Discovery – Part Five by Ladyholder

Reading Time:
18 Minutes

Art by Polaris

“Hey Tony!”

“Hey, Eileen!” Tony called from the kitchen. He had the prime rib roast he’d bought on Monday out and was staring at it.

“Why are you staring at the meat?” Eileen asked. She had a grocery bag in her hand and set it on the counter before walking over to stand at his elbow. “What’s the plan?”

“Roast beef, mashed potatoes, asparagus, gravy, sourdough bread, and salad,” Tony said, ticking off what he had planned. “I’ve also got cheesecake.”

“Okay. I’ve got the appetizers,” Eileen said, shaking the grocery bag. “What do you need me to get started?”

“There are only three of us right now,” Tony warned. “I’m going to cook all of the food so I can meal prep the leftovers, because I don’t think you, me, and Andrew can finish all of this.”

“Aaron, Hailey, and baby Jack are holed up at their home?” Eileen asked. “I know Martin’s in Chicago, and where’s Mike?”

“Mike is somewhere. I don’t know where,” Tony said with a shrug. “He didn’t expect it would go this long, but it was very last-minute. And you’re right, Aaron said that they expected that they’d want to stay home.”

“Hailey just had a baby. I can’t say as I blame her,” Eileen said. She started unpacking her bag, and Tony glanced at what she’d brought. A whole bunch of pickles, cheese, and crackers to be opened and arranged on a platter she’d pulled down from a cabinet. “I know we heal fast, but baby Jack is very new. Do we know if he’s a shifter?”

“He is. Type currently unknown. When the umbilical cord was cut, his belly button healed immediately. Since both of his parents are wolves, we think he’s going to be too,” Tony said. He moved the roast out of the butcher paper it had been sitting in and placed it in his dedicated roasting pan. A quick flick of his wrist set the oven to ripping hot, and while that was heating, he made sure to smear the meat with the seasoning mix he’d picked. Garlic and pepper heavy, it would taste amazing when it was done.

“Well, that’s good news,” Eileen said. She washed her hands and dropped the cloche over the top of the food before setting it on the table. “Salad?”

“Please,” Tony said before turning to check the recipe he’d printed out. A little math done, he set his timer, and he pushed the roast into the oven, and firmly closed the door. The roast had an hour in the oven, and then he had to turn the heat off for about 2 hours and keep the oven door closed. He couldn’t peek.

“When is that going to be ready?” Eileen asked as she cut the carrots for the salad.

“It’ll finish cooking in about three hours. No peeking, no opening the oven to catch a sniff. Leave it totally alone. If you open it, you don’t get any of what I can salvage,” Tony warned.

“I’ll leave it alone!” Elieen said, holding her hands up in surrender.

“Good,” Tony said. He walked over to his to-do list for the meal and checked off what he’d gotten done. He had over an hour before he needed to start anything else. Which meant that he could graze on Elieen’s goodies.

“Do you have any hints on where Mike is?” Eileen asked as she arranged the vegetables on the salad.

“No. And neither do you,” Tony said. He eyed her closely when she made a protesting noise. “I know we’re investigators. I know we can likely figure out what’s happening. But neither of us has the clearances to know what Mike’s up to.”

Eileen huffed softly as she stopped working on the salad to stare at him. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Tony said evenly. “No matter what you’re thinking, we’re not going to speculate. Because that’s how things get said in the wrong places.”

“Fair,” Eileen said after several seconds of thought. “But it’s fun to speculate?”

“It can be very fun to speculate,” Tony agreed. “I enjoy doing that a lot and then comparing my speculations to the facts that are reported. But I don’t actually talk about my speculations that aren’t related to my job at NCIS. Due to my position with NCIS, and as Mike’s Alpha, I could cause some very distressing waves if the wrong party hears me.”

“Right,” Eileen drew the word out before she frowned. “Why do you have to talk sense?”

“Because it’s my job to make sure that you’re free to grow old on this side of any prison bars,” Tony said dryly. “And you would not look good in prison orange.”

