Fic: Nine Year Olds Should Not be This Awesome
Title: Nine Year Olds Should Not be This Awesome
Pairing: Steve/Danny, pre-slash
Characters: Grace
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
Beta: solar_cat any remaining Britishisms are mine alone. She had a lot to weed out *g*
Summary: Steve and Danny watch one of Grace's soccer games
Note 1: This was written for leupagus's Mary Sue/awesome women fest here
Note the 2nd: As a Brit, you have no idea how much it hurts to write soccer instead of football. Really, really painful.
Steve stood a couple of feet from Danny, his arms crossed, watching as his friend paced the sidelines of the soccer pitch, biting his lip, his eyes never leaving Grace.
Grace was playing midfield, her face a mask of concentration. She was marking her opponent so diligently that she was hardly more than a couple of centimetres from the other girl. Glancing around at the rest of her team, Steve could see that Grace wasn’t the only one who was determined that even down 5-to-1, this game was still winnable.
‘When did Grace start playing?’ He didn’t remember her being interested in soccer before. He wondered if this was Danny’s cunning plan to try and keep her away from her surfboard.
Danny stopped to stand next to him. ‘About a month or so ago.’ He waved his hand. ‘Something to do with some of her friends playing and not wanting to be left out. Anyway, Step-Stan bought her the uniform, some soccer balls to practice with, goal posts and god only knows what else. Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t build her a field right there in the backyard.’
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t mention that. To Stan or Gracie,’ said Steve. He could only imagine Danny’s reaction to something like that and it wasn’t pretty.
Danny snorted. ‘Ya think?’
‘You been to many of her games?’
Danny glanced at him and sighed. ‘No, not really.’ He started pacing again. ‘You know, what with certain demands of this job and everything, I haven’t really had the time.’
Steve shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘You should have said.’
‘And, what? You would’ve just asked the nice criminals to hold off committing any crimes for a few hours every Wednesday afternoon so I can go watch my daughter play a game of soccer?’
‘No, but I think me, Chin and Kono would have been able to keep things in order for a couple of hours.’
Danny squinted at him. ‘You? Keep things in order? Really?’ He rubbed a hand over his face. ‘But, thanks.’
Steve waved him off. ‘Just…put her game schedule in the car.’
Danny kept starring at him before breaking into a grin that brightened his face. ‘I can do that.’
Steve nodded. ‘You know, if you pace much more, you’re going to turn the grass brown.’
Danny groaned as one of the girls on Grace’s team lost the ball, kicking the ground in frustration. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Steven -‘ Steve winced ‘- but her team is losing. Badly. My little girl is about to learn the harsh realities of losing in life all because of a referee who can’t tell the difference between a sweetly timed run and offside. It isn’t exactly rocket science. ‘
As Danny became more outraged, Steve became increasingly distracted by the way his hands punctuated the air with his anger on Grace’s behalf. It was kind of mesmerising how much more Danny could say if he was also waving his arms around and Danny wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who was strapped for words. He glanced around to see if Danny’s ranting was disturbing any of the other parents, but as far as he could tell nearly every parent on the sidelines was as outraged as Danny. Most of them were yelling at the referee about dirty tactics and biased referee decisions.
‘I’m sure Grace will understand, Danny,’ said Steve, trying to calm his partner.
Danny pivoted on his feet to glare unimpressively at Steve. ‘Understand what, exactly?’ he demanded, jabbing his index finger into the palm of his hand. ‘That some people aren’t capable of reading a simple rule book? That they can’t apply it to a simple game? That they think that if they don’t like the rules, they can ignore them?’
Steve, thinking that Danny might no longer be talking about the ref, decided, that, with Grace being involved, it was probably wise to not say anything.
Danny, thankfully, didn’t seem to be all that interested in yelling at Steve, and kept ranting about the referee. ‘And, if it suddenly transpires that he does know the rule book to any degree, that just means he’s a biased son of a bitch. Either way, my little girl has to learn that people are shitty.’
‘Isn’t that a good thing for her to learn?’ He remembered the first time he’d had to learn that sometimes you lose in life. It sucked, but it hurt a hell of a lot less as a kid than it did as an adult.
‘Of course, it is. It doesn’t mean that I want her to have to learn it now. Today.’
As the final whistle was blown and the other side started jumping around in celebration, Danny rubbed a hand over his face. ‘This is the first game she’s lost, you know.’
‘Ah.’
