wink-wink eyebrow trick just looked silly.
“Later, Tony, later.”
“So, who else knows?” Tony smiled as he thought about what questions he’d ask later, maybe some things involving a full body search”
“Get your mind out of the gutter, DiNozzo,” Gibbs easily reading the thoughts dancing about Tony’s heads; the fact that he knew Tony was packing heat when Tony would have safe locked his weapon when he’d gotten home just verified that fact that Tony wasn’t thinking about Hernandez anymore. “As for who knows, apart from the people involved in the original op, Tony? Just you, you are the second person; there is no other option.”
THE END