"Open up, Ziva!" Tony raised his fist to start pounding on the door again. He'd knocked for two minutes straight before giving himself and the neighbors a thirty-second break, but he wasn't going to give in now and have her know he'd walked away just because she wasn't responding. "I know you're in there! I'm gonna keep knocking here until -"

"Tony?"

He froze mid-knock and turned to see Ziva approaching from the stairwell, her keys in one hand and a brown paper grocery bag in the other. The only thing he could think of to do was drop his hand away from the door, so he did that and offered her a weak smile.

"How long have you been banging on my door?" she demanded, looking around to make sure no neighbors were watching their conversation. "Did the fact that I did not answer not give you a clue?"

"No! I figured you were just, you know..." He shrugged and turned his palms up. "Being mad."

"Oh, I am mad," she agreed readily, taking a step toward him and enjoying the fact that he took a corresponding step back. "However, I am also not inside my apartment. Your investigatory skills are somewhat lacking tonight, it would seem."

Tony frowned. "There's nothing wrong with my -"

Ignoring him, Ziva began to sort one-handedly through her keys for the one to the main lock on her front door. "As are your romantic skills," she went on as she began working on the first lock, "if the date you were so eager to brag about has ended again so soon."

"Yeah, um, about that."

Ziva paused with the key turned halfway in the lock and looked over her shoulder with an expression that told him she couldn't wait to hear what would come out of his mouth next.

"When I said it was a 'date' - I mean, the time I said it was, not the time I said it wasn't - I mean, the times I said it wasn't - what I meant -"

"Inside," Ziva interrupted, opening the apartment door. She walked in without waiting for him, but was gratified to see the he followed obediently a second later. She set her keys down on the kitchen counter, unbuttoned her coat, and turned back to him. "Continue," she ordered, shrugging out of the coat and slinging it over the back of a chair.

"Uh." He absently mirrored her movements, throwing his coat over hers. "So, uh, what I was saying was, um..."

"Tonight, Tony. Do you not have a date to be getting to?"

"No."

That got her attention, and Ziva looked up from groceries she had begun to sort through, one hand still on the loaf of bread she had just pulled out of the bag. "I beg your pardon?"

He scratched the back of his head and snapped defensively, "You knew I was lying about it being a date!"

"Did I?" She flipped open the breadbox on the corner of the counter and dropped the bread into it, then turned back to the grocery bag and pulled out two limes. "You seemed very sure of it when you were so excitedly telling me about it."

"What're the limes for?" He wasn't changing the subject; he was just...sidestepping it. "You continuing the party?"

She looked down at them and shrugged. "Perhaps. But as I told you earlier, parties with only one person tend to not be very diverting."

"Yeah, well..." Her words sounded like an invitation, but could just as easily be a trap. He decided to step into it anyway. "I could, you know, hang around. Make it a two person party."

Putting one lime down on the counter, she began rolling it between her palm and the hard surface to loosen the juice inside. "I do not share my party guests with other...hosts, Tony. If you are interested in attending my 'party,' then I will need to know that you are not...previously engaged."

"Oh, come on!" Exasperated by her continued coyness, he threw up a hand and half-turned away from her in disgust. "I already told you it wasn't a date!"

She started to slam her hand down on the counter and only barely managed to stop herself before she squashed the lime. "Yes, Tony, you did! Now I want you to tell me why you said that it was. And what happened. And why you have appeared at my door tonight after doing your very best to run me off an hour ago!"

He stared at her for a second, surprised by her phrasing. It hadn't occurred to him that she would think his defensive posturing was an attack on her. "I didn't try to run you off."

"You told me you were meeting her again later!" she accused, rounding on him. The lime rolled off the counter, forgotten, and bounced once on the tile floor before coming to rest. "Do not tell me you thought hearing that would make me want to stay!"

"No, but I thought maybe it would make you stop pushing my buttons!"

Ziva gave him an indignant look. "Buttons? I did not touch you!"

His anger interrupted by the mental reboot Ziva's idiomatic misunderstandings always caused, Tony closed his eyes and hid an untimely smile. "Turn of phrase, Ziva. It means you were saying things you knew would annoy me."

"And you were not doing the same to me?" she shot back. "You told me you were 'loosening up' for Jeanne!"

"I was lying!" he roared, tired of going in circles.

Eyes wide and angry, Ziva stepped close enough to put herself nose-to-nose with him. "I know!" she yelled into his face.

He stared her down. She didn't back off. "Then why are you yelling at me?" he shouted back.

"Why shouldn't I?" she retorted at full-volume and, having run out of words in her attempt to describe the situation, she caught him by surprise with a sweep of her ankle behind his knee.

Before Tony knew what was happening, he was flat on his back on her kitchen floor and she was kneeling astride him with her hands on his chest. "What was that for?" he managed to choke out as his lungs re-inflated.

She leaned down, putting them nose-to-nose again. "For lying to me!"

Tony considered his situation for a moment, then did the only thing that seemed appropriate: throwing his hands out to his sides in submission, he flattened his palms on the ground and looked up at her. "Ok," he said, and would have shrugged if she didn't have his shoulders pinned to the ground. "Punish me, mistress."

"What..." Confused, Ziva pulled back to study him, only belatedly noticing the smile on his face. "You...!" She aimed a half-hearted slap at the side of his head, which Tony blocked with ease. "What do I look like, a a domi-matrix?"

"Dominatrix," he corrected. "And yeah, kinda." He lifted his head as much off the ground as he could to survey the scene she presented. "I mean," he said hoarsely, the position having forced most of the air back out of his lungs, "I could be wrong, but it probably has something to do with the fact that you just threw me flat on my back. That's very dominatrix-y." He frowned thoughtfully. "Could use some black leather, though."

