Hawaii Five-0 Fic: Bringing Jersey Back

May 19, 2011 18:18

Title: Bringing Jersey Back
Pairing: Gen (pre-Steve/Danny if you really, really squint.)
Wordcount: 2230
Summary: Six months and everything can finally go back to normal.

Except for how they so totally can't.
Notes: Tag for the season one finale. THERE BE SPOILERS HERE. Idea sparked by my comment thread with sheafrotherdon, located here. There are also spoilers (obviously) in that post. I apologize for there not being actually shenanigans here, but rest assured, there are shenanigans afoot. Feel free to write those shenanigans, should the mood strike you. :D

Beta by the ever awesome roseclaw.



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Bringing Jersey Back

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It takes six months of under the table work. Six months back on the HPD under Chin's leadership officially. Six months of after hours investigations with Kono and Jenna and, surprisingly unsurprising, Kamekona. Six months of Steve behind bars, but then its done. Wo Fat is dead, Steve's name is cleared, and 5-0 is back on the official books.

Six months and everything can finally go back to normal.

Except for how they so totally can't.

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"So what exactly is going on here, Danno?" Steve asks like this isn't the fifteenth time he's asked that question, like Danny is just going to decide to change his answer because Steve won him over being persistent.

It's like Steve doesn't even know him anymore.

"Seriously, Steven," Danny says. He slows at the yellow, stopping and flipping on the turn signal. This makes Steve even more antsy. "Have you really forgotten that much about me? About how I work, how we work? Because last I knew, you pestering me like a dog wanting a bone wasn't the way to get me to open up about anything. Didn't they teach you patience in the Army? I mean, I'd imagine there's a lot of hurry up and wait in that line of work."

"Navy, Danny. NAVY," Steve grounds out. His fingers twitch against his knee.

"Right, right. Navy," Danny says. The light turns green and Danny takes a left, moving off the main drag and onto a back street that will lead them to another back street that will lead them to the alley with the garage where Kamekona will have left them a car to switch into. Danny still thinks all of this is over the top - especially the part where one of Kamekona's people will move the Camaro to another location for pick up - but it hasn't hindered anything. Also, it seems to make everyone happy, so. Danny lives with it.

"So?" Steve asks when Danny pulls onto the second back street.

"So, what?" Danny slows down enough to let a couple of drunk kids stumble across the street in front of them, using that action to cover the fact that he can't read the fucking street numbers in this light and even if he should know exactly where the alley is, it doesn't change the fact that things look significantly different at dusk then they do in either daylight or full night. "Fucking Kamekona, he can't make this shit easy can he?"

"Kamekona?" Steve asks, latching onto the name like Danny was inadvertently giving away information instead of just mumbling under his breath. "What's he have to do with this?"

"You know, Steven, I'm finding all these questions just a little annoying," Danny says. Aha, there's the alleyway, tucked between what looks like a surf board warehouse thing and a little bodega with a green canopy over the front door and window. Danny makes the turn, wrinkling his nose at the overflowing dumpster at the front of the alley. Some of the places that Kamekona finds are just gross. "I told you I would explain everything. Have some faith."

"Ha ha ha," Steve says. He shifts in his seat, making like he's about three seconds away from jumping from the car in some Seal approved manner, and Danny cannot help but roll his eyes. Okay, he gets that Steve just spent six months in solitary lockdown accused of some pretty heinous crimes while the rest of them were out running around Hawaii, but this level of paranoia is somewhat ridiculous. Also, reminiscent of their first couple of weeks partnered together.

"You are so funny, Danny. I can't believe you aren't making millions off of Comedy Central right about now."

"What, what?" Danny asks. He waves his hand around in the air a bit even as he hits the button that opens the garage door for them. "You think I should be on Comedy Central? That I'm a comedian? What's next? A couple of fucking dolls, maybe describing a few of your exploits to the general public? Because, I have to tell you, that whole thing with the throwing the suspect into the shark tank? Or that time you blew up a door with a grenade you hid in my car - the car I drive my daughter around in, mind you - that one? That'd be comic genius that no one would believe, not knowing you, of course."

"You really need to let that go, Danno," Steve says. He hasn't exactly relaxed, but he's grinning now, because of course Steve still thinks this argument is amusing. It isn't like they haven't had it a thousand times since that day, and Danny really, really wishes he could get through to him that grenades, while awesome at exploding things in certain, usually extraordinary, circumstances, they are not something that need to be used on an everyday basis. Nor should they be put in vehicles that people drive around residential neighborhoods with. "I'd never let anything happen to Gracie, you know that. I love her like she was my own."

"Now that is something that I'm not surprised to hear from you," Danny admits. He's pulled the car into the garage, and the door is shut before he has a chance to shut the engine off. There's an unmarked green car that Danny would laughingly call a junker parked about thirty feet away in front of another garage door that should open into another alley on the other side of the block. "Kamekona should be slapped; where does he find these cars? Seriously, the last three looked like they were the leftovers from one of those car movies. You know the ones, with that Vin something guy, with all the muscles? And that other dude with the hair."

"The Fast and the Furious?" Steve asks. He sounds like he's just amusing Danny, like he's ten seconds away from calling the people with those nice coats with the extra long sleeves and buckles. Like Steve has any right implying that anyone else is crazy.

"Yeah, yeah, that one," Danny says. He climbs out of the car, making sure to grab the duffle he'd thrown onto the backseat. "Come on, Steven, we aren't done yet. Just another quick jaunt in this, this junker masquerading as a drivable vehicle."

