"Why are you on top of me?"

It was a valid question. Tony raised his eyebrows a bit as Ziva stared down at him, short of breath from flinging herself at him. He assumed she'd had some idea of saving him from her insanity. The insanity being, of course, firing a live round in an enclosed area. When the bullet had ricocheted, as he predicted it would, they both hit the deck, Ziva on top.

"I'm protecting you, Tony." She smiled at him. Probably then, he shouldn't mention that the ricochet had torn a strip off his arm. Luckily, the light wasn't good and he was wearing a dark jacket because he could feel the wound bleeding pretty freely.

"OK well, the bullet has stopped ricocheting, so you can stop protecting me." Tony found Ziva attractive; of course he found her attractive. But now really wasn't the time.

"You didn't seem to mind when we were undercover." She was smug and he was getting annoyed.

"That might have something to do with the fact that you were naked. Or, and this is more likely, it might have to do with the fact that we were undercover as a husband and wife assassin team. I was acting. Just like you, right?" Tony gently but firmly pushed her off of him, ignoring the pain in his arm in order to deal with the pain in his ass.

"Well, of course, I was acting. It just occurred to me that your feelings had some basis in reality, that's all. After all, you are a bit of a…playboy, yes? That is the right terminology?"

"Sure, Ziva. Just call me Hugh." He stood up, feeling both the chill in the air and the fire in his arm. "Look, can we at least agree to NOT shoot randomly inside an enclosed area from now on? I won't even say I told you so if we never have to play that game again." He stood, then looked around the interior of their current less than comfortable accommodations. "We're missing something here."

"Besides heat?" Her tone was dry, but she looked curious. He smiled. She knew him well enough at this point to understand when he had something important to contribute to an investigation.

"Ziva David, does this space seem different to you?" He studied the walls surrounding him.

"Define different." Instantly she was at his side.

"Does it seem smaller than the outside dimension? Usually containers are forty feet long. This one's only thirty four on the inside. Somebody's been doing renovations."

She tilted her head. "You are a man of many talents, aren't you, Tony? Many people would not be able to discover even a six foot discrepancy while inside a container like this. Perhaps this 'gut' you speak of is something that I can learn, yes?"

"Aw shucks. You make me blush. As for the gut, it usually starts after a year or so of takeout Chinese, pizza, and barbeque. Wash, rinse, repeat…presto! Your very own gut. Then you just have to train it to rumble at the right time, and that? That is the tricky part." He grinned again. "It's a delicate science."

"Not bad. I can almost forgive you." She looked at him with fond approval. It felt good to impress her, and he basked in it for a moment before dealing with her words.

"Forgive me for what?"

"For locking me in this box."

"Well now it's your turn. Do something impressive and I will forgive you." She was his partner, right? She needed to know his status and whether or not he would present a weakness at any point in this.

"Really? And what do I need forgiveness for? For having a dinner party and inviting everyone except you? It seemed like you would not be interested in such a tame evening. And you had plans, yes? Was it mud wrestling?" She was coy even though her words were a bit apologetic. Tony bit back his possible responses: that he hadn't mentioned the (completely fictitious) mud wrestling until after he found out about the dinner party this morning when he heard McGee and Palmer talking about it, that it was really bad form to deliberately leave one member of the team when having a team building event, that he knew she had some kind of angle both for the party and for his lack of invitation. Instead, he focused on the situation at hand.

"For shooting me a few minutes ago."

Instantly, flirtation and friendly banter were set aside. He raised his hand, the one that had been covering the wound, and showed her the blood coating it. She dragged him over into the light and forced him to take his jacket off and his shirt. "It isn't too bad. Just a crease. But it's bleeding. We need to dress it and keep pressure on it."

"Gosh, you think? I was working on the pressure part before you decided to strip me and have your way with me." It was probably not the best time for flirting, but he needed to get his clothes back on before he froze.

With Tony's knife, they cut his t-shirt into strips and bandaged the wound. Then, finally, he was able to get dressed.

"How are you feeling? You've lost a lot of blood. Are you lightheaded?"

"Ziva, you need to worry about putting your little assassin mind on getting us out of here. I am fine. It's just a flesh wound. It bled, it stopped. Please move on." They were floating the counterfeit bills out of the storage container. Or rather, Ziva was. Tony had been relegated to sitting and doing nothing. Not his strong suit. The truck's movements were making him nauseous and pathetically grateful that he had not eaten lunch before getting stuck inside. "This isn't the first time I've been shot. Or the second. And I'm pretty sure that it won't be my last."

"If you do not shut up, I may shoot you." She winced. "Again."

"Now David, once could be an accident. You shoot me twice, people may talk."

"I do not care what people say about me." At Tony's snort, she looked affronted. "What? You disagree?"

"Everybody cares what people say about them. Those who say they don't are liars." He looked up to find her staring at him in consternation. "It's true. We all prance around with this party line that words can't hurt us and we shouldn't let other people's opinions dictate our actions, but it's societal. Humans want approval from other humans."

"I guess you are right." She sat down next to him. "So, the piano? Really?"

He shrugged. "My mother wanted me to play. I wanted to make her happy."

"Mama's boy, yes?" She laughed. "I might have guessed."

"My mother was miserable every day. I would have played the harp if it would have earned a smile." He shrugged. "So did you do anything that you hated to make one of your parents happy?"

