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Anthony DiNozzo Junior is doomed from the start. Born on July 8th, 1972, in New York, New York he’s named after the egotistical father he’ll try to make proud his entire life. His early life consists of going to the best Catholic schools in New York always noticing how the other boys seem to have so much more than him and how their mommies and daddies always seem happy to see each other and their kids. Anthony knows his mom loves him but he’s not so sure that she loves his dad or that his dad loves him.
Something Anthony is sure of however is that his mom loves movies and therefore so does he. Every week without fail he and his mom will go see a movie at the theatre near their apartment. His dad never joins them.
He becomes Tony instead of Anthony after seeing The Godfather for the first time. The movies rated R and he’s sure none of his classmates have seen it so what does he care that they have actually expensive stuff and his is just pretend. He’s sure none of their mom’s let them see an R rated movie together.
The excitement of the movie is short lived however. Slowly but surely Tony’s mom starts getting very tired and then she’s very sick and before Tony knows it his mom is six feet underground and his dad is leaving him all alone in their apartment which feels way too big for just two people.
So Tony’s father tries to fill it. First he showers Tony with attention, attention Tony’s never received from his father and he is more than thrilled. That too is short lived when Anthony Senior discovers that sleeping with women auditioning to be Tony’s new stepmom is a lot more effective for burying his feelings. He begins treating Tony more like a prop then like a son, taking him on fancy vacations and then leaving him alone in the hotels they stay at. Tony tries to distract himself with his mom’s favorite movies but even this small comfort is taken away from him when his second step mom suggests he be sent to boarding school and his father eagerly agrees.
His first boarding school is stiff. It’s the only way to describe it its in Massachusetts and its cold and Tony is so incredibly lonely. He makes it through that first year fine, his grades mediocre and its with those grades that he discovers how to make his father pay attention to him. He needs to get in trouble.
He’s kicked out of that boarding school the beginning of his freshman year and sent to a nearby school that he’s also kicked out of. He hates Massachusetts and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t get sent somewhere else. He finishes the school year in New Hampshire which he doesn’t hate as much, it feels more freeing and he makes some friends so he decides he won’t purposely get kicked out of this one. It doesn’t matter though since by the end of the next year, Senior pulls him out claiming the school isn’t a good fit. Tony later finds out its because he couldn’t afford it.
He gets kicked out of two schools in Connecticut his junior year which puts a tremendous strain on his grades. He doesn’t care though, as long as he has his dad’s attention. It was one of the first lessons he’d learned from his father alongside the fact that being able to talk yourself out of a situation is one of the most important things in life along with money.
Senior finally sends him to a military boarding school in Rhode Island and Tony’s convinced its the worst thing to happen to him since his mother died until he miraculously makes a friend and discovers something he’s actually good at aside from making smart-ass comments that get him in trouble and referencing movies. He was great at basketball.
Not just great, Tony was amazing. He led his team to victory in the basketball state championship his senior year and got offered a place on the Ohio State basketball team which he gladly took considering it wasn’t looking very good academically wise for him to get in anywhere else.
His dream of going pro one day was cut short after he broke his leg at the Final Four games. It’s not like it mattered though. His father never showed up to any of his games.
Movies aren’t the only thing Tony DiNozzo’s mother left him. She also left him a great amount of Catholic guilt. It’s something that comes with the territory of being an Italian from New York and it’s a great cause of distress for him in his early law enforcement career.
He does what he has his whole life, making jokes from Peoria to Baltimore but seeing so much crime day in and out has an affect on people whether they admit it to themselves or not.
It’s a shame Tony doesn’t realize this earlier.
It takes two years for Tony DiNozzo to convince himself that maybe, just maybe, he can calm down on his guilt complex and relax into his role at NCIS. He’s still very much himself but for the first time in a long time he’s not worrying about money or what his father thinks.
He actually doesn’t give a damn what his father thinks.
That is until Kate Todd, his partner, his friend, his fellow Catholic gets shot in the head and dies in front of him. Her brain splatters onto him.