Grace and the rest of her team shook hands with the other girls and walked dejectedly over to their coach who gave them all hugs and told them - judging from the way they perked up - how proud she was with the heart and determination they had played with, all the way to till the end. At least, that’s what Steve would have told them.
‘Nine year olds are notoriously resilient, Danny.’
Danny narrowed his eyes at Steve. ‘Are you mocking me?’
‘I’m really not,’ said Steve. He nodded in the direction of the pitch. ‘Here she comes.’
Danny turned and dropped to his knee. Grace walked straight into his outstretched arms and wrapped her arms around his neck.
As Danny stroked her hair, Steve glanced away. Even now, after more than a year of knowing Danny and Grace, it made his chest hurt seeing how much Danny loved his daughter. Most of the time he could swallow it down, but sometimes it hit him right in the solar plexus. Every time it reminded him of his mom, his dad and the childhood Mary had missed out on.
‘Monkey, I’m so sorry.’
Grace pulled back so she could look at her dad. ‘Thanks, daddy, but I’m okay.’
‘The important thing is that you remember that winning isn’t everything,’ said Danny, launching into a no doubt, highly motivational speech. Grace looked over his shoulder and saw Steve. She smiled at him, waved her fingers without moving her hand from Danny’s shoulder.
He waved back and mouthed, ‘Hi.’
‘You have to enjoy the game otherwise there’s no point playing - just ask your Uncle Tommy.’ Steve grinned at her and rolled his eyes. He could totally understand wanting to protect Grace, but Grace didn’t look to him like she needed protecting. In fact, she looked about ten seconds from rolling her eyes at her dad. Which would be hilarious. ‘He started taking baseball too seriously and he ended up hating it. You don’t what that. And remember, baby, there will be other games. Lots of them. And this will be a distant memory.’
At that Grace did roll her eyes, causing Steve to bite his lip so he didn’t end up grinning like a loon because, knowing his luck, that would be exactly when Danny looked at him and got pissed.
‘Daddy, don’t worry. We’ll beat them when we play them again after Christmas.’
Steve looked on with amusement as Danny - his partner who didn’t know when or how to shut up - was rendered speechless by his cute-as-a-button nine year old daughter. He didn’t know whether to be impressed by Grace’s mad skills or depressed that he hadn’t yet mastered the art of shutting Danny up. He was working on it, though.
Grace didn’t even give her dad a chance to regroup. She smiled disarmingly at him. ‘Can we go and get a shaved ice now?’
Danny blinked. ‘Uh, yeah, sure. Whatever, you want, Monkey.’
Grace leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thanks, Danno.’
As Danny stood slowly, either because of his knee or because he was still in shock, Grace slipped her hand into Steve’s, pulling him along so he walked with her. ‘What did you think of the game, Uncle Steve?’
‘Uh,’ floundered Steve, well aware of Danny glaring daggers at him in case he said the wrong thing to Grace. Steve was pretty sure that after a year he had a relatively good handle on what constituted the right and the wrong things to say to Grace.
‘Apart from the bit where we lost,’ added Grace with a self deprecating shrug. ‘We don’t usually do that.’
‘We turned up late - my fault,’ he added as Danny punched him on the arm, ‘so I didn’t get to see a lot of the game.’
Danny had yelled at him at length when he had realised that Grace’s game had started and they were on the other side of the island, questioning a witness. Steve had gotten them there as quickly as possible, with minimal bitching from Danny. Which was to say, a lot of bitching.
‘Will you come and watch my next game with daddy?’
Steve blinked, not exactly expecting the invitation. ‘If you want me to.’
Grace nodded. ‘I want you to.’
‘Then I’ll be there,’ said Steve, nodding. He hazarded a quick glance at Danny to find him smiling at both of them, his eyes soft. Steve looked away again.
‘Good.’ Then she launched into a very detailed explanation about the rules of soccer. Steve didn’t have the heart to tell her that his buddies in the SAS had made sure that he knew the rules of ‘proper football’ while he was with them. Instead he listened and nodded in all the right places. Though, listening to her, he had a feeling she could tell some of the Brits he knew a thing or two about the rules of the game. Tackling from behind and hacking at feet were illegal, no matter what Joe said.
As they walked to the car, Steve bumped his shoulder into Danny’s. ‘You okay?’ Because, really, Danny seemed more cut up by the loss than Grace did.
He glanced down at Grace, who was now describing the role of the midfielders. ‘Do you get the feeling that I’m more upset about this than she is?’