“No, I would not,” Eileen agreed before she shuddered. “Okay, I’ll keep my speculations inside my own head.”

“Good,” Tony said. He opened the cloche and hummed happily as he popped one of the cornichons into his mouth. “Yum.”

“I went to that gourmet grocer by my place and wandered up and down the aisles to find what looked good,” Eileen said. She reached over and snagged a pickled green bean and crunched on it. “Oh. Spicy!”

Tony took one of the green beans as well and popped it into his mouth. The spicy, vinegary hit of the vegetable exploded in his mouth, and he nodded in appreciation. “That’s great. I’ll have to make sure that I pick up a jar or two of that. Because yeah, they’re good.”

“I wonder what else I can use them for?” Eileen mused as she assembled a small bite of meat and cheese. “Salads?”

“They would add a good bite to one,” Tony agreed. When Loki hopped up on one of the chairs and planted his paws on the table to sniff at the nibbles plate, Tony picked him up and set him on the floor. “You don’t get that, you little mooch.”

From the way Loki was bitching, he wasn’t happy with Tony’s actions. He didn’t care since the cat didn’t need pickled vegetables, cheese, or preserved meats. None of it was good for him, and Loki didn’t care because it was food and the humans were eating it, so he wanted to too. Tony did because he didn’t want to clean up any issues his cat would have.

Eileen laughed and picked Loki up to cuddle him. “Hey, little man. What have you been doing this week?”

“What he does every week, try to take over the world by stealing food from Mike and me,” Tony said as he reached out to scratch under Loki’s chin. “And when he’s not doing that, he’s trying to sleep by my head. I woke up to him grooming my eyebrows.”

“Oh, my god,” Eileen giggled as she tucked her face against Loki’s fur before handing the cat over to Tony. “Aren’t you so sweet to your daddy?”

“Any being that coughs up a hairball in my slippers is not sweet,” Tony griped. He cuddled his cat as the great beast relaxed in his hold. “He’s a little shit.”

“He’s your big baby,” Eileen said with another giggle before she stepped back. “When is Andrew getting in?”

Tony turned to look at the time and shrugged. “He should be here any moment now.”

Eileen went over to the door and opened it before stepping out. Tony had gotten a reinforced door right after Mike had moved in as an additional source of security, and that change had cut down on their ability to hear through it. Cocking her head to the side, she tried to determine if she could identify Andrew’s heartbeat out of the mass of noise in the hallways.

It took several seconds to separate everything, and she was just about ready to call it a day before she heard the recognizable beat of Andrew’s heart. Traveling alongside him was a second heartbeat that she knew. Mike was home as well.

Opening the door back into Tony’s condo, she automatically blocked Loki from escaping into the hallway. “Tony, Andrew is on his way up, and Mike’s with him.”

“That’s good news!” Tony said. He sounded much happier at the thought of Mike being home, and Eileen couldn’t blame him. He was always a bit down when his partner wasn’t home.

Eileen closed the door again and waited for her packmates to arrive. From what she could hear, Mike and Andrew were talking about DC’s chances of getting a baseball team. She was pretty much indifferent to that but did agree with Andrew that it would be fun to go to a game or two.

But she was also thinking about Mike. And the unexpected trip he’d taken. And the state of the world. She wasn’t going to speculate out loud, because Tony had been right. Their pack was small, but the jobs the various members had meant that they were very well connected, and so there were eyes on them. And none of them needed those eyes to be suspicious.

She would keep an eye on the news and see if she had been right. If Mike had been with the VP at a private, off-the-books meeting with someone politically sensitive? Well. Loose lips could sink ships, and she wasn’t going to be the cause of a sinking.

When the elevator dinged, she bounced on her toes before settling down as the doors opened. “Andrew, Mike! Good to see you!”

Mike looked like hell. Tired and rough around the edges, but not hurt. She was going to suggest that he take advantage of the time it was going to take for dinner to be ready and catch a nap.

