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2020-04-01
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It's Something Unpredictable (But In The End It's Right)

Summary:

Sometimes you just meet the right person at the wrong time. And sometimes, meeting that person can be just the push you need to get yourself out of that time.

Notes:

Title comes from "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" by Green Day.

I do not consent to my work being hosted on any unofficial apps, especially any with ad revenue and subscription services, or any website other than ao3 unless I personally cross-posted a work.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Tony’s been staking out this coffee shop for weeks. It had been in Jenny’s info packet, one of dozens of places that Dr. Jeanne Benoit frequents, and, well, Tony likes coffee much better than he does the hospital.

Too bad Jenny’s info seems out of date. Dr. Benoit stopped coming sometime the week before last--not unusual for a doctor to have screwy hours, which is why he’s left it so long before giving this place up for a bust; that, and the coffee here is almost as good as his--so he has to move on to her grocery store. If he wants to keep doing this.

And, damn, it just really feels like stalking, knowing so much about her habits, engineering a meet-cute like this with every intention of leading the poor girl on. At least with Freddie Macalusco the man was every bit as guilty as his father was. And Philly PD didn’t give him an obsessively detailed dossier on Freddie’s movements, habits, and personality; the man had come on to him, Tony just took advantage of that. He’d even liked Freddie, when he could forget the things the man had done. It had been nothing but a fling, really, that led to some good info. And Tony’s fairly sure that his brothers in blue would rather ignore that part of his time undercover completely. Tony doesn’t exactly want to advertise it either, even though he’s not ashamed of it. Just… easier to keep it under wraps in the face of the macho bullshit he puts up with from his coworkers on a daily basis. Then he’d met Wendy and the rumors went away, for the most part.

Point is, now that he’s had a few weeks to think about it--not much else to do when staking out a coffee shop, Tony’s no writer, not like McLibel--this entire operation seems… off.

It’s fairly obvious now that things are FUBAR in the MCRT, and honestly have been for a while. And the situation after Gibbs had left, well, the less Tony remembers about that the better. But he’d been exhausted, isolated, and insecure for a variety of reasons at the time. There would have been no better time for Jenny to slip a few words in the right ears at the right time and Tony played right into her hands, begging and panting for the chance to prove himself.

Not anymore. He’s fairly sure that he has nothing else left to lose from abandoning her mission either, it all is beginning to seem very “Spy Game” (2001) although he is having some trouble deciding who is Muir and who is Bishop. What else can she take from him anyways? He’s already been demoted, forced back into the box that Gibbs has for him. Either he grew out of that box, though, or Gibbs changed the shape on him because he’s been chafing at the bit ever since.

Someone bumps into him from behind, accidentally sloshing some of their coffee down the back of his neck. Luckily it’s iced. Unluckily, too, he thinks as an ice cube trails down his spine.

“Oh no! Oh, no, no, no…” the woman says, clucking and assaulting his hair with napkins enthusiastically. “I am so sorry, Mr Handsome-and-I-am-definitely-not-flirting-with-you-oh-god-I’m-sorry--” she babbles on but he’s just struck by how… not annoyed he is.

Tony risks looking up at her and nearly gets a napkin to the eye for it. She’s blonde and cute, although he’s reminded of Abby in some way even though this woman is bright and pink and soft in ways that Abby isn’t. She stammers sorry at him again and blushes.

“Are you sure you’re not flirting with me?” he asks, a patented Dinozzo smile coming to his face much easier than it has in a long time. She’s not normally his type--which, after Wendy, was whoever looked least likely to insist on a call the day after--but maybe that’s a good thing. “Because that would really make my day if you were,” he adds, because he knows people tend to misinterpret him unless he’s specific.

She flares bright red and giggles what sounds a little like nervously to Tony. “Oh my techie saviors, you are so smooth,” she says and then clamps a hand over her mouth with a squeak. He doesn’t laugh--though that’s a near thing, because she’s way cuter than anybody has any right to be and he’s thrown by it, and he’s always used laughter to return to even keel--but the DiNozzo smile goes far more natural without him quite realizing it.

“I’m Tony,” he says, holding out his hand. Her grip is smooth and soft but firm and Tony… really likes it. He hasn’t held hands with a woman for pleasure since Wendy, not at all since Kate and that time with the plague that he doesn’t talk about. Her hand feels right in his and he doesn’t want to let go. Tony does, though, because it’s just a little too weird a thing to do when they’ve just met.

