Disclaimer: I own neither NCIS nor its characters. This is purely for entertainment purposes, I make no money from these works.

Credits: Thank you to kate98 as usual for providing the beta and assuring me that it's as funny as I think it is.

Author's note: Another entry in the "Bad-Tony" series.

Anger Management

Something was wrong here. It was too quiet, everybody seemed a little nervous. More nervous then usual. And where the hell was DiNozzo? Two weeks away, and the whole place went to hell.

"McGee!" Gibbs didn't bother to stop moving, he continued on to his desk and dropped down in his chair, looking for something worthy of his attention.

"Yes, Boss?" Something was definitely up. McGee vibrated even more than normal. The kid stank of nervousness.

"Where's DiNozzo?" Gibbs didn't even look up.

"Um… he's um… he's… he's not here, Boss."

"I can see that, McGee." Gibbs tried not to lose his patience. It would hardly be fair to kill the kid first day back. There was plenty of time for that later. "Where is he?"

"He's… um… he's out. Boss." McGee looked like he was trying to sink on his heels straight through the floor.

"Out where, McGee?" Gibbs rose from his chair and McGee shrunk back even further.

"He's in… he's… He's in Anger Management therapy, Boss."

"In what?" DiNozzo? How and why would such a thing be possible?

"Anger Management… the judge said he had to." McGee looked like his feet wanted to flee and sheer terror of what would happen if he ran was the only thing keeping him in place.

Gibbs said nothing, just waited.

"It's a long story, Boss." McGee looked like it was a story he'd rather forget.

Gibbs smiled. It was not a happy smile. "Tell me a story, McGee."

(two weeks earlier…)

"I can't believe Gibbs is going." Tony tapped his fingers against the back of the elevator. "I mean I know they said 'take time off, and that's an order' but I still can't believe he did it. I mean, this is like Gibbs' second home."

And it isn't yours? McGee didn't bother saying it aloud. Tony would only take it as a compliment. And as much as McGee did admire him in some respects, it wasn't enough to go delivering random compliments, or even comments that could be interpreted as such. After all, since Tony's favourite game seemed to be 'Let's make Timothy miserable', he didn't think he owed Tony a lot except grief. "I thought Marines followed orders."

"Yeah, but Gibbs… not at work…" Tony looked pained. Then he brightened, as though he thought of something. "That means I'm in charge."

Oh no. God, you've got to be nicer to me than that. I mean… I know some of the things I let Abby talk me into aren't exactly on the 'virtues' list, but I do not deserve this. I do not deserve Tony DiNozzo telling me what to do. Not just the telling part, but the actually having to listen because Tony somehow became the boss. Maybe he could become sick. Maybe he could fall and break something. Maybe he could…

The doors opened and Tony froze. "No way. No way."

McGee followed Tony's gaze. Someone sat at Gibbs' desk, in Gibbs' chair, working on Gibbs' workstation, but it was not Gibbs. He heard a low growling noise and realised that it emanated from Tony. Instinctively, McGee moved another step away. He'd heard rumours about what happened if Tony exploded. Abby said it was unreal. Even Gibbs seemed afraid of what might happen. Normally he'd be worried about the stranger, but he found himself agreeing with Tony's sentiment. Gibbs was not replaceable. McGee liked Gibbs. Gibbs didn't treat McGee like a walking piece of technology or part of the furniture or some super-geek with all the attraction of a punching bag. Gibbs treated McGee like a human being. McGee liked that.

He followed Tony up to the desk, trying to remember the basics of first-aid. Nine for an outside line first, then nine-one-one. Or maybe just page the morgue and get Ducky in to do what he did best.

The interloper looked up. "McGee and DiNozzo?"

"I'm DiNozzo." Tony's voice was soft and even. McGee recognised the danger signs. A calm Tony with no sign of melodrama meant that Tony was as serious as a bad case of death, the only question being who would catch it.

