Author's Note: Be warned - this is a WIP, people. I don't know where it's going, or if it will ever get there. In short, I'll try my hardest, but updates may be erratic, and it may never finish. Consider yourself told.

Tony exited the coffee shop, purchases in hand, and wondered briefly why he was bothering.

Habit?

It wasn't like he really believed that a round of coffee and donuts was all it would take to heal the fault lines currently criss-crossing through the foundations of the team like some kind of toxic spider web.

Nor was he naïve enough to think that his offerings would be welcomed with open arms. Ten to one, Gibbs would tell him off for time wasting, Ziva would make a snide remark about bribery and McGee – well, McGee would probably think he'd won a battle because it wasn't laced with soap.

Should he..?

Nah. He didn't feel like pranking McGee. It was no fun when it was – well, no fun. He kept up with it for form's sake, but instead of entering in to the spirit of the thing, Probie just acted all superior and produced the latest in a long list of surprisingly vicious put downs.

Didn't know where he'd learnt that. He used to be such a nice boy. And for all both Gibbs and himself could wield one liners every bit as well as more conventional weapons, it was actually pretty rare that they would turn the full force on to people in their own inner circle. Not unless someone had really crossed a line.

Yes, Gibbs had a reputation, but he was just being Gibbs, with all the B's, not being nasty. All you had to do was watch the man with a suspect to know the difference. Most people just stopped at the reputation, or at the first thing they heard him say, took that as the bottom line. Most people never took the time to learn that the caffeine fiend who terrorised the halls of NCIS was as much of a sniper with words as he had been once with bullets.

He was a professional of put downs. There was none of this indiscriminate stabbing that McGee was at.

He let himself back into the car, dropped his haul on the passenger seat, and pulled back onto the road.

It really was habit. What on earth had happened here? He was still plenty young enough, thank you very much, with a good career, enough money to keep him as well as he liked and his pick of the ladies. He should have the world at his feet, and here he was, going through the motions. When had work become just another thing? He loved his job, in the main. At least, he enjoyed what he did. None too keen on the atmosphere most the time.

Now that was a weird thing. Pile the pressure on, and they still worked well together. Very well. That something that clicked in, that brought a phenomenally impressive solve rate, that had beaten the odds more times that any of them had the right to hope for – that was still there. But only when the pressure was on.

The rest of the time? Proof positive that familiarity breeds contempt. He still trusted them in the field. But by God he could do without the bitchiness and the one-upmanship.

Particularly when most of it was aimed at him.

Was he the only one that wanted to go back to how they used to be? While he'd been at sea, first on the Seahawk and then on the Ronald Reagan, he'd missed the team, the camaraderie, the feel of being a part of something, instead of a lone crusader. Maverick cops were all very well in the movies, but this was no movie. Being your own team in the face of uniform disapproval – that had to wear you down, and in short order.

Not that anybody in his team would be about to believe him, but he had no wish to be the lone wolf maverick cop with a grudge. He was quite happy being what he was – the Senior Agent on the top team in the Agency.

Was. Had been. Somehow, once he'd been recalled, nothing had quite been the same. The team had never managed to regain that ability to be more than the sum of its parts. More often than not it was less.

You didn't need to be a profiler to see that. They didn't work together any more – just alongside each other. Ziva and McGee seemed to have an understanding, at least some of the time, but aside from that…

McGee thought he was better than him. Ziva never stopped needling – unless it was to move on to deliberate attempts to provoke. And Gibbs had mood swings – and there was a concept altogether too strange to contemplate. One day he'd be not-quite-smiling at the jokes and leaving Tony to do his thing in the field; the next nothing was good enough, he was verbally dropping him on his ass every five minutes, and woe betide the back of his head should he forget to check in with his crystal ball and not see setbacks coming up before they arrived.

Was he the only one who could see that things were seriously off kilter around here?

Or was he just the only one that cared?

***

He found himself parking up in the garage without any really recollection of the journey in between. With a sigh, he pushed his internal meanderings aside and headed up to the bullpen, offerings of habit in hand.

"Here he is."

