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Entry tags:
Afternoon at the Beach, H50, Steve/Danny, PG
Title: Afternoon at the Beach (Four Times Nobody Noticed It Was a Date, and One Time There Wasn’t Any Doubt, 3/5)
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Pairing: Steve/Danny
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine
Notes/Warnings: Follows Dinner and a Movie and Late Lunch.
"Hey, Danno," Steve says, walking into Danny's office without so much as a cursory tap, his eyes on the open file he's carrying. "Have you seen the--" He breaks off with a cough, and it just figures, Danny thinks.
Even if it is a Saturday, he's been working his ass off the entire morning, on a motherfucking roll, thank you very much, blasting through the reams of paperwork Steve leaves in his wake and not even minding much, because it's kind of impressive how fast Steve can make things happen. At least for now, Danny's okay with being the guy who makes sure the i's get dotted and the t's get crossed so nobody can come back and repossess the cars and the computers and every other damn thing that just shows up when they need it. They've been yelling back and forth between offices, and Steve has some stupid thing about texting every goddamn thought that crosses his brain, but it figures that the first time they actually see each other, Danny's down on the floor, packing up the metric fuckton of American Girl-related crap that Grace has brought along with her.
"Sorry to interrupt your special playtime there, big guy," Steve says, with that fucking evil smirk of his. Danny snorts and finally gets the clasp on the little suitcase closed. He's sure Grace will have something to say about how he's just shoved all the clothes in, no folding or anything, but it'll give her something to do for the rest of the day. His knee pops when he stands back up, but he takes the doll, and all her accessories and starts for the door with as much dignity as he can muster.
Steve, he ignores.
"You missed something," Steve says, ignoring how he's being ignored, and pushing a little hair tie or scrunchie or something along with the toe of his boot. "Wouldn't want your outfit to not match."
Danny makes a grab for it, shoving it into his pocket, and really, the whole not-minding having to be in the office doing paperwork on a Saturday? Yeah, it's pretty much gone. It is amazing how quickly that can happen when Steve's in the same room.
Still ignoring how he's being ignored, Steve falls into step with him. "Hey, wait--I didn't think it was your weekend with Grace--what are you doing in here?"
"Eh, it's not," Danny says. "Rachel called this morning--something about some golf outing with Step-Stan and if I wanted, I could go by and pick Grace up for the day."
"Which of course you wanted," Steve says.
"Of course," Danny answers. "She hung out with me for a while," he holds out the doll and the suitcase, "and then Chin was in, so she went off with him. I don't--"
They make the turn into the computer lab, and stop dead at the same second, all but blinded by the trees and flowers and waterfalls and fairies dancing across every screen in the room. Chin Ho has a lot of monitors, Danny thinks, a little dazed.
"Welcome to Pixie Hollow, gentlemen," Chin says. He has one hell of an impressive poker face. Danny's always thought that, but never so much as right now, watching Chin not laugh at the horrified expression on Steve's face.
"Oh, man, she got you, too?" Danny says. There's a little guy on the monitor next to Chin; even with the foofy wings, he looks kind of badass. Danny wonders if they can find him a shotgun, but seeing how it's Disney, he thinks that's probably not gonna happen.
"And Kono," Chin says, finally cracking a smile. Steve still looks like somebody hit him with a two-by-four, but then again, that means he's not running his mouth, so that's not necessarily a bad thing. "Your Grace is very persuasive. Our houses are all in a row and we're all friends now."
"Oh, good," Danny says. "We can talk to each other."
"You're a... a fairy?" Steve says in this strangled voice.
"Technically, Danny and I are sparrow men," Chin says, back to the deadpan. "Kono and Grace are fairies."
"Sparrow men?" Steve says. "Sparr--"
"Speaking of the evil mastermind," Danny says at the same time. "Where is she?"
"She and Kono went down to the gym," Chin says. "I reappropriated one of the laptops and got all those records cross-referenced, so we're on track there. We might even be ahead for once."
"Oh, yeah, we're good," Danny says. Chin bumps fists with him. "You going out to Sid's tonight?"
Chin lets a little of the calm expression slip as he nods. From what Kono's said, the first try at having dinner without throwing insults at each other was kind of rocky; Danny gives Chin--and Sid--a lot of credit for trying again.
"Sparrow men," Steve repeats, with the start of a smirk, and Danny tucks Grace's doll under one arm so he can tow Steve out of the computer room before Chin loses any more of his equilibrium.
"Thanks, man," Danny calls back over his shoulder. "I owe you one."
"Oh, you so do, Williams," Chin answers, with a laugh. It's an evil laugh, one that promises Danny is going to be paying this one off for a long, long time, but given that Danny's kid has Chin set up with a fairy alter-ego and Steve knows about it, Danny doesn't expect much else.
"Shut it," Danny hisses, when Steve turns to him. "No," he repeats, when Steve opens his mouth. "Stop. He's a good guy and a genius with the computer shit, plus, he is one of like, three people I trust with my kid, so do not fuck with that."
Steve settles for a smirk, but even though it that lasts all the way to the gym, he is being quiet. Danny's taking whatever he can get. Grace is out on the mats with Kono, both of them with their hair pulled up in ponytails and barefoot. Grace is bopping around and Kono's holding a sparring pad.
