All In

Title: All In
Series: Competency
Series Order: 1
Author: Ladyholder
Fandom: NCIS, Criminal Minds, Without a Trace, Scarecrow and Mrs. King
Pairings: None
Genre: Alternate Universe, Paranormal, Shifter
Warnings: Character Bashing, Violence-Canon-Level
Wordcount: 25,528

 

Chapter One

“Everyone, freeze!”

“What?”

“What’s going on?”

“I said, freeze,” the doctor in charge of the triage case barked out. He was staring at the wounds under his hands and raised them off the skin of the man they were treated. “He was bit by a were and he’s healing. At this point, I want everyone who isn’t qualified to treat shifters to leave.”

Half the team put their tools down and left the room, leaving him with three people. “Okay, Nurse Anderson, you’re going to need to use the shears to get his clothes off. Make sure to bag them and sign off on them like you do for a SA case. Nurse Mitchell, while we can, we need to get some fluids into our patient. Get a saline drip going, and add in a side order of shifter-safe painkillers, at half strength. Make sure we have another full-strength dose on hand in case we need it after he finishes his transition. Nurse Lawrence, I need you to work with me to get his wounds clean so when his healing kicks in, it has less work to do.”

The three nurses nodded firmly before scattering to start on the tasks he’d given them. He kept working on the man’s wounds. The bites from whatever alpha had bitten him were scattered over his torso, with a mass of broken bones lurking underneath. Stitches were next to useless in instances like this and the best they could do for their patient was butterfly bandages.

“Doctor, he’s starting to push the IV out,” Mitchell reported. She was squeezing the saline bag gently, pushing the fluid into their patient’s veins at a steady pace.

“How much has he had?” he asked. He had switched from cleaning the wounds to documenting them before the advanced healing that a shifter had made them all disappear.

“This is the second bag,” Mitchell said. She was keeping a close eye on the IV site to make sure that she didn’t blow it out.

“Anderson? How are you doing?” he asked. He popped the memory card out of the camera before sealing it into an evidence envelope. He handed the envelope to Lawrence and she countersigned on the same line he did.

“I have everything we pulled off of him in bags and it’s all sealed,” Anderson reported. She took the envelope from him and started recording all the relevant information on the transcript.

“Great,” he muttered. He was keeping a careful eye on the time as the last of the wounds on their patient finished healing. “Everyone stand back. He’s going to wake up soon.”

“Yes, sir,” Lawrence murmured. She pushed the evidence cart to the edge of the treatment bay and left their patient on the gurney with nothing within reach of his hands.

“Good idea,” Anderson said. She quickly started piling the evidence bags into a larger bag, using it to keep everything in place. “He had a badge. A detective badge for BPD.”

“Oh, boy,” Mitchell hissed. She slowly reached out and slid the IV needle out of their patient’s arm. “Saline is done and…”

Their patient’s eyes snapped open and everyone stepped back, so he didn’t feel crowded. “Hey, you’re in the hospital and we’ve been treating you for your wounds,” he explained. “My name is Dr. Stephen Cook and I’ve been your attending physician.”

Their patient swallowed harshly before he nodded once. “I’m not in pain?”

“You were bit by a shifter and have healed,” Stephen explained.

“Fuck,” their patient moaned. He raised one hand to rub it over his face. “Do you know what I am?”

Stephen shook his head in answer. “Not 100%, but we can get to that in a bit. Can I get your name?”

“Detective Tony DiNozzo,” their patient said. His nose wrinkled as he breathed. “What?”

“Yeah, it stinks in here for everyone,” Stephen said. He took a deep breath and waved his nurses out of the room. As soon as they were gone, he let his hands fall to his waist. “Do me a favor, detective?”

“Sure,” DiNozzo agreed. He had let his eyes close as he worked to control his sense of smell.

“I’m going to flash my eyes at you. I want you to just let yourself do what your instincts tell you to do,” Stephen directed.

“Doc, that does not sound like a great idea,” DiNozzo said. He opened his eyes and stared at Cook. “Really. Whatever’s in here with me feels really wild.”

“I’m sure it is,” Stephen said. He had a feeling about the were who had bit the man, and they needed confirmation of what their patient was going to change into. “I’m a were as well, detective. You won’t hurt me.”

“Okay, doc,” DiNozzo murmured. He took a deep breath, and Stephen held still as the mans were moved under his skin. DiNozzo was right, whatever he was, it was wild. “This is such a weird feeling. Why aren’t I freaking out?”

“As fast as it is, your brain chemistry has changed, and that leads to changes in how you handle stress,” Cook explained softly. Right at that moment, he didn’t want to try to startle DiNozzo. If he hadn’t healed and woken up coherent, there was no way that he would have asked the man to try to shift. But shifters were their own special class when it came to medical care and despite DiNozzo’s recent humanity, he now fell under new guidelines. Stephen expected that would be one of the things that tripped the man up, even if he managed to roll with all the other punches coming his way.

“Oh.” DiNozzo’s eyes opened wide and he drew in a deep breath before sneezing. At the end of the first sneeze, his features shifted and Stephen huffed once in recognition. “That feels so weird,” DiNozzo said, eyes firmly closed from his sneeze. He ran his hands over his face and stilled at the pronounced brow ridges. “Where are my eyebrows?”

Stephen snorted once in amusement. “They’ll come back once you relax out of this level of shift. It’s called the ‘beta’ form and it’s an intermediate form between looking human and your fully shifted form. Your teeth have changed, and so has the shape of your face. Like most shifters, you’ve lost your eyebrows, and you’ve gotten a lot more hair around your jaw and the back of your neck. Also, your fingernails have been augmented.”

DiNozzo was staring at his hands now, and flexing them to watch his claws move. “So, what am I?”

“Wolf,” Stephen confirmed. When DiNozzo flicked his eyes up at him, he exhaled sharply. “Alpha werewolf, to be precise.”

 

 

“Detective DiNozzo, good morning. How are you feeling?”

Tony raised an eyebrow at the representative of the Shifter Counsel of Baltimore. “I’m fine. Surprisingly.”

“My name is Martin Kiraly and I will be doing your intake interview today. I understand from Dr. Cook that you were attacked and bit by an alpha werewolf, and have completed the shift from human to shifter,” Kiraly said. He slid a badge onto the table and Tony picked it up to inspect it. It matched the last one he’d seen of them and he checked the back to confirm that it had the reverse of the seal pressed into it.

“Thank you for that. Now. Why are you guys talking to me before the police?” Tony asked. He breathed in slowly, trying to parse the new information that his nose was giving him. Emotions were turning out to be harder to label with his nose than observation.

“The hospital has turned over all the evidence from the attack, but we want you to be stable before we throw you into a high-stress environment,” Kiraly said bluntly. “New werewolf, plus alpha, plus assault victim? We’re going to be careful with you.”

The grimace that crossed his face felt involuntary and Tony tried to smooth out his expression. “I was attacked by one man and I thought that I was winning. I had gotten him down to cuff him when he shifted and started biting me. It took a bit, but I was able to kill him. Which I will need to talk to IA about,” he realized. “Why is it harder than normal to regulate my emotions?”

“Your wolf is riding high due to how new the change is. As I’m sure your doctor told you, your body has been changed and so has your brain. You’re starting to process more of your environment and that’s part of what’s throwing you off,” Kiraly explained. “Now, how were you able to kill the man who attacked you?”

“As part of my standard kit, I carry a knife,” Tony admitted. “And a knife shoved up into a brain will kill just about anything.”

Kiraly just nodded and jotted a few notes on the pad he’d set up in front of him. “Do you have anyone that you would consider pack?”

Tony opened his mouth to say yes but something held him back. At one point he was sure he would have said that Danny was close enough to be pack, but not now. Not after Danny had set him up to be killed. And the rest of their coworkers on the force were right out. He trusted them to be decent cops, but pack? “No. Not here. I know I need one, but I don’t have a lot of close friends.”

“That’s not great,” Kiraly said with a sigh. “You’ll need a pack. We can teach you some coping mechanisms, but you’re going to want to form one as soon as you can.”

“Well, chances are, it won’t be here,” Tony decided. “I don’t know where it will be, but I highly doubt I’m going to be staying here.”

“We’ll work with you to find the support structure you’re going to need,” Kiraly promised.

Tony nodded once. “Okay, now that that’s out of the way, am I in trouble with the Shifters Counsel for defending myself?”

“Not at this time. We’ll be working with the police to confirm that everything is in place, but as long as everything checks out, the Counsel will be good with you. I can’t speak for the police or the DA,” Kiraly said.

“Sounds good,” Tony said. He had faith that he would be cleared. It wasn’t like he had gone looking for the alpha that bit and turned him to do it. And he was certain that there was enough evidence at the site to show that he was the victim, not the perp.

“Okay. Now, we need to make sure that you are settled enough to allow you to speak to the police,” Kiraly said. He made a last note in his notebook before closing it up. “Shall we get started?”

“You do remember that I’m a cop, right?” Tony asked. At Kiraly’s nod, he laughed softly. “But I get what you mean. You need to make sure that I don’t wolf out at the wrong time, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, then. Let’s get started,” Tony said.

 

 

“Detective DiNozzo, my name is Carl Prince, I understand from your doctor and the Shifters Counsel that you are stable and able to answer questions?”

Tony stared at the IA rep and tried to remember what he’d heard about the guy. Prince had a decent enough reputation on the force for being a tolerable human being and honest. He was going to trust, but still keep an eye on the man’s heartbeat like Kiraly had taught him. “I’ve been cleared by the Shifter Counsel rep who saw me. I’ll let you know if I start getting close to the edge.”

“Sounds good, thank you,” Prince said. He quickly set up the mandated recording device needed, and set a folder down on the table between them. “I have your statement here. I would like to go over it.”

“One moment,” Tony said. His phone was buzzing in his pocket and he pulled it out. A quick check of the message showed that the person he’d been expecting had arrived. “My attorney is here. We’ll be going over everything with them in the room.”

“Smart,” Prince allowed. He sat back and folded his hands over his stomach.

Tony hummed softly and settled into his chair as well, slowly drawing in a breath through his nose. There were none of the chemo-signals associated with anger in the air and he relaxed slightly as a result. He didn’t want to relax fully because IA was not on his side, no matter what Prince was projecting. He just had to remember that and take his attorney’s advice.

When the door opened, he stood and held out his hand. Andrew Marcus was a frat brother and a damn fine attorney. Tony had retained him since he’d passed the bar and he’d never regretted it. “Andrew, thank you for coming down.”

“Always a pleasure, Tony,” Andrew said, taking his hand in a warm grip. “I got the email you sent me with everything and I think I’m up to date. I understand this is the Internal Affairs interview that’s needed to make sure all the right ‘i’s’ are dotted and ‘t’s’ are crossed?”

“Yes, it is,” Prince agreed. Tony appreciated him holding his peace until Andrew was settled into place next to him before he officially started the interview by starting the recording and listing the time, date, and location of the interview with all parties detailed. “First question Detective DiNozzo. Why were you at that warehouse?”

Right. Tony took a deep breath and started talking.

 

 

“What are you going to do now, Tones?” Andrew asked.

Tony sipped at the brandy he’d poured for himself. His newly augmented senses were making it a better experience than the last time he’d indulged in it and he was slowly cataloging all the changes to map them onto his new reality. Setting the snifter aside, he turned his attention back to his friend. “Well, I’m not staying here.”

“Are you going to keep working?”

“I would be deeply bored if I sat around and lived off my trust,” Tony reminded. “I’ve already got feelers out, but my new augmentation will make things more interesting.”

Andrew frowned before taking a sip of his brandy. “How so?”

“I need a pack,” Tony said bluntly. “I need somewhere where I can either build one or where my coworkers will eventually slot into place as my pack.”

“Do you consider me pack?” Andrew asked after several seconds of silence.

Tony took a moment to commune with his inner wolf. Was Andrew pack? He tried to find the place in himself where he’d been told his pack bonds would reside. Deep inside himself was a small line, that when he touched it, felt like Andrew. “Yes, you are.”

“Thank you, that’s good to know,” Andrew murmured. Tony could smell the pleasure pouring off the man and smiled as he picked up his brandy.

“You’re welcome,” Tony said. He pushed his pleasure in his friend at the bond. When Andrew’s heartbeat tripped over a beat, he was sure he’d gotten the message. “Anyway, I’ve got a contact with the Shifter’s Counsel and wherever I get a job, they’ll put me in touch with the regional alpha so I can get folded in.”

“Sounds like a plan. So, what are you thinking of doing?” Andrew asked.

“Well, I want to stay in law enforcement,” Tony said slowly. “But I’m not sure about joining another department on a city level.”

“Why?”

“Well, you know the general gist of what happened in Philly,” Tony reminded.

“Right. I helped draw up the paperwork after that, so yes, I know what happened there,” Andrew said dryly. “So, you don’t want anything like that to happen again?”

“No,” Tony said firmly. “We aren’t doing that again.”

“Yeah, hard no. Anyway, what are you looking for?”

The question was… unexpected and Tony took a little time to think about what he wanted. One of the deepest and most abiding things he wanted from his life was to make a difference. He also wanted to put bad guys in jail. Closure to victims and their families. “I want to serve justice. And yes, I’m aware that sounds hokey, but that’s what I want.”

“You can serve justice in a lot of ways, Tony. You could go back to school and become a lawyer,” Andrew offered with a grin.

“You’ve been trying to get me to become a lawyer since you sat your L-stats,” Tony reminded. “I like enforcing the law, not trying it. Or judging it.”

“I’m not a judge, Tones,” Andrew said.

“But you want to be eventually.”

“Eventually, maybe,” Andrew allowed. “But we’re not talking about me right now, Tony. You want to serve justice and to do that legally, you need to be a part of a police department. But you’re not interested in a police department for a city. What about a state? Or even federal?”

“I am not going to be a part of the FBI. Those guys are arseholes,” Tony said firmly. He’d had way too many run-ins with the FBI due to Philadelphia, and he didn’t want to become one. “There are other federal departments that are involved in law enforcement.”

“Your inner Brit is showing, Tony,” Andrew said, amused. “And I don’t think you would like the CIA. And Homeland might be a thing.”

“It’s very new. And while getting in on the ground floor of an institution might be interesting, I’m not interested. The mandate makes me very uneasy,” Tony said. He was going to ignore the comment on his inner Brit. He was utterly aware of his language issues.

Andrew nodded at that before taking a sip of his drink. “How many different agencies have you worked with?”

“More than you would expect, but less than are affiliated with the government,” Tony said. “The last one was an agent from NCIS. The guy was a self-professed bastard, but he was good at his job and didn’t abuse the perp when we caught him. I had to testify in the trial and he was decent in court too.”