“Good to see you as well, Eileen!” Andrew called.

Mike waved at her with a tired smile and glanced at the door. “Hey, Eileen.”

“Mike,” Eileen said. “He’s inside, cooking.”

“Oh, good,” he said before he reached past her to open the door.

Eileen laughed softly as she caught Loki when he ran out the door again. “Seriously, cat. You aren’t supposed to get out. You wouldn’t have staff if you returned to the wild.”

Loki scrabbled slightly in her arms as he tried to get down before he went limp. Eileen walked back into the condo, and Andrew closed the door behind them. She dropped Loki on his cat tree and scritched him under his chin before turning to look at Tony and Mike. They were wrapped around each other as they walked back to their bedroom, and she sighed in appreciation. Damn, they were pretty.

“From the smell, I’m guessing that the roast is in the oven?” Andrew asked quietly.

“Yup. Don’t touch the oven while it’s cooking. I’ve already been threatened,” Eileen warned.

“Understood. No partner?” Andrew asked. He was glancing around the living room and raised an eyebrow at her.

“No. We broke up because they couldn’t handle cases pulling me out of bed at 3 AM,” Eileen said. She frowned at the thought of the shit her partner had screamed at her as they were breaking up. “Honestly, I don’t want to date in the office, but it’s not like I’m going to find the right person at Starbucks. Although there might be less drama if they’re another agent.”

“Almost all of the people I know are lawyers, and I don’t think you want to date any of them,” Andrew said with a wry grin. “So, I get it.”

“What about you? Are you dating anyone?” Eileen asked. “You were seeing that lady a few months ago, and then you stopped mentioning her.”

“Eh. She decided to reveal that she’s a bigot and I’m not going to associate with someone who distains my friends and family,” Andrew said with a huff. “And then I found out that I’m on the short list for a judgeship.”

“A judgeship? What court?” Tony asked. He had his arms wrapped around Mike, and they were leaning against each other.

“The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,” Andrew said. “I’ve been told that I’m one of the finalists under review.”

“Holy shit,” Tony said with a smile. “Congratulations!”

“Thank you,” Andrew said.

Eileen offered her own congratulations to Andrew as she thought of how this potential change to his job would change things for their pack. Her thoughts earlier about the eyes on them felt prescient. If Andrew got that judgeship, more eyes would be on them than before. And that would make things very interesting indeed.

“Hey,” Tony said to Mike as his partner pulled his suit off. “We’re a few hours away from dinner. Take a nap.”

“I plan to,” Mike said with a small yawn. He walked over and wrapped his arm around Tony and leaned into him again. “The last three days sucked.”

“I’m not going to ask,” Tony said. “But please let me know what I can do to support you?”

“Just be there for me?” Mike asked. He tucked his face into Tony’s shoulder and breathed in his scent. “Nothing bad happened. We were just up for most of the time we were away.”

“Then Eileen is right. You need to take a nap. We’ve got around two hours yet before dinner is ready. I’ll wake you when I’m ready to mash the potatoes,” Tony said before he pressed a kiss to the side of Mike’s head.

“Okay,” Mike said. He sagged against Tony for another minute or so before he pushed away and finished undressing.

Tony kept a close eye on his partner as he got down to his skivvies, and he didn’t see any evidence of prior wounds. He was just tired. When Mike crawled into their bed, he made sure to press another kiss to his head before he left him to his nap.

As he walked down the hallway to the living room, Tony let his senses expand until he could hear everything in the condo. Eileen and Andrew were discussing their love lives, and Tony listened without shame. Neither of them had managed to find a long-term partner, and he knew that both of them were looking. He wasn’t the type to play yenta, so he had to trust they would find partners on their own.

Maybe he’d reach out to Lee to see if he had any ideas on helping pack members date. While Lee didn’t have the yenta vibe, Amanda certainly did.

He reached down into himself and touched each of his pack bonds and smiled as each of them reached back. The feel of each of them was a comfort. Aaron, Hailey, Martin, Eileen, and Andrew.