"Hi, Daddy," Grace calls. "Come see what Kono taught me."
"Sure, sweetie--" Danny starts, and then the only thing he can think is that Rachel is going to fucking kill him, because Grace is launching herself with an ear-splitting shriek at Kono.
"She's, uh, got some lungs on her," Steve says. "Good form, though." Danny counts six punches and three kicks in the space of about three seconds before Grace turns and smiles brilliantly at him.
"Gracie," Danny calls, over Kono's whoops, elbowing Steve in the ribs, hissing, "Self-esteem," under his breath. "That's--wow!"
Steve takes the hint and applauds, and Gracie does a little curtsy-bow, just like she's at ballet recital.
"She's a natural," Kono says, and Grace's smile gets so big she practically glows.
"Good teacher," Steve says. Kono ducks her head a little, like she's embarrassed, but her grin turns wicked.
"Wanna see how good?" She bounces on her toes, and Steve's slouch gets a little straighter.
"Hey, hey, hey, no bloodshed in front of my daughter," Danny says. Steve slants him a one of those "chill, brah" looks, but stands down. "McGarrett, I know you have no life, but Kono, don't you have waves to shred or ride or... something?"
"Okay," Kono says, laughing. She gives Grace a hug and holds out her hand for a fist bump from Danny. "Later, boss?"
"Count on it," Steve drawls, and Danny has no idea what he's done in a former life to end up surrounded by adrenaline-junkie freaks but he hopes he enjoyed it.
"Super," Danny says to the maniacs. "I'll put in the req for extra ice packs on Monday." He holds the doll out for Grace to take. "Come on, monkey. Let's go figure out what we can do today."
"Beach!"
"Yeah, I know that; we just have to decide which one," Danny answers, herding her out the door. What he really means is, he needs suck it up and decide which beach is going to be the least obnoxious.
"Danno," Steve calls, quietly. "Why don't you come out to the house? It's pretty calm in the cove, easy surf, easy to keep an eye on her." His mouth curves up in a lopsided smile that's not quite a smirk. "And, y'know, there's beer in the fridge."
"Seriously?" Danny thinks about how much easier the whole thing would be, no hunting down a parking space, no dragging stuff along the sand, to say nothing of having a bathroom right there. And beer, too. That's enough to sell him right there, but then Steve nods, looking self-conscious, which the freak only does when he's aware that someone might think he's being nice without it being payback on a debt, which definitely settles it for Danny. "That'd be great, thanks."
Grace dances around in excitement at the news; Danny can barely get her to sit still long enough to get her seat belt on. They stop by his apartment so he can change, and then make another stop because Danny is pretty sure Steve has no idea what's decent food for kids, but then go straight out to the house.
"It's open," Steve calls when they knock, and it's a matter of minutes before Grace is splashing in the shallows and Danny has a cold one.
"Come on," Steve says, sprawled out and lounging in the chair next to Danny, the ink on his shoulders dark and crisp against his tan. "Admit it: the beach doesn't totally suck."
"Whatever," Danny grumbles, but he's about to own up to Steve maybe being not entirely wrong, except Grace is calling, "Daddy, Daddy, how deep can I go?" and he needs to psych himself up for everything a day at the beach entails.
"Relax, Danno," Steve says, clapping him on the shoulder. "I got this one." He drops his sunglasses on the chair and jogs down to the water before Danny can say anything, calling out to Grace, "How deep do you want to go?"
"Deeeeeeeeep," Grace yells, and Danny reminds himself that the guy is a SEAL, he can handle it. For all Danny knows, he's been dropped into the ocean from 20 miles up. In the middle of the night. With people shooting at him. One little girl in a sheltered cove is nothing. Of course, it's Danny's little girl, so he's going to keep a sharp eye out, but he can probably lose the death grip he's got on his beer before it shatters in his hands.
They walk out until Grace is bobbing in the small waves, jumping to keep her head above water. Steve gives her an arm to hang onto, and they swim out a little further, Grace practicing her kicks, splashing up a storm. They stop at about shoulder-deep on Steve, and Danny watches him watching Grace as she lets go and holds her arms up so she'll slide down into the water like a torpedo, the way she's always loved. Steve reaches down to pull her up and the breeze blows little snatches of her laughter to Danny.
He sits back and relaxes a little, looking down so he doesn't knock over his beer as he sets it next to the chair, which is of course when the adrenaline junkie in Steve takes over. The next thing Danny knows, he's looking up to find Grace crouched on Steve's shoulders, clinging to his hands as he stands up slowly. Before Danny can even start to process that, Steve's letting go of her hands and holding on to her ankles so she can stand up, too.
She waves to Danny, who waves back, which is proof enough that the human brain can work on auto-pilot, because there is nothing in his brain but panic, and even that's gone in the next second when Steve lets go of one ankle and Grace picks up that foot and puts it back down on top of Steve's hand. They do it again with the other foot, so Grace is standing on Steve's palms, his hands resting on his shoulders, stopping for a second. Steve tilts his head back and says something to Grace, who nods. Danny knows that nod, it's the I'm-gonna-do-it-no-matter-what nod, and there's not anything he can do to stop her. Steve slowly pushes up, doing a press with Danny's beautiful, sweet, gorgeous baby girl, not stopping until he's got both arms extended, and she's all the way up, standing on his hands, her arms up over her head, too. Danny's surprised his heart is still beating, but it is; it's pounding in his chest like it's going to explode.