“Did this guy leave you a phone number?” Andrew asked.

“Yeah,” Tony confirmed. He set his drink aside and went to check his desk for the card he’d been given. Contacts were gold for a cop and he had been sure he’d need the contact again. Baltimore got more than their fair share of military personnel, after all. Flipping through the business cards he had in his files, the one he wanted was easily found. “I filed it under NCIS, so that was helpful. Jethro Gibbs, out of DC.”

“Well, if you work with him, it’ll get you away from here. And a good, tightknit team would be a decent basis for a pack,” Andrew said.

“And you live in DC as well,” Tony said, amused.

“I do,” Andrew agreed. “Are you going to call him?”

“It’s Saturday night, Andrew, and all I’ve got is his work number. I’ll call him on Monday,” Tony said. He settled back into his chair and picked up his snifter. “I’ll check out the requirements for becoming a fed tomorrow after breakfast.”

“Oh,” Andrew cooed at that. He glanced at the kitchen before turning back to him. “A full English?”

“Yeah, a full English breakfast.”

“Excellent!”

Tony laughed at his friend’s enthusiasm. “Get some sleep, Andrew. We’re going to be busy in the morning.”

 

 

Chapter Two

“Gibbs.”

“Good morning to you too, Agent Gibbs,” Tony said. He was vaguely amused at the agent’s surly attitude, but he needed to talk to the man. “This is Detective Tony DiNozzo out of Baltimore. You and I worked on a case together where one of your Marines was murdered in my city.”

“I remember you, Detective. What can I do for you? Is it another murder?” Gibbs asked.

“No, there’s not been another murder. I wanted to talk to you about something else. When you and I were working together, you mentioned that you wanted me in NCIS. Is that offer still open?” Tony asked bluntly. Gibbs had always come across as a blunt instrument and beating around the bush was against his nature.

“Yes,” Gibbs said. He was silent for a second before he cleared his throat. “What changed?”

“My partner is a dirty cop. He set me up to die in an effort to cover his tracks and in the course of saving my own life, I got bit by an alpha werewolf. I’m not staying here, so I need someplace new,” Tony explained.

“And you thought of me? Interesting,” Gibbs muttered. “Why?”

“Because you played it straight with me while we were on that case, you didn’t dismiss my contributions, and you respected the law,” Tony said, laying out his case. “Would I have left if the shit with my partner hadn’t happened? No, I wouldn’t have left. But it has and now I want out of here.”

“Understandable. Okay, so you got bit by an alpha werewolf? I take it the bite took?” Gibbs questioned.

“I’m alive, so yes, it did and I killed the alpha. I’m adjusting to my new circumstances as quickly as I can,” Tony said. He got up to start to pace, trying to burn off some of the energy surging under his skin. “It’s been a rough transition, but I’m pushing through.”

“Since you’re an alpha, that comes with some challenges, especially when you’re not on the top of the heap wherever you work. Do you think you could obey orders from a human?” Gibbs asked.

“Gibbs, I was human a little over a week ago,” Tony said, amused. “And if the next question is wondering if I can obey orders from another were who’s not an alpha? Yes, I can. I’m not one to forget the chain of command without reason.”

Tony had a hunch that Gibbs had asked that question for a specific purpose. The man gave off a certain vibe and he would not be surprised to find out he was a shifter. If not, then he was the most wolf-like human he’d ever met.

“Okay, I can get that,” Gibbs said after several seconds. “Let me talk it over with my boss and I’ll let you know if NCIS can offer you a job.”

“I’m not going to wait forever, Gibbs. Please let your boss know that,” Tony warned. “I’ve got other feelers out. NCIS is just the one I’m currently most interested in.”

“I expect. I’ll get you an answer in the next three days,” Gibbs promised.

“Sounds good,” Tony said. “Let me know what the decision is. The phone number I called you from is my personal cell phone number.”

“Thank you for letting me know, DiNozzo. Do you know when you want to start?” Gibbs asked.

“I’m still with the BPD, but I’m going to be leaving it soon. I need training in being an alpha, so I’ll be working with the Shifter’s Counsel to get started on that.”

“Sounds good,” Gibbs said. He sounded slightly distracted and Tony was sure that his job was calling for him. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

Tony made an agreeing noise as Gibbs hung up the phone. Pulling the phone away from his ear he eyed it to confirm the older man had actually hung up. He had. Laughing softly, Tony headed out of the conference room he’d commandeered. He needed to talk to his lieutenant about what he wanted from his future.

 

 

“Are you sure you want to leave?” his lieutenant asked.

“Yeah, I do,” Tony confirmed. He stared at the older man and raised an eyebrow at him. “You know that my partner is the one who lured me into that ambush. There is no way in hell that I’d have tried to take on an alpha werewolf by myself. And I’ve still not found out who the hell they were.”

Montgomery blinked at that. “Oh. No one’s gotten in touch with you?”

“If you hadn’t let me know I was on medical leave for eight weeks, I wouldn’t have known. No one’s let me know, not even IA,” Tony said bluntly. He wasn’t going to say that he was surprised at the way he was being treated. No one liked a cop who got another in trouble.

“That’s not good,” Montgomery said with a sigh. “Everyone knows that you were attacked, but the reason why hasn’t been disseminated.”

“You sure about that?” Tony asked. He relaxed the hold he had on his hearing and tried to make sense of what was being said in the bullpen. The surge of noise hit his ears with a vengeance and he exhaled slowly as he worked to keep from visibly wincing. It took several seconds before the din turned into words that he recognized. The various conversations snapped into place and he listened intently.

“What are you listening to?” Montgomery asked after several minutes of silence.

“The conversations out in the bullpen,” Tony said absently. “There’s some noise about Danny not being in and me being out, but you’re right, no one knows exactly why.”

“Well, that’s good to know,” Montgomery said. He leaned back in his chair and stared at him. “So, you’re not staying with us here. Do you need a reference?”

“Right this instant? No. Will I? Yes. I’ve got feelers out for a new job, but it may be weeks before I’m ready to start. And I have no idea if I’ll need training with a new department or not,” Tony said. He eyed his soon to be former lieutenant and raised an eyebrow at the man. “But I’m not staying here. Danny came out of this department and he tried to kill me. You still haven’t told me who the alpha was that I killed, which tells me that he was a police officer too. I’m sure that with a little effort, I could figure out who it was, but it’s not worth it to me right now. As long as you clean up your house. If you don’t? Well.”

“Are you threatening us?” Montgomery demanded. He surged forward in his chair and Tony suppressed a growl at the display of aggression.

“No. But don’t even try to tell me that you wouldn’t do what I’m doing if you were in my shoes,” Tony snapped. He let his eyes bleed red and smirked as Monty sat back in his chair abruptly. “I’m not human anymore, Monty. And for that, I do blame the department. I turned my suspicions about Danny into you on several occasions. You ignored them.” He waved at his eyes. “See what that got me?”

“I’ll…write out a good reference letter and be honest on how well you do the job if anyone calls,” Monty stuttered. He swallowed once. “You’re right. The alpha was one of ours and the brass are pretty determined that his cause of death is going to be buried. It’d be way too much trouble if it got out what happened. We’re reviewing all his cases to make sure that they were above board, but yeah, it’s getting buried. Danny has been fired, blacklisted, and will be going to jail if we can manage it. You won’t have to testify.”

“Good to know,” Tony said. He let his eyes return to normal and pulled a business card out of his suit pocket. “Send anything you need me to know to this address. Everything needs to be in actual, paper communication and I’ll be having my attorney audit it to make sure nothing is left out.”

“Okay.”

“I’d say it was a pleasure working with you, Monty, but you know it’d be a lie. Do everyone here on the force a favor and don’t fuck anyone else over like you all did me,” Tony said. He dropped his resignation on the desk on top of the card. Tapping it he stood. “This is effective immediately. I’ll be taking my accumulated vacation time and sick leave as a lump sum deposit in the same account my paycheck goes into. That’s non-negotiable.”

From the constipated look Montgomery gave him, he wasn’t thrilled with that demand, but Tony didn’t care. The money was the least of what the PD owed him and they were lucky that was all he was demanding.

He took a brief moment to tidy himself up before walking back out into the bullpen. The whole room fell silent as they watched him walk to his desk. None of the cops out in the room were pack and it was work not to let his eyes bleed red. The damn place stank. Yuck.

Thankfully his desk was close to the door and it was the work of only moments to pack his few personal items. No one asked him why he was packing, so he didn’t volunteer the information. If they were going to let him go without drama, he was going to let them.

On his way out the door, he turned to look back. “Good luck, guys.”

It was only when the door closed that the noise level rose as his former coworkers started talking.

 

 

When his cell rang, Tony stepped away from his instructor. “I’ve been expecting a call.”

“I remember. Go ahead and make sure to walk to cool down,” he said as he headed out of the room.

“Thanks, Billy,” Tony said. He headed for his bag and snagged his phone off the top. A quick brush of his thumb and he had it. “DiNozzo.”

“Detective DiNozzo, my name is Director Thomas Morrow, NCIS, I understand from Agent Gibbs that you are looking at joining our organization.”

“Yes, sir, I have been looking at your agency as a possibility,” Tony confirmed, as he started to walk around the room. He had done his research on NCIS and Morrow had been the director of the agency for almost three years. He had a good reputation with every agency and department Tony had been able to contact.

“I’ve been looking into you as well. Are you sure you want to go federal?” Morrow asked. “Your record is enviable and your previous employers all good things to say about you. You must have a number of agencies and departments looking at you.”

Tony hummed briefly at that. He hadn’t been sure that Monty would actually follow through with his promise to be decent when it came to being a reference. It was nice to know he’d been wrong. “I’m sure you’re aware that I’m currently in between jobs and why. Going federal would be a good change, I expect.”

“My research did mention that you are no longer with the Baltimore PD and why,” Morrow said. “Your last LT. didn’t pull any punches on what happened and why you’re no longer with them. How are you doing, son?”

The urge to show fang at the endearment was startling. He’d never really liked it when he was called some form of a pet name in the manner Morrow had used. If things worked out, he was going to need to talk to Morrow about that issue. In the meantime, he still needed to answer to bloody question… “I’m doing as well as I can expect, sir. I’m at my local Shifters Counsel, getting trained on how to use my new skills. I know I’m going to need specialist training in how to use my skills in a law enforcement setting, but I expect that I will be getting that training when I get hired.”

“Are you looking at the FBI?” Morrow asked.

“No. I’ve worked with the FBI before and I’m not thrilled with them. I can work with them, but I don’t want to work for them,” Tony explained.

The hum Morrow let out sounded thoughtful, but Tony couldn’t say anything else and not be honest. He was not a fan of the FBI and he wasn’t going to sugarcoat that. “Are there any other agencies that you might have issues with?”

“Not at the moment. I’m sure that if I do go federal, I’ll develop my own opinions on whomever we work with,” Tony said with a smile.

Morrow snorted once in agreement. “That seems to happen to everyone. I know you mentioned that you’re in training with the Shifters Counsel, and Agent Gibbs confirmed that you’re an alpha wolf. Do you think you will be able to work with other shifters?”

“Yes,” Tony said immediately. “I’m working with a variety of shifters with the Shifters Counsel. My main trainer is another wolf and he is not an alpha, so I’m learning how to deal with my instincts giving me fits, and not take them out on anyone around me. It’s going well.”

“That’s one of the major questions I had. While we’ve got a number of shifters in NCIS, we don’t have an alpha at the Navy Yard. If we do hire you, you would be working out of there as Agent Gibbs’ partner and you would be a junior agent,” Morrow explained.

“Sir, are you wondering if I can take orders from a shifter who’s not an alpha?” Tony asked. At the older man’s assenting noise, Tony sighed. “Sir, my biological status has nothing to do with where I am regarding my career. I’m not going to throw that around to try to get my way.”

The line was quiet for several seconds before Morrow cleared his throat. “Okay. I’m going to take you at your word, Mr. DiNozzo. Do you know when you will be through with your training from the Shifters Counsel?”

“Uhm. No. Let me check,” Tony offered. He pulled the phone away from his ear and hit mute. “Billy, do I have an ETA on when it’ll be safe for me to go back to work?”

“Six weeks, Tony,” Billy called. He walked back into the room with a large bottle of water that he handed over before walking out again. “I’ll let you get back to your call.”

“Thanks!” Tony said. He twisted the lid off and took a deep drink before ending the mute function. “Thank you for your patience, sir. I’ve been informed that I should be done with my training in six weeks.”

“Six weeks, huh?” Morrow muttered. Tony could hear paper being flipped through. “FLETC has an opening in eight weeks and we can fit you in. You’ll need to take the full load of classes so you can learn everything you will need to become a federal agent. I’ll send you a full packet with all the information on your classes so you can go over everything.”

“Thank you, sir,” Tony said. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out in relief. “I am looking forward to working with you and NCIS.”

“That’s good to know, Mr. DiNozzo. I look forward to the day I can change that to ‘Agent’. Okay, I’ll need your current address so I can send you out the information and when you are through with your training with the Shifters Counsel, I’ll expect you here to sign all your employment contract,” Morrow said.

“Sounds good, sir,” Tony said. He quickly made an appointment with his future boss for the date when he’d be signing onto his new job. Ending the call, he quickly drank the last of the water Billy had given him before leaning forward in relief.

“So, you’ve got a job lined up?” Billy asked as he walked back into the room.

“Yeah, I do,” Tony confirmed. “So, I’m still in law enforcement and I need to make sure I’m trained enough to be safe and competent.”

“All right then. We have a goal. By the time you leave here, you’ll be able to use your skills to the fullest extent you can,” Billy promised.

 

 

Chapter Three

Tony settled into his chair in the orientation classroom and let his senses spread out. Breathing deeply, he tried to figure out who the shifters in his class were. He’d been told that there were several in the class, but none of them were an alpha. Thanks to Billy and his exhaustive training, he was able to parse the information his nose was giving him. His class had another wolf and two cats of some type. Interesting.

It was second nature now, to let his control relax enough to flood the building with his presence. The administration of FLETC knew who and what he was, so his actions weren’t going to a surprise to his instructors, and they’d authorized his actions. Everyone involved with his attendance had decided that it would be best to announce there was an alpha in the class subtly, first.

As part of the intake process, the admin for FLETC had reached out to the incoming shifters to let them know that they would be going to class with an alpha. All three had decided that they would be able to complete the courses with him there.

It was easy to clock the shifters as they walked in. Two men and a woman stiffened and scanned the room, trying to confirm who he was. As their eyes scanned over him before coming back to settle on him, Tony made sure to nod to confirm their guess.