"I'm Lieutenant Tom McCrindle, your new CO for the time being. Do you have a problem with that, Mr. DiNozzo?"

For some reason, McGee felt his heart stop. This was not good. There was something in the 'mister' that said 'I'm better than you, you over-spoiled little snot.' Something in the cold tone that said 'I don't approve of you.' It made him think of a pair of gunfighters exchanging greetings in a bar, just before they stepped out into the street.

Then Tony straightened up, and snapped off a salute that would have brought tears of pride to Gibbs' eyes, were it not for the fact that Gibbs would know better than to believe it. "No, Sir! Pleased to have you here, Sir! Do you have an assignment for us, Sir!" McGee could hear the exclamation mark taking the rightful place of a question mark. Armies of punctuation might die before Tony was finished with this man.

McCrindle didn't seem to notice, instead he looked pleased. "After meeting with your forensics tech, I was concerned about the level of discipline around here. It appears at least the field agents are better behaved."

The corner of Tony's eye twitched, other than that nothing moved.

Uh, oh. McGee would have said something to defend Abby, but he knew it would only make things worse. For one thing, it was Abby and she liked to defend herself. For another… Tony and Abby had a different kind of relationship, but it would be wiser to stick your tie in a newspaper press than to insult Abby in front of Tony. Tony was, well… protective. McGee knitted his brow. Tony got very protective of his friends – which was normal – but the people he counted as friends were those who treated him as an annoying pest, which was not normal in the least. It was something to consider, but later, when the prospect of bloody carnage was not so imminent.

"You and McGee meet me outside in ten. I'm going to sign us out a car." With those words, McCrindle proved he was the worst person in the world to parachute into this group. Only the most anal of control-freak type leaders wouldn't trust his underlings to sign out a car. This was not going to be a fun next few days.

As soon as McCrindle left earshot, the growling resumed.

"Um… Tony?" McGee felt he should do something. Gibbs would not be happy to come back to his desk and find that his workstation had been used to cave someone's head in. He wouldn't be mad about the damage to the workstation, necessarily, but the blood all over his furniture might end up being a sore point. "I know Gibbs is the boss, but how come you called this guy, 'Sir?' We never call Gibbs, 'Sir.'"

Tony's head tilted just slightly, the look in his eyes explicitly stating that he could not believe that someone as geek-brained as McGee had not yet made the connections. "Gibbs was… is a Gunnery Sergeant. Sergeants are not officers. Only officers are called 'Sir.'" Then an odd smile pulled at Tony's lips, something almost evil. "And as any Gunnery Sergeant could tell you: 'Sir' is just a polite way of saying 'asshole.'"

After that, thing went downhill. McCrindle's big case proved to be a simple UA. A sailor missing for two days, but nothing anybody who worked with him didn't expect. Nineteen years old, he'd been denied leave to go to his girlfriend's high-school graduation. Which he'd seemed okay with until he got a phone call from her saying that graduation was being postponed in favour of labour. It didn't take a genius to figure out what happened.

Leaving the hospital, McCrindle made a new mistake. "What do you think you're doing?"

Reflexively, McGee looked for somewhere to hide. Six feet underground would be the only other option.

Tony paused in the middle of tearing open a chocolate bar.

"Duty hours are for duty work. You are given an hour for lunch each day." McCrindle shook his head. "Until now, you were impressing me, DiNozzo."

Again, Tony's face flashed. "Sorry, Sir. Habit." The same odd smile returned to his lips as he neatly rim-shotted the bar into a garbage can. "Won't happen again."

"I wouldn't have believed it from Gibbs," McCrindle muttered.