"Daddy!" Grace calls. "Danno, watch; I'm going to fly!"
Danny's already knee-deep in the surf, with no idea how he's gotten there but they're still too far out for him to do anything but watch as Steve falls forward, keeping his arms straight and giving Grace a little push right before he goes under. She falls with him, a perfect, graceful swan dive ruined only by her unpointed toes at the end. Danny gets two more steps into the water before her head pops up again, Steve's right beside it, the both of them laughing like they've just been to Disneyland. Danny sits down right where he's standing, the waves washing up and over his shoulders, and waits while Grace splashes toward him.
"Did you see?" she asks, and he nods, blindly. "I wasn't scared, not at all."
She keeps right on going, calling back over her shoulder that it's time to build a sandcastle, a real one with towers and a moat, and Danny nods again. Steve's a couple of steps behind her, shaking the water out of his hair, and laughing at Danny. He stops, watching Danny with his hands on his hips, and it occurs to Danny that it might be the first time he's ever seen Steve McGarrett laugh for real, nothing held back, nothing snide or snarky or superior.
That doesn't stop Danny from looking up at him through narrowed eyes and saying, "If you ever do something like that with my kid again, I swear to God I will shoot you in the face."
"Nice," Steve says, laughing again. "Kono teaches her how to throw a punch and you're hissing at me about self-esteem. I take her into the water and you're threatening my life. I see how that works." He holds out a hand. "Come on, Sparrow Man. You've got a moat to dig."
"I am so not kidding," Danny says, but lets Steve haul him to his feet. Grace already has a good start on the castle; Danny settles down next her and takes over the digging part, freeing her up to run around and collect shells and beach glass for the all-important decorating phase. Steve brings Danny his beer and finds the bag with the snacks and the vitamin water Rachel insists Grace drink. When he takes a picture of the two of them and the sandcastle masterpiece without any extraneous comment, Danny re-considers the shooting thing.
Grace is on her best behavior, but after a couple of hours, Danny figures it's about time they take off. The look on her face is tragic, but it's one Danny's seen before and can deal with. "But I don't have to be home until 8 o'clock, Daddy. Mommy said."
"It's almost time for dinner and Commander McGarrett has things he has to do," Danny tells her. "It was nice of him to invite us, but we don't want to overstay our welcome, right?"
"Right," Grace sighs, in the most pitiful little voice in the world, which, again, Danny's heard before and is not swayed by. "Thank you very much for inviting us, Commander McGarrett," she says, and if Danny didn't know better, he'd swear she's on her way back to a bare shack with hot and cold running rats rather than Step-Stan's mansion. "I had a very good time."
Steve stares at her with this helpless expression on his face, and Danny sighs.
"I hope we'll be able to come back sometime," Grace goes on, her voice dropping to a whisper. "If that's all right with you," she finishes. She doesn't sniffle, but there's a hint of tears anyway, and Danny's torn between admiring the delicate precision of her attack and wanting to bang Steve's head against a wall for how easily he's falling for it.
"I don't--we--could order pizza," Steve says, not looking at Danny. "You like pizza, right?"
"I do," Grace says, and now her voice is a little stronger, as though hope is buoying her along. "If it's okay with Daddy." They both turn and look at him, and it's just fucking ridiculous.
"Oh, for the love of God," Danny mutters. Grace, he can handle, but he's not sure he's up for dealing with Steve trying to handle it.
"We can stay for pizza," he says out loud, and catches Grace as she throws herself on him to deliver a blizzard of thank-you kisses. "No fruit," he adds, as Steve reaches for the phone.
While they're waiting for the pizza, he sends Grace to shower, and then, when she comes back, extracts sworn, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die, no-take-backs, no-crossed-anything promises from her--and more importantly, his maniac partner--that nothing more dangerous than playing with dolls will happen while he goes to do the same. He does not need to come back and find his daughter at the top of a tree, or whatever else might seem like a good idea to the Dynamic Duo.
"Nothing else, or we're gone," he says, just to be sure everybody gets it. Grace's lower lip wobbles a little--again, nothing Danny can't handle, but she's got the big, bad SEAL wrapped around her pinkie finger like there's no tomorrow, so Danny figures the threat of tears is really working on him. "This isn't the time to be cleaning guns, either, man," he adds to Steve.
He still doesn't trust the two of them, so he makes the shower lightning-fast, just enough to get off the worst of the sand and salt--and yeah, he maybe still hates the beach after all. At least with a pool, you just smell like chlorine until you can shower. Itching isn't really a factor.
He can hear them talking as he comes down the hall; when he gets back to the great room, they're both sitting on the floor, surrounded by dolls and clothes, and Grace is saying, "--but you live here all by yourself now?"
Danny knows Steve has to know he's there--the guy has the freaky Spidey-sense thing going on--but he doesn't acknowledge Danny, only stands up and puts the picture they've been looking at back on the shelf. "Yeah," he says, adjusting the frame minutely. "Just me; my dad... died not too long ago."
