What Happens in Vegas

AN: So...I wanted to write another birthday-tribute fic for TG, and had no idea what to do (and she simply left me with an "I'm easy" which didn't really give me any ideas of what she might want...LOL So, I was left to ponder. And then I had some weird medical issues over the weekend, stir in out-of-town company, and you've got yourself a combo #not-gettin'-shit-done-on-the-computer. So this is late...

I thought long and hard about this one. There has to have been some "Dad left me for 2 days when I was a kid" prompted Tony fics already out there. I'm sure I've even read some of them in the past, but I'll be damned if I could find any of them now. So...I mulled it over in my head a bit. I wanted to do something original. I wanted it to be both fun and somehow devastating.

The idea that Tony's father wasn't/isn't an abusive asshole, but just a neglectful and obliviously bad father, kind of ixnays most ideas I might've had before knowing that much about him. However, it also sort of opens up an opportunity to try something that may not have been done yet. Here's hoping.

OH and also? Friggin' just realized it was Maui that Sr left Tony at the hotel. So this is officially AU. LOL In my defense, Jetplane was written before that revelation.

Happy birthday, TG!

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The work was a personal favor for a Navy Admiral. They seemed to be doing a lot of those lately. Favors.

They'd be watching for any suspicious activity at the hotel they were staying at. The nature of what exactly they'd be looking for had yet to be revealed. All they were certain of was that they were undercover. Of course, Tony didn't know that until they checked in to the hotel and were in their room.

"We're doing what?" Tony asked, eyes widened in both surprise and shock. Gibbs smirked, amused by his reaction. Tony should've known the moment they'd walked into the honeymoon suite, though.

"Does it make you uncomfortable?" Gibbs asked with a raised brow. "People thinking you're married to a man?"

"Yeah... No," he quickly changed his answer, shaking his head. "No, I'm not...I just...can't believe you agreed to do this! With me!"

"This isn't gonna be like what you and Ziva did," Gibbs told him. "There's no surveillance on the room; no need to get into any...awkward positions."

"Okay... Yeah, but why are we doing this?" he asked.

"So we could be on this floor without suspicion," Gibbs replied.

"Oh," Tony replied as he sat down on the edge of the bed. "Why do we need to be on this floor?"

"It's where we need to keep a look out," Gibbs told him.

"And we still have no idea what we're looking for," Tony surmised.

"File's supposed to get here tonight," Gibbs told him.

"Delivered to the room?"

"Email. Told them to send it to yours."

"Guess I'll boot up the laptop then," Tony said, pushing up off of the bed and going for his bag. Gibbs watched him as he continued to hang up his clothes in the closet beside the bed. He could tell the agent was tense. Tony hadn't given away much information about his childhood two-day abandonment, except that this was the same hotel where it had happened.

"You okay, Tony?" Gibbs asked as the younger man opened the laptop.

Tony glanced back at him with question on his face. "Yeah, boss. I'm fine. Why?" he asked as he looked back to the computer and hit the power button.

"You said you had a past experience with this hotel, and you seem a little preoccupied."

Tony let out a small laugh. "Not so much preoccupied as...reminiscent, I suppose," he replied. "I don't remember much about it. Just that I'd been upset at the time. Disappointed maybe. Can't really pin it. But being back here in this hotel gives me a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. Nothing I can't handle, boss," he said with a final smirk as his email popped up on the desktop.

"We've got mail," he announced as he clicked on it. Gibbs walked over and sat down in the second chair at the small table Tony had set the computer up on. "Looks like...we're investigating suspicious activity at the hotel. Okay, we knew that much," he said, then continued reading. "The admiral's son-in-law requested that he be allowed to take his kids to Vegas two weeks ago... Wait," he shook his head. "Why would he need permission to take his kids anywhere?"

"Not in his custody," Gibbs surmised. "The admiral's daughter was killed in Iraq last year. Land mine accident. Her ex was outta the picture."

"Looks like the admiral had custody of the kids," Tony said as he continued to read. "So he lets him take the kids to Vegas. Father/kid bonding trip maybe?" he said with a shrug. "Why don't people take their kids to Disney World anymore?"

"They do," Gibbs replied.

"Okay, no hints about what we're looking into yet," Tony said as he scrolled a bit down. "Okay here we go. When the kids came back to the admiral, they were acting weird, sluggish, lethargic... He took them to the doctor. They found..." Tony stopped mid-sentence.

"Tony?"

"They found traces of Rohypnol in both the ten year old boy and his eight year old sister," Tony said in a smaller voice. "Signs of possible sexual assault... Christ. Boss, why the hell are we in Vegas instead of interrogating the admiral's son-in-law?"

Gibbs took over the computer, scrolling further down in the email. "Because he was questioned and released," Gibbs told him. "He said he'd been called away at the last minute for business. Kids were left in the room."

"Alone?"

"Apparently almost the entire weekend," Gibbs said, shaking his head slightly. "Kids confirmed it. They were alone the whole time. Ordered room service when they got hungry. They don't remember anything else."

"They wouldn't remember anything else if he drugged them," Tony scoffed as he stood and began a slow pacing back and forth.