He made sure to remember each name as the class introduced themselves. Aaron Hotchner was the wolf, Eileen McDonald was a cheetah, and Martin Fitzgerald was the other feline. Hotchner wasn’t an alpha, but he wasn’t far off. If Tony had to guess, he was in line to ascend to that status. The two cats seemed rather solitary, but Tony was aware that initial impressions could be wrong and he made the decision to wait and see.

“I’m not going to be pushy, people. I’m in class to learn, just like everyone else in here,” Tony said, sub-vocally. From the subtle relaxing the other shifters did, all three heard him and heard the truth in his heartbeat.

Orientation went forward and Tony paid diligent attention. There was a lot that he had to learn about being a federal cop and he was determined to be the best he could be in his new agency. Andrew had laughed his ass off at the thought of him going back to school. That impression hadn’t been helped when Tony had gone shopping for school supplies. Tony had ignored him grandly.

When the first break started, Tony walked out of the room and headed for a small breakroom he’d discovered in his exploration of the facility. He had no idea how to go about minimizing his footprint, but he wasn’t going to loom or crowd them, so he settled for leaning against the counter at the back of the room.

Hotchner was the first to track him and Tony smiled to himself. He’d thought that Aaron would be the one to find him first. Something about the man screamed ‘hunter’ and not in a bad way. He also oozed competence and that had the potential to be very distracting. When the man walked in, he quirked an eyebrow at Tony. “You’re the alpha.”

“I am,” Tony confirmed. McDonald and Fitzgerald walked in together and Tony raised an eyebrow at their body language. From the stiff way they were walking, neither of them was happy to be in each other’s company. “I’m not looking to make waves or be an asshole, here. My goal for the next few months is to get through training and go to my new job.”

“So, you’re not looking for a pack?” Hotchner asked.

“I’m not looking for a pack, I’m looking to build a pack. Eventually,” Tony said bluntly. “I’m going to be working at NCIS out of the Naval Yard in the greater DC area. I have one packmate who is good with that right now.”

“What does that even mean?” McDonald asked. She had stopped just inside the door and Tony read her as being nervous.

“It means that I’m not going to force anyone to be in my pack. I’m not going to try to sell myself up or guilt-trip anyone into joining my pack. I know I need one, but I’m not in any screaming hurry to complete it,” Tony explained. “I’m not averse to making friends, though.”

Fitzgerald walked up to him and stared at him. When Tony raised an eyebrow in question, the other man smiled. “Something tells me that even if you don’t try to get pushy with us to join your pack, we’re all going to consider it. Just because of who you are.”

“Maybe,” Tony conceded. “I’m not going to lie, if I come out of this time with a packmate or two, I’ll be thrilled. But that’s not a goal I’m working towards.”

“And you’ve already laid that out,” Hotchner said. “Okay. My goal of this is to get my training in, get my qualifications, and then go to work for the FBI.”

“I take it you’ve already got your contract?” Tony asked. At Hotchner’s nod, he smiled. “What department?”

“BAU,” Hotchner said.

“What is that?” McDonald asked.

“Behavioral Analyst Unit,” Fitzgerald explained. “The profilers. Do you have a team that you’re heading towards?”

“Not at this time,” Hotchner said. He shrugged when they all looked at him. “I’m a profiler, but it’s new and I know I’m going to need to prove myself.”

“Fair,” Fitzgerald said. He stepped back to lean against the table running the length of the room. “I’m headed to one of the Missing Persons Units. I’ve got some experience with the law and I’m planning on learning all I can here.”

“That’s a heartbreaking job, you’re going to be doing,” Hotchner said. When Tony raised an eyebrow at him, he shrugged. “I’m aware that my job is also going to be heartbreaking, but someone’s got to do it.”

“Also, fair,” Tony said. He turned to look at McDonald and stared at her.

She stared back and then slated the other men looks when she saw that they were also staring at her. “What?”

“Gonna share where you’re going?” Fitzgerald asked.

“I don’t have a specific job lined up. Right now, I expect I’m going to be an FBI agent of some kind,” she said.

Tony took a deep breath and tried to parse what he was getting from her. Surprise had been the dominant scent for most of the time she’d been in the room, but once they started talking about their future jobs, resentment had bloomed. Huh. Well then. “We’ve got the whole time we’re here at FLETC to see if we can help you find something to specialize in. Nothing says that you have to be generic.”

“Really?”

“Yes. You’re a shifter. You’ve got skills that the average agent doesn’t and you need to take advantage of that,” Hotchner said, bluntly.

“Also, continuing education, no matter what team you end up on, will help. Because there’s nothing that says that your first team is your forever team,” Fitzgerald said. He waved a hand at Hotchner. “While Hotchner is a profiler, there’s no telling what he’ll specialize in. Or what he may change his specialization to if he gets burnt out.”

“Same with me. While I’m going to be an NCIS agent, I may end up in a special unit, or I may be on a team that takes all kinds of cases. Every agency has specialists, and they are valued,” Tony said. He checked his watch and hummed softly. “We’ve got about five minutes before this break is over. Do we think that we can get through the next few months without issue?”

“I think so,” Hotchner agreed.

“Same,” Fitzgerald and McDonald chorused.

“Sounds great,” Tony said. “See you in class.”

Walking back into the classroom, Tony tried to parse his impressions of the other three. Hotchner struck him as a deeply serious, rule-abiding man, who was also ruthless in his pursuit of his target. He was looking forward to working with him in class. He expected a lot of spot-on observations and analyses.

Fitzgerald seemed a bit nervous. Like there was something in his background that was causing him some issues. Despite that, he was sharp, observant and ballsy. Tony expected that, of the three, he would be the one to throw the most curveballs.

That left McDonald and Tony agreed with her. At this point, she was pretty much generic. If he had to guess, he’d say that she’d just completed college and been recruited straight out of it. Not much life experience and what she had was mostly campus life. Basically, she was a blank slate for the FBI to mold how they needed her.

Overall, things had gone about as well as he could have expected and he was looking forward to his time in FLETC. He expected to learn a lot more than the curriculum had promised.

 

Tony did his best not to be an asshole over the course of FLETC. The other three shifters were all competent adults and they were doing great. But he still kept a weather eye on them. Because apparently, the change in his species had turned him into a mother hen.

The only one of the three he had any concerns with was McDonald, and that was because she was coming into the whole thing with no law enforcement experience at all. But she asked good questions, participated in every single exercise and took copious notes. She also hit each of them up for any hints or tricks they could give her.

Hotchner was a dark horse. He had trained with SWAT somewhere along the way and adding that to the mind of a lawyer produced a very interesting combination of pragmatic and ruthless. It was very attractive, but Tony was firmly ignoring the fact that his whole class was filled with pretty people. It was harder to ignore the competence that Hotchner displayed and the man was giving him a run for his money to stay in first place. It was genuinely fun to do the LARP exercises with him.

Fitzgerald was a very gentle beast. He was also competent and easily held his own with everything. While he wasn’t first in the class, he was nipping at both Hotchner’s and Tony’s heels. And the man was relentless when it came to hunting. If he hadn’t laid out his plan to go for the Missing Person’s units, Tony would have done his best to suggest Fugitive Retrieval.

The four of them had taken to holding study groups after classes and the rest of their class followed their example on a regular basis. It was interesting to see how the ripples of their behavior spread out.

“You know that the instructors are watching us to see what we do,” McDonald announced as she walked into the break room they’d taken over.

“They haven’t exactly been subtle,” Tony allowed. He had his last set of class notes out and was organizing them so they made sense to him.

“I don’t think they’re trying to be,” Aaron said. He was cradling a mug of coffee in his hands as he read over Martin’s shoulder as he typed away at a laptop. “And it’s only smart of keep an eye on us. We’re blowing the curves all out of proportion and some of the people we’re in class with are getting pissed off about that.”

“Well, we’re not doing anything that they couldn’t,” Tony said. He leaned back in his chair and turned to look at Aaron. “But most of them are trying to be, God help me, lone wolves and do it all themselves. Even when they form study groups, none of them are good at supporting each other.”

From the frown McDonald gave the room, she wasn’t impressed at that. “So, they’re not trying to make sure everyone in the group learns the material and passes?”

“Nope. Might take away their lead,” Tony confirmed.

“You three are the class leaders and I’m not far behind you. What lead?” McDonald demanded. She sounded very put out and Tony laughed at the question.

“They can dream,” Aaron said with a shrug. He stared down at the screen and tapped Martin on the shoulder. “You’ve been misspelling ‘lieutenant’ the entire time you’ve been typing. Just an FYI.”

“Damn it.”

 

 

Chapter Four

Tony poured a dram of bourbon, neat, for Aaron. He glanced over to check on Martin’s beer and Eileen’s wine. Everyone seemed to be doing good and after handing Aaron his drink, he settled down in his chair. “How’s your week been?”

Aaron hummed as he took a sip of his drink. “Well, working for the FBI isn’t quite what I expected or what FLETC tried to tell us.”

“It’s exactly what I expected,” Martin muttered. He took a pull from his beer before leaning back in his chair. “My father’s trying to push his way into my career. My supervisor is unamused.”

“Do you need me to step in?” Tony asked. He was starting at NCIS the next day and had wanted to touch base with his packmates before he got wrapped up in his new job. The only person missing was Andrew and he was hip-deep in a new case and couldn’t take the time to visit.

“My father is a senior supervising agent at the FBI and he’s got a lot of pull with the agency,” Martin explained. He frowned before tapping his fingers against the arm of his chair. “I want to be an FBI agent, but I don’t want my father to steer my career. Having my alpha warn him off might not go over well on my bid for independence.”

“Fair,” Tony allowed. “Do you think he’d take the warning as me wanting to steer your career?”

Martin gave a so-so gesture and grimaced. “I really don’t know. I’m going to say it’s not worth finding out right now.”

“Fantastic.” Tony frowned as he took the time to think about the whole situation. The elder Fitzgerald had more political capital than he did and it likely wouldn’t look good on him if he tried to warn the man off. “But if he gets too pushy, let me know. There’s a line that I’m going to have to hold as your alpha, and I can’t let your dad stomp all over it.”

“Understood,” Martin said. “I think he’s currently just sticking his nose in to see how I’m doing. He’s not a shifter, which he’s resented for years. When I shifted for the first time, my grandfather was thrilled. My father, not so much.”

“Why is he getting all up in your business?” Eileen asked.

“No idea,” Martin said with a shrug.

“Well, you know two attorneys, so if you want to serve him with a cease-and-desist letter, just let us know,” Aaron reminded. “If nothing else, it might make the powers that be look at what he’s doing and pull him back.”

“Something to think about then,” Martin said. He took another pull from his beer and set it aside. “How are you doing Eileen?”

“Pretty good. My training officer is very happy with all the skills you three have taught me,” she said. She was curled up in the corner of his couch like the cat she was and looked very comfortable. “He was even happier when I showed him that the skills carried over into my shifted form.”

Aaron snorted once and nodded. “Same here. It’s been interesting to see look for evidence through my wolf’s eyes after looking it over as a human. I see a lot more now.”

“I’ll let you know what I see when I start getting cases,” Tony said.

“My team has a case,” Eileen said, faintly smug to Tony’s nose. She smiled at the looks they all shot her. “Hey, it’s not a competition!”

“It’s not. But that doesn’t mean we’re not envious that you’re actually working on what we all trained for,” Martin reminded. He checked his watch and sighed. “I’m going to have to head out soon. Are we doing a full moon run this month?”

“Cases willing, we will,” Tony confirmed. He glanced at Hotch, who nodded. “If I’m not there, Aaron will lead it. We’ll plan on hitting up the main preserve here in DC. I’ll email everyone so we can put it on our calendars.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Aaron said. He knocked the rest of his bourbon back and set the glass on the table beside him. “One good thing about being a shifter is that I can’t get drunk. It’s also a bad thing at times.”

“Trust me, I’m aware of that,” Tony muttered. He’d had an epic drinking bout after he’d managed to get back to his apartment in Baltimore, trying to drown his sorrows. All he’d done was drink a lot of very good whiskey like water. He hadn’t even gotten buzzed. “It’s useful, but irritating as hell.”

“I’ve had the booze that can get us drunk. It tastes worse than Everclear,” Martin said with amusement. “Just take my advice and don’t. The hangover is also not worth it.”

“Yuck,” Eileen said. She finished off her wine and carefully uncurled from her spot. “Guess I’m going to head out too. Since it’s a school night and all.”

“Funny,” Tony said. He made sure to escort his small pack out, scenting each of them along the way. While he hadn’t expected to form a pack from his classmates at FLETC, he wasn’t upset he had. Each of them was awesome and he liked them all. Their goodbyes were easy and Tony headed back up to his apartment after the last of them had left.

When he’d gotten confirmation that he was going to be assigned to the Navy Yard outside of DC, he’d made it a point to let the Alpha of DC know he was moving into his territory. While he hadn’t met the man in person yet, his conversations with him had been deeply comforting, providing acceptance and approval.

He’d gotten temp housing from the Shifter Counsel in DC and signed a short lease for three months. His goal was to get started at NCIS, and in his downtime, look for an apartment. If his caseload proved to be too much, he was going to go with Andrew’s suggestion and contract a property company to vet places for him.

With his new status as an alpha werewolf, there was no way that he would be able to tolerate a cheap apartment. That left a lot of options open, but he was realistic enough to know that he didn’t want to deal with a lawn and the best he could handle was maybe a balcony with fake plants. He didn’t have a green thumb in any sense of the phrase.

Cleaning up was the work of only moments, and he carefully added each glass to his dishwasher. Starting it, Tony quickly touched each item he had staged for the morning. Coffee, travel mug, lunchbox, keys, ID, and certification paperwork. Everything was ready.

Satisfied that everything was in place, Tony flipped the light off and headed to bed. Tomorrow was going to be the start of a whole new adventure.

 

 

Tony drove up to NCIS headquarters at the Navy Yard and parked. He had made it a point to arrive early, to scout out his new workplace before he started. His brief visit when he’d signed his employment contract hadn’t been enough to get the lay of the land.

The surge of nerves he got as he exited his car was weird. He’d rarely been nervous about starting a new job, but then, he was different than the last time he’d restarted his life. Blowing out a breath, Tony grabbed his backpack, lunchbox, and coffee mug, and headed into the building.

Waiting in line, he produced his brand-new badge when requested. The security guard glanced at it. “Agent DiNozzo. Welcome to NCIS.”

“Thank you…” Tony said. He glanced at the man’s nametag. “Officer Castellon. Are you here every morning?”

“Yeah, I’m on most weekdays,” Castellon said. “Please empty your pockets and place everything in the tray. Put that, and your bags on the belt for scanning.”

