WARNING: Contains non-consensual spanking of an adult.

TONY: Kate, when they pour cold water over your chest, doesn't that sort of make you--
GIBBS: DiNozzo! If you ever do that again, I will put my boot so far up your ass!

"Hey Kate!" Tony called across the squad room. "How'd your date go last night?"

"It's none of your business, Tony," Kate called back in a sing-song voice, trying to hide her smile.

Tony stood up and walked over to her desk, nodding and smiling. "Uh huh. You got some last night, didn't you?" He started rubbing his chest and moaning as he leaned toward her.

"DiNozzo! Get your ass up here!" Gibbs yelled from the landing on the stairs. He'd come out of MTAC and was running down the stairs when he spotted his senior agent gyrating inches from a suddenly shocked and annoyed-looking Kate. Tony froze and grimaced. "NOW!" Every head on the lower level snapped up and then followed Tony as he made his way toward the staircase as slowly as he dared.

"Come on, Boss! It was a joke!" Tony protested as he followed Gibbs up the stairs to the conference room.

Gibbs waited until he'd slammed the conference room door shut before he spoke. "What did I tell you I would do to you the next time you made that particular joke?"

"Seriously?" Tony whined. He looked pleadingly at Gibbs for just a moment, and then, deciding he didn't want to make his boss any angrier than he already was, he let out a huffy sigh, turned around and threw himself over the table with all the drama of a nine-year-old girl.

"Not so fast," Gibbs said as he began unbuckling his belt. "Lose the jeans."

Tony swung around and stared, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly. Suddenly, Gibbs was centimeters from his face. "All right, all right," he said as he turned around, pushed his jeans to his knees and bent over the table again.

Gibbs wasted no time folding his belt in half and introducing it to the seat of Tony's boxers. But as the belt fell for the third time, his phone rang. He grabbed the offending object from the table where he'd dropped it just seconds earlier. "What, McGee?" he barked into his phone. Tony stood up, reached back and attempted to rub some of the sting out of his butt. "Spit it out McGee!...We'll be right down," Gibbs said angrily. He turned toward the door. "Let's go, DiNozzo. McGee says Fornell needs to see us ASAP." Tony's shoulders relaxed as Gibbs slipped his belt back into the loops on his pants and pulled the door open. "And Tony," he called without looking back, "don't think for a minute that this conversation is over. We'll finish when we get back."

"Damnit," Tony said under his breath as he pulled his jeans back up. The look Gibbs threw over his shoulder told him he hadn't said it quite quietly enough.

Once in the elevator, Gibbs punched the button that would bring them down to Abby's lab, and Tony pushed himself as far into the corner as he could in an effort to put as much physical distance between himself and his furiously angry boss as was possible in the small metallic box.

* * * * *

"What is it, Fornell?" Gibbs demanded as he swept into the lab. He moved past everyone in the room to Abby's office and turned off the music that was blasting at its usual volume.

"Hey!" Abby yelled. But one look at Gibbs' face made her move a step closer to McGee, as if seeking his protection. "Never mind," she mumbled.

Gibbs turned his attention back to Fornell. "This had better be important. I was in the middle of something," he shot at his old friend.

"What did you do this time, DiNozzo?" Fornell asked with a mischievous grin. Tony's eyes immediately found the floor. Fornell's mouth opened, partly in shock that he was right, and partly to continue ribbing Tony.

But Gibbs really wasn't in the mood. "Fornell!"

Fornell cleared his throat, still obviously amused by the situation in which he found himself and then launched into the explanation Gibbs was waiting for. "Well, it looks like our prime suspect isn't our prime suspect anymore. Turns out he has about twenty-three people who can confirm that at the time the bomb was detonated, he was in the middle of a cricket match. I don't understand that game at all. It's like baseball on drugs. I mean, there are like, forty different positions on the field and…"

"Tobias," Gibbs growled warningly.

The mischievous grin flashed again before Fornell continued. "Abby and McGee confirmed that the bomb wasn't on a timer – it was manually detonated, so there's no way Molyneux was our bomber. And before you ask, yes, we do have another suspect. Abby?"

Abby quickly jumped in, having recovered from her encounter with an angry Gibbs glare. "Ok, so after Fornell told me that Molyneux was playing cricket and not blowing stuff up…Actually, I don't get it either. Did you know that the longest match was…"

"Abby!"