“I’m Penelope. Penelope García. You can call me Penny, if you want. Or García. Or whatever. Hi. Tony,” Penelope fiddles with her glasses and nearly drops what’s left of her coffee on him. “Tony is a good name.”

Tony has to make a decision about his off-the-books mission and probably his entire future at NCIS in the seconds that he spends just smiling at Penelope. But… isn’t that what he’s been thinking about for weeks? She glances away, a shy smile on her face, before meeting his eyes again. Her eyes are brown under her impressive make-up. “Anthony Dinozzo. Here, why don’t you sit down and I’ll buy you another coffee.” Blowing any chance he has at the mission is easier than he ever thought it would be, even if Penelope is protesting the entire time. He doesn’t know if they’ll work out, but he wants to try.

The best way to do that is to start with honesty. Penelope sticks her tongue out when Tony hands her her new coffee, but her surprised, pleased expression when she tastes it makes the stickiness on the back of his neck almost worth it.

Besides, it’s time he starts looking somewhere new. If the box doesn’t fit… find another box.

After she leaves, Tony takes a few more minutes to pull up a number he’s been looking at for at least a week.

Penelope is humming when she gets to the BAU, which isn’t unusual, but the reason for it today is.

She has a date! With an ultra-handsome, movie-loving, smooth-talking guy who didn’t care that she had spilled coffee on his really nice suit. Penelope twirls in her chair a little bit because she has butterflies in her stomach and almost everything feels like being on a cloud right now.

“Damn, baby girl, I ain’t even in the room and you’re so happy.” Derek whistles long and low, a teasing smirk on his face and Penelope just wants to hug the stuffing out of him.

“Oh, my muscled chocolate god, you’ll never guess what just happened at the coffee shop today,” she says, practically singing, and it hurts just a little when she sees unease flicker across Derek’s face.

It doesn’t last more than a second though, and he grins at her, “he’s pretty handsome then?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe, Hot Stuff.” Penelope basks in the glow a little longer, but she’s learned her lesson about trusting handsome strangers too much--not to mention Derek will make like a UFO until he’s satisfied she’ll be safe--so she clicks up her preliminary search functions in her personal laptop and types in everything she knows.

And it’s all right, but darn if she’s not having some trouble believing all of it.

“Baby Girl, are you sure this dude’s for real?” Derek says, nose scrunched adorably up, and eyes stuck somewhere in the vicinity of the ‘black plague’ and ‘college football star’s career ending injury’ search results.

“My baby doesn’t lie to me, weird as it is. But hey, fellow federal agent! Maybe you could get the lowdown for me, sugar?” She blinks flirtatiously at him until Derek rolls his eyes and runs an absent hand through her hair.

“Don’t know anyone in NCIS, but I’ll ask around.” She twirls in her chair and he smiles at her fondly. “I want to meet this guy, alright, Baby Girl? Gotta make sure he’s good enough for you.”

“Tony-Tony-Tony-Tony-Tony, why is the FBI looking at you, did you get framed again, don’t worry I won’t let anything happen to you--” Abby only stops because Tony hugs her. They’ve had their bad days--more so recently--but whenever he gets into it she’s always there to back him up. At least from outside threats.

“I didn’t get framed again. I met someone, she mentioned she worked at the FBI as an analyst. I’m not surprised she looked me up.” He’d done the same. Not on NCIS’ network, of course not, but he still has a few favors to call in when a relationship has potential to be serious enough for a background check.

“Oh. Oh! You met someone-- you’re telling me you met someone! Oh, Tony, I’m so happy for you, this is so exciting, I can’t wait to meet her, I bet she’s super pretty and smart,” Abby twirls around and grabs Bert, giggling at the sound.

“She is,” he’ll think of the logistics of that meeting later, “but, Abs, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” The last thing he wants to do is spring his decision on Abby. He’s found that it’s better to ease her into changes rather than expect her to be able to go with the flow.

“I’m all ears, Tony, but it better be good if it’s more important than you meeting someone!”

“It is,” he leans against her desk and gestures for her to sit down. “You know Director Morrow wanted to recruit me for Homeland, right?” Abby’s brow furrows and she nods slowly. “At the time, I turned it down because Kate… she had just died and I felt I was needed here more. And then, when Gibbs left, they gave me the MCRT, so I felt I was challenged enough here.”

Abby’s eyes well up with tears. “But then Gibbs came back and everything went back to normal but you… you haven’t been happy, have you?”