"Oh," Grace says. Shit, Danny thinks, taking a step into the room. Shit, shit, shit. So not the thing to be getting into. Before he can say anything, though, Grace puts down her doll and goes over to where Steve's still standing. She tips her head back to look at him, waiting until he crouches down next to her before she says, "I am very sorry to hear that."
She leans in and gives him a little kiss on the cheek, and then goes back to her dolls. Steve looks at her for a long couple of seconds, then looks up at Danny, and seriously, there's just not anything Danny can say.
"Thanks, Grace," Steve says, as the doorbell rings with the pizza and the moment breaks, Steve escaping to the front of the house while Danny sits on the couch behind Grace and combs her hair back off her face with his fingers.
"Hey, monkey," he says.
"Hi, Danno," she answers, very softly, and he knows his Gracie, knows she's thinking about everything. He's not sure how much she remembers about the time when Andy Grant took a shotgun blast point blank when he went to break up a bar fight. She was in kindergarten then, and he and Rachel had already split, but he knows Grace had been on play dates with Andy's kids before it all happened. Even if she doesn't remember specifics, she probably remembers the atmosphere. She stays quiet, focuses her attention on the little doll clothes, taking them out of their suitcase and smoothing them out before repacking them carefully. She smiles at Steve, though, when he comes back into the room, juggling pizza boxes and a six of Coke, and if there's not much being said as the pies get divvied up and they sort out where Grace's vitamin water is, it's not strained.
Grace eats about three bites of her slice before she crawls into Danny's lap and falls asleep, her head on his shoulder. Danny settles her a little more comfortably and eats around her. It's awkward--Danny has no idea when it was that she's gotten so big--but Danny wouldn't trade it for anything, even if he is dripping sauce all over his shirt.
"You're a good father," Steve says, out of the blue, and Danny waits for the comeback, for the even if you're a slob, but Steve just hands him a fistful of napkins. Then again, Steve's almost never given him shit about Grace.
"I try," Danny says. "I don't--we don't have much time together, you know? I don't know how much I count."
"The first thing you said to me--after you got your gun out of my face--"
"Hey, active crime scene and it's not like you're not trigger-happy yourself," Danny says.
"Yeah, whatever," Steve says. "We're a matched set, all right?"
Danny snorts, and Steve rolls his eyes.
"The first thing you said to me," Steve begins again, stubborn bastard that he is, "was that you were sorry for my loss." He takes the balled up napkins out of Danny's hand and adds them to the pile on top of the empty pizza box. "From where I'm sitting, you count for a lot in her life."
"Thanks," Danny says, after a few seconds. "Stan is--I dunno. He seems like an okay enough guy and he's been good to Grace and all, but... There's a shitload of money there, and that, you can't just ignore that, you know? I mean, Stan says Hawaii and here we all are. Hell, just the dolls--Christ, there's like a thousand dollars on your floor right here. A thousand bucks--my first car didn't cost that much. I don't know how I compete with that."
Danny's watch beeps with the 30-minute warning to curfew, and he shifts Grace around to get the leverage to stand up with her.
"Danny," Steve says, about as serious as Danny's ever seen him. "You're not the competition. You're the environment, and Stan knows it." Before Danny can even start to figure out how to answer that, Steve's across the room in two quick strides and bending down to take Grace. "I got her, Danno," he says, and Danny lets him gather her up carefully. She murmurs, soft and unintelligible, but gets her head on his shoulder and goes limp again.
Danny grabs all her stuff, the dolls and their clothes and her little pink flower-power backpack and heads out to the car, Steve and Grace right behind him. Steve bends down and gets her into the car, and Danny makes sure she's buckled in tight.
"Thanks," he says, finally. "It's been a great day, even if you did about give me a heart attack."
"Anytime," Steve says. "Really, I mean that. Anytime. In fact," he fumbles in his pockets and comes up with his key ring. "Here," he says, dropping a key in Danny's hand. "Front door, and this one--" Another key clinks in on top of the first, and Danny instinctively closes his hand around them before they fall. "That's the lana'i. That way you guys can come over whenever, even if I'm not around."
"Steve--" Danny's actually kind of speechless.
"Don't argue, you don't have time. Just take them."
He's right; they're going to have to book it to get back across the island as it is, so Danny settles for a quick handshake and figures they can revisit the topic on Monday. Steve smirks at him like he knows exactly what Danny's thinking, but it's not like they're not going to be yapping at each other all day anyway. And seriously, Danny is not going to be showing up unannounced with Grace until he and Steve work out some kind of fail-safe that means Grace isn't going to be getting an eyeful of whatever arm-candy Steve might be occupying his time with.
Danny makes it back to Stan and Rachel's right on time, not that it actually matters seeing as how Rachel isn't home. One of the maids comes out to walk Grace in, but she waits while Grace calls Steve to tell him thank-you. "I had a super-best time," she says, and gives the phone back to Danny. "Good-night, Danno. I love you."
"I love you, too, munchkin," Danny says, and watches her until she and the maid are back inside the house. The call is still connected; when Danny gets back in the car he puts it on speaker and says, "For real, McGarrett, thanks."