"Sorry, Gibbs. Um, yeah, so I rechecked the detonator, and it was definitely remote, but it had to be set off by someone who was no more than fifty feet away from the bomb. So I ran a search on cell phones that were active within a fifty-foot radius of the blast zone…"

"Who was it?!" Gibbs yelled.

Abby quickly turned to her computer and started typing furiously. "This guy." An oversized military I.D. popped up on the plasma.

Gibbs studied it for a minute then turned to Fornell, noticeably calmer than he had been a few seconds earlier. "I guess that puts this case back in our jurisdiction."

"It's all yours," Fornell answered.

"Kate, McGee. Find this guy and get him in here," Gibbs said as he started walking out of the lab. "Thanks, Fornell. We'll call you if we need you. Abby? Good job." As he passed Tony, he crooked a finger at the young man. "Tony and I have some business to finish and I don't want any more interruptions," he ordered the rest of his team.

As Tony turned to follow his boss back to the conference room-turned-torture chamber, he was met with two sympathetic looks, an amused look and a smug look – clearly, Kate hadn't forgiven him yet.

Fornell looked at the three people remaining in the lab. "Gibbs isn't…" Three heads bobbed up and down. "Ssshew. I knew there was a reason I preferred to work with him instead of for him."

* * * * *

Back in the elevator, Tony took up his position silently in the far corner. All too soon, the doors were opening on the top floor and Gibbs was heading determinedly toward the conference room again. Tony followed at a distance, looking very much like a little boy who was about get a good whipping from his dad.

By the time he made it to the conference room, Gibbs had already taken off his belt again. He walked reluctantly back to the table and bent over, hoping Gibbs had forgotten his earlier instructions. Without warning, the belt landed hard just at the top of Tony's thighs – right below the extra protection afforded by his back pockets. The pain was intense and Tony questioned the wisdom of trying to pull something over on a former sniper – the man's aim was just as accurate with a belt as it was with a rifle!

"Either pull your pants down now, or I'll give you an entire spanking, that hard, right in that spot and then you can pull them down – along with your shorts – and I'll pick up where we left off before our field trip to Abby's lab." The ultimatum was delivered at close range in a dangerous whisper.

Immediately, Tony stood up and pulled his jeans down as fast as he could before bending over again. But the expected spanking didn't start. "Do you think you don't deserve this?" Gibbs asked in lieu of commencing the punishment.

Tony looked over his shoulder. Gibbs could see the young man's brain working and forced his expression to soften. There was no point in delivering such a harsh punishment until Tony really understood why he was getting it. He knew the exact moment Tony's adult brain trumped his frat boy brain because his head dropped back down, his shoulders sagged and he sighed.

"Yeah, I get it," he said quietly. "It was a stupid thing to say. Not to mention really rude and demeaning."

"Ok," Gibbs nodded, a small, proud smile creeping to his lips. He put his hand on Tony's back, raised the belt and brought it down right in the center of Tony's backside. The belt fell over and over, but when Tony was openly sobbing, Gibbs stopped and tossed it lightly onto the table. He left his hand on Tony's back though. "It's all over now," he said gently. He waited until he felt his surrogate son start to breathe normally before he took his hand away and picked up his belt.

Tony slowly stood up and pulled his pants carefully back into place. He turned around to face his boss and was met with a kind grin. "I'm proud of you, Tony," Gibbs said quietly.

"For what?" Tony asked in confusion. "What have I done lately that you could possibly be proud of?" He looked down and started digging his toe into the carpet.

Gibbs looked at the young man in front of him who was obviously very ashamed of himself. "You admitted your mistake and accepted the consequences. That takes a lot of courage – and a bit of maturity." Tony continued his attempt to dig through the floor. Gibbs tapped his finger under Tony's chin to get him to look up. "Next time, try to harvest some of that maturity before I have to take a strap to you. It'll just make things better for both of us. Got it?"

"Got it, Boss," Tony answered with a sheepish grin and a small sniff.

Gibbs studied him for a moment then inclined his head toward the door. Tony moved carefully toward the door to leave. "And I don't have to tell you to apologize to Kate when she gets back, do I?"

"No, Boss. I got that one," Tony said. He bathed in the light of another proud look from the man he respected more than any other man on earth before he turned and left the conference room.