"He's got witnesses for his whereabouts the entire time he claimed to have been gone," Gibbs told him as he read.

"Yeah well, even if it wasn't him, what the hell makes the admiral think he should send two NCIS agents to a hotel in Vegas? If those kids were assaulted, I highly doubt whoever did it would stick around."

Gibbs made a thoughtful sound as he read further in the email. "Apparently...Abby's been working on this for over a week now," he said.

"What?" Tony's face scrunched incredulously, and he stopped to face his boss.

"He heard about her skill set. Requested her assistance. She looked into it."

"And?"

"And it says we should talk to her," Gibbs replied. "Get that Skype thing up on this thing," he told him as he pushed the computer in Tony's direction.

"It's pushing seven in D.C. I guess she might still be there," he said as he pulled up the program.

Within minutes, Abby was on the screen.

"Gibbs! Tony!" she said with a smile. "How was your flight? How's Vegas? I hear this is a great time to hit the casinos!"

"We're here to work, Abs," Gibbs reminded her.

"Casinos later," Tony said with a smirk.

"We need to know what you know about Admiral Parker's case," Gibbs got straight to business.

The smile dropped slowly from her face. "Oh. I had a feeling that's what you were going there for," she said. "Okay well, it was really hard to find anything based on the information the admiral gave me. But as soon as I cross-referenced that hotel specifically, strange reports started popping up as far back as 1992. I'd send you what I found, but it'd be easier just to tell you.

"All of the reports were vague, mainly complaints that there was maybe something wrong with the hotel itself. Some of them said the place might be haunted. Their children were coming home terrified or lethargic but with no memory of why.

"Now the reports themselves are far and few between. Kids ranging anywhere from age six to twelve. No specific gender. However, I did find that if it was a single child complaint, it was always a boy. The only time a girl was involved in a report is when she was there with her brother. None of those cases reported any physical or sexual assault. But none of them were exactly checked for it, either."

"How many cases, Abs?" Gibbs asked.

"Six," she said with a grimace. "I know it's not a lot to go on, but I feel like there's something really bad happening at that hotel, Gibbs.

"Six vague reports in twenty-two years? Yeah I'd say that's kind of a shot in the dark," Tony commented.

"I know," Abby whined. "I know it seems like it. But I went and read the statements from all of those kids, and they all had one thing in common to say. They'd all ventured up to the top floor when their parents had stepped out for the evening. They all remember going up, but they don't remember anything after that point; just waking up in their room."

"Is that what happened with the admiral's grandkids?" Gibbs asked.

"No. They didn't have to wander to the top floor. They were staying on the top floor," Abby told them. "Parker's son-in-law booked a suite there for a three night stay."

"Not exactly a price range for a single dad and two kids," Tony stated.

"Definitely. He doesn't have a steady job. In fact, I can't even figure out where this guy makes his money. But he doesn't have much of it. And this business he was called away for? He took some kind of odd job in Reno."

"He left his kids seven hours away for a weekend?" Tony nearly growled. "What the hell is wrong with people?"

"He claimed that they were mature enough to be on their own," Abby scoffed. "He called to check in on them every few hours during the day."

"I'm guessing there's not a connection with any of the potential victims," Gibbs said.

"Nothing I can find," Abby replied. "I even looked for guest logs all the way back to 1992 to see if there were any repeat customers checked in during each of the stays. I got bupkiss, bossman."

"There's gotta be something."

"Something I'm overlooking, yeah I know. It's possible they're checking in with an alias each time. And it's possible there are more victims and it's just gone unreported. I've been looking into each and every guest, Gibbs. Checking out credit cards and driver's license photos. Nothing I've found so far comes up as an alias, but there's a lot to go through still. The only person that's stayed there all these years is the owner. And he's like...mega old and wheelchair bound."

"Keep digging, Abs. Let us know if you find anything."

He ended the Skype call without any help from Tony. The little red button seemed self-explanatory enough. He looked over at Tony who had been uncharacteristically quiet for the last few minutes. The younger man seemed to be staring off at nothing in particular.

"Tony," Gibbs said, narrowing his eyes when there was no response. "Hey," he said a little louder, and Tony was suddenly looking over at him. "Something wrong?"

Tony looked at him, his expression lost and somewhat confused. "I...I think maybe... Gibbs..."

"Spit it out, Tony," he told him, turning to face him fully now.

"Admiral Parker's story," he said. "That sound at all familiar to you? Dad leaving the kids alone for two days..." Gibbs narrowed his eyes again, but this time it was in thought and possibly a bit of denial. "We didn't get a suite up on this floor back then. But I... When Dad was gone, I remember getting bored and wanting to check out what all the glamor of the penthouse floor was." Gibbs' gut got a nauseated feeling. "Boss, I remember coming up here. And I don't remember anything else except waking up in bed in our room down on the lower level..."

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AN: Christchex that took a lot of effort. I'm leaving this open-ended because I'd sincerely like to continue it at some point. I've just got a ton else to get done beforehand, and my shiny butterfly brain can't deal with more than one story at a time. lol