“So, like the airport,” Tony realized.

“Yup.” Castellon was watching as Tony quickly emptied his pockets and took his watch off. One small tray later, his gear was being examined. As each item passed through the scanner, he nodded. “Okay. Now step on through the metal detector and you’re good to go.”

Humming softly, Tony stepped through the detector and smiled when it didn’t beep or light up. He glanced at Castellon. “Am I good?”

“You are,” Castellon agreed.

“Excellent,” Tony said with a smile. It had always been a habit of his to be nice to everyone in the building he worked in, no matter their job. Starting it here, at NCIS, wasn’t a hardship. He grabbed his gear and got everything back in place with a minimum of fuss. “Okay, I need to head up to HR. Can I get directions?”

Castellon gave him clear directions and Tony made sure to thank him on his way out. Five minutes later, he was standing in the doorway to HR.

“You can come in,” a voice called from deep within the office.

“On my way,” Tony announced. He wove his way through the desks toward the only office that was lit. Knocking on the lintel, he waved at the woman sitting behind the desk. “Hi. My name is Tony DiNozzo.”

“Delores Bromstead,” the woman said. She looked at her computer and raised an eyebrow. “You’re my first appointment of the day. And you’re early.”

“I’ve found that it’s better for my mental health if I get in early for the first few days. This lets me get the lay of the land and get comfortable,” Tony explained.

“Smart,” Delores said with a nod. “Well, let’s get you checked in, so you can roam around and get comfortable before your shift actually starts.”

“Sounds good,” Tony said. He settled into place in front of her desk. He pulled his packet of papers out of his backpack and passed it over to her. “I filled out everything I could.”

“Excellent,” Delores said. She took the folder and briskly flipped it open and started reviewing it. When she started asking him questions, Tony made sure to answer every question she asked as honestly as possible. It took almost 30 minutes before his file with NCIS was filled out to her satisfaction. “Okay, last question,” Delores said. She was twitching the paperwork they had filled out into place before she pulled another page out of her files and set it on top. “You have it noted that you’re a shifter. Do you want to reveal?”

“Yes,” Tony said firmly. “I’m an alpha werewolf and there’s no hiding that.”

“Well,” Delores sat back and looked at him. “Do you have a pack?”

“I do,” Tony said. It was small, but it was all he needed.

“Will you need a dedicated day off on the full moon?” Delores asked as she started filling out the new page.

“No. I will take it on the days when there’s not a case. My control is good enough that I don’t have any issues with the moon while we’re working,” Tony said. “My second is able to stand in for me as needed.”

“That will be helpful,” Delores said. She flipped through his file, obviously checking each page. When she reached the end, she nodded once before pulling a new folder out and handing it to him. “Okay, here are your credentials. Tuck them into the pocket behind your shield. You’ll need to get your gun issued to you, but you can do that with your team lead. Since you’re coming in on the off week for paychecks, it’s going to be three before you get paid. Will that be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Tony assured. His savings were healthy as hell and he’d started a pack account so everyone could contribute to the health of the pack. “Do I have my log-on for the computers?”

“Right,” Delores said. She pulled a page out of his file after flipping through it for a moment. “Here’s your log-on, with a temp password, and you’ll need to change it as soon as you can. Once you’re logged in, only then will IT start connecting you with the programs you’ll need for your job.”

“Thank you,” Tony said. He took the new page and tucked it into his backpack with his folders of credentials. He checked his watch and nodded. He had thirty minutes before he was officially due into work.

“You’re welcome, Agent DiNozzo. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns,” Delores said.

“I will,” Tony promised. He held out a hand and was pleased when she placed hers in his. Shaking it gently, he thanked her sincerely for her assistance. From the faint blush that moved off her face, she was pleased with the sentiment.

Director Morrow had confirmed that he was going to be working with Agent Gibbs, so when he’d picked up his shield, he’d been shown where his new desk was. Since he still had a half hour until he was due in, Tony decided to take the scenic route up to it. Thankfully, all the important spots in the building were labeled, but he made sure to note where they were.

Ten minutes before he was officially on the clock, he walked into the bullpen and blinked. It was still rabidly orange. “One would think the powers that be would want this place to be soothing. Not a punch to the optic nerve,” he muttered. There were several small laughs throughout the room and Tony grinned. He knew where Gibbs’ desk was and he walked up to it and stood before him. “Good morning, Agent Gibbs.”

“DiNozzo,” Gibbs said. He leaned back in his chair and stared at him. “Castellon let me know you got here early.”

“Checking in with HR so I’m legal was my first stop, Gibbs,” Tony said. He wasn’t going to knuckle under to the older man. It wasn’t in him anymore to give in and let someone dominate him. He’d do what his supervisor said when the situation called for it, but he wasn’t going to be anyone’s whipping boy. “I’m here now and ready to work.”

From the steady look Gibbs was giving him, the older man hadn’t expected the pushback. Tony stared back. He’d learned that Gibbs tended to run over everyone in his area if he could and Tony wasn’t going to allow it.

“Are you sure you want to try to push me?” Tony asked.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at that and reached out to pick up his coffee cup. From what Tony could smell, the contents were basically tar, deep and bitter, without even a hint of sugar. He made a mental note to never, ever, drink any coffee that Gibbs served himself. “The director let me know that you said you would be able to obey directions by humans and lower ranked shifters.”

“And I will. But I’m not going to let you haze me. Yes, I’m new to NCIS. But I’m not new to law enforcement and you can’t make me earn my stripes by abusing me. Besides, it’s dumb to abuse a shifter,” Tony said evenly.

“Okay,” Gibbs said. He nodded at the desk catty-corner to his. “That’s yours.”

“Thank you,” Tony said simply. He dropped his gear on top of his desk and moved behind it. “So, I’m going to need to get my gun issued. While I know what I want, do you want any say in it?”

“Sure. Get settled in there and then we’ll go down and get yours issued,” Gibbs said eventually.

Tony nodded once and started checking out what his new desk had in it. Once he had that, he’d get logged in, and then his gun. After that, hopefully, a case.

 

 

“Why do you keep rubbing it in our faces that you’re a shifter?”

Tony raised an eyebrow at Vivian in question. “What?”

She waved her hand at the mat he was rolling up. “That. You’re rubbing your status as a shifter in our faces.”

“One: You can get a yoga mat of your own to store in your desk to sleep on. Two: How is me using all the skills in my life ‘rubbing it in your face’?” Tony asked. He opened the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet and dropped the mat in. The rest of the drawer held of all his ‘in office’ necessities. Grooming supplies, extra shirts, a pair of black jeans, and so forth. It was all in there for the times he had to stay in the office for a long period of time.

“You’re showing off, looking as fresh as if you’ve not spent the last three days here. It’s like all this time doesn’t even affect you,” Vivian snapped. She ran her hands through her hair and scrubbed them over her face. “I’m really tired and I know I need to get some downtime.”

“Understandable,” Tony allowed. “I’m no happier about being here than you are, Viv. I’m just a bit better about managing myself.” He stared at her intently, holding his gaze on her until she started to squirm. “Go take a shower and change clothes. We’ll get breakfast after you get back up here.”

“Fine,” she huffed before grabbing her go bag and headed for the stairs. The Yard had a gym in the basement with showers. Tony was convinced they were the only savings grace to staying in the office for more than a day. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

Tony frowned as he stared after her. Unlike Viv, he’d managed to take a shower before they’d settled down to sleep and considered the fifteen minutes a worthy sacrifice. Running his hands through his hair, he tried to get the mess on his head into place. Grimacing, he tugged lightly at the strands. He needed a haircut.

Cocking his head to the side, he heard the elevator hit their floor. When it opened, the bitter smell of dark coffee blew through the room, announcing Gibbs’ arrival. His stomach rumbled and he sighed. Yeah, he needed breakfast, and soon.

“Where’s Viv?” Gibbs asked. He had a to-go cup in each hand and was sipping avidly at one.

“She’s getting ready for the day,” Tony said. He stared at the older man for several seconds as he tried to get his thoughts in place. Frowning, he reached a decision that he could live with. “What do you get out of us being her for days on end?”

“What do you mean?” Gibbs asked with a frown of his own. He settled into his chair and shook his mouse to wake his computer up.

“Exactly what does keeping us here during a case do for it? This one, while hot, is in a lull. We’re waiting on tests to come back from Abby and Ducky, and neither expects to have any information for use before noon today,” Tony reminded. “Our electronic searches are still pending as well. Letting us go home to sleep in our own beds, and have a chance to eat a meal that doesn’t come from a vending machine or a fast-food joint can only be a good thing. We’re all sharper if we’re fresh, rested, and able to look at the evidence with a clear mind, and you know it. So, why are you keeping us here?”

“Because the victims deserve our full attention,” Gibbs said bluntly. “And that means that we stay until the perp is caught.”

“And if we’re slow because we’re tired? Gibbs, I get that we’re there for the victims, but we do none of them any good if we’re not in shape to be able to take a perp down,” Tony said. “And don’t say that because I’m a shifter, I’m immune to being tired. That’s not how it works. We need the time in our own spaces to recharge, so we can come back to give our victims everything they deserve.”

Gibbs shook his head. “Staying for our victims shows our dedication. And if we get a result, we’re here and can respond immediately.”

“Gibbs… Abby and Ducky went home last night as their tests were running. Our victim is dead and has been taken care of by Ducky. I know the perp is still out there, but it does no one any good if we miss things because we’re run down from being on the clock for days on end,” Tony said bluntly. “Also, on a purely fiscal point of view, this is costing NCIS an arm and a leg and it would not surprise me if the director isn’t on your case about our hours.”

From the frown the older man was wearing, something Tony had said was hitting home. Good. Because he was done.

“And what happens if we have a hot, time-sensitive case?” Gibbs asked.

“Do you mean like a missing person or even a crime with a child?” Tony asked. When Gibbs nodded, he shrugged. “If it’s an every once in a while, sure, fine. But, Gibbs? This can’t be every time we catch an emotionally wretched case.”

“So, I’m guessing you want to go home?”

“Yes,” Tony confirmed. “And we can’t do this again unless there’s an overwhelming reason for it.”

From the deeply irritated look Gibbs flashed him, he wasn’t happy with the decision Tony had pushed him towards. His scent was bitter and sharp with anger, but Tony didn’t care. He’d been brought on to NCIS to be the man’s partner and while he’d been learning how the agency worked, he wasn’t going to let him ignore health and safety anymore.

Tony had to hope that he’d gotten through to Gibbs. He didn’t want to have to keep fighting the same battle over and over again. But he would.

 

 

Chapter Five

“Oh, my god,” Tony moaned into his hands as he sat down on his couch.

“What’s got your knickers in a knot?” Aaron asked.

Tony dropped his hands from his face and stared at Aaron. “Really? My knickers?”

“Your knickers,” Aaron confirmed with a grin. “What’s got you moaning?”

“The current insanity that is my job,” Tony said. He suppressed the urge to scream into the pillows of his couch. It wouldn’t do him any good and he knew it. For all that it might release some stress.

“Gibbs, Blackadder, or a case?” Aaron asked. He got up and wandered into Tony’s kitchen. From the noises he was making, Tony was sure he was getting them both a drink. “Tony?”

“The answer to that is ‘yes’,” Tony said. He took the mug when Aaron handed it to him. “Coffee?”

“It’s not like it does anything for us, beyond the comforting taste,” Aaron reminded. “So, tell me what’s up.”

“Right now, I’m mourning my missing caffeine buzz,” Tony said. He took a sip of his coffee and sighed in pleasure. “I really miss it.”

“I’ve never had it,” Aaron admitted. He was sipping at his mug with every evidence of enjoyment.

“That’s so sad,” Tony muttered. At Aaron’s unimpressed look, he sighed and cradled his mug close to his chest. “Gibbs has been an utter bastard about running over everything to get a case solved. Thankfully, he stays within the law, but he’s gone right up to the edge a few times. Also, I’m damn tired of sleeping behind my desk. Although it is funny how pissy Viv gets when I pull out the yoga mat.”

“Why is he making you sleep at your desks?” Aaron asked.

“Per Gibbs, cases must and when they are running hot, he rarely lets us go,” Tony said. His irritation at the older man’s habit of pushing them to the edge had finally hit his limit and he’d pulled Gibbs aside to make sure he knew he was done. He could smell when they had been pushed too far and Tony wasn’t going to ride that line any more often than he had to. He was expecting that there was going to be some sort of fallout from that.

“Tony, you know that’s not right. You don’t need to be sleeping at your desk on every single case,” Aaron said slowly. “It doesn’t matter that you’re able to manage things, you shouldn’t be doing that.”

“I know. And I laid down the line today, but the powers that be seem to like the results he gets and so they let a lot slide,” Tony explained. He frowned as he stared down into his coffee mug. “I’ve been keeping the receipts on everything, but…”

“But it’s a new job, you’re the low man on the totem pole, and bitching about getting too many hours sounds weird,” Aaron summed up. “Despite the fact that excessive hours can diminish your ability to do your job and impact your health.”

“That,” Tony agreed. “Also, Viv has this vengeance thing that she’s trying to pursue, but we’re not playing her game. She’s getting deeply frustrated and starting to lash out at me and everyone else in the area.”

“For the love of…,” Aaron hissed before pulling in a deep breath. Tony had realized months before that Aaron relaxed his control around him and let his natural reactions show. If any of their packmates were with them, he stayed much more buttoned up. So, he didn’t tease the other man about his reactions. “You work in a soap opera.”

“Hello pot, meet kettle,” Tony snarked. “You’re the one that told me that one of your coworkers smells like a whorehouse full of lust every time he sees you.”

“Don’t remind me,” Hotch said with a grimace. “And I’ve reported that, but I’ve been told that since they’ve not done anything, it’s basically a thought crime and nothing can be done. I did get a promise that if he steps over the line, they’ll deal with him, but until then, I need to ignore it with the best of them.”

“We’re such messes,” Tony said. “Anyway. The last case was a murder and thankfully we caught the bastard today, but not before he killed another person. And that one, we caught him with both the murder weapon and the victim.”

“There’s no way that he could try to say that he had just stumbled across the scene?” Aaron asked.

Tony shook his head. “No, not a hope. We processed the scene after the MPs took our perp away after we arrested him and that took the whole afternoon. It sucked. Deeply and horribly.”

“Have you shifted since you got back from work?” Aaron asked. “Maybe the change of perspective will help put it all in place in your head.”

