Archive of Our Own ^beta

Danny is a professional. He prides himself on being a professional. He can control his emotions when it matters, and he manages to hold himself together until Big Lono is carried off by the blue & whites, and the uniformed officer in front of him gives them a weary nod as if to say, "Yeah, guys, go away and let us clean up this shit now," before heading back into the store.

Then Steve pulls out the car keys and gives him a shit-eating grin, as if to say "That was fun! Can we do it again?" and Danny loses it. He lunges forward, grabbing the keys in one hand and slamming his partner back against the Camaro with the other.

"No, you are not driving this car. You are not driving my car ever again. You have lost the privilege of driving my car. In fact, you are very lucky that I am even allowing you near my car while I yell at you. What the fuck did you think you were doing?"

"What?"

"You put a hand grenade in my car. My car. Grenade. Explosives. You put explosives in my car."

Steve looks at him, confused, as if he can't understand why Danny is so angry. "It was just a contingency measure."

"Contingency measure? Contingency measure? You are completely insane. A back-up piece is a contingency measure. A satellite phone is a contingency measure. Plan B? Plan B is the quintessential contingency measure. A hand grenade, McGarrett, is not a contingency measure. A grenade is a bomb. It explodes. In all directions."

And your point is? - Steve doesn't say it aloud but the expression is as eloquent as any words.

Danny glares at him and gives him another shove. "Look, I know you're comfortable with things that go boom. I get it. You're a SEAL, you blow shit up for a living. For all I know, you play badminton with grenades and go bowling with landmines. That is OK. Insane, but OK. This," - he gestures to the car - "this is not OK. You know why this is not OK? It's because this is my car. This is the car I pick up Grace in. This is where she sits when she is with me. My daughter has been sitting less than eighteen inches away from an explosive device."

Oh. Grace. Steve's face goes completely blank. It is so patently clear that he had never thought about Grace that if Danny weren't quite so caught up in this maelstrom of fury he might have laughed, but he can't laugh, this is just too serious to laugh about and he can't let up, can't let his momentum falter until he has spewed out all the anger and frustration and desperation and fear - goddamn it, the fear! - and made Steve understand exactly how badly he's fucked up.

"I could honestly fucking kill you now. You put my daughter in danger and I didn't know and I really want to kill you."

Steve spreads his hands in mute apology. Danny barely registers it.

"You know, I thought I was angry when Stan got Grace and Rachel car-jacked. I thought I was angry when I confronted Hoffman. Right now, looking back, that was nothing. Irritation. Mild annoyance. Today, I am learning a whole new meaning to the word anger. This is anger escalated to the nth degree. This is the DEFCON 5 of anger. I am not just angry, I am ... I am ... I am so fucking angry I can't even find the words to say how angry I am!"

"DEFCON 5 is the lowest -"

"Shut up! Just shut the fuck up."

Danny pauses for a deep, rasping breath. Steve keeps his mouth shut and his eyes on the sidewalk, and that's good because Danny is this close to beating the living shit out of him, and the only thing stopping him, the only thing that reassures him that he has not gone completely out of control, is that he is a professional, and a professional does not beat up his partner, no matter what the provocation.

"I'm sorry," Steve says, his voice so low that Danny can barely hear him. It doesn't matter - an apology is not enough, not nearly enough to make up for what has been done. He looks past Steve to the car, then another thought strikes him like a thunderbolt. Steve never packs just one weapon, he carries as many as he can fit into the available space and still have room to move. "What else is there?"

"What?"

"What else have you put in there? What other lethal implements have you hidden away in my car? More grenades? RPG maybe? C4? A fucking MIRV?"

"MIRV wouldn't fit," mumbles Steve.

Shoving his partner out of the way, Danny opens the car door and starts a desperate search through the interior. The glove compartment yields another hand grenade and a wicked looking blackjack that Danny's never seen before. The ashtray has bullets in it. The side pockets are, mercifully, empty of anything except rubbish. Grenade and blackjack are thrown out onto the sidewalk, and Steve scrambles after the grenade as it rolls into the gutter.

Danny checks under the seats, but there's nothing there he can see. Not that he trusts his own eyes. He's going to take the car into the forensic shop and get them to strip it down for him. They're used to looking for things hidden in cars, and yeah, it's usually drugs they're after, but explosives will make a nice change for them.

He finishes his scrutiny of the interior and heads for the trunk. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Steve has stashed something else there - his expression is almost apprehensive.

