Title: Didn’t See That Coming - Chapter 5 – And This Has What To Do With Me?
Author: Xanfan
Rating: Some parts might be R or NC-17
Pairing: surprise M/M
Summary: My take on the Xander as a baby thing. The Initiative did even more bad things than we knew.
Spoilers: Up to beginning of Season 5 of Buffy and for Replacement; Up through season 3 of NCIS
Warnings: Slash
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Note: Spike is slightly more part of the gang than he was in canon at this point.
Note 2: I don’t know Riley’s parents names, so I am making them up. If his parents resemble Jonathan & Martha Kent, it’s not entirely intentional.
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Last time:
Gibbs stared at Riley for a few minutes, not allowing himself to be impressed when the young man held his gaze unflinchingly. The team leader allowed his gaze to travel to the baby in the carrier on the man’s chest and suddenly comprehension dawned. Riley saw the moment when Gibbs realized what was going on.
“You’re looking for DiNozzo?” Gibbs asked.
“Yes, I am,” Riley answered, knowing he was answering another question as well.
“Well shit,” Gibbs muttered before dragging them both into his conference room-slash-elevator.
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Riley allowed himself to be pulled into the elevator, but used his size to ensure that his son wasn't jostled too much by the man-handling. As soon as the doors closed, Riley faced the older man. "With all due respect, Agent Gibbs, don't curse around my son. And if you've woken him up by dragging us around, I'll be ripping your arms off and feeding them to you," Riley hissed softly, his voice full of promise.
Tony looked worriedly at his boss, a man who, as a rule, didn't take being threatened well. So he was really shocked when Gibbs merely stopped the elevator with the emergency switch like he normally did, looked the large man over and smirked. "Didn't get much sleep last night?"
Riley grunted softly, grudgingly accepting that he might have overreacted a smidgen. "The hotel has thin walls and the neighbors woke him up by yelling at each other at 0200 hours. I've learned the hard way that Xander will wake up on his own when he's ready and he'll be perfect… but you force him to wake up before then and you could swear he'd been possessed by a screaming banshee."
Gibbs chuckled; he'd been there.
Tony just looked back and forth between the two men in confusion. This very large man had just threatened to remove limbs from a man who intimidated most people just by breathing, and Gibbs just laughed it off? What kind of freaky twilight zone had he just stepped into?
"What's your name, son?" Gibbs asked abruptly.
Realizing he hadn't introduced himself, Riley stated simply, "Riley Finn."
Gibbs nodded; he remembered the name. This man had been one of the higher ranking agents at that abomination in California. He'd also been one of the ones experimented on the most and the first agent to realize that what was going on was wrong. The young man before him had defied what he'd been ordered to do and followed his conscience to help do what was right. Having seen the outcome, Gibbs couldn't fault him for it.
"And why are you here looking for my agent?" Gibbs asked, knowing the answer, but hoping he was wrong, just this once.
"Agent Gibbs, I've been given permission to give full disclosure to the related parties. How much of that needs to be told now and how much can wait for later and copious amounts of alcohol is up to you," Riley answered.
After a moment of contemplation, Gibbs turned towards his agent. "Remember when I was sent to California on that assignment that was classified beyond your ability to access the information, even when you had Abby try?"
Tony nodded slightly; he should have known Gibbs would know that he'd snooped.
"Don’t worry, you didn't get caught, I just know you that well," Gibbs said with a smirk. "There was a government funded project down there called the Initiative that, when you cut through the red tape and mumbo-jumbo, was basically trying to build a super soldier army."
DiNozzo's eyes widened. "That's impossible, right?"
"In practice, it wasn't the best idea anyone's ever had," Gibbs said bitterly, remembering the destruction and all the deaths involved. "The ends, especially with how it turned out, didn't justify the means. No end could have justified the methods they were using. There was torturing of the local population by experimentation. They were also experimenting on the soldiers assigned there without their permission or knowledge. Agent Finn was one of the soldiers in question."
Riley nodded bitterly at that. Not only for the experimentation on him but for his part in the torturing of others. Even if the others were demons, it hadn't been right.
"Fortunately, Finn here found himself involved with a group of locals who objected to what was going on and he assisted them as best he could with stopping the program, and rightly so," Gibbs acknowledged.
"Not soon enough," Riley whispered to himself, a bit lost in the memories, the nightmares.
Tony looked at the pain and horror in the other man's eyes and shivered. "What does this have to do with me?"