"You're welcome, Danno," Steve says. "See you on Monday."
Continued in Party Time
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0
Pairing: Steve/Danny
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine
Notes/Warnings: Follows Dinner and a Movie and Late Lunch.
"Hey, Danno," Steve says, walking into Danny's office without so much as a cursory tap, his eyes on the open file he's carrying. "Have you seen the--" He breaks off with a cough, and it just figures, Danny thinks.
Even if it is a Saturday, he's been working his ass off the entire morning, on a motherfucking roll, thank you very much, blasting through the reams of paperwork Steve leaves in his wake and not even minding much, because it's kind of impressive how fast Steve can make things happen. At least for now, Danny's okay with being the guy who makes sure the i's get dotted and the t's get crossed so nobody can come back and repossess the cars and the computers and every other damn thing that just shows up when they need it. They've been yelling back and forth between offices, and Steve has some stupid thing about texting every goddamn thought that crosses his brain, but it figures that the first time they actually see each other, Danny's down on the floor, packing up the metric fuckton of American Girl-related crap that Grace has brought along with her.
"Sorry to interrupt your special playtime there, big guy," Steve says, with that fucking evil smirk of his. Danny snorts and finally gets the clasp on the little suitcase closed. He's sure Grace will have something to say about how he's just shoved all the clothes in, no folding or anything, but it'll give her something to do for the rest of the day. His knee pops when he stands back up, but he takes the doll, and all her accessories and starts for the door with as much dignity as he can muster.
Steve, he ignores.
"You missed something," Steve says, ignoring how he's being ignored, and pushing a little hair tie or scrunchie or something along with the toe of his boot. "Wouldn't want your outfit to not match."
Danny makes a grab for it, shoving it into his pocket, and really, the whole not-minding having to be in the office doing paperwork on a Saturday? Yeah, it's pretty much gone. It is amazing how quickly that can happen when Steve's in the same room.
Still ignoring how he's being ignored, Steve falls into step with him. "Hey, wait--I didn't think it was your weekend with Grace--what are you doing in here?"
"Eh, it's not," Danny says. "Rachel called this morning--something about some golf outing with Step-Stan and if I wanted, I could go by and pick Grace up for the day."
"Which of course you wanted," Steve says.
"Of course," Danny answers. "She hung out with me for a while," he holds out the doll and the suitcase, "and then Chin was in, so she went off with him. I don't--"
They make the turn into the computer lab, and stop dead at the same second, all but blinded by the trees and flowers and waterfalls and fairies dancing across every screen in the room. Chin Ho has a lot of monitors, Danny thinks, a little dazed.
"Welcome to Pixie Hollow, gentlemen," Chin says. He has one hell of an impressive poker face. Danny's always thought that, but never so much as right now, watching Chin not laugh at the horrified expression on Steve's face.
"Oh, man, she got you, too?" Danny says. There's a little guy on the monitor next to Chin; even with the foofy wings, he looks kind of badass. Danny wonders if they can find him a shotgun, but seeing how it's Disney, he thinks that's probably not gonna happen.
"And Kono," Chin says, finally cracking a smile. Steve still looks like somebody hit him with a two-by-four, but then again, that means he's not running his mouth, so that's not necessarily a bad thing. "Your Grace is very persuasive. Our houses are all in a row and we're all friends now."
"Oh, good," Danny says. "We can talk to each other."
"You're a... a fairy?" Steve says in this strangled voice.
"Technically, Danny and I are sparrow men," Chin says, back to the deadpan. "Kono and Grace are fairies."
"Sparrow men?" Steve says. "Sparr--"
"Speaking of the evil mastermind," Danny says at the same time. "Where is she?"
"She and Kono went down to the gym," Chin says. "I reappropriated one of the laptops and got all those records cross-referenced, so we're on track there. We might even be ahead for once."
"Oh, yeah, we're good," Danny says. Chin bumps fists with him. "You going out to Sid's tonight?"
Chin lets a little of the calm expression slip as he nods. From what Kono's said, the first try at having dinner without throwing insults at each other was kind of rocky; Danny gives Chin--and Sid--a lot of credit for trying again.
"Sparrow men," Steve repeats, with the start of a smirk, and Danny tucks Grace's doll under one arm so he can tow Steve out of the computer room before Chin loses any more of his equilibrium.
"Thanks, man," Danny calls back over his shoulder. "I owe you one."
"Oh, you so do, Williams," Chin answers, with a laugh. It's an evil laugh, one that promises Danny is going to be paying this one off for a long, long time, but given that Danny's kid has Chin set up with a fairy alter-ego and Steve knows about it, Danny doesn't expect much else.
"Shut it," Danny hisses, when Steve turns to him. "No," he repeats, when Steve opens his mouth. "Stop. He's a good guy and a genius with the computer shit, plus, he is one of like, three people I trust with my kid, so do not fuck with that."
Steve settles for a smirk, but even though it that lasts all the way to the gym, he is being quiet. Danny's taking whatever he can get. Grace is out on the mats with Kono, both of them with their hair pulled up in ponytails and barefoot. Grace is bopping around and Kono's holding a sparring pad.
"Hi, Daddy," Grace calls. "Come see what Kono taught me."
