Title: Elevator Bonding

Pairing: Tony/Tim (pre-slash)

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: Episode 7x08 "Power Down"

Summary: What if it had been Tony trapped in the elevator with Tim instead of Ziva?

Disclaimer: These characters belong to DPB, CBS, Paramount, et al. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Notes: I am new to the world of NCIS fanfiction and haven't written anything in a very, very long time. After watching episode 7x08 I couldn't stop picturing what would happen if Tony had been in the elevator instead of Ziva. So many plot bunnies. The potential for smut was so high and tempting, but since I've never written slash (or even het PWP) before, I had no idea how/where to begin. Thus, I present this humble offering instead.

Hour 1:

"I thought I told you two to go home," Gibbs clipped as he walked passed the agents' desks.

"Just leaving, boss," Tim said, as he shut down his computer and put on his jacket.

Tim passed Tony's desk as he walked to the elevator, noticing the other agent's flirty smile as he chatted to someone on the telephone. Rolling his eyes at typical DiNozzo behaviour (the person on the other end of the phone can't even see the smile, so why bother doing it, he thought to himself) he punched the down button and waited for the elevator to reach their floor.

He could hear heavy footsteps behind him and so he turned slightly to watch Tony saunter towards him. He half-hoped that the elevator would come so that he could avoid being in the enclosed space with the senior agent by himself, but luck was not on his side.

"Hey, Probie. Did you think you would be able to leave before I did?"

"It's not a race, Tony."

"Maybe not, but if it were, you would lose!" Tony said, bounced slightly on the balls of his feet.

"Why are you so happy?"

"Nothing. End of the day. Going home. Got myself a hot date for Saturday. Life is good."

"Is that what you were doing on the phone? I wondered why you were making goo-goo eyes back there."

Tony snorted, "Goo-goo eyes. Please. You know I'm adorable." The elevator arrived at their floor and they waited for the doors to open.

"Delusional is what you are," Tim retorted as they both got in.

Tim reached out to push the button for the parking level when suddenly the elevator gave a shudder and all of the lights went out.

"What the hell? What did you do, McGoo?"

"Do? I didn't do anything."

"Push the button."

"What button, Tony? I can't even see passed my nose."

"The backup generators should kick in soon."

As if on cue, the emergency lights turned on.

"See," Tony said, looking pointedly at Tim. He reached out and pushed the button for the garage, but the panel did not light up. Brow furrowed, he tried to push it a few more times to no avail. He then proceeded to push every button on the panel.

"Stop, stop, you're going to break it," Tim admonished, grabbing Tony's hand.

"It's already broken."

Tony picked up the elevator's phone to call for security but nothing happened.

"What the hell is going on?"

"The power must be out," Tim said. He picked up his cell phone to try and call for help, only to find that there was no service.

"Damn it!" He turned towards the elevator doors and started to pound on it with his fist, calling out to anyone left in the building who could help them.

"Help! Help! Can somebody get us out? We're trapped!"

Tony watched as his partner started to slowly become unhinged.

"Relax, McFreakout. Someone will come and get us out. Eventually."

Tim stared, wide-eyed and a little frantic, at Tony's amused face.

"Oh god." He started to bang harder on the door. "Gibbs! Boss! Get me out. I'm stuck in here with Tony. By myself. HELP!"

Hour 2:

"Please. Let. Us. Out." Tim called out dully, half-heartedly hitting the door with his head.

"They know we're here, Tim. You need to calm down. You heard what they said. There's a blackout. Everything's down, even the internet. We are way down on the priority list of people who need to be saved."

"What are we supposed to do? How long do you think it will take?" Tim asked as he stared despondently at his watch.

"Sit. Wait. Calm down."

"I'm trying, Tony."

"Do or do not, there is no try," he said, in his best Yoda impression.

Tim rolled his eyes. "That was a bit clichéd, even for you."

"Then you do better."

"I'm not playing this game, Tony."

"What game?"

"Who can quote the best and/or most lines from a movie game. Your brain, while barely able to function in pretty much every aspect of everyday life, has the uncanny ability to memorize anything you watch on a screen."

"I'll ignore the insult, for the time being, but now you've issued me a challenge."

"What? No, I didn't. I did the exact opposite."

"Choose a movie, any movie. Throw down the gauntlet McGee."

Seeing the request as the distraction Tony was intending it to be, Tim searched his memory for a movie that he'd seen a fair number of times and one that Tony would be less likely to have watched more than once.

"Fine. Tron."

"Oh, it is so ON."

Hour 3:

"Okay, new topic. Best actor to portray James Bond, on three. One. Two. Three."