"Of course. All children do." She stood up and began to drop more money outside. Tony wondered when she would realize that the more tightlipped she was about her personal history, the less of a mystery she actually became to him.

Of course Lake was on the take. Tony grinned at his unintentional rhyme, and the lackey with the gun trained on him jabbed him in the gut, presumably for smiling.

"What's so funny?" Lake had been leering at Ziva, but was distracted by Tony's seemingly unnatural good cheer.

"Well, lots of things, Matty. First of all, don't you ever watch movies? Dirty cops, well, it always ends bad for them. Then there's your wardrobe, which you were obviously hoping to improve with the payoff for selling out your country. And finally, it amazes me that you managed to underestimate my boss. That, despite the horrible tie, is the funniest part of this whole travesty." The backhand to the face was worth it; none of the bad guys noticed Gibbs entering the building.

"You know, you two almost cost me fifty million dollars." Lake's tone was conversational; he had regained his composure. Too late.

"Actually, by now it's more like ten or twelve." Tony spit blood out and smiled again. His Cocky Cop Special 9. Guaranteed to piss everyone off.

"We burned it." Ziva shrugged apologetically and he almost laughed. Hilarious. He loved that she had picked up on his game. Had picked up that he was attempting to distract and let Gibbs do what Gibbs did best: lethal stealth.

"Do you think this is funny?" Lake was in his face now, practically spitting on him. Tony rolled his eyes. What a moron.

"Not me personally." He met Gibbs' eyes, noting the flash of concern at his injuries.

"I do. Drop it." The situation in hand, Gibbs was the essence of composure. Tony nodded in response to Gibbs' question about their health, laughing as Ziva kicked Lake viciously, then hobbled off to the bathroom.

"You ok, Tony?" First names generally only came out when Tony looked worse than usual after a run-in with bad guys.

"Fine. They got a few punches in, but he," he gestured to Lake, still incapacitated on the floor, "hits like a girl. Not like Ziva, I mean. Like a non-assassin type girl."

"What happened to your arm?" Gibbs glanced at the bloodstain, than back at Tony. No way was he sharing the truth behind the wound. Accident or no, Ziva would get a formal reprimand for injuring her partner and discharging her weapon in a non-secure setting.

He shrugged. "Not sure. Maybe Lake's goon squad scored a hit?"

"Are you still complaining about the scratch on your arm?" Ziva's voice was exasperated. "Please, Tony. You scraped it on one of the boxes inside, and then complained about it until I wrapped it for you. Please cease with the dramatics. And no, I do not want to know which movie this reminds you of."

He winced. Granted, he did not want to throw his partner under the bus, and he was fully prepared to lie to save her ass. But was it absolutely necessary to make him look completely useless? Still, trying to sell that Lake's men had shot him after Ziva said he'd scraped it, wouldn't fly now. So he sucked it up.

"Oh yeah. I remember now." He watched her carefully, searching for regret or apology. He saw neither; just annoyance. If she wasn't willing to tell Gibbs the truth, and went out of her way to make him look like a weakling, he would have to play along. But he didn't like it. Where was her loyalty?

Later, after Tony learned that the entire team had been at Ziva's for dinner the night before and that at least one member of the team had known that she had deliberately aimed to exclude him, he turned down her (very public) offer to cook for him.

"No thanks, Ziva. I am sure that you are very good at what you do, but I am picky about who cooks me pasta." He gave her the wide, shit eating grin that never went further than his mouth. "I think I'll fend for myself tonight."

The barely concealed triumph in her expression told him all he needed to know. She was aiming for his job, at the very least., and he had completely fallen for it. The "bonding" moments had been staged. McGee had known that Ziva's actions had been deliberate, of course; Tony could tell by the smug expression on his face. Gibbs…well, who knew? He had obviously been there, but Tony wasn't sure if he'd been in on the plan. He wanted to trust his boss, but his actions recently made Tony wonder. It didn't matter, really. The point was, he clearly had been wrong about staying with this job. He was long past his "two year warranty" phase, and it was time to move on.

"Tony?" Abby stood by the elevator, blocking his exit from the office.

"Not tonight, Abs. I'm tired." He recognized the despair in his own voice, and knew Abby would hear it as well.

"What's wrong? Is it your arm? I can drive you home if you want. Ducky said you might need a ride because you lost some blood." She made an awkward motion with her arms, clearly intending to hug him but unsure of his reaction.

"Nope. I can drive." He got on the elevator and held in a sigh when she joined him.

"Is this about the dinner at Ziva's? Because she told us that she asked you but you turned her down."

"She didn't and I didn't." He kept his eyes on the doors.

"You mean she lied to us? Why would she do that?" Abby was instantly distraught. Tony shrugged.

"Got me. But I can say with the utmost certainty that she does not understand the concept of burying the hatchet except in its most literal sense." The doors opened and he strode out, anxious to finish the conversation.

"What are you going to do?" They had reached his car and he got in quickly, relieved at his impending escape.

"I'm going to find something else. Start over." He paused. "You say anything to Gibbs before I am ready, and you'll never find me, Abby."

"Tony, you can't! You can't just walk away from us! We're your family." Her eyes welled with tears, but she wasn't letting any fall.

"I'm done. I'll stay until after the holidays, but you know as well as I do that the writing has been on the wall for awhile." He smiled at her sadly. "I have to go. See you tomorrow."

As he drove down the aisle at the parking garage, he saw her in his rearview mirror. It was time to put this job behind him and cut his losses.

If only he knew how.