Chapter Text
Chapter Five
Tony lay in the hospital bed at Bethesda, in their special Sentinel unit. He had been stitched up and Dr Brad Pitt had even stopped by to check on him and his recovery from the plague. He was on specially blended pain killers, designed to work on Sentinels. Tony was very glad that his doctors here now knew his status because even before coming online he’d had odd reactions to standard medicines, and over the past year, the handful of times he’d been given meds and was unable to avoid taking them, his behavior had been - wildly uncontrollable. He had mood swings, was often manically high, followed by deep moments of depression. He rambled and had absolutely no mouth filter. If he thought it, it popped out. He tried to spend those times alone in his apartment but there had been a few unavoidable moments when others had been present, leading to high embarrassment on Tony’s part when he was lucid and sober again.
Now, he was waiting for Gibbs to come in. The doctors had kept him and Kate in the waiting room while he was being treated as they were worried about his senses and wanted to keep outside distractions to a minimum. If he and Gibbs had been fully bonded, things would have been different, at least as far as the Guide being present. But in the circumstances, the doctors felt his presence could have been detrimental to their treatment.
Now, though, Tony was treated and ready to be released in a few hours. It being the first time that Tony had taken these particular drugs, he needed to be monitored for any adverse reactions. So, for the next three hours, he was stuck in the hospital bed and was a captive audience for his Guide’s lecture and the talk they needed to have.
The Sentinel watched the door, the white noise generators keeping him from hearing beyond it. Not that he couldn’t if he dialed all the way up but there was no point and would just be risking a zone or other complication. So, Tony simply waited and watched. He knew that as soon as the doctors told Gibbs Tony was available to visitors, he would come storming in. The question was: Who else, besides Kate and probably McGee, was here? If Abby and Ducky were here, Gibbs would have a much harder time with the idea of a solo visit, unless the docs cooperated with him and said one at a time.
Frankly, Tony thought he would rather face Gibbs alone than Abby or Ducky or Kate, let alone all of them together, when not only was his secret out, but he was battling fatigue and injury. Assuming of course Kate had picked up on what he had said and didn’t just assume he was talking out of his ass. Or lying. Truthfully, Kate was becoming a much better investigator in the field, and had done really well with the protection detail (until the very end) but she was a truly horrible profiler. She took things at face value too much, she didn’t look for masks or hidden motivations. And she tried her very best to see only the best in everyone around her.
If Kate had missed the implications, then it was possible only Gibbs knew he was a Sentinel. Tony sighed deeply, regretting it when he started coughing. Patience would tell the tale. Either Gibbs alone or Gibbs et al would be coming in momentarily.
As he got his breathing under control, a visitor appeared in his room, though not one of the ones he was expecting. His spirit animal, a large male coyote he had named Goldberg, after the traps in the Road Runner cartoons, stalked across the room and leapt onto the bed, nudging Tony’s thigh with his nose.
Tony knew what this meant, and carefully moved his legs to the side so Goldberg could fit and put his head in Tony’s lap without crushing his legs with any weight. Then the coyote nudged Tony’s good arm and after a year, he knew the cue. Tony began scratching between his spirit animal’s ears and behind its neck.
He was absorbed in this calming task when the now unwatched door opened and Gibbs walked in. Alone.
“No one else coming in, boss?”
Gibbs glared at the injured agent in the bed.”Everyone’s in the waiting room but the docs said they wanted me to come in alone, first. They’ll be coming in half an hour or so.”
Tony nodded. “Just Kate and McGee or …”
“And Abby and Ducky.”
“Okay, so according to the docs -”
Gibbs stepped forward until he was right next to the bed. “Stop stalling, DiNozzo!” He looked down at the coyote in the younger man’s lap. “You’re a Sentinel!”
Tony gave a little grin. “I am. Online. All five senses. Fully active.”
Gibbs grunted, “Since when?”
Tony held the other man’s eyes with his own, refusing to back down. “Since I was in the sewer with Atlas. Just over a year now.”
“DiNozzo! You’ve been lying to me for a year!”
Tony shook his head. “Just withholding information, boss. You never asked if I was a Sentinel.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit, DiNozzo. You can’t keep a secret this big from the team. Rule number one: Never screw over your partner! Or your team. This secret could have gotten you or someone else killed.”