Let's see. I have my will written, my life insurance is up-to-date, I cleaned my apartment yesterday… Abby knows to magnetize my hard drives if anything happens to me, I was very nice to my mother last week when I visited… After all, Gibbs seemed to insist on Tony consuming snacks on a regular basis. Which was odd, given Gibbs' normal disgust for the things Tony ate (strangely, for an athlete, Tony ate like a computer geek. Three main food groups: pizza, pop tarts and caffeine), and anything that Gibbs did oddly he had a very good reason for doing. McGee thought. Abby said her encounter with 'Bad-Tony' as everyone seemed to call it (including Tony himself), happened in the middle of the night, after she woke him up. Gibbs' response to Tony in emotional distress was generally food… and high sugar food at that. Okay, then maybe Tony got upset and possibly violent when his blood sugar levels dropped below a certain point. If so, then McCrindle had just made the biggest mistake of his life, though probably not the last. That would be the one when he pushed Tony over the edge. McGee hoped he didn't have to see that. He dreaded having to give evidence at Tony's trial. He didn't hate Tony that much. Unfortunately, trial judges didn't look kindly on the 'he was an asshole and I did the world a favour' defence.

"Stupid son-of-a-bitch." McCrindle muttered. "If that kid thinks he's got a future in the United States Marines…"

(…)

"And that's when it happened, Boss." McGee was almost wincing, like he expected Gibbs to throw something at him.

"When what happened, McGee?" Asking was only a formality. Gibbs could easily guess the rest of it.

"Tony threw McCrindle through the windshield of the car." The words raced out of McGee's mouth. His eyes darted back and forth, as though he were the one who had gotten violent with a former naval officer and fellow NCIS agent to boot.

"He threw…" Gibbs stared past McGee, imagining the scene. McCrindle, saying something stupid. Tony picking him up with that superhuman strength the man seemed to acquire when truly, transcendently angry. He felt himself smiling. He couldn't help it. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

"Anyway… the judge said he had to attend regular Anger Management classes, though he did accept Ducky's testimony that Tony's lack of food and McCrindle not letting him eat created mitigating circumstances."

"Mmm." Gibbs felt a calm descend over him. It wasn't bad then. DiNozzo had only lightly wounded the man, he hadn't killed or dismembered him, and it wasn't like McCrindle was a civilian. McCrindle needed something like that, not because the man was a bastard, but because he was a petty bastard. Bastardity was an art form that Gibbs had perfected. He didn't like it when untalented amateurs like McCrindle tried to mess around with it. DiNozzo wasn't in jail, so NCIS wasn't going to fire him on Gibbs' watch. Somebody had to realise that it would be a P.R. nightmare to fire a man due to medical problems that didn't normally interfere with the job. And they had to know that Gibbs had a number for the ACLU, especially since he had to deal with them all the time, usually as they complained about something he did to somebody else.

"Are you all right, Boss?" Now McGee sounded suspicious. He must have suspected a repeat performance of DiNozzo's temper tantrum, though this time from Gibbs. McGee should have known, though. Gibbs didn't throw temper tantrums. Unless you had the initials A.D. or A.S., they never worked. Even then, Abby did better when she sulked. You needed the sudden, unexpected and above all, dangerous anger of DiNozzo to pull it off. People expected anger from Gibbs, so it didn't carry the same shock.

"Dismissed, McGee." Gibbs turned away. No need for McGee to know that all was well. It was better he stayed off balance. McGee still had the disturbing tendency to become complacent about some things. He needed to learn how to adapt and keep up.

And all was well. He was back where he belonged, DiNozzo wasn't in jail, McCrindle got what he deserved, and McGee had learned a valuable lesson he wasn't ever likely to forget.

He would have to have a word with DiNozzo, though. Through the windshield was overkill. Just because he was a federal agent didn't give Tony the right to destroy federal property. Windshields weren't cheap. Not only that, but McGee said they had been at the civilian hospital, which was a clear violation of Special Rule number six: Bad-Tony is not allowed out in public. A civilian could have been hurt. Worse, a civilian could have seen it and reported it, and then Gibbs would have been up to his ass in explanations, like why he allowed such a dangerous and undisciplined person to continue in a law enforcement career. The simple answer was – of course – that DiNozzo was only dangerous when unfed, and civilians were idiots.

Of course, he'd make sure Tony had eaten first.