"What's in here?"

Steve shrugs slightly. "Flare gun."

Flare gun. Right. Like the Camaro is ever going to get out of cell range on this island.

"Flare guns go on boats. Not cars. This is a car, not a boat. Ergo, it does not get a flare gun."

"I just had a couple spare."

Danny growls in his throat, but honestly, there is no reasoning with Steve some days. "What else?"

"Ammo."

Danny waits, but Steve isn't saying anything else. "Is that all? You're sure?"

Steve nods, and Danny opens the trunk. The first thing he sees is a black nylon bag that Danny is sure wasn't there the week before. He picks it up and opens it. It's heavily padded, and inside there is a bulky object that looks like a cross between a camcorder and a game console.

"What is this? Another death-dealing device that you conveniently forgot to mention?" He goes to throw it but Steve grabs it, fast, and sets it gently down on the concrete.

"TIC. And it's fragile."

"TIC? What the hell is a TIC?"

"Thermographic imaging camera. Infra-red."

"Well," Danny pauses. It's not a weapon, which is a huge relief. And it's fragile, and it looks really, really expensive, and he's sort of glad that Steve stopped him from wrecking it, although smashing a very fragile, very expensive piece of kit would have been extremely cathartic.

Steve says, quietly, "I thought, after that warehouse thing last month, it might come in useful."

That's so reasonable it almost derails Danny for a moment. He can see that having an infra-red camera might be very useful, because being able to locate a perp in the dark would help them not get shot at, and that can only be a good thing. But he can't let himself be talked down yet; he has to make sure the car is safe for Grace. He runs his hands down the side wells but there's nothing there that shouldn't be.

"Where's the flare gun?" he demands.

"Spare wheel."

Danny lifts the false floor of the trunk. There, nestled in with the spare wheel, are two bright orange one-shot flare guns. In the centre there is a 500-round box of .40 S&W FMJ cartridges.

"I repeat - again - ad nauseam, even - that you are certifiably insane. How did it ever cross your mind that is was a good idea to put incendiary devices and ammunition right next to the fucking gas tank? It's the most demented idea you've ever had - right up there after putting a fucking hand grenade in my fucking glove compartment! Fuck! I can't even begin to explain how insane that is. One bad pothole and we could be incinerated, had you thought of that? One little jolt on a dirt road and the flare could go off - in my car - and ignite the gas and we would be unidentifiable crispy critters!"

"The trigger mechanism is -" Steve starts, but Danny silences him with a look. He throws the flare guns and the ammo onto the sidewalk. Steve winces.

"Is that it?" Danny demands, squinting up at his partner, who nods, but Danny has to make sure. "No other little surprises I'm going to come across just when I least expect it? Nothing that's going to get me banned from ever seeing my daughter again if Rachel finds out? Because if that ever happens I am going to hunt you down and kill you, I swear to God, and no SEAL team in the world is going to stop me."

"No. That's it."

Danny drops the carpet back down over the spare wheel. He's still taking the car into the forensics guys, because hey, McGarrett isn't the only certified loon on the island and he's sure that there are at least half a dozen people he's put away who might have access to really nasty shit. But that's for later. Right now he has to deal with this bomb-happy, knife-happy, any-lethal-weapon-within-reach-happy cretin who's standing there next to him.

He examines the haul: one grenade; one blackjack; two flare guns, a box of ammo and a thermographic camera.

He runs a hand through his hair, trying to get his thoughts in order. It's less than he'd expected, actually. No tactical nuke, no C4, not even a lonely stick of dynamite. It's almost disappointing. Then he wonders what McGarrett has stashed away in his truck, the one that Danny gets to ride in about once a week, and shudders. He is so not going there right now.

He looks at Steve, who is rolling the grenade over and over in his hands, as if it's a stress ball, and he wonders if Chin could rig up a string of detonator caps or something for Steve to use instead, like worry beads or a lethal fucking rosary, and then he realises what he's thinking and shakes his head. The insanity is contagious. He's thought that before but now he's sure of it.

"You do not - I repeat, NOT - put anything else in my car without asking me first. You understand that?"

Steve nods, and his kicked-puppy look is one that Danny will add to the catalogue of Steve-faces, along with the aneurysm face and the constipated face and the avenging-angel-of-the-apocalypse face that he's only seen when Steve is about to go ballistic on the really, really bad guys.