When he'd gone, Gibbs collapsed into one of the chairs at the table, leaned back and put his hands behind his head. I know he's going to grow up someday, he thought, but he just might kill me before he does. The ringing phone snapped him back to attention – it was time to get back to work…NCIS work.

* * * * *

"Hey," Tony said quietly as he walked over to Kate's desk. She and McGee had just returned from picking up their new suspect.

She looked up as she dropped her badge and weapon into her drawer. She could see that Tony had been humbled and decided she didn't need to be mad at him anymore. "Are you ok?" she asked kindly.

Tony shrugged. "Listen, I'm really sorry. I was completely out of line," he said, fidgeting with the corner of the folder he was holding.

"I know. Don't worry about it," Kate said. She reached out and touched his arm for just a second. He nodded and walked away.

She watched him closely as he crossed the squad room and caught the wince as he eased himself into his chair and got back to work. She knew Gibbs must have laid into him pretty hard. The more Tony was hurting, the harder he tried to hide it.

Gibbs had come out of the conference room and started descending the stairs just as Tony walked over to Kate's desk. He stopped and watched as Tony apologized. But he was watching Kate when Tony sat down. He saw her brow wrinkle with concern and then continued his decent.

"DiNozzo," he said quietly as he passed Tony's desk. "Go see if Abby's gotten anywhere with the rest of the ballistics."

Tony got up and walked gingerly to the elevator, trying to cover up the fact that he was in pain. As soon as he was out of earshot, Gibbs turned to Kate. "Something you want to say to me?"

Kate stammered for a moment. "You didn't have to be that hard on him, Gibbs," she said finally. "I'm not saying he didn't deserve something, but he's really hurting." Concern clouded her face as she struggled with her own feelings of guilt.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "Tony knew what to expect. He was warned last time and he did it again anyway. Don't feel bad for him."

Kate nodded, but not convincingly.

"Do I need to start worrying about you not telling me when someone does something that hurts you because you'll feel guilty when they get punished for it?"

Kate shrugged.

He walked over and perched himself on the edge of her desk. "Kate," he said quietly and waited for her to look up. "What happened upstairs was between me and Tony, and to tell you the truth, very little of it had to do with you."

She looked at him for a moment before nodding slowly. "Ok," she whispered.

Gibbs went back to his own desk and reflected briefly on the fact that discipline involves so much more than just punishment for those who step out of line. Sometimes, it also includes helping the victim understand that the crime itself isn't always what garners the punishment, and that feeling guilty for getting someone in trouble is pointless.

Tony returned a few minutes later, having gotten a lot of sympathy from Abby, a hard punch in the arm when he told her what he'd done to deserve Gibbs' wrath, and then some more sympathy and a bone-crushing hug when she felt bad for punishing him for something he'd already been punished for. The squad room was unusually quiet for the rest of the day, and when Gibbs finally dismissed the team for the evening, they all gathered their belongings without a word.

Kate hung back as Tony slowly picked up his jacket and bag and McGee wisely gathered that she wanted to talk to Tony alone. He left quickly so that they could have the elevator to themselves.

When the doors closed on them, Kate reached over and hit the stop button. "You never answered my question," she said with a flirty smile.

Tony looked down at her. "What question?"

"Are you ok?"

Tony finally grinned. "Yeah, I'm ok. Thanks for asking."

"That's what friends are for," Kate shrugged as she allowed the elevator to resume its trip to the parking garage. "Do you want to get a pizza and watch a movie?" she asked.

"Not tonight. I just want to go home. I'm beat," Tony answered.

Kate laughed first at the inadvertent pun, and was surprised that she was so relieved when Tony laughed too. She knew that by morning, he'd be back to the old Tony she'd come to know and, when she was willing to admit it, love. He really was just like her brothers.

* * * * *

As soon as Tony got home, he went into the bathroom and peeled down his jeans and boxers. He looked in the mirror and was surprised to find that in spite of it still feeling pretty tenderized, the skin on his butt was barely even pink anymore – with one notable exception. There, just at the top of his thighs were two distinct, red lines that had been formed by one well-placed lash of the belt. He pulled his pants off, walked to his bedroom and put on a pair of sweats. As he flopped down on his stomach on the couch and turned on the TV, he huffed out a frustrated sigh. "You're such an idiot, sometimes, Anthony," he reprimanded himself out loud. As he drifted off to sleep though, he smiled as he remembered what Gibbs had said to him after he'd whipped him. Yeah. Next time…