“Rule number four: if you have a secret, keep it!” Tony leaned forward.
“Rule fifteen: always work as a team, DiNozzo!”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you, Gibbs. You keep secrets all the time. And you go off all lone cowboy. You don’t let us have your back. You just did it the other day when you had coffee with the fucking insane whackjob who wants to kill you!” Tony took a breath and leaned back in the bed, still maintaining eye contact. “You can’t do this Gibbs. You have to let us be there for you. You aren’t alone. Let us help you, let us protect you.”
Gibbs glanced away for a moment. “We’re getting away from the topic here.” He met his agent’s eyes again. “You’re an online, unbonded Sentinel doing fieldwork at a federal agency. You can’t do that with any level of safety. You need to go to the Sentinel & Guide Center and get a conservator if they can’t find your Guide.”
Tony barked a harsh laugh. “Yeah, Gibbs, I’m not stupid. I tried that. I’ve been going to the S & G Center regularly. I have a coordinator there. And we’ve tried around a half dozen different conservators over the past year. They don’t work. They make it worse. The problem is I have a partial bond and I ground my senses there, usually subconsciously.”
“A partial bond?”
“Yeah. My Guide started a bond with me and then pulled back from it, leaving me hanging, neither unbonded nor bonded, neither yin nor yang, neither black nor white, neither in nor out, just stuck in the middle.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re not usually this dim. No, I take that back,” Tony drawled, “on this subject, you are definitely dim, purposefully dim unless I miss my guess.”
Gibbs’ brows lowered.
“You’re a Guide, Gibbs. You’re my Guide, Gibbs. You may not want to see it but it is. When I came out of that sewer and walked off the elevator, you touched me and reached out with your empathy when you told me I was irreplaceable. Then you snapped up walls so fast I nearly got whiplash when you made it a joke and told McGee you were sorry I had lived. I was reeling in so many ways that day, Gibbs. And I’ve been stuck ever since.”
“Tony, I - we - I’m not -”
“Gibbs, please, don’t reject me again. I can’t - please.”
“Tony - I need to explain, I don’t use my Gifts. I haven’t in a long time.”
“Yeah, no, I call bullshit, boss. You can call it “your gut” all you like. It’s your Guide Gifts. And in interrogations - you use the Voice all the time. And in the bullpen when we’re getting out of hand. Fool yourself if you like but you aren’t fooling me.”
Gibbs shook his head. “No, I locked my Gifts away over a decade ago, Tony. Just before I started at NCIS, well, NIS.”
“Oh.”
Gibbs looked at him, his eyes burning a hole in Tony’s psyche. “Sorry, boss. I - um - well, you really should have expected it, considering how I left Baltimore and Danny. I wasn’t about to get burned again.”
“You ran a check on me.”
“Yeah. And you never brought up your family so I just kept quiet. It wasn’t my business. And I’m really sorry that happened, Gibbs. You may have cut yourself off from deliberately using your Gifts, but you’re a Guide, and that didn’t go away when they died. Maybe at first you were too - hurt - to use them and did shut them down for a bit but once you started to heal - you really do use them all the time. And you partly bonded to me in the bullpen that day. And we have to deal with it. Either fish or cut bait. Shit or get off the pot. Complete the bond or sever it. The S & G Center can help us do that but if that is the choice - it will damage both of us in numerous ways. I won’t force you to bond with me, Gibbs, but I don’t want you making a snap decision right now. I’ve had a year to think about this. You’ve had less than an hour. And even if you decided to bond - well, we can’t do that right now. If we bonded, we’d need to nest for at least three days, more likely closer to a week, considering our circumstances. And that - well, we can’t do that with Ari still out there, gunning for you and the team.”
Gibbs reached a hand out to the man he now knew was his Sentinel. “Tony.”
“We really can’t, Gibbs. Think about your choices. After Ari is - handled - we either bond and work together as Sentinel and Guide, or we sever the bond and I find something else to do, somewhere else. I can’t sever the bond and stay. You need to know that. Fully informed consent and what have you. But you don’t have to worry if that’s your choice, Gibbs.” Tony grinned wryly and drawled in a Southern accent, “I know my way home.”
Gibbs opened his mouth to reply when the door behind him opened and Abby came bouncing into the room. “Tony, Tony, Tony!”