A couple of hours later, Tony unraveled his hunch and Gibbs sent Tim and Tony out to pick up a potential suspect.

"Why are you so quiet today?" Tim asked as soon as Tony got his seat belt on.

Tony looked over at Tim, a slight frown on his face. "We got a case."

"That's never stopped you before."

"We were busy."

"Tony," Tim said with a hint of warning that he wasn't going to let it slide. "Are you upset about last night?"

Tony shrugged. "I wouldn't say upset, no."

"Then what would you say?"

"I'd say you gave me a dressing down almost worthy of Gibbs. I get it, Tim. Don't worry about it."

"I didn't mean you shouldn't speak to me at all," Tim said. "You've hardly said anything to me all day."

"You said I tease you too much so I was giving you a break."

"So you don't talk to me at all? You can talk to me without teasing, you know."

"Yeah? About what? You get annoyed if I talk about movies. You get annoyed if I talk about women. You don't care about sports. Last time I asked you what you did the previous evening, it was none of my business. So, what am I supposed to talk to you about? Only thing we have in common is the job."

Tim stared at Tony for a minute in stunned silence as Tony pulled out of the parking space and into traffic. He knew they had little in common, but never realized that if Tony didn't tease him that they wouldn't have anything to say to one another. Tim always thought working for the most difficult boss in the history of the agency would be plenty enough to talk about, but he'd worked with both of them long enough that really, there wasn't much to say. Gibbs was a mystery wrapped up in an enigma cloaked in shadows. Plus, come to think about it, Tony didn't gossip the way he used to when Tim first started. In fact, Tony didn't seem to talk about people at all outside their team unless they were working a case and it always pertained to the case. He couldn't say that about himself.

Tony had a point, he had to admit with a sigh. "I didn't say you couldn't tease me at all," Tim said softly. "All I meant was that you had a bad habit of persisting in it long after you should stop. The only reason I told you my personal life was none of your business was because I knew you would find something to tease me about and I wasn't in the mood for it. There are a lot of times you tease me even though you know I'm already annoyed and you just make it worse."

"Was just trying to distract you from your mood."

"Well, I usually end up more annoyed than I was."

"Yeah, I get it. I'm annoying. Can we move on now?" Tony asked, a little annoyed himself. He huffed as his eyes scanned the traffic.

"You're not annoying all the time, Tony."

"You sure? That's the picture you've painted for me."

Tim sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. He'd made a mess of this and he wasn't sure how to fix it. Finally, he decided the old standby was best.

"I'm sorry, Tony. I didn't mean to make you feel like you were annoying all the time. You're not. Just sometimes it feels like I'm right back in high school again and yes, I get annoyed, but I do like working cases with you. Sometimes, like today, the way you figure things out is really cool. I wish I could do that."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

It was quiet for a few minutes as tension Tim hadn't realized was there eased.

When Tony stopped for a red light, he glanced over at Tim. "I like watching you work your magic on the computer. You find stuff that I wouldn't even know how to search for. We solve cases a lot faster than we used to."

"Yeah?"

"Oh yeah," Tony said emphatically. "I don't tell you enough that you bring a lot to the team. We both know Gibbs isn't going to do it, and I don't think of it because I assume you know, but I guess you don't."

"No, I didn't."

"Well, you do. I like working with you too, Tim."

Tim smiled and Tony smiled back before he turned back to the road. The traffic light turned green.

Tim thought for a moment before he spoke. "You know, I could teach you a few things about computer searches if you're interested. I know you're not big on using them, but sometime you may need to know, if something should happen and I can't do it."

"Yeah? You'd teach me?"

"Sure. Could get some takeout and make an evening of it. It's not that hard and you know the basics already."

Tony nodded, and he looked thoughtful for a minute. "I can't teach you how to figure things out the way I do. I don't even know how I do it most of the time. But sometimes, things follow a pattern, and I could show you those patterns when they come up, and show you how I figure out some of the things I do…if you're interested."