"Sure, sweetie--" Danny starts, and then the only thing he can think is that Rachel is going to fucking kill him, because Grace is launching herself with an ear-splitting shriek at Kono.
"She's, uh, got some lungs on her," Steve says. "Good form, though." Danny counts six punches and three kicks in the space of about three seconds before Grace turns and smiles brilliantly at him.
"Gracie," Danny calls, over Kono's whoops, elbowing Steve in the ribs, hissing, "Self-esteem," under his breath. "That's--wow!"
Steve takes the hint and applauds, and Gracie does a little curtsy-bow, just like she's at ballet recital.
"She's a natural," Kono says, and Grace's smile gets so big she practically glows.
"Good teacher," Steve says. Kono ducks her head a little, like she's embarrassed, but her grin turns wicked.
"Wanna see how good?" She bounces on her toes, and Steve's slouch gets a little straighter.
"Hey, hey, hey, no bloodshed in front of my daughter," Danny says. Steve slants him a one of those "chill, brah" looks, but stands down. "McGarrett, I know you have no life, but Kono, don't you have waves to shred or ride or... something?"
"Okay," Kono says, laughing. She gives Grace a hug and holds out her hand for a fist bump from Danny. "Later, boss?"
"Count on it," Steve drawls, and Danny has no idea what he's done in a former life to end up surrounded by adrenaline-junkie freaks but he hopes he enjoyed it.
"Super," Danny says to the maniacs. "I'll put in the req for extra ice packs on Monday." He holds the doll out for Grace to take. "Come on, monkey. Let's go figure out what we can do today."
"Beach!"
"Yeah, I know that; we just have to decide which one," Danny answers, herding her out the door. What he really means is, he needs suck it up and decide which beach is going to be the least obnoxious.
"Danno," Steve calls, quietly. "Why don't you come out to the house? It's pretty calm in the cove, easy surf, easy to keep an eye on her." His mouth curves up in a lopsided smile that's not quite a smirk. "And, y'know, there's beer in the fridge."
"Seriously?" Danny thinks about how much easier the whole thing would be, no hunting down a parking space, no dragging stuff along the sand, to say nothing of having a bathroom right there. And beer, too. That's enough to sell him right there, but then Steve nods, looking self-conscious, which the freak only does when he's aware that someone might think he's being nice without it being payback on a debt, which definitely settles it for Danny. "That'd be great, thanks."
Grace dances around in excitement at the news; Danny can barely get her to sit still long enough to get her seat belt on. They stop by his apartment so he can change, and then make another stop because Danny is pretty sure Steve has no idea what's decent food for kids, but then go straight out to the house.
"It's open," Steve calls when they knock, and it's a matter of minutes before Grace is splashing in the shallows and Danny has a cold one.
"Come on," Steve says, sprawled out and lounging in the chair next to Danny, the ink on his shoulders dark and crisp against his tan. "Admit it: the beach doesn't totally suck."
"Whatever," Danny grumbles, but he's about to own up to Steve maybe being not entirely wrong, except Grace is calling, "Daddy, Daddy, how deep can I go?" and he needs to psych himself up for everything a day at the beach entails.
"Relax, Danno," Steve says, clapping him on the shoulder. "I got this one." He drops his sunglasses on the chair and jogs down to the water before Danny can say anything, calling out to Grace, "How deep do you want to go?"
"Deeeeeeeeep," Grace yells, and Danny reminds himself that the guy is a SEAL, he can handle it. For all Danny knows, he's been dropped into the ocean from 20 miles up. In the middle of the night. With people shooting at him. One little girl in a sheltered cove is nothing. Of course, it's Danny's little girl, so he's going to keep a sharp eye out, but he can probably lose the death grip he's got on his beer before it shatters in his hands.
They walk out until Grace is bobbing in the small waves, jumping to keep her head above water. Steve gives her an arm to hang onto, and they swim out a little further, Grace practicing her kicks, splashing up a storm. They stop at about shoulder-deep on Steve, and Danny watches him watching Grace as she lets go and holds her arms up so she'll slide down into the water like a torpedo, the way she's always loved. Steve reaches down to pull her up and the breeze blows little snatches of her laughter to Danny.
He sits back and relaxes a little, looking down so he doesn't knock over his beer as he sets it next to the chair, which is of course when the adrenaline junkie in Steve takes over. The next thing Danny knows, he's looking up to find Grace crouched on Steve's shoulders, clinging to his hands as he stands up slowly. Before Danny can even start to process that, Steve's letting go of her hands and holding on to her ankles so she can stand up, too.
She waves to Danny, who waves back, which is proof enough that the human brain can work on auto-pilot, because there is nothing in his brain but panic, and even that's gone in the next second when Steve lets go of one ankle and Grace picks up that foot and puts it back down on top of Steve's hand. They do it again with the other foot, so Grace is standing on Steve's palms, his hands resting on his shoulders, stopping for a second. Steve tilts his head back and says something to Grace, who nods. Danny knows that nod, it's the I'm-gonna-do-it-no-matter-what nod, and there's not anything he can do to stop her. Steve slowly pushes up, doing a press with Danny's beautiful, sweet, gorgeous baby girl, not stopping until he's got both arms extended, and she's all the way up, standing on his hands, her arms up over her head, too. Danny's surprised his heart is still beating, but it is; it's pounding in his chest like it's going to explode.