"Sean Connery." Tony said in his best Sean Connery impression.

"Pierce Brosnan." Tim said at the same time.

"Are you kidding me? Brosnan?

"What's wrong with him? He did a good job!"

"Sean Connery is awesome. Plus, he played Indiana Jones Senior. You can't beat that."

"First - the fact that he was in Indiana Jones is irrelevant since we're talking about him playing a different character entirely. Secondly, he's Scottish, and Bond is supposed to be English."

"First," Tony said, mimicking Tim's tone almost perfectly, "Pierce Brosnan is Irish. Secondly, who says that Bond is English? He works for "His Majesty's Secret Service" which can mean anywhere in Great Britain. In fact, his father is Scottish, so Sean Connery is clearly the best Bond!" Tony crowed, his smile wide and victorious.

"How do you know that Bond's father is Scottish?"

"Look it up, McGoogle. Oh wait, you can't."

Tim threw Tony a dirty look, but decided to keep quiet until he could look it up later and wipe the smirk off of his face.

Hour 4:

Tim looked up as he heard the soft, but distinct noise of a video game. He looked over at the other occupant of the elevator and saw that his concentration was focused on the phone in his hand.

"What are you playing? Tetris? How are you getting that?"

"Don't need the internet to play."

Tim watched as the other agent positioned his next block.

"Turn it. Turn it. No, the other way."

"Stop looking over my shoulder," Tony said, trying to block Tim's view of the screen.

"No, don't put it over there. Move it over to the right. To the right." Tim said emphatically as he tried to reach for the phone.

"Listen, McGrabby, I've got the controls. Play with your own phone."

"You're horrible at this game. You've closed off that whole area."

"I know what I'm doing. I am the King of Tetris."

"Well, your reign is nearly over."

Tony shifted his attention back to the game and saw that the wall of shapes was getting higher and higher.

"Dammit, McGeek, stop distracting me!"

Hour 5:

The two agents are tired and worn out. It had been a long day and they had left their desks at nearly midnight. It was close to five o'clock in the morning.

"We should get some sleep. They are obviously not going to get us out any time soon."

"There's no way I'm sleeping in the same room with you, Tony."

"Relax, McGee. Your virtue is safe."

"It's not my virtue that I'm worried about." Tim paused a moment. "Wait, that came out wrong."

His words were followed by complete silence.

Hour 6:

Tony listened to McGee's steady breathing as he tried to find a more comfortable position on the floor. His head was cushioned on his arm and his knees were bent so that he was almost in the fetal position. The elevator, while not exactly tiny, was not meant to accommodate two grown men (both of whom were over six feet tall) lying down perpendicular to one another.

He flipped over one last time, nearly wrenching his back in the process before he finally decided that enough was enough.

Grabbing his jacket that he was using as a pitiful mattress, he moved over so that he was lying beside his partner.

"Finally decided that I wasn't going to bite?" Tim mumbled.

"Shut up, McGee. Go back to sleep." He listened to Tim's quiet chuckle as he tried to work out the kinks caused by being in such an awkward position earlier.

As he stretched, he could feel his body moving against Tim's back. He tried to ignore the heat radiating from the younger agent and the tingling sensation that the contact was giving him. Instead, he focused on getting the feeling back into the arm that he had been using as a pillow. As he flexed it, he accidentally brushed his fingers against Tim's ass.

Tony froze, hoping that Tim hadn't notice. He waited until the count of ten before he released the breath that he hadn't known he'd been holding.

As quietly as he could, he turned so that he and Tim were back-to-back.

He stared hard at the floor of the elevator, desperately willing his hard-on away.

Hour 7:

Tim shook Tony's shoulder to wake him up.

"What? Who?" Tony said groggily.

"Stop snoring."

"I don't snore."

"I beg to differ," Tim said as he pressed something on his phone.

Instantly, the elevator filled with a sound that can only be described as a wounded elephant.

Tony sat up hurriedly and reached for the phone. "That's not me. Give me that."

Tim tried to evade the outstretched hands, but there really wasn't anywhere to escape to.

Tim ended up on the floor, his body pinned by Tony's length.

Tony scrambled hurriedly off of the younger man, the phone clutched in his hand.

"How the hell do I turn this thing off?" Tony stared bleary-eyed at the phone.

Tim paused to catch his breath - the breath that had been pushed out of him by Tony crushing him, and had nothing to do with his body's reaction to having Tony on top of him.

Seeing that the other agent was mashing buttons on the phone in an attempt to turn it off, he quickly made a grab for the expensive piece of electronic equipment. "Give me that before you delete all of my contacts, or worse yet, break it!"