“Stop being maudlin, you git!” Andrew called. “Your timer is about 30 seconds away from screaming!”

“Shit!” Tony cursed as he hauled ass into the kitchen. He slapped the timer off with four seconds to spare and turned the oven firmly off. As soon as he heard the oven click off, he reset the timer for two hours and let the attached magnet stick it to the hood over the stove. “Thanks, Andrew. Do not open the oven.”

“Oookay,” Andrew drawled. “Do you want beer or wine with dinner?”

“The demi-glace recipe I made way back when had wine,” Tony said. He made a face at himself and went to check the freezer for a pint of the stuff. Once he had that in hand, he set it on the counter to start thawing. “So, I’m going to go for wine. Mike will probably want a beer. I have Guinness for him.”

“Do you want me to peel the potatoes?” Andrew asked.

“Not right now. We’ve still got two hours for the roast to cook, and then it’s got to rest for about thirty minutes before I can start slicing it. We can start prepping the vegetables in about an hour or so,” Tony decided. He checked his list and saw that the asparagus had already been prepped, so all he’d need to do with that was steam it before adding it to a pan with butter and garlic. “You know, I’m glad we don’t have any issues with garlic. Can you imagine how sad that would be?”

“I’m not giving up my garlic bread, Tony. You can’t make me,” Andrew said firmly. He popped one of the cloves of pickled garlic in his mouth and crunched down before making a noise of appreciation. “Please tell me you saved all the jars from these? I want some for my lunches.”

“Your coworkers will love it when you ooze garlic out of your pores,” Tony said, amused. “And the jar is in the trash.”

“I won’t get fleas, so there’s that,” Andrew said. He opened the trash and plucked out each of the jars inside it. Once they were lined up on the counter, he started taking pictures of them. “Do you want me to send you these?”

“Please,” Tony said. He reached over and grabbed one of the garlic cloves and ate it. “Yum.”

“Do you want me to save Mike a plate of these?” Eileen asked.

“Please. There’s a small, divided bento box in the cabinet by your head,” Tony directed. He picked the bag of potatoes up and added it to the sink. “Should I do the full ten pounds?”

“Yes,” Andrew said firmly before he dropped the jars back in the trash. He quickly washed and dried his hands before he snagged some of the cheese on the appetizer plate. He waved his hands at Tony like he was trying to explain himself as he chewed.

“If you’re going to wave your hands at me like an Italian Nanna, I’m going to insist you learn ASL so I can actually understand you,” Tony said. He pulled open the bag of potatoes to start sorting them out.

“You’re an asshole,” Andrew said after he swallowed. “Really.”

“You’ve known that since we were in college,” Tony reminded him. “Now, what did that flail actually mean?”

“If there’s leftover mashed potatoes, you could make potato pancakes,” Andrew explained. He waved his hand at the refrigerator. “I know you have all the stuff to go with them, too.”

“Ohhh,” Eileen cooed as she loaded up the bento box for Mike. “I don’t remember you making those?”

“I hate frying stuff. It makes a massive mess and stinks up the house,” Tony said. He tossed one potato in the trash for being squishy. The rest of them seemed like they were fine, so he washed the worst of the dirt off and then let the sink drain. They could stay in there until it was time to peel them.

“Oh,” Andrew sat up and looked at him before glancing at Eileen. “If we promise to help clean up, can we do a fry night?”

Tony grimaced as he thought of the scents that would be lingering in his house after something like that. “Maybe in the fall? So, we can open the windows and let the breeze in to help air it all out?”

“Excellent!” Andrew said. He went over to stare at Tony’s cookbooks and pulled down his new one on Chinese cuisine. “I know we’ve got the vacuum sealer. And I know my toaster oven makes stuff crispy again… We can freeze whatever we don’t eat, right?”

“You want to fry what?” Eileen asked. She had the notebook they used to plan pack dinners out and had flipped it open to a blank page. “I’m thinking October? It’s normally cool enough during the day that we’d be willing to keep the windows open and yet, won’t be all sticky, either.”