“No, I haven’t shifted,” Tony said. He set his cup, and cell phone on the coffee table and stood up, stretching his arms over his head briefly. Walking over to the large space in the center of his living room, Tony reached into his center and let his wolf come to the surface. The transformation was smooth and he shook his head to settle his fur before he sat down. Aaron had been right, letting his wolf come to the fore had helped. The guilt he’d felt moments before was smoothing out.

“I’ve set our alarms,” Aaron said several minutes later. “Our coffee cups are put away too. I’m going to stay the night. Go get settled.”

Tony huffed in agreement and walked into his bedroom. He had a normal, human bed in the room, but he also had a large, custom-made bed for him to use when he was in his fur. It was larger than most of the ones he’d seen, but he’d wanted something that would allow his pack to sleep together.

Settling into the bed, Tony tried to relax. His brain was still whirling softly as he tried to relax enough to sleep. He could feel everything slowing as his body relaxed into being a wolf. When Aaron walked into the room in his fur, Tony let his tail thump the bed once in welcome. Having Aaron there when he slept was exactly what he needed. When sleep pulled him under in a slow wave, he didn’t fight it and let it carry him under.

 

 

Tony stopped and stared at the email he had just gotten.

Agent DiNozzo, please come up to my office. Director Morrow.

Right. Well, he had not been expecting that. Tony forwarded the email to Gibbs and waited while the older man read it. “I have no idea,” he said when Gibbs looked at him. “But I’m going to go find out.”

“Don’t keep him waiting then,” Gibbs directed, before turning back to his computer.

“Right,” Tony agreed. He stood up and headed for the stairs leading up to the executive level of the building. The last time he’d talked to Director Morrow was when he’d signed his contract, and he hadn’t expected to talk to him again. But… “Agent DiNozzo, here to see the Director,” he announced when he stopped in front of the director’s admin assistant.

“He’s expecting you,” she said.

Tony glanced at the nameplate on her desk. Cynthia Summer. Good to know and he made sure to memorize it. “Thank you, Ms. Summer.”

She smiled at him briefly before turning back to her work. Tony knocked briskly on the door leading to the office. “Come in!”

“You requested to see me, sir?” Tony asked as he walked in.

“Thank you for coming so promptly, Agent DiNozzo,” Morrow said. He waved at the chair in front of his desk. “Please take a seat.”

“Thank you, Director,” Tony said. He settled into the chair and carefully unbuttoned his suit jacket before crossing his legs. He let his hands rest on the armrests and waited, gaze steady as he stared at Morrow.

They were both silent for several seconds and Tony had to suppress a smirk as he smelled frustration start to ooze off of the older man. It didn’t bother him at all to hold his silence. The frustration he was smelling spiked and Tony made a mark on his mental scoreboard. Score one for him.

“Well?”

“Well, what, sir?” Tony asked. He had a minor idea of why he had been called up into the director’s office, but he wanted the other man to confess it. He wasn’t going to crack and talk first. After all, he’d learned how to not incriminate himself before he’d graduated high school.

Morrow leaned back in his chair and studied him. Tony didn’t have anything to hide, so he kept his body language open and accepting. He was lying like a rug, but unless Morrow was a telepath, there was no way for him to catch it. He had learned how to do this from his trainer at the Shifter’s Counsel and he knew even his scent reflected his body language.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Morrow said over a minute later. “Why did you raise a concern about your working hours with Gibbs?”

Tony raised an eyebrow at the man and cocked his head to the side as he tried to figure out what he was looking for. When nothing came to mind, he gave a mental shrug and decided to tell the truth. “Overworking us, in an effort to try to close a case, is counterproductive. I get staying in a legitimate emergency, but our last case was not one of those.”

“Your perp killed someone again,” Morrow pointed out.

“I know,” Tony said. “But we didn’t know who he was until the tests that Abby had running came back with the analysis of our evidence and that happened about 1 pm. We also had a number of electronic searches going that came back from 8 am through to noon. We made the right connections regarding our perp happened at about 2 pm and we immediately started the process of finding our perp. The rest is listed in the report.”

“So, you’re saying that you had time to go home and sleep,” Morrow concluded.

“We did. And it would have been better for us to have done so. Just because a case is hot doesn’t mean that we need to be hovering over it like a helicopter at all times,” Tony said. He could hear a small bite entering his voice, but he wasn’t going to smooth it out. Both Gibbs and Morrow needed to learn this lesson before their shitty command styles fucked people up. “I get why staying is a valid plan in certain circumstances, but this was not one. Making every single case an emergency, means that when we have a legit one, we won’t have anything to give to it.”

“Cases do have the habit of turning on a dime,” Morrow said leadingly. “What happens if you aren’t there for it?”

“Sir, I as a cop for over six years in three different jurisdictions. In every single one of them, we went home to recharge, to decompress, to eat, at the end of the day. Did we stay in the hot and horrible cases that occasionally hit our desks? Yes, we did,” Tony explained. “But we were aware that a work/life balance had to be maintained so we were mentally, physically, and emotionally healthy enough to do our job. Burnout is a thing and getting rundown enough that you catch every bug in the office is a great way to leave your coworkers in the lurch.”

“I… I think I need to look into this,” Morrow said after several seconds of thought. “Anything else?”

“You might also consider the fact that NCIS is paying for us to be here all that time. Even if we don’t claim the hours we’re sleeping behind our desks, we have been claiming all the hours we’re awake. And for me, that was roughly 18 hours a day, for four days,” Tony said. He smirked as Morrow boggled at him. “That’s not counting the days I clocked in and out at the normal times. My next check is going to be awesome, but I don’t think the budget can bear us to do that very often.”

Morrow shook his head at that. “No, it really can’t.”

Tony let his words percolate and held his peace. Morrow had all the information he needed. He wasn’t trying to be obstructionist for shits and giggles, but because it made no damn sense for them to drive themselves into the ground for dumb reasons. And he was done with going along with stupid shit.

 

 

“So, I hear you’ve been making some waves.”

Tony leaned back and watched as the regional alpha settled into the chair across from him. “I really have to wonder how you know that.”

“You know that packs have humans in them,” the other man reminded.

“And some of the packs in the area are bigoted arseholes who disown any human child they have,” Tony said. “I take it you’re not one of those?”

The alpha chuckled. “My wife would skin me. Lee Stetson.”

“Tony DiNozzo. But I’m sure you know that,” Tony said.

“I do. And I thank you for making sure that you introduced yourself when you came down here,” Stetson said. He held up a hand and waved it in a circle. “Do you want a beer?”

“Sure,” Tony agreed. He watched as Stetson changed his gesture to have two fingers being held up. “Gonna tell me how you knew?”

“Cynthia is in my personal pack. She’s the daughter of my enforcer,” Stetson explained. He leaned back when a waitress swung by with two beers and she set them on the table before walking off. “Thank you, Jessica.”

“You’re welcome, Lee!”

“I didn’t know she was part of a pack,” Tony said. He picked up the beer and eyed it. It was a dark red beer and smelled rich and malty. A single sip let him know that he definitely liked it. “This is good.”

“I am not a fan of most commercial beers that get put on the market. I tend to like the small microbreweries, and this bar has one on-site. It’s why I call the regional meets here,” Stetson said. “At any rate… Do you need any backup regarding the waves you’re making in your office?”

“The waves I’m making are for my professional life, not me being a shifter,” Tony said. He shrugged at the look he was being given. “It is! Really. I’m not trying to play things off. If they try to take advantage of me being a shifter, I’ll say something. I made the decision when I was attacked that I wasn’t going to hide my light under a bushel anymore. And that I wasn’t going to take any more shit either.”

“Good,” Stetson said firmly. “Remember that even if they do give you shit. Tom Morrow is a decent man, but he can get tunnel vision at times. He’s going to make the best use of every agent he has, but he’s not the kind to use them up.”

“He listened when I brought up my concerns,” Tony said. He shrugged at the look he was being given. “What do you do?”

Stetson snorted softly and took a pull from his beer. “I’m a retired spy. So, I do a lot of consulting. It’s a living.”

“Should you be telling me that?” Tony asked. He waved a hand at the bar full of shifters. There was no way that any of them had missed his words, and there was no way that could be good. DC was full of people who worked for the various Alphabet Agencies and having someone confess to a secret previous career didn’t sound like a smart idea.

“It’s fine, Tony. My status hasn’t been a secret for more than a decade,” Lee said. He shrugged at the speaking look Tony was giving him. “Really.”

“It’s your life,” Tony muttered. He sighed as he took another pull from his beer. “What else can I do for you?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to meet you and let you know I’m keeping an eye on you,” Stetson said. “And no, this isn’t a warning of anything sinister. I just keep an eye on all the alphas in my territory. Offer unsolicited advice. Maybe run with your pack on the full moon every once in a while. You know. Just be me.”

Tony eyed Stetson carefully at that. What in the hell was the other man trying to tell him? “Okay, I’ll accept that.”

“Sure, you will, kid. Just remember that you can use me as a resource if you need me. I know your pack is stretched over several departments over at the FBI and that can make things difficult. Also, the FBI irritates me at times, so I’m never too upset about pissing them off,” Stetson said with a smile.

“Okay,” Tony said. He kept his ass in his seat when Stetson waved him down as he got up. From the way the rest of the room was eyeing him, the meeting had also been a way for Stetson to show his approval of Tony and his pack. Mentally girding his loins, he stood up and started to work the room.

 

Chapter Six

“I need a hobby,” Tony announced.

“Why?” Martin asked. He was setting the table in Tony’s dining room with everything they would need for pasta.

“Because I get bored easily and I’ve already gone over every cold case I can get my hands on at work,” Tony said. He frowned as he continued to roll out his pasta. The sauce for the meal was bubbling away on the stove and he had a pot of water that was starting to steam.

Martin glanced at him before heading for the bread. “So cooking isn’t a hobby?”

“I cook because I like to eat. Learning new cuisines can be fun, but I don’t know which one I want to learn. I don’t want to eat a ton of fast food to find out either,” Tony explained. “When I was with the various police departments I worked in before, I did a lot of time at the local Y or found a pickup league for basketball. I miss it.”

“Don’t you do enough exercising?” Eileen asked. She was sitting at the breakfast bar, prepping the salad to go with dinner. Unlike Tony, Martin, or Aaron, she was not safe in the kitchen and none of them wanted to find out if she was poisonous. Her one attempt at scrambled eggs after a full moon run had put paid to that activity. So that left bread, or assembling a bagged salad. So far, she seemed fine with that restriction.

“No,” Tony said with a laugh. “There was a point in my life where I was in line to get picked up by the NFL as a top draft pick. Then I went and became a cop and I needed to be strong and agile to catch perps. So, I’m used to being very, very active and now that my schedule has been rectified, I’m full of energy. I need to find somewhere constructive to use it.”

“And you’re an alpha, so that ramps up your energy levels even higher,” Aaron said. He leaned against the breakfast bar and watched as Tony quickly folded and then cut his noodles. “Do you think that’s enough?”

“Two pounds of pasta dough, almost a gallon of sauce in both the pot and in the casserole dish in the oven? Along with the Chicken Parm?” Tony answered. He eyed the pot he had set up for the noodles. It was a huge stockpot with four pasta baskets hooked to the sides and he figured he had just enough room to be able to cook everything. Thank goodness his range was a professional gas model, otherwise he wouldn’t have enough room.

“And garlic bread, the salad Eileen is doing, and the asparagus in the steamer. I think we’re good,” Martin finished. He took the asparagus out of the steamer and added garlic butter to finish it.

“I hope it’s enough,” Tony fussed. He quickly dropped the four piles into their baskets to boil. A deft twist of his wrist set his timer and he put that aside to open the oven and pull out the Chicken Parm. When the bell rang, he dished the pasta and added sauce, cheese, and basil to garnish.

The next few minutes went smoothly as the cooks set the table with the food. In difference to their appetites, Tony had foregone standard plates and had gotten custom trenchers to allow them enough room for all the food they needed. He hummed in satisfaction as he tasted his dinner. “We did good.”

His pack mumbled their agreement as they plowed through the piles of food in front of them. Once the first rush of hunger was satisfied, Tony picked up his wine for a sip. “It’s been a busy month, how are you all doing?”

“Cases have been wretched,” Eileen said after several seconds. “My team lead had me dumpster diving for clues on a recent case. It was so gross. I had to shower in both forms to feel clean.”

From the dark look she was giving him; she was aware of the amusement that had to be oozing out of him. “You do know that your lead wasn’t doing that to be a hardass, right?” Tony asked after he tried to swallow his amusement down.

“Oh, I’m aware,” Eileen confirmed. “But it was gross. I smelled stuff I don’t ever want to smell again. But I know I’m going to have to. Because people die in all sorts of places and perps are assholes.”

“They are,” Tony agreed. “The worst case you can get is a body that’s been in the natural environment for a while. Did your training officer suggest a mint or menthol paste to smear under your nose to block out smells when you pull the nasty cases?”

“Yes. And I wish I’d had it when I went dumpster diving, but I hadn’t grabbed it. It’s now in my kit bag so I have it at all times, and I’ve set up a reminder to buy it monthly,” Eillen said. She grimaced before leaning forward to sniff at the garlic bread basket. “Yuck.”

“You know the garlic bread is delicious,” Martin said as he pulled the basket away from her to snag a piece. “My turn now. You know I put my hat in the ring for the new Missing Persons unit being expanded?”

“The one that’s in Chicago?” Tony asked for confirmation. While he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of having a pack member so far away, it was a known hazard of their jobs. One that the government did its best to make reasonable accommodations to the were in their ranks.

“Yes,” Martin agreed. He waved his hand at the platter of Chicken Parm and smiled when Aaron passed it over. He started to serve himself before he took a deep breath. “Thanks. Anyway. I found out today that my father had put out to the hiring committee that I was not to get the job. From what I learned; I had been the first choice before my father interfered. When I asked why an agent in another department was having any say in where my career went, I was told that his position in the FBI meant that he could. I’ve put in a request to have that reviewed.”

Tony growled lowly at that news. Fitzgerald Sr had been throwing his weight around for the last year, interfering with Martin’s job every chance he got. Martin had been doing his best to keep Tony from losing his cool, but things may have changed. “Can I come down on him now?”

Martin deliberately took a bite of his food and chewed it carefully. Tony let him think things over as he looked at Aaron. The man was both his Second, and the pack lawyer, and the man was a beast at both. If there was one thing that Tony had learned about Aaron over the past year, it was that he was thorough in how he prepared for any event.

At Aaron’s nod, he relaxed slightly. Yeah, they were prepared to deal with this. They just needed Martin to okay it.

When Martin stayed silent, Tony reached down into himself and found the pack bond he shared with him. Placing a mental finger on it, he tried to gauge his mood. The flush of anger that filled the bond was startling. “Martin?”