Steve laughed. ‘Yeah. Something like that.’
‘How is that even possible?’ wondered Danny, shaking his head.
‘I dunno, but you’re acting like it’s the end of the world,’ said Steve, ‘while Grace just wants shaved ice. I like her way better.’
‘That’s because you get shaved ice.’
‘True.’
Danny reached out and gently tugged Grace’s pigtail. ‘How did my daughter become so well adjusted?’
‘I really couldn’t say, but it does make me wonder which of you is the adult, because Gracie is way more mature than you.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ snapped Danny, with a smirk on his face. ‘I hardly think you should be lecturing me on being a mature and responsible adult, do you? Have I ever kicked in doors, thrown people off buildings, thrown suspects in shark cages? No, I have not, hence, I’m a far more responsible adult than you could ever hope to be.’
‘And yet, your daughter…’
‘Daddy, Uncle Steve, I’m not okay with us losing, you know,’ interrupted Grace, staring up at them. ‘But it’s much better to get even instead of getting mad.’
‘That’s your mother’s influence,’ said Danny.
Grace smiled up at him. ‘I know.’
Steve laughed. ‘It looks like Grace got the best from both of you.’
Danny snorted. ‘You never want to see this one in a temper.’
Steve thought about that for a second. Rachel’s cold and clinical evisceration and Danny’s honest to god hot rage that burnt everything in its path. ‘No, I can believe that.’ He squeezed Grace’s hand. ‘I’m never getting on your bad side.’
Grace opened the car door and dropped her bag on the back seat before climbing in after it. ‘Don’t worry, Uncle Steve, I’ll never be angry at you.’
Steve grinned to himself as he slid into the driver’s seat. After a year of knowing Grace and getting used to her liking him, he’d come to enjoy the warm feeling that spread out from his chest whenever she said something unexpected like that.
‘Babe, never make promises you won’t be able to keep,’ said Danny, twisting around in his seat so he could look at Grace, ‘because trust me, sooner or later, Steve will drive you absolutely crazy.’
‘How could you say that, Danno?’ asked Steve, with a grin. ‘Are you suggesting that I make you crazy?’
‘Every damn day,’ said Danny with feeling, as Steve pulled out of the parking lot.
Pairing: Steve/Danny, pre-slash
Characters: Grace
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
Beta: solar_cat any remaining Britishisms are mine alone. She had a lot to weed out *g*
Summary: Steve and Danny watch one of Grace's soccer games
Note 1: This was written for leupagus's Mary Sue/awesome women fest here
Note the 2nd: As a Brit, you have no idea how much it hurts to write soccer instead of football. Really, really painful.
Steve stood a couple of feet from Danny, his arms crossed, watching as his friend paced the sidelines of the soccer pitch, biting his lip, his eyes never leaving Grace.
Grace was playing midfield, her face a mask of concentration. She was marking her opponent so diligently that she was hardly more than a couple of centimetres from the other girl. Glancing around at the rest of her team, Steve could see that Grace wasn’t the only one who was determined that even down 5-to-1, this game was still winnable.
‘When did Grace start playing?’ He didn’t remember her being interested in soccer before. He wondered if this was Danny’s cunning plan to try and keep her away from her surfboard.
Danny stopped to stand next to him. ‘About a month or so ago.’ He waved his hand. ‘Something to do with some of her friends playing and not wanting to be left out. Anyway, Step-Stan bought her the uniform, some soccer balls to practice with, goal posts and god only knows what else. Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t build her a field right there in the backyard.’
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t mention that. To Stan or Gracie,’ said Steve. He could only imagine Danny’s reaction to something like that and it wasn’t pretty.
Danny snorted. ‘Ya think?’
‘You been to many of her games?’
Danny glanced at him and sighed. ‘No, not really.’ He started pacing again. ‘You know, what with certain demands of this job and everything, I haven’t really had the time.’
Steve shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘You should have said.’
‘And, what? You would’ve just asked the nice criminals to hold off committing any crimes for a few hours every Wednesday afternoon so I can go watch my daughter play a game of soccer?’
‘No, but I think me, Chin and Kono would have been able to keep things in order for a couple of hours.’
Danny squinted at him. ‘You? Keep things in order? Really?’ He rubbed a hand over his face. ‘But, thanks.’
Steve waved him off. ‘Just…put her game schedule in the car.’