“Sounds good,” Tony allowed. “Egg rolls, the potato pancakes. Maybe latkes.”

“French fries wouldn’t stand up, would they?” Andrew asked.

“Cooking them in the oven is easy enough. Or if you must have some immediately, go to McDonald’s. They have the best commercial ones,” Tony suggested. “Fried chicken. But not fried fish. That stinks too much.”

“I’m all for the fried chicken,” Eileen agreed. She was busy writing down Tony’s ideas and tapped her pen against the page. “There’s a nice fish and chips place that just opened. I can send you the address?”

“Are you talking about the one that opened over at Union Market?” Tony asked. When she nodded, he smirked. “I’ve been there. It was like getting a serving of them in London. Delicious.”

“I want that address,” Andrew requested. “That sounds amazing.”

Eileen pulled one of the Post-it notes off the back of the notebook and wrote down the address to the shop before she and Tony froze and looked at the front door. “Martin is in Chicago. He’d have told us if he was going to be coming home, right?”

“Yup. Six weeks from now was the last timeline I had,” Tony said. He moved to stand by his gun safe and placed his hand over it so the palm reader could open the little box. He’d barely gotten the small door open when the door to the condo opened, and he could hear Aaron’s heartbeat. “Aaron?” he asked as he firmly closed the door to the safe.

“Hey Tony,” Aaron said. He had the car seat Hailey had chosen in hand, and there was a very fast heartbeat resting in it. “Hailey didn’t want anything I suggested for dinner, she didn’t want to cook, and she growled at me when I suggested takeout. But she was very happy at the thought of coming over here.”

“He’s missing the part where I wanted to introduce my son to a part of his pack,” Hailey said as she followed Aaron into the condo. “Where’s Loki? Normally, he’s trying to run out.”

“Mike’s sleeping, and Loki is supervising,” Tony said. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

Aaron set Jack’s car seat on the table and walked over to stand in front of him. “I may have become an Alpha, but you are still my Alpha, Anthony DiNozzo. And that means that we’re going to show up here for full moon runs every chance we get.”

Tony took a deep breath and nodded once before he pulled Aaron into a hug. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Aaron murmured. “Now. Do you want to hold your godson?”

“Really?” Tony asked as he stepped out of the hug.

“Yup,” Aaron said after glancing at his wife. At her nod, he went to take Jack out of the car seat and carefully handed the baby over to Tony. “Here he is.”

Tony carefully cradled the baby and smiled down at the small life in his hands. “Hello, Jack. I’m your Uncle Tony. I’m going to spoil you rotten.”

“Quite threatening us,” Hailey protested. She was sitting at the table and had started to graze on the appetizer plate. “The roast smells amazing.”

“It does,” Tony said. Most of his attention was on Jack, but he glanced over at the bedroom when he heard Mike roll out of bed. “Mike’s awake.”

“Hey, Mike. We decided to come over,” Aaron called softly.

“I’m going to go back to sleep here in a minute, but I’ll be glad to see you when I get up in an hour,” Mike muttered.

Tony pulled his hearing back in when he heard the door to his en suite open and the white noise generator he’d installed flick on. He smiled as Jack yawned at him before smacking his lips together softly. Oh. “Andrew, I don’t think there’s going to be any leftovers.”

“No, I don’t think so either,” Andrew allowed. He glanced at the pint of demi-glace and opened the freezer to pull out another. “But, I live in hope, and we have a plan so I can get my fried potato goodies.”

“This sounds promising. Tell me more,” Hailey demanded.

Andrew smirked at her before he clapped his hands softly. “Well! This is the plan.”

Tony ignored the planning happening around him and concentrated on the youngest member of his pack. He was memorizing everything about Jack Hotchner since he was too young to bite and build a pack bond that way. When Jack was a bit older, he’d talk to Aaron about that. Until then, he was going to enjoy his time holding him.

He was going to enjoy his pack.