"Daddy!" Grace calls. "Danno, watch; I'm going to fly!"
Danny's already knee-deep in the surf, with no idea how he's gotten there but they're still too far out for him to do anything but watch as Steve falls forward, keeping his arms straight and giving Grace a little push right before he goes under. She falls with him, a perfect, graceful swan dive ruined only by her unpointed toes at the end. Danny gets two more steps into the water before her head pops up again, Steve's right beside it, the both of them laughing like they've just been to Disneyland. Danny sits down right where he's standing, the waves washing up and over his shoulders, and waits while Grace splashes toward him.
"Did you see?" she asks, and he nods, blindly. "I wasn't scared, not at all."
She keeps right on going, calling back over her shoulder that it's time to build a sandcastle, a real one with towers and a moat, and Danny nods again. Steve's a couple of steps behind her, shaking the water out of his hair, and laughing at Danny. He stops, watching Danny with his hands on his hips, and it occurs to Danny that it might be the first time he's ever seen Steve McGarrett laugh for real, nothing held back, nothing snide or snarky or superior.
That doesn't stop Danny from looking up at him through narrowed eyes and saying, "If you ever do something like that with my kid again, I swear to God I will shoot you in the face."
"Nice," Steve says, laughing again. "Kono teaches her how to throw a punch and you're hissing at me about self-esteem. I take her into the water and you're threatening my life. I see how that works." He holds out a hand. "Come on, Sparrow Man. You've got a moat to dig."
"I am so not kidding," Danny says, but lets Steve haul him to his feet. Grace already has a good start on the castle; Danny settles down next her and takes over the digging part, freeing her up to run around and collect shells and beach glass for the all-important decorating phase. Steve brings Danny his beer and finds the bag with the snacks and the vitamin water Rachel insists Grace drink. When he takes a picture of the two of them and the sandcastle masterpiece without any extraneous comment, Danny re-considers the shooting thing.
Grace is on her best behavior, but after a couple of hours, Danny figures it's about time they take off. The look on her face is tragic, but it's one Danny's seen before and can deal with. "But I don't have to be home until 8 o'clock, Daddy. Mommy said."
"It's almost time for dinner and Commander McGarrett has things he has to do," Danny tells her. "It was nice of him to invite us, but we don't want to overstay our welcome, right?"
"Right," Grace sighs, in the most pitiful little voice in the world, which, again, Danny's heard before and is not swayed by. "Thank you very much for inviting us, Commander McGarrett," she says, and if Danny didn't know better, he'd swear she's on her way back to a bare shack with hot and cold running rats rather than Step-Stan's mansion. "I had a very good time."
Steve stares at her with this helpless expression on his face, and Danny sighs.
"I hope we'll be able to come back sometime," Grace goes on, her voice dropping to a whisper. "If that's all right with you," she finishes. She doesn't sniffle, but there's a hint of tears anyway, and Danny's torn between admiring the delicate precision of her attack and wanting to bang Steve's head against a wall for how easily he's falling for it.
"I don't--we--could order pizza," Steve says, not looking at Danny. "You like pizza, right?"
"I do," Grace says, and now her voice is a little stronger, as though hope is buoying her along. "If it's okay with Daddy." They both turn and look at him, and it's just fucking ridiculous.
"Oh, for the love of God," Danny mutters. Grace, he can handle, but he's not sure he's up for dealing with Steve trying to handle it.
"We can stay for pizza," he says out loud, and catches Grace as she throws herself on him to deliver a blizzard of thank-you kisses. "No fruit," he adds, as Steve reaches for the phone.
While they're waiting for the pizza, he sends Grace to shower, and then, when she comes back, extracts sworn, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die, no-take-backs, no-crossed-anything promises from her--and more importantly, his maniac partner--that nothing more dangerous than playing with dolls will happen while he goes to do the same. He does not need to come back and find his daughter at the top of a tree, or whatever else might seem like a good idea to the Dynamic Duo.
"Nothing else, or we're gone," he says, just to be sure everybody gets it. Grace's lower lip wobbles a little--again, nothing Danny can't handle, but she's got the big, bad SEAL wrapped around her pinkie finger like there's no tomorrow, so Danny figures the threat of tears is really working on him. "This isn't the time to be cleaning guns, either, man," he adds to Steve.
He still doesn't trust the two of them, so he makes the shower lightning-fast, just enough to get off the worst of the sand and salt--and yeah, he maybe still hates the beach after all. At least with a pool, you just smell like chlorine until you can shower. Itching isn't really a factor.
He can hear them talking as he comes down the hall; when he gets back to the great room, they're both sitting on the floor, surrounded by dolls and clothes, and Grace is saying, "--but you live here all by yourself now?"
Danny knows Steve has to know he's there--the guy has the freaky Spidey-sense thing going on--but he doesn't acknowledge Danny, only stands up and puts the picture they've been looking at back on the shelf. "Yeah," he says, adjusting the frame minutely. "Just me; my dad... died not too long ago."