These days it was never a good sign when he was the topic of conversation.

"Forget where you work, DiNozzo?"

"Took a pitstop, Boss. Here." He pointed out the cup with the engine oil substitute in it. "Donut?"

Why that should get him one of those long appraising looks he didn't know, but after a moment, the top donut was hooked, and Gibbs went back to the file in front of him.

"Offerings, Tony? You have a need to make peace? Guilty conscience?"

He pasted the goofy smile back on his face, swinging around and offering the bounty. "Any conscience is a good thing, Ziva. You should try it someday." The snipe hit, and she looked decidedly put out. He couldn't bring himself to feel bad about that. He was more annoyed at himself for so easily falling into the new pattern despite knowing it was the wrong thing to do.

McGee took the third cup, peering suspiciously into it, then frowning back at Tony as he took a sip. He looked like he was trying to be intimidating. Tony mentally checked three for three off the list.

He'd thought a lot of things about NCIS over the years. Never once had 'too damn predictable' shown up before.

He sat at his desk with his own cup and donut, and considered screwing up the empty bag and bouncing it off McGee's head. Then he cast a glance across to see Gibbs watching him again, all stern lines and disapproval, and realised this was going to be one of those days where he was a lap down to begin with, and couldn't do right for getting it in the neck.

No sense deliberately provoking the man just yet. Might as well wait until the tension got too much before he drew the fire.

So it was back to the Herold paper trail then. Good job he'd had all that extra sugar to keep him awake.

***

Two hours had passed relatively quietly – partly due to Gibbs presence, partly due to the fact that he finally thought he might be finding a pattern in the mountain of paper they'd commandeered from Montgomery Herold's office, and partly because Tony couldn't find the enthusiasm required to be the on stage entertainment this morning. Let the hecklers find something else to do.

So he'd kept the quips to a minimum, leaving Ziva and McGee to break the silence – usually at his expense.

"You are remarkably quiet this morning, Tony. Are you ill?"

And here we go again. He opened his mouth to respond, only to find McGee beating him to it.

"Don't tease him, Ziva. Our little boy's growing up, that's all."

The sheer effrontery took his breath away, and he leaned back in his seat and put his feet up on the desk while he recovered himself.

"Just a little experiment. Testing my ability to get under a suspect's skin without actually doing anything." Twin suspicious glances. That was better. He carried on. "Can I help it if you two can get distracted without a distraction? I don't do a thing, and still I have so much of your attention – why Probie, Ziva," he drew the names out as long as he could. "should I be flattered?"

He felt the smirk widen when neither had a ready answer, and retrieved the bag from earlier. The second he saw McGee's mouth start to open, he lobbed it a across, scoring a direct hit on the younger man's head. "Score! A Mchole in one!"

"DiNozzo!"

He started at Gibbs bark, and flailed in mid-air for a moment before the chair mercifully decided to tip back in the right direction. Gibbs kept glaring, and he felt the brief flare of good humour slink back into its hole. "Ah – hard at work, Boss."

No answer, and after a moment blue eyes went back to the file and he breathed out again.

Definitely one of those can't win days.

***

Fate was a bitch. McGee had just – literally just – uttered the word that Tony had been thinking for nearly an hour: namely "Lunch?" when Gibbs' phone rang. The three of them listened in to a conversation that took the man just three words:

"Yeah."

"Where?"

"Details?"

Looked like lunch would remain a fond, passing thought.

The call was ended unceremoniously, Gibbs pausing briefly before standing, and the rest of them declining to ask. He took two paces, then glowered at the room in general.

"Scene to look at. If any of you are interested."

There was a definite lack of haste to Gibb's movements.

"Just the scene, Boss?"

"Yep. John Doe found yesterday. PD just identified him as one of ours."

Okay. There was a moment where they all just looked at each other – one of those that jarred these days, because it felt like they were on the same wavelength, and how the hell had not being become standard procedure? Then the Gibbs glare dialled up a notch, and they all started moving at the same time, even as he spoke again.

"Body and files are getting sent over. Meantime, we look over the location."