A/N1: This fic is totally unrelated to my Unconditional series, other than it contains Gibbs and Tony. It's based on a one- shot called 'Peruvian Steel' by Mahiri Chuma, who has kindly given me permission to expand on a paragraph from that fic. Per. St. is a sweet little one-shot, go read it, especially if you're a Tony/Gibbs hurt/comfort junkie like I am. Hope you enjoy, and a big thanks to my sweet beta Bunny.

Note: Set sometime in the first season.

Agent Kate Todd pretended to ignore the fact that her boss was rifling through her partner's desk. After all, it was one of Tony's own favorite pastimes to paw through everybody else's desk looking for whatever had him obsessed at the moment - a phone number, address, invitation - any number of what he considered 'legitimate' reasons for invading a co-worker's privacy. And seeing as how her boss was LJ Gibbs, she was inclined to let him rifle through any damned desk he had a mind to. But quite honestly, she couldn't imagine anything in Tony's desk that Gibbs might want. No matter. None of her business. Besides, Gibbs had been known to swipe a clean shirt from Tony's file cabinet on occasion. Maybe that's all he was looking for.

"WHAT. THE. HELL." Her boss's angry voice brought her to attention whether she wanted to be or not. Okay, this was SO not good. What in God's name had Gibbs found in DiNozzo's desk to spark a curse so loud the entire floor probably heard it? She thought she didn't want to know. SHOULDN'T know. Plausible deniability. She heard Tony's chair slam back from his desk, Gibb's body slam down into the chair, and a succession of loud rattling noises follow. Several of them, in fact. She had to look up.

There, piled in the middle of Tony's desk were at least a dozen bottles of prescription pills - maybe even closer to twenty, she couldn't really see them all from her desk. But she could see her boss's face very well, and it gave her the sudden urge to run out of the building and maybe even go jump into the cold Potomac just to be on the safe side. It told of a fury normally reserved for the most heinous of suspects. She wondered if she could surreptitiously call Tony and warn him, then decided against it. This was going to be a helluva shitstorm, and she didn't want her name anywhere near it when it blew into the bullpen.

When she heard the ding of the elevator, and Tony's casual form stride out of it, she ducked her head evasively. Maybe she'd take a bathroom break. She was just rising out of her seat when her boss's voice halted her.

"Stay, Agent Todd. Don't want you to miss the show."

She collapsed back down into her chair with a loud sigh.

"Miss WHAT show? Boss, what're you doing at -"

The rest of the sentence evaporated instantly in Tony's brain when he saw what was piled up in the middle of his desk. He stopped dead in his tracks, but when he saw his boss's face, all he could think of was running for his life, which now, he thought grimly, was probably over. The team lead was livid, his face almost crimson with anger, and his eyes glinting hard and feral. He couldn't ever remember seeing a look like that on Gibb's face. And he had seen a lotof the bossman's faces over the years.

"Boss, I - " Tony started, using 'the best offense is a good defense' strategy.

"Not. Another. Word."

Tony swallowed hard. For the life of him he couldn't imagine why Gibbs was so pissed over bottles of pills. What the hell, did he think he was saving them to sell on the street or something?

"Sit!" Gibbs barked, and Tony sat. And waited. While Gibbs silently paced around him. He could hear the man breathing hard and knew he was trying to control his anger. Tony bleakly thought he wasn't doing a very good job.

"You LIKE feeling pain, Tony? Is THAT the only thing that makes you feel like you're alive?"

"Boss -" Tony's voice was hard and flat. "Not here. Please."

"Why NOT here, DiNozzo? You don't mind sharing everything ELSE about your life with your team, HELL, the whole BUILDING knows everything about you!"

"Not everything, Boss. Can't we talk about this in your office?"

"We're talking about it HERE, DiNozzo, suck it up! Now I'm asking you a question and I need an answer! DO-YOU-LIKE-PAIN?"

Alright. Enough was enough. If his boss wanted to be a prick in front of the entire floor, Tony wasn't going down without a fight.