Danny kept starring at him before breaking into a grin that brightened his face. ‘I can do that.’
Steve nodded. ‘You know, if you pace much more, you’re going to turn the grass brown.’
Danny groaned as one of the girls on Grace’s team lost the ball, kicking the ground in frustration. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Steven -‘ Steve winced ‘- but her team is losing. Badly. My little girl is about to learn the harsh realities of losing in life all because of a referee who can’t tell the difference between a sweetly timed run and offside. It isn’t exactly rocket science. ‘
As Danny became more outraged, Steve became increasingly distracted by the way his hands punctuated the air with his anger on Grace’s behalf. It was kind of mesmerising how much more Danny could say if he was also waving his arms around and Danny wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who was strapped for words. He glanced around to see if Danny’s ranting was disturbing any of the other parents, but as far as he could tell nearly every parent on the sidelines was as outraged as Danny. Most of them were yelling at the referee about dirty tactics and biased referee decisions.
‘I’m sure Grace will understand, Danny,’ said Steve, trying to calm his partner.
Danny pivoted on his feet to glare unimpressively at Steve. ‘Understand what, exactly?’ he demanded, jabbing his index finger into the palm of his hand. ‘That some people aren’t capable of reading a simple rule book? That they can’t apply it to a simple game? That they think that if they don’t like the rules, they can ignore them?’
Steve, thinking that Danny might no longer be talking about the ref, decided, that, with Grace being involved, it was probably wise to not say anything.
Danny, thankfully, didn’t seem to be all that interested in yelling at Steve, and kept ranting about the referee. ‘And, if it suddenly transpires that he does know the rule book to any degree, that just means he’s a biased son of a bitch. Either way, my little girl has to learn that people are shitty.’
‘Isn’t that a good thing for her to learn?’ He remembered the first time he’d had to learn that sometimes you lose in life. It sucked, but it hurt a hell of a lot less as a kid than it did as an adult.
‘Of course, it is. It doesn’t mean that I want her to have to learn it now. Today.’
As the final whistle was blown and the other side started jumping around in celebration, Danny rubbed a hand over his face. ‘This is the first game she’s lost, you know.’
‘Ah.’
Grace and the rest of her team shook hands with the other girls and walked dejectedly over to their coach who gave them all hugs and told them - judging from the way they perked up - how proud she was with the heart and determination they had played with, all the way to till the end. At least, that’s what Steve would have told them.
‘Nine year olds are notoriously resilient, Danny.’
Danny narrowed his eyes at Steve. ‘Are you mocking me?’
‘I’m really not,’ said Steve. He nodded in the direction of the pitch. ‘Here she comes.’
Danny turned and dropped to his knee. Grace walked straight into his outstretched arms and wrapped her arms around his neck.
As Danny stroked her hair, Steve glanced away. Even now, after more than a year of knowing Danny and Grace, it made his chest hurt seeing how much Danny loved his daughter. Most of the time he could swallow it down, but sometimes it hit him right in the solar plexus. Every time it reminded him of his mom, his dad and the childhood Mary had missed out on.
‘Monkey, I’m so sorry.’
Grace pulled back so she could look at her dad. ‘Thanks, daddy, but I’m okay.’
‘The important thing is that you remember that winning isn’t everything,’ said Danny, launching into a no doubt, highly motivational speech. Grace looked over his shoulder and saw Steve. She smiled at him, waved her fingers without moving her hand from Danny’s shoulder.
He waved back and mouthed, ‘Hi.’
‘You have to enjoy the game otherwise there’s no point playing - just ask your Uncle Tommy.’ Steve grinned at her and rolled his eyes. He could totally understand wanting to protect Grace, but Grace didn’t look to him like she needed protecting. In fact, she looked about ten seconds from rolling her eyes at her dad. Which would be hilarious. ‘He started taking baseball too seriously and he ended up hating it. You don’t what that. And remember, baby, there will be other games. Lots of them. And this will be a distant memory.’
At that Grace did roll her eyes, causing Steve to bite his lip so he didn’t end up grinning like a loon because, knowing his luck, that would be exactly when Danny looked at him and got pissed.
‘Daddy, don’t worry. We’ll beat them when we play them again after Christmas.’
Steve looked on with amusement as Danny - his partner who didn’t know when or how to shut up - was rendered speechless by his cute-as-a-button nine year old daughter. He didn’t know whether to be impressed by Grace’s mad skills or depressed that he hadn’t yet mastered the art of shutting Danny up. He was working on it, though.
