After a little playground drama, Tony has to deal with the fact that Tali really is Ziva’s daughter—through and through.
For @why-did-you-just-lie-to-mcgee and @indestinatus, with whom I’m always getting into trouble.
Also on ff and AO3
“Before I start talking, do you three have anything to say for yourselves?”
Arms crossed, Tony paces the short length of the dining room, watched closely by three dirty, nervous children. They’re sitting side by side at the table, chairs scooted close together as they huddle in solidarity, and they remain determinedly quiet.
“Alright then. Go ahead and tell me what you’ve done.”
None of them respond to this, either.
Frowning, Tony pulls out a chair opposite his daughter and sits down. “Sweetheart,” he tries again, “I happen to know that you speak no fewer than three languages. I also know that you know I spent a lot of time in law enforcement… I’m pretty good at getting information out of people. You’re smart and you’re very eloquent when you want to be, so when I ask again, I expect a reply this time: what happened?”
Tali’s expression turns at once from anxious to defiant, and she matches her father’s earlier posture by crossing her arms. Then she looks away, silent as ever.
“Well, Tali?” Tony prompts, feeling distinctly Gibbs-ish as he leans in and narrows his eyes.
Finally, Tali gives an answer, but it’s muttered mutinously under her breath and Tony doesn’t catch any of her words.
“I said,” she growls back, looking distinctly Ziva-ish, “that it wasn’t my fault.”
“Whose fault was it, then?”
“Gabriel’s. He started it.”
“What did he start? This would all be so much easier if you would just start from the beginning, baby girl.”
Tali huffs, glancing between her friends—neither girl looks particularly eager to jump in. As always, she has to do every dang thing herself! “Fine. We went to the park to practice, and—”
“Dad, you said it’s rude to interrupt! Ugh. We went to the park to practice krav maga. Gabriel saw us, and he asked what we were doing. I told him. Then he said we had to stop—we couldn’t do it ‘cause girls are weak!”
Tony files the ‘krav maga’ thing away to circle back to in a moment and focuses on the rest of the story. “And that started a fight?”
“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?”
“Well, I said ‘maybe someday you can work your way up to “weak,” too,’ and that started a fight.”
Tony has to look away for a moment to compose himself, certain that he’ll laugh if he keeps looking at her. “I see,” he manages after a moment, his lips twitching dangerously but his face otherwise kept carefully blank. “Who threw the first punch?”
“Gabriel did!” Tali’s friend Geneviève pipes up, looking braver now that it seems for the moment that they’re not going to be yelled at.
“And how did you three respond to that, ladies?”
“We just did what Tali has been teaching us, all the krav maga stuff!” This one comes from the third girl, Dina.
Tony glances back at his daughter, who suddenly looks a little shifty-eyed again. “How long has that been going on?”
Tali shrugs uncomfortably.
“Are you qualified to teach krav maga, Tals?”
“Do you know how to do it safely so no one gets injured?”
“Wouldn’t you feel bad if Geneviève or Dina was hurt because you didn’t know what you were doing?”
“But you think it’s still okay to hold krav maga lessons in the park?”
Frustrated, Tali bangs her palm suddenly on the table top, making both of her friends jump. “Yes!” she cries. “Because Ima said that every girl should know how to fight! She’s been teaching me!”
Well, that’s news to Tony. “She has, has she?”
“I just said so, didn’t I!?”
It’s a pretty common consensus around the David-DiNozzos that Tali takes after her father in most things, but… every so often, on days like this, she proves that she’s most certainly her mother’s child. Her temper is usually the thing that gives it away.
“Don’t snap at me, young lady,” Tony responds sternly, but honestly, he wants to laugh again.
“Hmph.” Tali makes her displeasure known with a glower, and she thumps back in her seat.
Letting her stew for a moment, Tony glances back and forth between the other girls. “Did she tell the whole story?”
There appears to be a little silent communication that happens between the two, and then they turn back to him and nod in unison.
“You sure about that?” he questions, his tone warning them not to lie. “You had to think about it for a little too long before you answered.”
Geneviève frowns, considering. “It’s just…” She pauses. “Gabriel plays in the park a lot. He doesn’t play like the other kids, though. He’s mean.”
“Yeah, he’s a bully!” Dina concurs earnestly.
A few feet away, the lock on the front door slides free and the door opens, but the girls have their backs to it and don’t notice. Dina keeps talking. “He pulls my hair sometimes. Gabriel, he…” she wrinkles her nose and says something else that’s definitely not in French, which is what they’ve been speaking from the beginning of this “meeting.”