"Yeah, Boss, as a matter of fact, I guess I do, I've been working for you for three years now, you'd think I'd be NUMB to it, but YEAH, I get off on pain! I couldn't get enough of it as a kid, either, just ask my old man! That's why I got into sports, why I went into law enforcement, so I could get the snot kicked out of me on a regular basis! Unlike YOU, who goes to the ER EVERYTIME he gets hurt and NEVER throws away the scripts that Ducky writes for him!"

"This isn't ABOUT me, DiNozzo!" Gibbs practically screamed his frustration at having the table turned on himself.

"This is ALL about you, Boss. This is about you trying to control every aspect of my life on the job. When I can eat, when I can piss, when I can leave my freaking desk!"

"Yeah, it's called being your god damned BOSS, and anytime that doesn't SIT right with you, you know where the Hoover Building is!"

Well. Alright then. How many times had Gibbs thrown THAT in his face, Fornell's standing offer to join the Feebie gang. Tony knew it grated on his boss no end that Fornell would smack him down in front of Gibbs, then offer him a job behind the team lead's back.

"Tell you what," Tony stated calmly, un-holstering his Sig and then unclipping his badge and laying them on his desk top along with the bottles. "You've already cleaned these outta my desk, why don't you clean the rest of the shit out, just put what's mine in a box and - "

"Tony..." Gibbs growled warningly, but he was ignored.

"NO, Gibbs, this ends here! You don't get to keep throwing that in my face whenever you get pissed at me and want me see things your way! Why the hell would you CARE if I take my damned pain pills, you're always telling me to 'suck it up, tough it out, quit bein' a baby!' Am I missing anything? Now you're pissed 'cause I don't take a god damned pill? You keep them for the NEXT guy, I bet he'll be suckin' them down like Pez once you get your hooks into him."

He turned to a thoroughly shaken Kate. "Kate, do me a favor and make sure Ducky gets my Mighty Mouse stapler. You get my American Pie mug." He turned back to Gibbs. "YOU - get to see my ass headed out the door, just like you're always threatening to do."

And with that, Tony grabbed up his backpack and strode to the elevator as both Kate and Gibbs watched him go with open mouths.

"Boss, you're - not gonna just let him walk OUT of here like that, are you?"

Gibbs grabbed up Tony's weapon and badge and headed for his desk. "He'll be back!" he waved his hand matter-of-factly. "He's just trying to prove a point. A really stupid point..."

"But he left his weapon and badge!"

"Yup. Got 'em in my hand."

"But -" Kate continued to protest.

"Get back to work, Kate." Gibbs almost added 'or you'll be turning in your badge and weapon too', but thought better of it. A mutiny of half his team was bad enough, he'd never hear the end of it if Kate went on strike, too. Because, after all, that's all Tony was doing, throwing a temper tantrum and running away from home because nobody understood him. Gibbs had done it a time or two himself when he was a kid, and was always back before dinner.

. . . . .

Gibbs looked at his watch for what was probably the tenth time that afternoon. It had been nearly 7 hours since his meltdown with his SFA.

Guess the kid decided to just take the rest of the day off.

It was past quitting time, and Gibbs refused to admit he had kept Kate and himself late in hopes that Tony would show up before they left. Kate had spoken to him only when spoken to. He knew she was pissed with him, too. She and Tony were so often like oil and water, but Gibbs knew Tony was a younger brother to Kate, and while SHE may get to pick on him, no one else was allowed to, especially in such spectacular fashion.

Now Gibbs had to admit a few things, if only to himself…one of which was that he should've done what Tony had asked and taken the confrontation to his elevator office. Hindsight. And Gibbs was kicking himself hard for it.

"Go home, Agent Todd," Gibbs announced loudly, out of nowhere. He kept his voice firm, authoritative. No letting her know he'd screwed up. And hell, it was DiNozzo's fault, being arrogant enough to think he could back Gibbs down and come out on top. Never gonna happen. His team, his way, or hit the highway. DiNozzo knew that when he'd signed on anyways, what the hell did he expect? Gibbs heard Kate sigh as she picked up her pack and coat and fled the bullpen.