"Danny." Steve climbs out of the car, but he doesn't shut the door and follow Danny. Because Steve has to be difficult. Of course he does. It's like something that's been hardwired into his freaking DNA: must be as difficult as possible. Must drive one Danny Williams, Detective, absolutely batshit crazy on a daily, if not hourly, basis. "What the hell?"

"No, no," Danny says. He stops halfway to the junker to point at Steve. "You do not get to question me. Right now you have to trust me, because if nothing else, this entire last year, including these last six months, has been nothing but an exercise in showing you just how much you should actually trust me. I told you I was taking you to see something, and that all would be explained when we got there. It might not make any sense, but really, what does on this fucking pineapple infested island? But it will all be explained. So get your ass over here and into the car."

Steve raises an eyebrow at Danny. Danny raises it right back for about a minute, then he turns and goes to the junker. Steve will follow, he just has to be a stubborn ass about it.

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"You're late, haole," Kamekona says as Danny climbs out of the car at the warehouse they're using this month. The big guy is fully decked out tonight - everything from the tights to the shorts to the mask and the cape - like Steve won't believe them if he doesn't have the physical proof in front of him.

Or the guy just hadn't had the time to change after leaving the shave ice stand. There is a large, slightly indefinable face on the front of the t-shirt.

"Yeah, well, if you didn't insist on providing me with cars that refuse to come within ten miles of the speed limit, then I'd have a much easier time keeping my appointments," Danny says. He drags the back door of the junker open, wincing at the high pitched squeal of the hinges, and pulls his duffle bag out. "Also, you need to talk to this guy. I mean, seriously, not even Gracie during her worst moments of temper tantrums - thankfully few that they are - drags her feet as much as this guy does. Navy Seal, my ass."

"Bite me, Danno," Steve says. Only the comment sounds completely absentminded, which, given the way Steve is staring at Kamekona with a cross of horror and amusement, is totally understandable. Seriously. Tights and a cape. Tights. "What the…?"

"Hey, boss!" Kono chirps from where she, Jenna, and Chin are gathered around the virtual mountain of computers Chin and Jenna have assembled. Danny doesn't have any idea where they've gotten all of their equipment, and he's certain it's better for all involved that he doesn't, but this little setup is almost better than the one at 5-0 Headquarters. "Has Danny explained everything?"

"No, no. Danny has not explained everything," Danny says. He drops his duffle on the table to their left, grabbing one of the spare chairs and dropping down into it. "I already told you that this whole thing is not my responsibility to explain."

"But Danny, you explain things so well," Jenna says. She smiles sweetly at Danny as she says it, like he can't see the high five happening between her and Kono right in front of him. These people, seriously. Danny has no idea what to do with them.

He thinks he likes it that way. Most days anyway.

"No way in hell, Kaye," Danny says. He crosses his arms over his chest and glares her down.

"Um. What the hell?" Steve repeats. He's crossed the room to stand behind Danny's chair. Danny knows that Steve has them all in his line of sight, but that his eyes are mainly on the computer screens that Chin is still focused on. Screens that are displaying real time data on any number of different neighborhoods across the islands, one specifically focused on the drug gang that they're looking into this week, another open to an IM screen with one of Toast's screennames.

"Welcome to the Batcave, boss!" Kono says. She even bounces on her toes. Seriously, Danny doesn't remember ever being that young.

"Batcave?" Steve repeats. His hand comes down on Danny's shoulder in a tight sudden grip, but Danny doesn't move. He knows what its like to need something grounding. All Danny does is hold up a hand when Kono goes to continue; Steve'll figure it out.

"You're the crack team of vigilantes that have been making every agency and department to hold a badge on the islands look like complete idiots?" Steve finally asks. His hand is still on Danny's shoulder, but Danny doesn't have to worry about losing an arm now. Steve sounds like he used to, back before Hesse held Chin hostage, when his team did something so amazingly awesome that it was like every Christmas and birthday wish he'd ever had had come true.

Oh yeah, Steve had figured it out.

"Yep!" Kono says. She bounces again.

"Well, actually, its more of a network of people working underground as informants and the like to provide information to the police in an effort to retake the island from any and all criminal elements," Jenna continues. "But essentially, yes."

"What, brah, you actually thought it would be anyone else?" Chin finally speaks up. He spins in his chair to face Steve and Danny, an eyebrow raised in a disapproving arc that Steve could only dream of ever producing.

"That's cold, haole," Kamekona agrees.

"How can I help?" Steve asks. He's practically rubbing his hands together, he's so happy. Danny knew this would happen. "And that's what's up with the Halloween costumes?"

Kono looks down at her outfit, which while significantly different from her usually attire, what with all the dark, shadow-eating leather and all, wasn't all that Halloween-ish. Only Kamekona went to the extreme of the capes and the masks. And the tights. Oh the tights. Danny has nightmares about the tights. "Halloween, really?"

"What I think our grand and benevolent dictator here is asking, is whether or not we have a costume that he can call his very own," Danny says. He nudges Steve in the direction of the duffle bag. "Which you most certainly can, oh benevolent one. All you're ninja gear is in the bag. Go forth and cause havoc on the unsuspecting criminal masses, you'll enjoy it."

"What about you?" Steve asks even as he's pulling clothes and other odds and ends out of the bag. Because Danny is the only one in the room, other than Steve, who hasn't bothered changing.

Only silence greets his question, and that causes Steve to look up at them all. "Um, guys?"

Danny doesn't bother hiding his smile anymore than anyone else is. Except his is a little less malevolently cheerful than everyone else's, and a little more, well, just malevolent.

"Let's just say that nothing screams 'Jersey' as much as a nice tie."

gen, fic, hawaii five-o, episode tag

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