Over the girls’ heads, Tony sees Ziva’s eyes widen as she walks in, and he knows that she must have understood whatever Dina just said. “Do you say words like that to your own parents, Dina?” his wife asks pointedly.
All three girls jump and turn around guiltily.
“I, um…” Dina stammers. Like Tali, she’s a multilingual daughter of immigrants, and she seems to have forgotten that Ziva speaks many languages—including Russian.
Ziva holds her reproachful expression in place for a beat before relaxing into a small, almost conspiratorial smile. “I will not tell… because I am sure that you are right. I think he did.”
Dina smiles shyly back, surprised, and Ziva joins Tony on his side of the table. It seems that she somehow knows the basics of what went down in the park, so he doesn’t bother to bring her up to speed.
“Well,” Tony continues, drawing the attention of all three ten-year-olds back to himself, “I’m glad that none of you are hurt—and I’m glad Gabriel isn’t, either,” he adds. “But while knowing how to defend yourself is a good thing, you should never resort to violence unless you have no other choice, okay? Three people against one really isn’t a fair fight.”
Dina and Geneviève nod seriously, but Tali just snorts and mutters something under her breath in Hebrew. Whatever it is makes Ziva let out a strangled noise—Tony’s pretty sure that the noise is an aborted laugh. This entire series of events has him feeling the same way, but someone has to be the bad cop here…
So he nudges Tali’s foot under the table with his own. “Okay, Tali-Tee?”
Feeling like his fatherly duty has been fulfilled, Tony relaxes a little. “Alright. Now that that’s cleared up, you can go play again, but please, Jackie Chan and co., at least try not to start any more wars.”
Tali perks up slightly. “We’re not in trouble?”
“Not this time. But if I ever hear about you initiating any fights, I’m shipping you off to live with Grandpa Gibbs. He’ll set you straight.”
Tali is well aware that Grandpa Gibbs is wrapped around her little finger, so she grins. “Okay! We won’t!”
“Yeah, no fights for us!” Geneviève agrees.
“We won’t punch anyone!” Dina finishes, and without another thought, all three girls have flounced back out the door to return to the park.
Left alone with just Ziva, Tony starts to laugh, scrubbing his face with both hands. “God... and to think I used to hate the fact that I never got to see what you were like as a kid! Now I not only know a baby Ziva, I have to parent her, too!”
Ziva chuckles as well, laying a hand on her husband’s back and drifting it up to squeeze his shoulder fondly. “You handled it well, do not worry.”
Tony lifts his head to look at her, amused. “I wouldn’t have had to handle anything if you hadn’t decided to teach her Israeli martial arts.”
Ziva shrugs, entirely unrepentant. “I think she should be able to protect herself, and besides… it runs in her blood.”
“I guess it does… Lord help me, the only mere mortal in the middle of two born-and-bred ninjas. If Tali’s already picking fights with bullies at ten, I’m not going to survive her growing up.” He rolls his eyes, but he catches Ziva’s hand from his shoulder and squeezes it comfortably. “Anyway, how’d you find out what happened?”
“I ran into Gabriel’s mother on my way into the building.”
“Bet she wasn’t too pleased, was she?”
“No, she was not. But I told her that if my daughter hit her son, she almost certainly had an excellent reason for doing so.”
“You’ve never liked that kid, have you?”
Tony snorts. “Well, maybe he’ll stay away from the girls now.”
“It will be to his own detriment if he does not!”
“I’ll say. Tali can be fierce when she puts her mind to it, and Dina and Geneviève… Those three have always egged each other on. You know they get a little crazy when they’re all together—it’s total chaos, more often than not.”
“I am glad that Tali has them.”
“Me, too. They’re good friends to her, even if they’re always getting each other into trouble.” Tony pauses for a second, remembering something. “Hey, what did Dina say?”
Ziva laughs. “To translate it delicately, she said something like ‘that reproductive-organ-of-a-male-walrus deserved to be hit.’”
“I like the creativity… very Russian. And what did Tali say, right there at the end?”
“She was arguing with you… you said that three-against-one is not a fair fight, but she said that is not true here because Gabriel is stupid enough for three people all by himself.”
That really makes Tony laugh, and in the end, all he can think to reply is a thought that he’s already expressed today: “Lord, help... that girl is going to be the death of me.”
He really doesn’t mind, though.