"If DiNozzo calls you, you tell 'im nothing's changed in the last seven hours!" he called after her.

"Yup, will do!" she replied tightly, and hurled herself into the elevator before her boss could come after her too.

. . . . .

It was almost 2200 when Gibbs heard someone come through his front door. He was at his dining room table, writing out checks for some bills and nursing a bottle of bourbon.

About damned TIME the kid got over it, he grumbled to himself and dug out another glass for his guest. He was figuring DiNozzo would've been there earlier and brought dinner, but he'd wolfed down a couple of PBJs and some booze and now he wasn't hungry anymore anyways.

"You go cryin' to Kate first or Abby?" he asked snarkily without looking up from his bill-paying.

"Neither one, Jethro. Why would I be CRYING, I got one of the best agents in the business working for me now."

Gibb's head flew up from his papers. It couldn't be Fornell and he couldn't have just said what he'd said. Fornell could easily read the shock and anger on his friend's face, but chose to ignore it as he put both hands on the dining room table and leaned over into Gibb's space.

"How long did you think you could push him like that, Jethro? Even a DOG runs away if he gets kicked too many times."

"Wasn't pushing him, I was -"

"Was what? Backing him into a corner? Or over a cliff? 'Cause he landed kinda hard by the look on his face when he showed up at my office."

"I did it for his own -"

"Don't you DARE tell me you did it for his own good, you stubborn bastard! You poked him with the same sharp stick one too many times and he grabbed it away from you and USED it on ya!"

"I found sixteen bottles of painkillers in his desk drawer. Who the hell doesn't take them when their arm or leg feels like it's gonna fall off? He likes PAIN, Tobias, he gets high on the pain instead of the pills!"

"Oh, Christ, do you HEAR yourself, Jethro? That kid does everything you tell him to do, without question, with blind trust -"

"It's NOT blind!"

"If YOU do it, or DON'T do it, then it's the right thing to do or NOT do. Why don't you ever even get your own scripts FILLED, Jethro? No insurance? Co-pay too high? Can't get a ride to the pharmacy? You can't pull the 'do as I say, not as I do' card on him, he won't take it! He sees you go without them, thinks,'Well HELL, if Daddy Gibbs doesn't need them, I sure as hell don't, he's got seventeen years on me!' WISE UP, Jethro, make sure the next agent you get on your team is either your age or dumb as a post. Or both."

"I'm not getting another agent, DiNozzo's just stringin' us both along."

"Oh REALLY, that must be why he spent the afternoon in Human Resources filling out paperwork and answering questions. Oh, and the gals love 'im there, they're already making lists of who's bringing what dessert for his breaks. You did me a favor, Jethro. I was going to start looking for a new agent next week. Don't need to now."

Gibbs stared the man in the eyes, looking for any sign of deceit on his part. He couldn't find any. He dropped his own eyes to the table and stared at the bottom of his bourbon glass instead.

"You - you take CARE of him, Tobias," he finally said in a measured but shaky voice. "I won't be able to watch his six anymore." He looked back up at the man with a lethal gleam in his eyes. "Anything happens to him on your watch and I'll hunt you down like a dog, friend or not."

"No guarantees, Jethro, you KNOW that. Even YOU couldn't keep him out of trouble or he never would've needed all those pain pills in the first place."

"Yeah. Guess you're right." Gibb's voice was quiet...defeated. "I did a shitty job all 'round with him. Should've expected it to all blow up in my god damned face."

"I'll bring 'im by for custody visits, Gibbs. After he cools down a little, that is. Might be a few weeks, though, he was blowin' steam out of his ears when he barged into my office."

"Yeah. Bet he was." Gibbs downed the two fingers of bourbon in his glass in one gulp. "Night, Tobias," he dismissed the man, as he got up from the table and headed to his basement. "You always wanted a son. Now ya GOT one." The basement door slammed.

"Yeah," Fornell mumbled, fishing in his pocket for his keys. "Yours. Too bad you didn't appreciate him when ya had him."

A/N2: This started out as a one-shot and as usual, morphed into something bigger and angstier than I had originally planned. There will be at least one other chapter to it.