"Oh," Grace says. Shit, Danny thinks, taking a step into the room. Shit, shit, shit. So not the thing to be getting into. Before he can say anything, though, Grace puts down her doll and goes over to where Steve's still standing. She tips her head back to look at him, waiting until he crouches down next to her before she says, "I am very sorry to hear that."
She leans in and gives him a little kiss on the cheek, and then goes back to her dolls. Steve looks at her for a long couple of seconds, then looks up at Danny, and seriously, there's just not anything Danny can say.
"Thanks, Grace," Steve says, as the doorbell rings with the pizza and the moment breaks, Steve escaping to the front of the house while Danny sits on the couch behind Grace and combs her hair back off her face with his fingers.
"Hey, monkey," he says.
"Hi, Danno," she answers, very softly, and he knows his Gracie, knows she's thinking about everything. He's not sure how much she remembers about the time when Andy Grant took a shotgun blast point blank when he went to break up a bar fight. She was in kindergarten then, and he and Rachel had already split, but he knows Grace had been on play dates with Andy's kids before it all happened. Even if she doesn't remember specifics, she probably remembers the atmosphere. She stays quiet, focuses her attention on the little doll clothes, taking them out of their suitcase and smoothing them out before repacking them carefully. She smiles at Steve, though, when he comes back into the room, juggling pizza boxes and a six of Coke, and if there's not much being said as the pies get divvied up and they sort out where Grace's vitamin water is, it's not strained.
Grace eats about three bites of her slice before she crawls into Danny's lap and falls asleep, her head on his shoulder. Danny settles her a little more comfortably and eats around her. It's awkward--Danny has no idea when it was that she's gotten so big--but Danny wouldn't trade it for anything, even if he is dripping sauce all over his shirt.
"You're a good father," Steve says, out of the blue, and Danny waits for the comeback, for the even if you're a slob, but Steve just hands him a fistful of napkins. Then again, Steve's almost never given him shit about Grace.
"I try," Danny says. "I don't--we don't have much time together, you know? I don't know how much I count."
"The first thing you said to me--after you got your gun out of my face--"
"Hey, active crime scene and it's not like you're not trigger-happy yourself," Danny says.
"Yeah, whatever," Steve says. "We're a matched set, all right?"
Danny snorts, and Steve rolls his eyes.
"The first thing you said to me," Steve begins again, stubborn bastard that he is, "was that you were sorry for my loss." He takes the balled up napkins out of Danny's hand and adds them to the pile on top of the empty pizza box. "From where I'm sitting, you count for a lot in her life."
"Thanks," Danny says, after a few seconds. "Stan is--I dunno. He seems like an okay enough guy and he's been good to Grace and all, but... There's a shitload of money there, and that, you can't just ignore that, you know? I mean, Stan says Hawaii and here we all are. Hell, just the dolls--Christ, there's like a thousand dollars on your floor right here. A thousand bucks--my first car didn't cost that much. I don't know how I compete with that."
Danny's watch beeps with the 30-minute warning to curfew, and he shifts Grace around to get the leverage to stand up with her.
"Danny," Steve says, about as serious as Danny's ever seen him. "You're not the competition. You're the environment, and Stan knows it." Before Danny can even start to figure out how to answer that, Steve's across the room in two quick strides and bending down to take Grace. "I got her, Danno," he says, and Danny lets him gather her up carefully. She murmurs, soft and unintelligible, but gets her head on his shoulder and goes limp again.
Danny grabs all her stuff, the dolls and their clothes and her little pink flower-power backpack and heads out to the car, Steve and Grace right behind him. Steve bends down and gets her into the car, and Danny makes sure she's buckled in tight.
"Thanks," he says, finally. "It's been a great day, even if you did about give me a heart attack."
"Anytime," Steve says. "Really, I mean that. Anytime. In fact," he fumbles in his pockets and comes up with his key ring. "Here," he says, dropping a key in Danny's hand. "Front door, and this one--" Another key clinks in on top of the first, and Danny instinctively closes his hand around them before they fall. "That's the lana'i. That way you guys can come over whenever, even if I'm not around."
"Steve--" Danny's actually kind of speechless.
"Don't argue, you don't have time. Just take them."
He's right; they're going to have to book it to get back across the island as it is, so Danny settles for a quick handshake and figures they can revisit the topic on Monday. Steve smirks at him like he knows exactly what Danny's thinking, but it's not like they're not going to be yapping at each other all day anyway. And seriously, Danny is not going to be showing up unannounced with Grace until he and Steve work out some kind of fail-safe that means Grace isn't going to be getting an eyeful of whatever arm-candy Steve might be occupying his time with.
Danny makes it back to Stan and Rachel's right on time, not that it actually matters seeing as how Rachel isn't home. One of the maids comes out to walk Grace in, but she waits while Grace calls Steve to tell him thank-you. "I had a super-best time," she says, and gives the phone back to Danny. "Good-night, Danno. I love you."
"I love you, too, munchkin," Danny says, and watches her until she and the maid are back inside the house. The call is still connected; when Danny gets back in the car he puts it on speaker and says, "For real, McGarrett, thanks."
"You're welcome, Danno," Steve says. "See you on Monday."
Continued in Party Time