Tim smiled. "That would really help a lot." He thought about earlier trying to read Gibbs. "Can you also show me some of the ways you read people? I need some help with that."

"Absolutely," Tony said emphatically. "There's a lot I can teach you. You busy Saturday morning?"

"Uh, not that I know of, why?"

"Mall, Probie. We need to go to the mall. Lots of ordinary people, doing ordinary things. It's a great place to learn how to read people."

"Yeah, I can do that. Uh, if you don't have a date Friday night, you could come over, I could teach you the computer stuff, you could stay overnight and then Saturday morning after breakfast we could go to the mall."

"You only have one bedroom. I'm not sleeping with you, Probie." Tony looked over at him and smirked, teasing back in his eyes.

Tim rolled his eyes but he smirked back. "The sofa opens into a bed, which is actually pretty comfortable as sofa beds go."

"Hmm," Tony said and Tim could tell he was pretending to consider. "I guess that doesn't sound so bad. I hadn't made a date for Friday yet so yeah, we can do that."

"Sounds good."

"When did you get a sofa anyway?"

"Uh, five or six months ago, I guess."

"I noticed the old shelves full of stuff were gone. Did you do that then too?"

"Yeah. The way my apartment was set up…yeah, women weren't going to be interested because there was no room for them. So, I changed some things. Been adding furniture as I can afford it."

"Didn't get to see much of it last night. I was distracted by other stuff."

Tim nodded. He debated in his head for a minute about the next thing he thought about saying but since he and Tony had both hurt each other, maybe he could mend things a little. "If I tell you something, will you promise not to tease me?"

"Not sure I can keep a promise like that."

"Okay, will you promise to try not to tease me?"

"Depends on what it is." Tony smirked.

"Tony," Tim said with a warning tone and Tony grinned and held up his hand in mock supplication.

"All right, spit it out, McHesitant. I will try not to tease you, promise!"

Tim sighed. "You're the reason I decided to make changes." Tim watched Tony's reaction and though Tony never took his attention from traffic, he could see the surprise in his face.

"What?!"

"You know how you say I get annoyed when you talk about women?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I do listen to you. I got annoyed because I was doing most everything the opposite of what you said and since you never seem to have any trouble attracting women, I figured your advice couldn't be all bad. So, I made some of the changes I thought made sense."

"That why you lost weight? Started working out? Dressed better?"

"Yeah."

"Oh," Tony said, surprise in his voice. "If you'd asked, I could've helped you with the clothes and stuff."

"If I'd asked, you would've teased me."

"Well, yeah, but I still would've helped you."

Tim huffed and shook his head. "That's exactly why I didn't ask for your help. I didn't want to be put down. You do that enough already."

"Yeah, okay, you're right."

"If you could tease me without being insulting, I might ask for help."

"I'll work on that," Tony said simply as he pulled onto a residential street.

"Really? You'll work on that?"

"Yeah. I'd like for us to be real friends, Tim. You're a good guy. And you know, your apartment wasn't that bad the way it was...I mean, I could see a woman who was a geek like you really liking your old set-up even if I thought it was way too cluttered."

"It was cluttered," Tim admitted. "But you had a point. It's more comfortable now."

Tony grinned. "You having better luck with women now, Tim?"

Tim recognized Tony teasing him and after the silent day they'd spent so far, he smiled back, more relieved than anything else for the normalcy of it. "Maybe a little," he allowed, "but I'm still not giving you details."

Tony smirked. "Would never expect you to, Probie." Tony glanced out at the number on a house. "We're almost there."

Tim took a deep breath. "Were you serious? You want us to be friends? Really?"

"That so hard to believe?"

Tim had to admit this was a far cry from the other day. Maybe he and Tony were actually making progress. "A little, I guess, but yeah, I'd like that, too."

"Good!" Tony smiled as he pulled up in front of the house. "This is it. You ready to see if we can track down a bad guy, McSpecial Agent?"

Tim chuckled. "Yeah, Very Special Agent. Let's go!"

Tony and Tim grinned at each other and headed for the front door.