Hour 8:

Tim checked his watch for what must have been the ump-teenth time.

"I can't believe I've been stuck in this elevator for 8 hours with you!"

"Hey, it hasn't been a picnic for me, either. I'm stuck with you, too. But, you know, it could be worse. It could be Gibbs, Probie."

Tim chuckled softly but felt the need to taunt the other agent. "I'd fair better with Gibbs than you would."

"What? Gibbs loves me!"

"Ha! No, they would open these doors and find your motionless body. Do you really think you could keep your mouth in check for more than 8 hours?"

"There is that," Tony nodded as he considered the validity of Tim's argument.

"And he has a gun. Although, I suppose blood spatter from a bullet would be messy in such an enclosed space."

"More than likely, Ducky would find massive blunt force trauma to the head. Death by head slaps."

The two men laughed as they pictured the team's coroner pointing out the giant bruise in the shape of Gibb's hand on the back of Tony's head during autopsy.

"Maybe I would prefer to have Ziva with me," Tony said, a sly smile playing on his lips.

"Ziva would kill you, too."

"No way. With her trying to become a US citizen? Murder doesn't look good on the ol' application. Besides, she's much more sneaky than that. She would have just knocked me out using one of her super scary Mossad-skills."

A moment of silence passed until Tony said with a knowing look and eyebrows raised, "I'm sure you would have preferred Abby."

Tim shook his head, a rueful look on his face. "No, we don't do that anymore. We're just friends. No extra benefits."

"Ms. Sciuto cut you off?" teased Tony.

"No, DiNozzo. We wanted different things."

"Watch it McLadyFeelings. Your feminine glow is showing."

"You know, Tony, some people want more in life than one-night stands."

"Are you saying that Abby was a one-night stand?" Tony asked, his tone becoming slightly threatening.

"No, I'm… how do you do that? Twist my words around?"

"It's a gift. And you don't know what I want or don't want, Tim."

Tim is ready with a sarcastic comeback, but something about the look on Tony's face has him changing tactics instead.

"So, why don't you tell me what you want then?"

Whatever Tim saw on Tony's face is quickly replaced with the patented DiNozzo smile, all flashy teeth and crinkly eyes.

"Oh, I don't think your ears are ready for that list, McGee."

Tim doesn't say anything, but he can see that the smile doesn't quite reach Tony's eyes and he's careful to avoid Tim's gaze.

"Whatever you say, DiNozzo."

Tony turned away from Tim to bang at the door and talk to the men trying to pry the elevator open.

"Any progress?"

Hour 9:

"How hard it is to open an elevator door? They've been at it forever."

"I already explained it to you, Tony. Using as many one-syllable words as I could."

"Yeah, yeah, locks, fail safe, blah blah blah. I'm starving. Are you sure you don't have any food?"

"You ate my granola bar an hour ago."

"I gave you half!"

"Of my own granola bar!"

"In a crisis situation like this, you have to share."

As Tony rifled through his jacket pockets in search for food, Tim asked, "What do you think is going on out there?"

"No idea. I wonder who else is affected."

"There could be a blackout in the whole city. Cascading failure. It's happened before."

McGee checked his phone.

"Internet's still down. That can't be good."

"Jonesing already, Elf Lord?"

"No, Claire. It's just that the combination can't be good."

"True. Suspicious, suspicious. If this ends up being some terrorist plot or some other shady business that we're supposed to be investigating right this minute, Gibbs is going to kill us."

"Why? It's not our fault that we're stuck in an elevator."

"Tell that to Gibbs.

"Tell what to Gibbs?"

Tony and Tim jerked their heads up simultaneously to see a bemused Gibbs standing in front of the now open elevator doors. The two agents scrambled to get up and nearly knocked each other over in their haste to get out.

Gibbs merely moved aside and started walking towards the staircase exit.

"Grab your gear. We've got a body."

Tony, who was in the middle of re-enacting a scene from "The Shawshank Redemption" stopped in mid-spin.

"Body?"

Tony looked quizzically at Tim, who simply raised his eyebrows in answer.

"Ooph." Tony caught the bag Ziva threw at him as she quickly followed Gibbs down the hall.

"Not good. Not good." Tony said under his breath.

"It could just be a coincidence," Tim said.

"There are no coincidences, McDelia... only the illusion of coincidence."

"McDelia? Who? What does that line even mean?"

"Clearly, even after five years working with me, your movie-education is still sadly lacking."

Tim simply rolled his eyes, shifted his bag more securely onto his shoulder and followed Tony as they both hustled to catch up to the two other agents.

- End -