What had he done to make God so angry at him?
“She’s not really my type, Boss” Is what Tony tells Gibbs when he orders him to keep an eye on Mossad Officer Ziva David. It’s a lie through and through. Every woman’s his type. (Just like his father, says a small traitorous voice in the back of his head he tries his best to ignore. He usually fails.)
Despite all odds he and McGee end up trusting Ziva. He’s put on an undercover mission with her and thinks to himself that maybe in another life they could’ve had something good.
These aren’t things Tony can say out loud however. So he keeps his jokes up, pretending it doesn’t hurt when Ziva excludes him from a dinner party and that it doesn’t break his heart when all Gibbs says to him is “You’ll do.” When he leaves the team.
The first time Tony DiNozzo steps foot in a church since his mother’s death is the day after Gibbs is made team leader again. The anger at Gibbs leaving them (leaving him, just like his father had, why couldn’t he ever be good enough for anyone to stay?) Has subsided and has been replaced as usual by guilt.
Guilt at the inevitable lying he’s going to have to do giving his undercover operation with Jenny and during the entire mass he tries to tell himself its not his fault, Gibbs left, if he hadn’t he would know and Tony wouldn’t have to lie to him. It doesn’t work.
He leaves feeling worse than he had before going in.
“And my loyal Saint Bernard held out till last” is what Gibbs had said one day two years ago now.
Tony isn’t too sure as to why this is the memory that decides to come to him now following his assignment to the USS Ronald Reagan.
Despite the fact Gibbs had led that statement up by saying that he’d lasted all of thirty seconds, Tony still feels honored Gibbs thought of him that way.
(If he was a dog, he might as well be a loyal one. Loyal dogs don’t get thrown out and abandoned.)
He’d been told at his mother’s funeral many things. One of which had been the fact that it’d likely be the worst thing he’d go through. He’d agreed at the time. He was only eight and had lost the most important person in his life.
Except now it just happened again. He’s just lost the most important person in his life and this time it’s completely his fault.
“One short, Boss?” Is what he’d told Gibbs as they left Israel, that ironically God forsaken country he never wanted to step foot on again.
Now Tony thinks he should’ve fought harder. Should’ve dragged Ziva kicking and screaming onto the plane and back home (back to him)
If he had, he wouldn’t be writing his last will and testament and he wouldn’t be scheduling an email to his dad to be sent out three days after he was supposed to come back, explaining why he had gone to Somalia to rescue the love of his life. He made sure to include his life insurance policy in the email. Money was always a sure way to get his Dad’s attention.
He’s started drinking an unhealthy amount of water since coming back from Somalia. It had been an adjustment at first, his kidneys and bladder clearly confused from the sudden influx of water but Tony was determined. He had been so thirsty in that prison. He was never going to be that vulnerable again.
Israel is a lot more beautiful the second time around. He doesn’t know if its because this time he doesn’t have a secret organization ready to kill him or if because he’s been here for longer or if its because he finally, finally, sleeps with the woman of his dreams.
What he does know is that leaving is the hardest thing he does in his life.
His mothers funeral, Somalia, nothing compares to it.
That’s what he thinks at the time of course.
He should’ve known by then God was incredibly good at making him go through harder things than he ever thought possible.
Tali always has water. It’s absurd almost how big her water bottle is in that small book bag her preschool gave her. Senior takes an absurd amount of pictures as Tali heads to her first day of school of preschool in France.
It still surprises Tony, how good his father is with Tali. But he made it clear early on that he would accept nothing less from him.
As long as Tony was alive, Tali would never go through what he had. He hadn’t been able to stop her mother’s death of course. And he knows when he dies he won’t join her mother, he hasn’t gone to confession in years.
What he does know is that he has a fatal flaw. He’s loyal. Too loyal. That much he knows. If by some miracle Ziva is alive somewhere he knows he’ll follow her to hell and back.
He is a loyal Saint Bernard after all.