Gibbs cleared his throat. "In the inquest, we found that they had been drugging their soldiers with what they claimed were 'vitamins'. They were informed of the truth and detoxed as soon as we found out. We also found out that they were experimenting in other ways to create their super soldiers."
"What the hell does that mean?" DiNozzo asked, getting a little frustrated and scared. Then glanced at the still-sleeping baby and mouthed ‘sorry’ at Riley for cursing.
Gibbs sighed; he didn't really want to have to say this. "They were experimenting with DNA, specifically the DNA of their soldiers. They were making test tube babies, but only with DNA samples from men."
Tony opened his mouth, but Gibbs just waved a hand. "Don't ask me how they were doing it, just know that they were. Anyway, they tried using just their soldiers DNA, but the drugs being fed to the soldiers made the samples slightly unstable. They discovered that by using 'external' samples mixed with their soldiers’ samples, they could create a stable embryo for implantation in a surrogate mother."
"They were making babies to turn into super soldiers?" Tony asked in outrage.
The other two just nodded. Tony was practically vibrating with indignation, this was all just so wrong, so… evil. He looked at the small child sleeping in his snuggli and the bare fingers on the hand resting gently on the baby’s back and he realized that it was very possible that this child was one of ‘subjects’ of that experiment. He still didn’t understand why they were here and telling him about this. This guy had said something about ‘related parties’, but he didn’t know how that could mean him.
"After the first soldier/outside source embryo was successful, they raided sperm banks all over the country, since donors had been prescreened, bribing the banks to send letters saying the samples had been destroyed," Gibbs said.
Tony paled. He’d gotten a letter like that last year.
Gibbs continued, knowing his second-in-command would need a few moments to work through this in his head. “As soon as we discovered this, we tracked down the surrogates and the corresponding fathers to see what could be arranged in terms of custody and such. We only contacted the affected soldiers in the files we found so that we wouldn’t cause wide spread panic in the others. I don’t remember seeing Agent Finn’s name in those files?”
Riley swallowed. “I was Professor Walsh’s ‘special project’. I believe I received stronger doses of the drug-laced vitamins than anyone else; it’s probable that this was kept off the record so that I wouldn’t find out or that Dr. Walsh had other plans for the child. We only discovered this had been going on when one of my very lesbian friends wound up pregnant. I didn’t even know I was the… father until after the baby was born and we did a DNA test. We also discovered that the baby didn’t have any of her DNA, so she wasn’t the biological mother. Tara adores him very much, but she wasn’t ready to be a parent and her girlfriend is really not ready to be a parent, so she signed over custody to me. After the papers were all signed, the military gladly agreed to anonymously run my son’s DNA through the national databanks to find a match. They even agreed not to note in their records who the other father is.”
“Me?!?” Tony squeaked.
Riley just nodded.
“Why did you decide to look for the other father?” Gibbs asked, not quite suspiciously.
Riley looked at Gibbs steadily for a moment before answering. “I’m new at this fatherhood thing, but in the short time that I’ve known I was Xander’s father, I’ve learned that I would and will do anything for my son. When I found out how the Initiative had been manipulating me, before I even found out about their baby experiments, I was devastated. These people whom I had trusted and obeyed, who I was told to follow by the United States Military, betrayed me and my fellow soldiers; they violated us. The other father was also betrayed by this situation.”
“My son is the only good thing to come out of a pretty dark period in my life. I felt that it was only fair to offer Agent DiNozzo the opportunity to know his son, to have the same chance of finding something really amazing out of something really horrible, if he wants it. After I found out his identity, I did my research. The fact that he’s in law enforcement and frankly the fact that he works for you, encouraged me to believe that this was the right thing to do. You don’t suffer fools, Agent Gibbs. The fact that he’s your second in command says a lot about the kind of man he is.”
Gibbs nodded; there might be more to the story, but he could get it out of him later.
Tony stood there numbly. A son, him! Even though he shouldn’t believe it, he did. He wasn’t sure he was ready or able to be a father. Did he want to know this kid?
The silent contemplation of all the adults was interrupted by a tiny yawn and little arms stretching out as the baby started to wake up. Riley looked down at his son and grinned. Xander was so cute when he woke up, or, you know… when he breathed. When the brown eyes finally opened after a couple of big yawns and stretches, Riley said softly, “Hey you, decided it was time to be awake, did you?”
Xander squealed in happiness at his daddy’s voice, he loved the daddy guy.
Riley stroked his finger along Xander’s sleep-flushed cheek and chuckled lightly when the baby made a grab for the finger.
Gibbs’ lips curved into a light smile. It was obvious this man loved his son, no matter the origins.