"You will now apologise to me for endangering my daughter. And you will be thankful that you are being offered the opportunity to apologise instead of being shot like I truly, truly want to do right now, or being the subject of an extremely long and detailed complaint to the governor that will result in your insane ass being deported back to the mainland."

Steve takes a deep breath and Danny wonders if he's going to attempt some pseudo-logical explanation like he normally does, or point out that American citizens can't actually be deported from Hawaii. Danny would almost welcome that because then he could punch Steve in the guts or - better yet - shoot him in the leg and that would make him feel five thousand per cent better, even if it would be followed immediately by Steve hammering him into the asphalt, gunshot wound or no gunshot wound, not to mention the whole paperwork mountain that would follow it, but it appears that Steve has recognised how close the edge Danny is, and how badly he's fucked up.

"I'm sorry, Danny. I'm really sorry. I didn't think about Grace. I know how you feel about her. I know you don't want anything to happen to her. I didn't mean to endanger her, and I know that's not an excuse, because it wouldn't have made any difference if it had gone off - not that it would have, these things are really hard to set off accidentally, they have this neat -"

Danny growls and Steve gets back on target. "But she was close to the grenade, you're right, she was in close proximity, and I am very, very sorry I did that to you."

"And?"

"And I will never put anything in your car without telling you about it."

"Asking me."

Steve's jaw tightens, but Danny is adamant. They stare at each other for a full five seconds - well, Steve stares, Danny is still in full-on glaring mode - until Steve backs down.

"I will never put anything in your car without asking you first."

"Thank you." He takes a deep, deep breath and at last the tension is easing. He is still angry - he'll be angry for hours yet, he knows this - but it's manageable. It's controllable. It's within professional limits, and he can cope with that. His partner is still crazy, but he can cope with that too, especially since they now have a defined limit that he has set himself. It's almost a good feeling, and he'd enjoy it a lot more if the circumstances had been different.

Right. Time to salvage whatever he can from this debacle. "Give me the camera."

"You want the camera?"

"The camera is OK. I would even go so far as to say that the camera is the least crazy idea you have had in over a month." He takes the black nylon bag and puts it in the trunk, trying to tuck it into the corner so it won't roll around too much. He'll have to rig up something to keep it secure - velcro or an elastic strap, maybe, he'll see what he can find at the hardware store.

Danny closes the trunk and opens the driver side door. He considers just driving off and leaving McGarrett standing on the sidewalk with assorted weapons and ammo at his feet, which would be very satisfying emotionally, but then he gets a picture in his head of Steve handing out bullets to kids like Halloween candy, and even though he knows that Steve isn't quite that crazy, he's close enough that it's probably a good idea to make sure it can't happen.

He sighs, and calls out, "Come on, SuperSEAL. Get your ass in gear, pick that shit up and let's go."

The nickname brings a small, relieved smile to Steve's face, as if to say he knows that forgiveness is not totally outside the realms of possibility, even if it might be delayed a while. He stuffs the grenade in a pocket, gathers up the blackjack, the flare guns and the ammunition box, and gets into the car. He's a bit cramped in the passenger seat, rolled forward as it is, but Danny doesn't give him time to adjust it. He pulls out into the street and does a U-turn, heading out of the city.

"HQ?"

"Your place first, to dump all that -" he waves a hand at Steve's lap - "then back to HQ."

"OK."

They're silent for nearly ten minutes, and Danny is contemplating the paperwork he's going to have to fill out that afternoon. His anger has been compartmentalized and set aside for now - Danny is a professional, and he needs his energy to focus on the next task, which will probably involve cross-checking what they've got so far and trying to get some new leads.

The memory of Big Lono's face catches him by surprise. The way his eyes had widened when he saw Steve fastening the grenade to the door, the confidence replaced by disbelief and then the sudden, overwhelming flash of fear ... well, that had been a real pleasure to watch.

He chuckles to himself, and Steve looks over at him, concerned. Danny can't blame him for that - he's probably thinking that Danny is contemplating evil-overlord levels of retribution. Not that that doesn't have its attractions, and Danny will certainly investigate ways and means over the next few days, but it's not the issue right now.

Instead he grins and shakes his head. "That guy had no idea what level of crazy he was dealing with."

Steve acknowledges this with a wry smile. "Guess he does now."

They glance at each other and suddenly they are both of them laughing like idiots, and Danny nearly swerves off the road, but that's OK, he didn't actually hit anything and the wheels needed re-balancing anyway.

END