“I don’t know if I want you to come down on him because he’s being an interfering ass, or because he’s my father. Who I don’t get along with at all,” Martin said quietly. “And I don’t want to need you to do it.”

“That’s one of the things I’m here for, Martin,” Tony reminded. “And it can be both. As we’ve all told you before; just because he’s in the FBI, doesn’t mean he needs to know and control your job. He’s crossed the line this time, and he needs to be reminded you are not his responsibility.”

Aaron stirred softly at that and Tony glanced back at him with a cocked eyebrow.  “From what I’ve seen of the man, he considers Martin his property, Tony. Not responsibility. And his actions are all focused on keeping him close by.”

“Ew,” Martin hissed with a grimace. “Chicago is looking better and better now.”

“Antarctica would be better than dealing with that,” Tony said dryly. “Any idea on why your father is being such a possessive busybody?”

“No,” Martin said, shaking his head. “I’ve never had any idea on what’s going on in his head. Most of the scent clues I get from him are irritation or anger, but rarely anything else. But then, I’ve been trying to stay as far away from him as possible since I first shifted.”

“Is that why you applied for the Chicago spot?” Tony asked.

“Not really. I mean, it was a consideration, but not a major one. The team out there has an excellent reputation and I think I could learn a lot from them,” Martin said with a shrug. “The fact that it’s almost 700 miles away from my father is just a bonus.”

“No, the pizza is a bonus. The distance is a feature, and the snow in the winter is a bug,” Tony reminded. He’d been in Chicago several times during college thanks to away games, and he’d fallen in love with their deep-dish pizzas. Their winters could be missed, wholesale.

“Winter is no fun,” Eileen said with a grimace. “The snow gets in my fur and the pads of my paws.”

“You don’t like water when you’re in your fur, do you?” Aaron asked, amused.

Eileen shuddered. “No! I’m a cheetah! It’s such an uncomfortable feeling, being wet!”

“Anyway,” Tony said, grabbing the reins of the conversation back. “Martin, you said you’ve got a request in for the decision to be reviewed?”

“Yes,” Martin confirmed. “I take it you want to be there with me?”

Tony nodded. “Me and Aaron.”

“Sounds like fun,” Martin said with a mean smile. “I’m good with this. Once I get the confirmation date, I’ll let you both know.”

“Good. I’ll make sure that I’m there,” Tony said. He turned to look at Aaron and raised an eyebrow at him. “How’s your month been.”

“For the most part, good. I’ve gotten my share of wretched cases, but thankfully, no dumpster dives,” Aaron shared. He leaned back in his chair and played with his wine glass. “There are several BAU teams with positions opening, but I’m not sure which I want to go for.”

“Aaron, you like puzzles,” Tony reminded. “Any team you join will be good.”

“Oh, I’m aware of that, Tony. And I’m considering that. The issue is, I need to figure out what I want to hunt,” Aaron said. He took a sip of wine and took the time to savor it as he thought over his options.

“What are the teams?” Tony asked.

“Sexual violence, several teams hunting serial killers, and another hunting child porn rings,” Aaron said promptly. “The thought of hunting down the unsubs who have committed those crimes gives me a great deal of pleasure.”

“I brushed against a child porn ring when I was in the police,” Tony said with a grimace. “It’s soul-destroying to deal with that, day after day. If you decide to do that, I think you need to have a dedicated therapist that you talk to on a regular basis, and there’s only a certain amount of time you can do it without hurting yourself. We’ll do what we can, but none of us are qualified to assist in that manner.”

“Good idea,” Eileen agreed. “I’ve been thinking about reaching out to one now. While I’m not dealing with the same stuff Aaron wants to hunt, I still deal with some nasty shit.”

“I’m not looking at that group too deeply. Because you’re right, it’s a hard thing to do and I know myself well enough to know that dealing with that day in, and day out would break me. But the thought of hunting down serial killers? Or serial rapists? Those both seem much more doable,” Aaron said.

“And you’ve got the degrees that work for either,” Tony said. He smiled when Aaron nodded. “Well. Here’s to hoping that you find your niche.”

Aaron raised his glass to toast that idea and took a drink. Setting the glass down, he cocked his head towards Tony. “And you? How’s your month been?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Tony said with a groan. “Viv is still trying to push her own agenda and it’s starting to really get in the way. It’s frustrating as hell. Now that I’m out of my probationary year, I’ve been bumped up to being Gibbs’ senior agent. Much, much more paperwork.”

“Well, you’ve got the degrees for what you’re doing now,” Aaron reminded with an arch look. “How’s Gibbs’ tunnel vision?”

Tony grimaced at Aaron’s words and shook his head. “He still gets it every once in a while, but he’s doing better. We haven’t had any overnights in the last three months, so, knock on wood, we may have broken the habit.”

“I hope so,” Aaron said. “Have you checked with IA to see if Blackadder’s actions are anything you need to pull attention to?”

“They say that as long as she stays on the right side of the law, there’s not much they can do besides watch and see. JAG is also keeping an eye on things because if her obsession gets in the way of a case, they’ll roast her,” Tony explained.

“Good. There’s no way it can be good for the victims or their families if all your hard work in catching the perp gets flushed because someone ruined your case on a technicality,” Martin said. He was eyeing the last of the garlic bread and sighed when Eileen snatched it from the basket. “I’m full, but everything tasted so good, I want more.”

“I agree,” Aaron said. He frowned at his empty plate. “We need to do this more often.”

“You just want a meal you don’t have to cook,” Tony teased.

“Well, yes,” Aaron conceded. “I’m not going to argue about that. But we’re a pack. We need to make sure that we all meet up on the regular. Even Andrew. I know he’s been here recently because I can smell him, but I haven’t seen him in a few months. Is he okay?”

“Bad case that he’s working to get to completion. The judge is riding the edge of what is appropriate and Andrew has been kept busy trying to deal with the shenanigans of both his client, the case, and the other side,” Tony said. He frowned as he thought about what Andrew had let slip. “It’s stressing him out, but for the most part, he’s been doing well. I see him about every two weeks.”

“So basically, we’re all stressed, but dealing?” Eileen asked. At her nod, she smiled. “Talking things out helps.”

“It does indeed. But so do pack runs on the full moon, and that’s the other thing we’re here for. So, let’s get the dishes put away and head for the cars,” Tony directed. “I want to get to the preserve before moonrise.”

Aaron smiled at that and grabbed his trencher. “Sounds like a plan.”

 

 

“Agent Whittaker, thank you for seeing me,” Tony said. He had pulled his sharpest suit out of his closet and dressed to match his economic station. From the approving glance Aaron had given him, he was doing exactly what his Second wanted. Tony had returned the approval since Aaron as also sharply dressed in what he often called his ‘Prosecutor Snobbery’ suit.

At Martin’s request, they had set up a meeting with the senior agent on his team and IA to discuss the bullshit that his father was wading in. Aaron had used his connections in the ranks to get some of the information and Tony had hit up Lee as well. That had been deeply interesting to see how the older man had networked his way into information that he really shouldn’t have. Tony had a minor crush on the sheer competence that the regional alpha had displayed. And since Aaron had admitted the same, he didn’t feel bad about it.

“Alpha DiNozzo, what can I do for you?” Whittaker said after the handshakes and introductions.

“As I am sure you are aware, Martin Fitzgerald is a member of my pack,” Tony said. He kept his gaze on Whittaker and made sure it was level. “While we’re small, and new, please don’t think that means that we’re without influence.”

“I’m aware of the connections you and your pack have been making here in DC over the past year, Alpha DiNozzo,” Whittaker confirmed.

“Good,” Tony said simply. “The reason we’re here is because you, and the FBI as a whole, have allowed an unaffiliated third party to interfere with one of my pack members.”

“This is about Victor Fitgerald and the play he made,” Whittaker concluded.

“It is indeed,” Tony agreed. He let his wolf rise until he could feel the green of his eyes bleed red. “Everything I have learned over the last year and some, states that Victor Fitzgerald has no place in your chain of command, and yet he seems to have enough pull to remove Martin from consideration for a job that he was both qualified for and first on the list for. Want to tell me why?”

From the hard thump of Whittaker’s heart, he hadn’t been expecting Tony to be so forthright. Too damn bad.

 

 

Chapter Seven

Tony stopped and cocked his head to the side as they moved down the slope. They were in one of the many national parks surrounding DC, working their way towards the spot where a set of hikers had seen someone dumping a body. Per their directions, they were roughly a half mile away from the designated location and Tony wanted to check things out. “Gibbs, I want to shift to see if I can get any traces of our body dump. This is the best route in and if the body came this way, I’d like to check before we’ve had too many people tramping over the trail and destroying any trace.”

“Will this take a while?” Gibbs asked.

“Thirty minutes? Maybe. I know the scents of our people, so you can keep on heading towards our site, and if I find anything, I’ll mark it,” Tony said. He had tested his ability to carry items when he shifted. He was able to bring his backpack and its contents with him and that meant he was able to bring his scene kit. He handed the case he had been carrying to Gibbs and shifted into his fur.

The forest filled his nose and Tony sat for a moment to fill his senses with his team. He kept a running profile on everyone, but day to day, people changed due to diet, exercise, and environmental factors. As soon as he felt he had a lock on everyone’s scent, he started moving down the trail.

He kept his attention firmly ahead of him, doing his best to ignore Viv having a mini-meltdown behind him. “Why are you letting him show off like that?”

Her bigotry was starting to really grate at him and Tony had to set aside his irritation with her to be able to fully deal with the case in front of them. But. If Gibbs didn’t deal with her after this, he was going to. She was getting bold enough to start to say her shit in front of Ducky and Gerald and that was just not on.

Huffing out a breath, Tony put his nose to the trail and started inspecting the ground in front of him. All he got was the trace smells of the parking lot and the stirred-up dirt from the trail. Moving along at a trot, Tony inspected the whole trail for any changes.

When the smell of decomp hit his nose, he paused. It was several feet off the trail and he slid back into his skin to check it out. He’d always been a super smeller and taster, but his ability to discern scents and tastes had gotten much better when he was human after he’d shifted the first time. Never one to let a potential investigative tool lie, Tony had trained himself to use both his human and wolf nose to the best advantage. That meant that if his nose was filled with a scent while in his fur, he was often able to smell it when he was human.

He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and took a GPS snapshot of his position. It did not match the one that they had been given. He wasn’t 100% certain that what he’d smelled had been human, but it was something that they needed to look into. So. He quickly pulled an evidence flag out of his kit and marked the spot where he’d smelled the decomp.

Investigating that would have to be something that he did with their crew. Slipping back into his fur, he moved forward. As he moved down the trail, he started finding spots of evidence that fit what he expected of their deceased petty officer. He carefully marked each spot until he reached the location of the body dump.

Using that as the center of his search grid, he started clearing the area, section by section. He was able to find where their perp had left trace and made sure to mark those areas. He needed to process the evidence, but his kit, while useful, was getting short on markers. And it wasn’t as if the dead petty officer was going to get up. He’d made certain to ask if there were such things as zombies when he was in training with the Shifters Council. That answer had been a very firm ‘no’.

He’d finished the outermost perimeter check by the time Gibbs and crew reached the site. Heading back in, Tony made sure to make enough noise that he wasn’t likely to get shot. As he rounded the last tree, he saw Gibbs had started the process of recording the site so Ducky could get in with Gerald and take charge of their victim.

“DiNozzo,” Gibbs said. “I saw the flags you left us. How many are for this?”

Tony walked over to stand by Gibbs so he could grab the extra supplies he’d handed off when he went to scout ahead. “I’d say everything but the first flag that was off the trail. From the smell of it, it’s a lot older. Which may mean that this may be a dump site.”

“I hope not,” Gibbs said softly. “Dump sites often mean serial killers, and we don’t have any qualified profilers at the Yard.”

“I have one in my pack,” Tony admitted. He quickly transferred the supplies he needed to his backpack and stood up. “My search was to confirm if anyone was lingering, and that’s a negative. I did find the way our perp left, but I wasn’t looking for more dumps. The ground is disturbed in several spots, but if anything is there, it’s been a while.”

“Well, that’s something,” Gibbs said. “Okay, we take care of the crime that’s in front of us. And then we go back and check the one you flagged. Once those two things are done, you need to shift and go over this whole area to see if we do have a body dump site.”

“I’ve read up on this area, Gibbs. There’s been a lot of victims dumped in this park,” Tony cautioned. “The whole park could count as a dump site, given the givens.”

The snort Gibbs let out sounded reluctantly amused, but it was there and Tony was counting it as a win. “Well, you’re not wrong. But right now, this area is what we’re concerned with. The last time I know that NCIS was called out about a body here, was more than 5 years ago.”

Tony wrinkled his nose at that. “The one I found off the trail is months old, Gibbs. I’m going to need to go check up and down the trail as well.”

“Well, damn,” Gibbs said with a sigh. “Okay. Take care of this one.”

“On it,” Tony promised. He pulled his sketchbook out and started getting the site down on paper. He was quick, and with only a few lines, he caught the essence of the crime they were investigating on paper. He made sure that he quickly finished his tasks regarding the drawing and stored his pad away before pulling on a set of gloves.

The motions of gathering evidence were old and practiced and Tony made sure to label everything. For all the fact that the body they were there for was badly injured, the area surrounding them was clean. Every time he found something, was a win for their victim.

“Tony, did you get anything from the site?” Gibbs asked.

“Like scent?” Tony asked. When Gibbs nodded, he shook his head. “Whomever this is, they aren’t really leaving anything I can smell, and we took pictures of all the footprints on the site.”

“If there are footprints, doesn’t that mean there’s a scent? What good are you if you can’t sniff out someone?” Vivian asked snidely.

“Agent DiNozzo brings years of investigative experience with him, Agent Blackadder. He is far more than his ability to identify scents,” Ducky reminded her, voice mild. He was buckling their victim to the gurney after he and Gerard had moved them to a body bag. “And even I can tell there are no fresh scents here that don’t belong to the victim.”

“Ducky!” Blackadder hissed.

Tony had no idea how she’d missed that the man was a shifter. Ducky wasn’t an alpha, and as far as he knew, didn’t have a pack, but he seemed settled and solid, so Tony wasn’t worrying about him. He’d offered to bring the older man into his pack, but all he’d gotten for his efforts was an amused pat on the shoulder.

Since he wasn’t the type to be a pushy bastard, he left that whole situation alone. Ducky was far spryer than his age would suggest and that hinted at things for his fur form that Tony wasn’t willing to test. “Thank you, Ducky.”