Grace didn’t even give her dad a chance to regroup. She smiled disarmingly at him. ‘Can we go and get a shaved ice now?’
Danny blinked. ‘Uh, yeah, sure. Whatever, you want, Monkey.’
Grace leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thanks, Danno.’
As Danny stood slowly, either because of his knee or because he was still in shock, Grace slipped her hand into Steve’s, pulling him along so he walked with her. ‘What did you think of the game, Uncle Steve?’
‘Uh,’ floundered Steve, well aware of Danny glaring daggers at him in case he said the wrong thing to Grace. Steve was pretty sure that after a year he had a relatively good handle on what constituted the right and the wrong things to say to Grace.
‘Apart from the bit where we lost,’ added Grace with a self deprecating shrug. ‘We don’t usually do that.’
‘We turned up late - my fault,’ he added as Danny punched him on the arm, ‘so I didn’t get to see a lot of the game.’
Danny had yelled at him at length when he had realised that Grace’s game had started and they were on the other side of the island, questioning a witness. Steve had gotten them there as quickly as possible, with minimal bitching from Danny. Which was to say, a lot of bitching.
‘Will you come and watch my next game with daddy?’
Steve blinked, not exactly expecting the invitation. ‘If you want me to.’
Grace nodded. ‘I want you to.’
‘Then I’ll be there,’ said Steve, nodding. He hazarded a quick glance at Danny to find him smiling at both of them, his eyes soft. Steve looked away again.
‘Good.’ Then she launched into a very detailed explanation about the rules of soccer. Steve didn’t have the heart to tell her that his buddies in the SAS had made sure that he knew the rules of ‘proper football’ while he was with them. Instead he listened and nodded in all the right places. Though, listening to her, he had a feeling she could tell some of the Brits he knew a thing or two about the rules of the game. Tackling from behind and hacking at feet were illegal, no matter what Joe said.
As they walked to the car, Steve bumped his shoulder into Danny’s. ‘You okay?’ Because, really, Danny seemed more cut up by the loss than Grace did.
He glanced down at Grace, who was now describing the role of the midfielders. ‘Do you get the feeling that I’m more upset about this than she is?’
Steve laughed. ‘Yeah. Something like that.’
‘How is that even possible?’ wondered Danny, shaking his head.
‘I dunno, but you’re acting like it’s the end of the world,’ said Steve, ‘while Grace just wants shaved ice. I like her way better.’
‘That’s because you get shaved ice.’
‘True.’
Danny reached out and gently tugged Grace’s pigtail. ‘How did my daughter become so well adjusted?’
‘I really couldn’t say, but it does make me wonder which of you is the adult, because Gracie is way more mature than you.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ snapped Danny, with a smirk on his face. ‘I hardly think you should be lecturing me on being a mature and responsible adult, do you? Have I ever kicked in doors, thrown people off buildings, thrown suspects in shark cages? No, I have not, hence, I’m a far more responsible adult than you could ever hope to be.’
‘And yet, your daughter…’
‘Daddy, Uncle Steve, I’m not okay with us losing, you know,’ interrupted Grace, staring up at them. ‘But it’s much better to get even instead of getting mad.’
‘That’s your mother’s influence,’ said Danny.
Grace smiled up at him. ‘I know.’
Steve laughed. ‘It looks like Grace got the best from both of you.’
Danny snorted. ‘You never want to see this one in a temper.’
Steve thought about that for a second. Rachel’s cold and clinical evisceration and Danny’s honest to god hot rage that burnt everything in its path. ‘No, I can believe that.’ He squeezed Grace’s hand. ‘I’m never getting on your bad side.’
Grace opened the car door and dropped her bag on the back seat before climbing in after it. ‘Don’t worry, Uncle Steve, I’ll never be angry at you.’
Steve grinned to himself as he slid into the driver’s seat. After a year of knowing Grace and getting used to her liking him, he’d come to enjoy the warm feeling that spread out from his chest whenever she said something unexpected like that.
‘Babe, never make promises you won’t be able to keep,’ said Danny, twisting around in his seat so he could look at Grace, ‘because trust me, sooner or later, Steve will drive you absolutely crazy.’
‘How could you say that, Danno?’ asked Steve, with a grin. ‘Are you suggesting that I make you crazy?’
‘Every damn day,’ said Danny with feeling, as Steve pulled out of the parking lot.