Tony couldn’t help but smile at the sounds the little baby was making. He caught sight of the pure joy of being a father the other man had on his face, and his chest tightened. He wondered what it would be like to feel that.
Riley looked up and saw the two men watching him. He recognized the slight look of longing on Agent DiNozzo’s face.
“Let me get him out of this thing so you can get a good look at him and fully appreciate the cuteness that is Xander,” Riley said as he carefully loosened the straps on the chest carrier with one hand while holding his son secure in the other.
“Xander?” Gibbs asked, knowing he’d heard that name before.
“Short for Alexander Jonathan Finn, he’s named after a friend of mine and my dad,” Riley said absently.
“Why Xander?” Tony asked.
“He reacts better to that than to his full name or Alex, so I went with it. Had a friend named Xander back in Sunnydale, that’s where the idea came from. My dad’s name is John, so that’s where his middle name came from,” Riley explained as he finally lifted his son free of the contraption, turning the baby around and leaning him back against his chest, one arm under the diaper-clad bottom like a bench and the other arm across his chest, offering support to his body as well as his head.
The two manly NCIS agents couldn’t help but grin as the baby blinked at them, then smiled a gummy smile and tried to stick his whole hand in his mouth.
Tony melted. This baby was the cutest baby in the history of world, he was sure of it. And the little guy was his son, if what Gibbs and Riley Finn were saying was true.
Gibbs saw a little of his agent in the child around the eyes and mouth. He remembered his daughter at this age and for the first time in a long time, the thought of her didn’t rip at his soul, but only brought him fond memories of his Kelly.
Riley saw both men were thoroughly sucked in by the charming creature that was his son.
“Did you want to hold him, Agent DiNozzo?” Riley offered.
“Call me Tony, and I kinda think I would, but I’m not sure exactly how to go about that,” Tony admitted.
“It’s all about supporting the head,” Gibbs advised.
Riley shifted his son so that he was lying in the crook of Riley’s arm and slid a hand under him so that he could easily transfer the baby over to Tony while supporting his head. When the transfer was complete, he pulled the carrier from his chest and folded it tightly and put it in the messenger/diaper bag he was carrying.
Tony just looked down in awe at the baby in his arms. He was nervous; he hadn’t really had a lot of opportunity to hold babies before. He smiled down at the little face that was watching him back with just as much fascination.
Gibbs smiled and restarted the elevator, watching Tony brace himself so as not to jolt the baby when the elevator started moving again. He pushed the button for a few floors down. “So Agent Finn, what are your plans? Are you staying in town for awhile?”
“Please, call me Riley. I’m not really completely sure. It really depends on what Tony wants to do, if he wants to be a part of Xander’s life,” Riley answered honestly.
Tony looked up. “Don’t you have to get back to your assignment or something?”
Riley shook his head. “After the Initiative went down, I felt I could do more good staying in Sunnydale and helping rather than taking any of the other assignments offered. And after they found out about the baby, they pretty much told me I was on full pay with benefits for the rest of my life as long as I didn’t sue them and I kept my mouth shut about some of the less savory aspects of what went down there. I’m just concentrating on raising my son right now.”
“You’d stay here? If I wanted Xander to be close, you’d stay? You’d do that?” Tony asked, surprised at this man’s willingness to upend his life.
“I’d do anything for my son,” Riley promised. “You don’t have to make a decision right away. I’ll be in town for a little while regardless. I’ve got a little sister at Georgetown I’m supposed to visit and check up on. I thought I’d sightsee and stuff, and if you want to spend time with Xander and I to help make your decision, you’re more than welcome.”
They all stepped out when the elevator doors opened. Tony was surprised to find they were on the morgue level; he raised an eyebrow at Gibbs in question.
“If Mr. Finn doesn’t object, I thought we would have Ducky draw a blood sample from the three of you so that we could have Abby run a paternity test, just to make sure. I don’t doubt your story, Riley; I just would rather have my own people confirm it. You don’t know who could be influenced by those bastards who backed the Initiative,” Gibbs said firmly.
Riley nodded in agreement. “I didn’t really expect anything else, Agent Gibbs.”
“Call me Gibbs, everyone else does,” Gibbs offered as they walked into Ducky’s domain.
“Jethro, Anthony, to what do I owe the dubious pleasure of your presence? And who are these two gentlemen with you?” Ducky asked, observing the baby in DiNozzo’s arms and the slightly hovering presence of large man at his side.
Tony cleared his throat. “You see Ducky, it’s like this…”
TBC