“You’re welcome, dear boy. Now, Jethro, our unlucky petty officer has a liver temp that indicates they’ve been dead for at least twelve hours, somewhere cool. I’ll have to get them on my table to refine that,” Ducky announced. “Minimal rigor mortis is still firmly in place, as you could tell.”

“Ducky, when you look the victim over, please check to see if there are any eggs deposited on them,” Tony suggested. He’d been reading up on ways to determine a timeline on how long a victim had been dead from alternate methods and that had been one way that had been discussed. It had been suggested when liver temps were uncertain.

“Ah! You read that paper from Dr. Grissom as well,” Ducky surmised. “I shall look. The weather is a bit cool for most bugs, but we might get lucky.”

“Thanks,” Tony said. He turned to see Blackadder huffing and puffing as she stared at him. “What?”

“You’re a shifter. Why are you asking Ducky questions like that?” Blackadder asked.

“What does my species have to do with my competency?” Tony asked bluntly. He stared at her and consciously let his alpha nature rise up. He knew, because he’d watched it happen in training, that his eyes bled red and it was incredibly shocking to see on his face.

“DiNozzo,” Gibbs snapped. Tony turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow in question. “Quit baiting the bigot. This victim and any others who might be here deserve our attention. Go look around this area to see if there are any other body dumps.”

Tony let his alpha sink back into his soul, and nodded. He glanced at Blackadder briefly before he slid into his fur and started inspecting the area for any evidence of previous victims. Something told him it was going to be a long day.

 

 

“Are you going to be okay to work with Blackadder?” Gibbs asked halfway through their hike back to their vehicle.

“She’s been hinting at this attitude since she got here and discovered I’m a were, Gibbs. I’ve been working with her for months,” Tony reminded. “But just because I can work with a bigot, doesn’t mean that the bigot can work with me. I’m going to bet that she’s going to demand that I be transferred off this team because, as a human, she believes that she gets preference.”

“I don’t run my team that way,” Gibbs growled. For a human, it was impressive.

Tony snorted once but nodded at that. “Nice growl. And I know you don’t. But Viv hasn’t figured that out yet.”

“How in the hell can she think that I support that shit?” Gibbs bitched.

“Best guess?” Tony asked. At Gibbs’ nod, he sighed. “Best guess is that she’s noticed that you covertly and overtly indulge any woman you work with regularly. Abby and her cafpows being the biggest indicator of the overt indulgence.”

The older man was silent as they worked their way over a rough section of trail. “And the covert stuff?”

“When was the last time Viv had to do a dumpster dive? Or do an up close and personal inspection of a carpeted floor?” Tony asked. He held up a hand before Gibbs could say anything. “And I get that with my nose and experience, having me do the carpet inspection can make sense. But Viv needs to do it too so she knows how. Same thing with the dumpster dives. Also, that’s just utterly gross with my senses.”

“I bet. Was it that bad when you were human?” Gibbs asked.

“I was a super smeller and taster before I was attacked and turned,” Tony said. “It was just as gross, just in a slightly different way.”

“Ick,” Gibbs muttered. He fell silent and Tony let him. He was obviously thinking something over from the chemo signals he was getting from walking in his wake. Thankfully none of them seemed to be related to anger, so that was good. “You make me think a lot about how I treat the people I work with. I don’t know if I’m happy on that or not.”

“Gibbs, you’re a Gunnery Sergeant in the Marine Corps. You can’t tell me that some of the shit I’ve called you on would fly in there,” Tony said. “And no, I’m not suggesting that you run the team here at NCIS like you would a squad in the Marines. I am saying that you need to be careful that you don’t tip over into being an autocrat and a ‘my way or the highway’ kind of leader. Because short term? It’ll work. And then the team implodes in deeply unhealthy ways. We’re supposed to stand for the victims we serve, not make more.”

From the way Gibbs’ shoulders tightened, his point had hit home. Tony was done trying to gently nudge the man into a better leadership style, he was going for the nukes, every chance he got. Subtle was not a tactic that seemed to work with Gibbs.

“Damn it.”

Tony suppressed a smile at the softly voiced declaration. “I’m not going to apologize for calling your attention to the shit you’re sowing, Gibbs. This is why I think Viv feels that she can say what she did. You need to deal with it and remember it. Because even if you replace her, the attitude is more prevalent than you think.”

“I’m going to guess they taught you about that in your training with the Shifter’s Counsel?” Gibbs asked. At Tony’s assenting grunt, he sighed. “I’ll get with Morrow and see what we can do. And I’ll remember what you said. But I’m still going to push the people on my team to do their best.”

“Good,” Tony said. He shifted the case of evidence he was carrying from one hand to the other and stretched that arm out, trying to keep the muscles limber. “Pushing is fine. Pitting one against the other isn’t a great idea when you want a team that actually functions as a team instead of a group of people trying to one-up each other. And you know this as well as I do.”

“I do,” Gibbs said. “Right. At least you’re not calling me out in front of everyone. I don’t think my ego could take it.”

Tony snorted in amusement. “Gibbs, your ego is the size of a damn aircraft carrier. I don’t think I could dent it if I tried.”

“Don’t try! Please!” Gibbs yelped. He turned to look at Tony and grinned. “Do not.”

“I’m so tempted to quote Yoda now,” Tony huffed. “Fine.”

“Good.”

 

 

“Hey Abby,” Tony called as he entered her lab.

“Tony.”

Tony cocked his head to the side as he considered the measured greeting he’d gotten from her. Normally she was a lot more exuberant. “What’s up, Abby.”

“Your reports are on the table,” Abby said. She waved a hand at the pile of documents waiting for him and turned back to her computer.

Tony picked up the reports and flipped through them, scanning each for the results of the tests Abby had run, to make sure he understood her conclusions. Everything seemed to be in place and Abby had written her usual understandable reports. “Thank you.”

“Uh-huh,” Abby muttered from her computer. The typing sounds he’d been ignoring got louder as if she was hitting the keys harder.

The internal snap of his temper was loud in his head and Tony drew in a deep breath as he tried to ignore the urge to growl. “Okay. Exactly what is the issue you are currently having with me?”

Abby whirled away from her computer and stared at him for a moment before she stamped one platform boot. “You’re changing everything here! Gibbs isn’t bringing me cafpows when he picks up evidence. And he’s not really hugging me anymore. And Viv says that she’s going to be stuck doing a bunch of the dirtiest jobs and Gibbs is telling her what she can and can’t say at work now. Both of those things are because of you. And there’s a lot of other things that have changed since you got here and I don’t like it,” Abby said in a rush.

“Well, that’s a lot,” Tony muttered. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay. You know, because you’re actually a grown-up, that playing favorites is not great for any situation where you’re trying to work as a team. Let alone within an investigative team. It does nothing for unit cohesion and leads to all sorts of issues downstream. Gibbs has a habit of overtly and covertly favoring people. I called him on that habit because it’s not going to fly with me and he needs to straighten himself out.

“As for Viv?” Tony grimaced as he thought of his coworker. She was trying to play the victim and it seemed that Abby had bought the act. “She got called out on her bigotry towards shifters and told to suck it up or get a write-up with consequences, not just a note stating that she’d been counseled for her attitude. She also got told that since Gibbs had been shielding her from doing the dirty, nasty tasks that come with his job, that was going to stop. She’s been enjoying the times the rotation has just me doing a dumpster dive, and that’s stopped. Now, if all of that sounds bad to you, well then. You need to take a look at yourself too.”

“Viv’s a bigot?” Abby asked.

“Yes. Apparently, she’s got real issues with a shifter being more competent than her at something,” Tony said bluntly. “And I wasn’t going to put up with that for anyone. If she can’t figure out how not to be a bigot, she can at least be a silent bigot and do her damn job.”

Abby opened her mouth and then closed it as if she was trying to come up with something to say. Tony vaguely sympathized. He kept coming up with nothing too. It was the 21^st century and he had no idea that Viv’s level of bigotry actively existed in federal service.

He’d run into minor variations of bigotry from people in various settings. Blatant homophobia, issues with his name, his economic status, or even the fact that he’d been a jock in college had all come up. But the shit with Viv had been spouting because he was a were had been new. To him at least. And deeply disgusting.

“I didn’t know she was like that,” Abby said eventually. “I didn’t.”

“No one does until the bigot loses their shit and lets their wretched opinions fly,” Tony said. He didn’t know what to tell her. Viv had been leaking a bitter scent from the instant she’d figured out he was a shifter, and it had taken him confirming the scent with Ducky to label it as disgust. “Now, everyone has a right to their opinions, but I’m not going to stand by and accept the shit she’s shoveling. Directly or secondhand. Just so you’re aware.”

“I’m not a bigot,” Abby said immediately. “And I don’t want to associate with one on that level.”

“Sounds good,” Tony said. He’d be keeping an eye on things because Abby was nothing if not loyal and she’d tied herself pretty tightly to Gibbs and his team, and that meant that Viv was an influence. “Are you going to kick up a fuss about Gibbs being more professional and playing less favorites?”

She huffed at him and stared at the ceiling for several seconds. “I hate that you’re right. I’ve gotten cafpows from some of the other teams too and they’ve been getting pissy that their tests haven’t been moved up in the work queue.”

Tony held his peace as she continued to think things over. He couldn’t lead her to a livable conclusion, she had to figure this out on her own. And as much as he might like to say that he’d realized that his workplace was getting toxic, that particular credit actually needed to go to Aaron. He’d recognized the pattern before he had and called him out on his enabling of it. That had not been a comfortable conversation.

“If I don’t draw the line, they’ll keep trying to bribe me to get things and that’ll mess up everything,” Abby said finally. “Damn it. Okay. I’m going to make a sign for my door so no one can say that they weren’t warned. This is going to suck.”

“Sorry Abby,” Tony offered. He didn’t know what else to say to her.

“Thanks.” She sighed once before she turned back to her computer. Tony took the hint and slipped out of her lab. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to do another emotional bloodletting to get the autopsy report from Ducky.

 

 

Chapter Eight

Tony trudged into his condo and grandly ignored his pack as they moved around in his kitchen. His bedroom was a straight shot back and when he got into it, he started stripping off his clothes and piling them up by the door to be dealt with later. There was a shower calling his name and he desperately needed to answer it.

He turned the water on as hot as he could stand and stepped under the stream. The hot water moved over his skin, pounding the muscles under it with a massaging motion that he deeply appreciated. He let it run for several minutes before he opened his eyes and grabbed the soap he had tucked into the corner of one of the shelves in his shower. Opening it up, he inhaled the bright lemon fragrance that burst forth.

It took several rounds of the soap before he no longer smelled of the scene he’d been stuck at all day. All he smelled was lemon and that was amazing after everything he’d dealt with. Stepping out of his shower, he saw that one of his packmates had snuck in and left him clean clothes and a warm towel. “Thank you.”

The nasty clothes he’d been wearing were also gone and he sighed in relief. He had not been looking forward to dealing with them. When he reached the living room, his pack was setting the table for dinner and he could hear the washing machine working on a load. “You guys are awesome.”

“You’re welcome,” Aaron said. He stared at Tony and raised an eyebrow at him. “How bad is it?”

“Not great and getting worse,” Tony said bluntly. “I may be reaching out to your department for someone to look over what we’ve found. But that’s not a good dinner conversation.”

“Will you be able to think about anything else for the next while? Or have you hit the obsessed stage?” Aaron asked.

Tony shrugged. “I’m good at multitracking on my thinking, but honestly, at this stage, there’s just a lot of evidence gathering and it’s gross, tiring, and sad. For tonight, I want to set it all aside, reconnect with everyone, and get an update on all the gossip.”

“Sounds fair. We borrowed your kitchen and cooked a beef Osso Buco with polenta. Eileen did the salad, and Andrew brought cheesecake from Costco,” Martin reported. He was laying out hot pads down the length of the table, along with serving spoons.

From the way his stomach growled at the recitation of dinner, Tony figured he was all in. The smells he’d been trying to ignore, were amazing. “I’m totally up for this. It smells great.”

“The test tastes they’ve been doing have been pretty damn good too,” Andrew confirmed. He apparently had been put in charge of drinks. “I know wine does absolutely nothing for you all, but do you want it for taste with the meal?”

“Please,” Tony said. His liver was in much better health now that he was a shifter, and he only rarely missed the ability to get utterly shitfaced after a bad case. It wasn’t good for him and had only rarely been a coping mechanism, but it had been useful. But at least it all still tasted good.

“Gotcha,” Andrew said. He pulled several carafes of wine out of the pantry and set them along the length of the table. When Tony flashed him an unimpressed look, Andrew shrugged. “Like you wouldn’t want wine with this dinner? Please. I know you better and the rest of this pack is just as fussy as you are.”

“I like beer better, but this isn’t a beer meal,” Eileen said. She had two big bowls of salad in hand and was heading for the table.

“What meal do you think goes best with beer and which beer?” Tony asked. Most of the recipes he knew by heart were Mediterranean in origin or were from adjacent regions. He was willing to learn new ones, but he hadn’t put much effort in. Come to find out; to feed his pack he was willing to learn.

“Tacos and Corona. Fish and chips and a pale ale. Steak pie and a brown ale or a Guinness,” Eileen said. She set her cargo down and sat down at her place. “I vote for the tacos. If I bring all the fixings for it?”

“I’ll cook it,” Tony confirmed. He settled into his place at the table and waited for Martin and Aaron to start bringing in the main dishes. “So other than this, what have you been doing?”

“Well, you know I tried dating,” Aaron said. He set a large cast iron pot on the table and took the lid off. The steam coming out of it smelled delicious.

“That sounds ominous,” Tony said. He picked up his wine glass and took a deep drink. Humming softly at the taste, he saluted Andrew with it before turning back to Aaron. “In this specific circumstance, what does try mean to you dating? Because I know I haven’t done anything to mess that up for you. Has someone else?”

“No one messed with my ability to date,” Aaron said, amused.

“Then what happened?” Eileen asked. She served herself some salad and held out her hands for Tony’s bowl. “And do we know who you tried to date?”

“She’s someone I went to high school with,” Aaron said. “I hadn’t seen Haley since we graduated, but we reconnected when I started work out here.”

“Sounds good,” Tony said. He took his salad bowl back and saw that Eileen had made a Caesar salad for them. Humming softly, he took a bite and nodded. “Tastes great, Eileen.”

“Thanks, Tony,” Eileen said with a smile. She handed her plate over to Martin so he could add some polenta to it. “So, what’s the issue, Aaron?”

“The issue is that Haley is not a shifter and dating a human can be challenging,” Aaron explained. He took the plate from Martin and spooned up a large serving of Osso Buco before handing it back to Eileen. As he continued to explain what had been happening with his relationship, he kept filling plates.