Tony wants to deny it. Wants to say that it has nothing to do with how things went, but he hates lying to Abby, prickly as she can be sometimes. “I-- no. It was… difficult when Gibbs slotted back into place and I lost my promotion for no other reason than everything had to go back to status quo. But that’s not the only reason I’m leaving, Abs.” She hugs the hippo again, this time trying not to cry, and Tony feels terrible about it, but also better than he has in a while. It’s so good to just talk about it, and maybe go back to the way their relationship had been. “NCIS is a small agency, at least locally, and that’s good and bad. It’s good, because it’s easy to know everyone, easy to find out things, but bad because there’s not a lot of opportunity to advance, unless I’m willing to move out of DC. And I’m not. I have a life here, one I’m not interested in uprooting.”

Abby signs something quick and intricate, he doesn’t catch it. Tony’s been trying to learn it, he’s been doing better, but he’s still not as fluent as Gibbs or Abby. He cocks an eyebrow and she shakes her head and signs slower, finger spelling some of it. ‘Do you want to advance?’

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “It’s always been in the back of my mind, but getting the MCRT kind of pushed it forward. I’ve thought about it for a couple weeks before I even asked Director Morrow what he wanted me to do if I were to take his offer.”

She looks away, biting her lip, and Tony just waits. Change isn’t easy for Abby, but she’s good and no matter how long it might take to get her there he knows she’ll back him up if it’ll make him happier in the long run. And he thinks it will. Her fingers fly, just a little viciously, ‘is it because of her,’ Abby stabs the air just a bit harder than necessary on the last word.

“Nope, nothing to do with her. Just awkward timing.” Abby curls around Bert and Tony bends over to hug her. “Things don’t have to change that much. I’ll still be in D.C., we can still play poker and go out and you can keep me updated on all the trouble McGeek and the Boss get Ziva into.”

“I don’t want you to go,” is muffled by the stuffed animal, but Tony still hears it and sighs.

“I know, Abs, I know. I’m going to miss you too.”

Breaking the news to Director Shepard is harder than telling Abby, but only because he brings Gibbs with him so that she doesn’t ask about the undercover op that he blew.

The unlicensed, unsanctioned, no back-up except the busiest person in the agency undercover op. (He feels like he should feel guilty about it, Jenny had impressed on him how important it was, but he can’t help feeling more like he just dodged a bullet.)

“This what you really want, DiNozzo?” Gibbs asks while Jenny is staring down at his resignation letter in well-disguised horror and not a little bit of anger.

Tony takes a deep breath and meets Gibbs’ eyes. He owes his former partner and long-time team lead something even if it’s going to hurt the both of them.

“Yes,” he says, not looking away. “It’s a good opportunity. I think it’s time.”

Gibbs grunts, nods, and claps a heavy hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Tell Morrow that he’s a bastard for poaching you, then.”

“I don’t think that’s a good way to start a new career, Boss.”

“Is there… a reason for the timing of this, Agent DiNozzo?” Jenny asks, obviously trying not to let her voice shake. From the way Gibbs narrows his eyes at her, she’s not done a great job, even if it’s barely noticeable.

He pauses, and thinks before he answers, because she has to know that he’s had his reservations about the operation for a while and been without success on it for longer. But, in the end, it’s not about the op. That was just one thing too many. Tony gives her his best DiNozzo smile--not the one that charmed Penelope so much, the natural, happy one--but the one his father taught him. “Director, I just think it’s time for me to move on.” And if he lets slip some of his misgivings about Jenny and her mission to Gibbs on his way out, well, old partners gossip like hens. What Gibbs does with that information? Not up to him.

Her teeth grind together briefly before she smiles back, looking more like a shark than a person for a moment. “Then we wish you the best of luck.”

Two weeks, and he’ll be starting something new and exciting, a feeling he hasn’t had since driving down to FLETC from Baltimore. It makes his blood rush, but that’s not what he’s looking forward to the most.

He has a date tonight, a Zegna suit laid out on his bed just waiting for him to get home.

Tony can’t wait.

Notes:

So I wrote this after absolutely falling in love with the pairing because of this story. I love everything JillyJames has done, and my steps into the NCIS fandom are mostly because of her. I hope everyone likes this story!

If you'd like, come visit me on tumblr!

EDIT (19 June 2021): I’ve decided to turn off comments on this work, for my own mental wellness, and for the sake of conserving my love for this fic. Thank you for understanding, and just know that I appreciate every kudos on this as much as I did every kind comment.