Laughing, Ziva sat back on her heels and picked her hands up off his chest. "Never on a first date."

Tony got his elbows under him enough to prop his upper body slightly up. "What's that?" he asked, cocking an ear comically as he leaned toward her. "Did I just hear you call this a date?"

"Hah." She pushed him back down with one hand. "As I have said, I do not date men who will be leaving me to go to a date with another woman." Tony opened his mouth to protest that characterization, but she moved her hand up from his chest to his mouth, covering it. "Tell me the truth, Tony," she said softly, face suddenly serious. "Please." No longer meeting his eyes, she sat back, freeing his hands and upper body, folded her hands in front of her, and waited.

He planted one hand on the floor and managed to lever himself up almost to a sitting position. "You want to know what she talked about tonight?" he grumbled, struggling to gain another inch forward on his shaking arm as she stubbornly refused to shift her weight. "She said that it was obvious where my attention was focused, and it wasn't on her."

That was cryptic enough for Ziva to need a moment to parse it, and as she blinked at him, his arm gave out and he made a desperate grab for her waist with his other hand, intending to hold onto her to keep himself up. Her distraction slowed her reflexes, however, and instead of supporting his weight, she toppled over with him. They landed in a jumble, his face pressed into her abdomen and hers into the linoleum above his head.

"She even offered to talk to you for me," Tony mumbled into her shirt.

Ziva spat out a mouthful of floor grit and pushed herself up enough to look down through her arms at him. "I beg your pardon?"

He shrugged, as if to say I know, right? "And she wished me good luck."

That was what she had thought he said. She rolled off him, ending up on her knees beside his head, and stared down at him. "Jeanne Benoit offered to speak to me for you, and wished you good luck with me?" she asked incredulously.

He sat up, putting his back against a cabinet, and draped his arms over his knees. "Yeah."

"I...see." She didn't see, in fact. She couldn't quite get her brain around why the other woman would have said such things.

"And then she told me to call her some time and let her know how things go with you. So..." He spread his arms wide in an inviting gesture, inadvertently whacking the back of one hand into a cabinet door. "Ouch. Uh, I'm all yours," he said, then ruined the effect by putting his sore hand to his mouth. "No other dates lined up," he mumbled around his fingers.

"Until?" she prompted, raising her eyebrows coolly.

"That," he replied slowly, lowering his hand again, "would depend on you."

The hard look on her face softened slightly. She leaned forward, hands on her knees, and studied his face. "Oh?"

"Yeah." He reached up to touch her face. When she jerked away reflexively, he pulled his hand back and turned it so she could see the darkened tips of his fingers. "You had a smear of...stuff," he offered with a conciliatory smile. "When was the last time you cleaned this floor?"

Distracted, Ziva blinked and looked down at the tile. "I do not know. Perhaps a week ago? It does seem particularly dusty, now that you mention - oof!" She went down without time to fight as Tony knocked her hands off her knees, taking away her support and launching her face-first into his chest, but before he could get a good hold on her, she had twisted around, put her back to him, jabbed an elbow into his stomach, and snatched one of his hands.

He grimaced, then looked at down at where she now had his arm captive across her chest. "Gonna break it?" he asked with only mild interest. If she was truly enraged, she wouldn't dare touch him for fear of doing him real injury. An elbow in the stomach was, considering Ziva, a good sign.

She stroked her fingers over his hand thoughtfully and leaned forward, testing how much slack he would give her in her movement. "Probably not." She only got him forward an inch before he purposely became a dead weight, and Ziva smiled to herself. "Of course, I could throw my head back and break your nose."

Tony winced and craned his neck away from her. After the number of nosebleeds he'd suffered in the course of his job, his nose was the one place he did not want her hitting him. Well, one of two places. "You could," he agreed with deliberate casualness. "But it wouldn't be my first choice."

"No?" She shrugged and patted his hand. "In that case, I suggest you promise to curtail your dating for the foreseeable future."

"Huh?" Not following her conversational leap, he leaned over her shoulder to see her face, hoping it would give something away.

She helpfully tipped her head back until it was resting against his shoulder and he had a clear view. Then she smiled slyly. "I broke the nose of the last man who cheated on me."

Tony gaped wordlessly at her.

"Although," she added, looking reflective, "I believe my father may have eventually had him killed, also."

"I -"

"Of course, you will not have to deal with my father," she cut him off. "But you will have to deal with me." And before he could respond to that, she shot to her feet, dragging him with her, and hauled a very surprised Tony over her shoulder in a deliberately-gentle judo throw.

He landed with a thump on his back in front of her and groaned loudly. "Ziva..."

She squatted back down to look at him. "Do we have an agreement?"

"Yeah," he grunted painfully. "But Ziva -"

"Yes?"

Groaning again, Tony reached under his hip and pulled out the flattened remains of a lime. "You're really going to have to clean this floor now."

She stared at the lime juice dripping off his hand for a second, then burst out laughing. "I suppose I am," she allowed, relieving him of the mess and straightening up to drop it into the sink. "It can wait, however. I would -"

He got her for the second time in one night, throwing his arms around her knees and dragging her back down to the floor. This time, she landed on top of him. Laughing, he locked one arm around her back, holding her down, and used the other to force her head down for a hungry kiss.

An hour later, a loud banging from the other side of her bedroom wall made them both look up. "My neighbor," Ziva explained breathlessly.

Tony looked from the wall to her with new understanding. "When you told me you have trouble with your neighbors because you're a screamer..."

Ignoring the continuing thuds from the wall, she gave him a coy look and kissed his neck. "They will just have to get used to it," she mumbled, flipping their bodies to put him on his back.

Tony let out a breath that was a cross between a laugh and a gasp and forgot about the neighbors.

Fin