“I know I’m new to the whole were thing, but one lesson that stuck with me from my training was about mates. Is there any chance of that with Haley?” Tony asked. He was halfway through his serving of dinner and enjoying every bite.

“I…I think so,” Aaron said slowly. He started eating his dinner and nodded once. “We did good.”

“You did,” Tony confirmed. “I’m good with her being part of the pack if she’s who you want, Aaron. But I think it would be best if you confirmed if there was the potential for her being your mate and if she’s willing to take the bite.”

“Fair,” Aaron said after thinking things over for several seconds. “Anything else?”

“I’ll be checking in with Lee to see if he has any advice to give me on this type of situation. Because my training touched on it, but I want some real-world experience to back myself up,” Tony said. He finished the last bite on his plate and held it out to Martin to get a second serving. “So, what else is going on with everyone?”

“Well, I’m not dating, but my case did get settled, for an obscene amount of money, and my client is well taken care of,” Andrew announced. He grinned at the collective congratulations sent his way before waving his fork to shoo them away. “I expect it will take a week or two to get everything settled out, but I’ll be back on a more normal schedule and able to make it to meetings and full moon runs.”

“Sounds good,” Tony said. He had no damn idea what the case Andrew had been working on was about, but he expected that if the settlement was as big as he was hinting at, it would hit the news soon. Hopefully, the loser of the case wasn’t a total asshole and knew better than to try anything. “Martin? How’s your father been since our conversation?” From the snort of bitter amusement, Martin let out, things weren’t great on that front and Tony frowned at the thought. “That bad?”

“He’s been sulking like a toddler where I can see it,” Martin reported. “He hasn’t said anything to me, but he’s trying to make me feel guilty. My boss, on the other hand, is amused and makes sure that I’m fully involved with our cases. He makes sure to talk about my contributions where my father can hear about them and do nothing because of the restrictions he’s been placed under. He’s a mess of impotent frustration and anger and I can’t say that I’m not enjoying it on some level.”

“I don’t blame you for that at all,” Aaron said with a mean grin. “I’m sure he’s trying his best to get out of the consequences of his actions, but we set a pretty tight set of restrictions on him, so I can’t see him wriggling out of them. If he does, let us know?”

“Of course. Other than my father acting like a toddler, cases have been manageable,” Martin said. He paused to add another serving to his plate. “It looks like I’ve got about two servings left in here. Anyone else want some?” When Aaron passed him his plate, he filled it before passing it back and accepting Eileen’s to dish up the last of the food in front of him. “I think this is what I want to do for a while. I’m happy with my new team, and the opportunity it’s giving me. However, I can see where I how the casework would get to me and why I might want to get away from missing person’s cases if they get bad. But right now, I’m good at it and I can help a lot of people.”

“I’m with Aaron. Let us know if he steps over the line,” Tony directed. He stared at Martin and reached within himself to touch the bond he shared with him. The other man was content and the bond was full of the emotion, so he decided to leave well enough alone. Martin would come to him if anything changed. “Also, since your job is just as stressful as his, let me know if it gets to be too much.” Turning to Eileen, Tony raised an eyebrow at her in question. “How’ve you been?”

“I have been doing great! I ran lead on a case recently and wow. It’s a lot, but I think I did okay. My lead wants to go over everything with me and I still have a lot of paperwork to do, but it wasn’t a super complicated case,” Eileen reported. She pointed her fork at him when he opened his mouth. “Acht! I’m just telling you what happened, nothing else. If I have questions, I’ll reach out to my lead and ask him.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all down then,” Tony said with a grin. “You know we’re all here in case you have questions, or just need to touch base.”

“I know,” Eileen said. “Now, what’s up with your case?”

“Nothing I can talk about,” Tony said grimly. He leaned back in his chair and picked up his wine to take a deep drink from it. “I may be getting permission to reach out to BAU for assistance, but I’m not 100% certain and neither are my bosses. It’s going to take a lot more work on our part before we can determine our next steps.”

“I can take some guesses based on your condition when you came in,” Aaron said after several seconds of silence. When Eileen and Martin nodded their agreement, he sighed. “We won’t push. We all know better. But we will be watching to make sure you take care of yourself.”

Tony held up his hands in surrender. “I will! Promise.”

“You better,” Aaron said firmly.

 

 

“I didn’t expect you would be asking me that,” Lee said after Tony laid out everything Aaron had told him about the Haley situation.

“What do you mean by that?” Tony asked.

“Please don’t play dense,” Lee said with a level look. “You’re too damn smart to try to play the dumbass with me.”

“I…” Tony swallowed his initial response as he stared at Lee. “He’s my second.”

“And he’s not shown any interest in you, right?” Lee asked. At Tony’s nod, he sighed. “That’s what I saw at the full moon runs. He’s a damn good man.”

“He is. And while I’m attracted, I’m not going to do anything about it because that’s a shitty power play to indulge in. It’s also too close to abuse for me to be comfortable with the idea,” Tony said firmly. “I’m also not looking for a romantic partner right now.”

“I get that,” Lee said. “But don’t ignore a possible one just because it’s not in your plans. Sometimes, life has a way of throwing the best thing at you, at the wrong time.”

“Okay, I can get that,” Tony said. “Now, I still need answers to my questions.”

“Right.” Lee turned towards the bar and held up a hand. “This is going to require a beer. Or three.”

“Thank God, it doesn’t affect us, because I’m going to be taking notes,” Tony said with a rueful laugh.

“Okay, so you are correct, any partner that your pack brings in will eventually need to become a part of your pack. We’ll start with the cases of if they aren’t part of an established pack and move on from there,” Lee said with a wry smile. “Easiest first.”

 

 

“So, to sum up our case… We have ten bodies, and the timeline for them covers five years, based on levels of decomp. From what Ducky has been able to confirm, they were all killed by the same hand. Each of the victims was buried in a similar manner and none of them were buried with any clothes, so we have a dearth of clues from that vector.”

Tomy leaned back in his chair and let it rock. Gibbs had pulled out the monitor he had started to use for presentations and was flipping through the case file to go through the evidence. At one picture of the dump scene, he wrinkled his nose at the sense memory it called up. The smell of death had lingered in his nose for days after they had exhumed each of the ten graves.

“When the last one was called in, did we get a description of the person who had been carrying the body?” Tony asked. He turned to look at Blackadder and raised an eyebrow at her. She had been the one to interview the witnesses, so he expected that she would have the information.

He ignored the dark look she sent his way at his question. Blackadder had been toeing the line that Gibbs had drawn and he wasn’t going to bait her into stepping over it. But he wasn’t going to hide his light under a bushel either. She was just going to have to deal with him being competent.

“We have two witnesses, and both of them stated that they saw someone in a black hoodie moving down the trail at speed. From both of the witnesses, they think the person was tall, well-built and probably male,” Blackadder reported. She glanced down at the notes in her hand and then shrugged. “No one got a glimpse of the perps face or skin color, and while our witnesses think the person was male, they aren’t certain.”

“Fantastic,” Gibbs muttered. He clicked the remote in his hand and the information on the screen changed to detail the basic information they had for their victims. “Abby has samples from each of our victims and says it’s going to be at least a week before she has them all finished and run against every database she can get access to. At this time, we’ve got confirmation that our initial victim is an E4 in the Navy.”

Tony picked up the briefing at that point. He’d been the one to confirm her identity. “Her name is Anna Littlefield. She was assigned to the USS Iwo Jima LHD-7, as a yeoman and had been with the Navy for 8 months. At twenty years old, Ducky believes she’s the youngest of our victims.

“Per Ducky, all of the victims are female. Yeoman Littlefield, our first identifiable victim, was tortured and raped. There’s no semen found, but there was evidence of a spermicide, specific to the Trojan brand condoms,” Tony continued. “Her friends mentioned that she’d been dating a civilian, but none of them know the name. We’re working on getting into her personal computer, so we can check her email to see if there’s any clue about her partner there. Per her friends, she didn’t have a personal phone, since her ship was heading out in three weeks for a Med cruise.”

“Do we have an ETA on when the computer will be unlocked?” Gibbs asked.

Tony checked his email to see if there had been any updates. McGee down in computer services had sent him a message. “One second. I’ve got an email from the computer service agent working on it.” Tony clicked on the email and read it through quickly. “Okay, he’s gotten into it and confirmed that she did have a civilian partner. He’s putting that information together for us and will get it to us in the next few hours.”

“He can’t give us a name now?” Gibbs asked.

“Apparently not,” Tony said. He hit reply and started typing. He wanted a name just as badly as Gibbs, and his best lead was being held captive by a computer tech. He was deeply unamused. “I’m sending him an email requesting clarification.”

“Good,” Gibbs said shortly. He turned the monitor off and dropped the remote on his desk like it was burning him.

“Quit acting like you hate that thing,” Tony teased gently as he hit enter. He pulled his personal phone out when it buzzed against his hip and glanced at it.

“I do hate it,” Gibbs snapped.

Tony gave him a brief side-eye and suppressed a snort. From the constipated look Gibbs flashed him, he wasn’t hiding his amusement at the older man’s protests all that well. One of the first things he’d pushed with Gibbs was his aversion to tech. With their team as small as it was, having the man hate anything more technologically advanced than a rotary phone was not going to work. Gibbs had bitched and complained, but he had learned. And while he didn’t like the tech they had on hand; he could use it. And that’s all Tony could realistically ask for. “You like what it does too much to hate it. You just hate that you can’t be a luddite anymore.”

“Bah.”

Snickering softly, Tony pulled his email up and read the message Aaron had sent him. I’ve warned my supervisor that you may be reaching out to me to discuss a possible serial case. He’s open to the possibility of us helping out.

“My contact in the profiler’s states that they are open to us using them as a resource,” Tony reported. He raised an eyebrow at Gibbs in question. When the older man nodded, he smiled. “Okay then.”

“What does that mean?” Blackadder demanded.

Tony ignored her as he typed into his phone. Sounds good. We’ll be reaching out once we have all our tests run. We’ll do the official request through channels so no one can suggest favoritism.

“It means, Viv, that I gave Tony permission to reach out to his contact to let them know that we’re going to be contacting them,” Gibbs said evenly.

Blackadder pouted briefly at his words. “DiNozzo knows profilers?”

“I’ve been a cop for years, Viv,” Tony reminded. “I have a lot of contacts across law enforcement. Profilers are good contacts to have.”

From the huff she let out, she wasn’t happy with his answer. But fuck if he was going to cater to her. And if she didn’t remember that Aaron was part of his pack, he wasn’t going to remind her of it.

“NCIS doesn’t have a dedicated profiler corps,” Gibbs cut in. “We go to the experts and for us here, that’s the FBI.”

“And you hate every second of it,” Tony said, amused.

Gibbs frowned at him. “I didn’t say that.”

“Sharing any case with the FBI has given you hives, the entire time I’ve known you,” Tony said. He checked his email and hummed as he saw a new one from McGee. Clicking it, he read it quickly. “Computer Sciences has sent me copies of all the emails she saved regarding her partner. I’ll be going over them for information.”

“Better get started. I’ll let Morrow know that we want to do a consult with BAU on our case once Abby and Ducky come back with all their evidence,” Gibbs said. “Blackadder, check missing persons for this area to get us a list of all the missing women for the last five years.”

“I’ve already got requests out to the commands in the areas for all their female missing persons. I’ve also reached out to the local police departments to see if they have any missing persons. As we get more information on the victims, I’ll go through the lists to pull out the ones that don’t belong to us,” Blackadder said promptly.

“Good,” Gibbs said. He picked up the paper report he’d printed up and headed for the stairs.

Tony opened the first of their victims’ emails and started reading. As he got deeper into the conversations between Littlefield and her beau, he felt his hackles try and raise. It was subtle, but he was sure that there was some grooming and gaslighting happening. It took several emails to find a name and Tony started a search for the man immediately. Reading through to the end, he frowned as he tried to slot what he’d learned about their victim from her own words with what he’d learned from her friends.

“Viv,” Tony called. When she turned towards him with a frown, he held up a hand. “Nothing nefarious, but I need a woman’s point of view. I’m going to send you the emails we have from our victim to her partner and I want your opinion on them.”

She stared at him and tilted her head to the side as she considered his request. “Why?”

“Well, for one, I’m a male and there’s stuff I miss due to my circumstances,” Tony said bluntly. “Secondly, I need another opinion on what I’m reading. I can’t tell if it’s something to be concerned about or not.”

“Okay,” Blackadder said slowly. “Send them my way.”

Tony quickly forwarded the whole mess to her and left her to it. He started working on the search. Richard Smith was a wretchedly normal name and his digital footprint was very minimal. Tony started working his way through various databases. He also reached out to his contacts on the police force in Norfolk, since Littlefield had been based out of there.

“This guy is a piece of work,” Blackadder said after several minutes reading. “The gaslighting is subtle, but he’s doing everything he can to keep her from being curious about him. She’s doing her best to suss out information about him, but he’s been doing this for a while. She got very little from him.”

“That’s what I was getting too,” Tony admitted. “And there’s very little available on him in public databases. We’re going to need to ask Littlefield’s friends a lot of careful questions to see what we can get from them.”

“We’re also going to need to see if any if the previous victims have a mysterious boyfriend,” Blackadder said.

“We are,” Tony agreed. He made a note on that in his case file so he didn’t forget the idea. It would help a lot if their murderer had an easy pattern to break. So far, their profile was thin. Very, very thin and they had no proof that Smith was the murderer. He was currently just the best bet.

“We’ve got the okay to pull the profilers in once we have the evidence processed and compiled,” Gibbs reported as he came down the stairs. “Morrow doesn’t want us to waste their time, waiting on all the information to come in, so we’re going to have a fair amount of footwork to do before we can reach out.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Tony said. He pulled his phone out and let Aaron know what was happening with the request and put it away. His searches were popping up with results and he needed to go through them to start separating fact from fiction. Just as he clicked on the first search result, he got a new email from McGee. Minimizing that, he clicked on his email. Whatever the email was, it had attachments. “Son of a bitch.”

“What?”

“Pictures. Littlefield backed up her phone’s pictures to her laptop and she got some pictures of her boyfriend. From how they are framed, he didn’t know she was taking them,” Tony said. He quickly saved the pics to the case file and used the best one to start a search. “I’m starting a search for this guy using them. I saved them to the file so you can see them.”

Gibbs grabbed the remote for the monitor and pulled the pictures up. He was studying them when Tony looked up from his review. “What are you seeing?”

“Do you see the way his eyes reflect the light?” Gibbs asked. He walked over to the picture and pointed out the way Robert Smith’s eyes shone in the reflected light. “I think he’s a shifter of some type.”

“Oh, that’s not good.”