The Living's Easy During Summer Time

Tony doesn't do comfortable – it's not the way he works, or the way his relationships work. Comfortable means boredom, boredom means they leave. It's as simple as that.

(It probably explains why Tony tends to leave first, but Tony's not going to examine all his issues too closely).

Two years into his tenure at NCIS, Tony starts thinking about leaving again.

"I hear California has really good summers," he says to Abby one day. He waggles his eyebrows. "Lots of girls in very, very, very small bikinis."

Abby pauses and twists her head around. She's got this weird Abby-sensor thing, kind of like Gibbs except Abby is gothic and sweet and hot in the way where she totally knows it and slyly grins about it a lot, and she's no where near that much of a bastard. She also knows him way too well. They know each other way too well, and for triangles and circles that don't fit together right, they fit together just fine.

"What brought this on, my little Don Juan?" she asks.

Tony thinks about actually telling her the truth, but then remembers what Abby knows means what Gibbs will also know in point two seconds and decides that Gibbs really, really shouldn't know about Tony's issues (at least, any more than he already knows about them anyway).

"Well," he says, preparing to launch into his favourite topic, "I was watching Magnum yesterday night and –"

"You can't have gone through all the girls in DC yet, Tony," Abby interrupts, and she totally knows this is Tony's way of avoiding the real issue because Abby never interrupts him when he's talking about Magnum. Never.

"I meant the beach," he says, because hey, sometimes it's totally not about girls. Or Gibbs. Or even Magnum, as much as it pains Tony to admit that. "Beaches around DC? Are not good beaches."

"Tony," Abby says sternly. She cheerfully has never gone to a beach on purpose and thinks it'll ruin her tan, which would be true if she had one. She puts her hands on her hips and swishes her skirt around. Tony eyes her legs appreciatively. "You still haven't taken me out yet. You are not allowed to leave until you take me out. You have to promise."

Abby holds out a pinky.

"Well," Tony says, and then grins because this is totally why he came to Abby. He hooks his pinky around Abby's. "There is that."

Tony also has this conversation with Ducky, because you've got to cover all your bases right?

"How do you feel about Florida, Ducky?"

"My dear boy," Ducky says, and holds up a kidney for Tony to inspect. "Why do you ask? I could tell you a lot about Florida. For instance, I was there when the Redstockings were staging Feminist rallies. Why, they didn't like me at all. Something about men in spectacles they disliked, perhaps? Now," he says to the body on his autopsy table, "how about you? I see you weren't liked by our killer all that much. It's a shame; your kidneys were in perfect condition."

Tony decides to not to ask Ducky after all.

(But later, Ducky will ring him up and tell him a long story about what happened to him in 1971 in New York with those blonde twins who were completely convinced he was Illya Kuryakin and Tony will feel loved because Ducky is kind of saying he wants Tony here to listen to his ridiculously long stories, too.)

Somehow this gets back to Gibbs, which Tony should have expected because Gibbs seems to know everything that ever goes on at NCIS.

"You're not going anywhere until I say you are, DiNozzo," Gibbs barks out in the middle of Tony attempting to scrape chewing gum into an evidence bag at their crime scene, and Tony totally knows Gibbs knows they both know what's going on, but he says instead, "Yes Boss," and crosses his fingers, because Tony doesn't lie, so much as he's usually smart enough not to lie to himself.

"Hey Boss," he says slyly, "What do you think about New York?"

"DiNozzo-"

"Right, right. Stop talking and scrape up more gum. I'm on it boss."

"You are not going anywhere, DiNozzo," Gibbs repeats in a low, flat voice, but Gibbs really is all bark and no bite because the hand on Tony's neck squeezes firmly and Tony thinks that it won't hurt to hang around another year maybe. He can always leave then. Yeah.

Decision made, he breaks into an easy smile. "Sure thing, boss. I'll notify you if I change my mind."

"I will fire you first before you can notify me that you're changing your mind, DiNozzo."

"Now that," Tony says to Gerald who's watching them with a raised eyebrow, "is love."

(But on the side, he dusts off his resume and thinks about sending one to the FBI as a joke. He doesn't, mostly because it'll be hilarious if the FBI actually wanted to recruit him but it would also be kind of sad to be cheered up by that. Tony is desperate but not that desperate.)

And if a year passes, and then another and they get Kate, then Probie, and Kate dies, Ziva arrives and Gibbs up and fucking quits and therefore Abby cries all the time and McGee is lost, Tony will hang around because he's kind of forgotten what leaving feels like. And Tony kind of likes it here now and maybe, just maybe he can leave without it hurting but he's probably a bit too late for it.

All the same, Tony sends the FBI his resume every month that Gibbs is gone and gives them the finger when they ring him up about it. He feels enormously satisfied when Fornell actually says to him, "Stop sending spam," and he says coolly, "You can shove it up your agency's you know what," and Fornell lets him get away with it because he misses Gibbs, too.

So he keeps bringing Abby her Caff-Pow everyday, gives Ducky his time, tries to be the Gibbs to his DiNozzo for McGee and annoys the FBI on general principle and he gets through another day by the very edge of his teeth.

And if Gibbs does come back in the only way that he can (which means: being a huge bastard about it), Jenny will ask Tony about Spain, and he'll say no. He'd mean it too, because he doesn't need anyone to tell him that he finally, finally has stopped needing reasons to stay.