Crippled
by gaerwn
Summary: United they stand - and united they may very well fall. Steve, Danny, Chin, and Kono face an enemy that only wants one thing: to see them all dead. Teamfic, casefic, whump, action.
Note: Timeline is after 3x10. No big spoilers, though.
"If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance." - Niccolo Machiavelli
Danny flexed the fingers of his right hand, looking for all the world like he wanted to curl them into a fist and clock the nearest person. Luckily for his partner, the brightly-colored cast that adorned his wrist and forearm prevented him from actually doing it. Steve, though, was under no delusion that Danny could - and probably would, if he was worked into just the right mood - use the damned cast as a club. Just in case, Steve was smart enough to stand out of arm's reach and intelligent enough to let Danny do the talking. For now.
That is, if Danny would actually talk. So far, he seemed stuck on staring at swollen fingers and idly running his left hand over the cast. (No one had said a word about the purple flowers that Grace had drawn all over the cast. Steve had been there when Grace had announced that she was going to paint a masterpiece on Danny's arm, carefully choosing just the right colors. No pink, because Danno didn't do pink. She knew that - but Steve hadn't quite figured out how purple flowers were any more manly than whatever pink things the girl might have drawn on the cast. He wasn't going to ask, because this was Danno and as far as Danno was concerned, Grace was an artist. The best artist. The only artist. And no one was allowed to snicker or smirk at the purple-flowered cast.) Steve pressed his lips together and almost took a half-step forward before he caught himself.
Best not to put himself into range just yet. "Uh, Danny?"
The answer was a hum of questioning acknowledgment. Danny didn't even look up.
Steve wasn't sure what to make of that. All this time together and a silent Danny threw him more than any one of his partner's rants. Maybe all of them put together, for that matter. "You, ah... you doing all right there?"
Steve could almost hear the gears grind to halt as Danny finally turned to look at him. "Yes." Danny opened his mouth to say something else and Steve found himself hard-pressed not to say it with him. "No thanks to you."
The SEAL furrowed his brow and pointed at the cast. "You can't blame me for that." He ticked off the points on his fingers. "It wasn't a case. It wasn't work-related at all. I wasn't even on the island at the time. I didn't ask you to do anything for me. You weren't in my house, nor were you in my car."
Danny interrupted with a disbelieving snort. "That's because you're always in mine."
Steve continued as if he didn't hear that. "In fact, if I recall correctly, you... what? Fell while you were-"
"I was with Grace, okay? Shut up."
Steve McGarrett, the man who intimidated most everyone the team arrested, had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. None of the team had been able to get Danny to tell them exactly what had happed. He'd just shown up one day after a weekend with Grace with the cast and refused to talk about it.
Which, of course, meant that Steve's imagination was working overtime on this one. Something obviously happened and each of them had their pet theories. Kono believed it was a surfing accident. Chin took the minor bruising on Danny's right temple to mean he'd taken a rather embarrassing header down a flight of stairs. Steve was still working on the details, but it involved one of Danny's ties and a wayward shopping cart. He cleared his throat, trying to banish the theories long enough to at least look a little concerned. "Your hand okay?"
"No thanks-"
"-to me. Yes, I know. That's not an answer."
There was a long moment of palpable tension. "Yeah, it's good. Sore."
"Probably shouldn't have braced yourself with that arm."
Danny turned an incredulous gaze on his partner, mouth opened and closing for a moment before he managed an answer. "I was fallling!"
"And you should have used your good arm to brace yourself," Steve pointed out mildly.
This time, Danny did use his good arm. He used it to poke Steve right in the middle of the chest. "Shut up."
Steve waited for more. Danny always had more; he was always brimming over with words, but instead of being filled with the sound of well-placed words, the air between them was silent. Steve raised a brow, looked down at the finger still planted in the middle of his chest, and then back into Danny's face. "That's it?"
Danny blinked at him a few times. "Whaddya mean 'that's it'?"
"You don't have anything more to say?"
"What part of 'shut up' didn't you get?"
Steve looked upward and tilted his head to the side, as if he was actually thinking that one over. Yeah, he knew he was pushing buttons. He was trying to push buttons. Get one good rant going and maybe Danny would quit dwelling on the aching in his recently broken arm. It may not be the best method of helping along a friend's pain management but it was all Steve had. (Come to think of it, though, he probably had some ibuprofen stashed away in the Camaro somewhere. Probably next to the extra clips he kept in the glove box. Pushing buttons was more fun than pills, though.)
Danny responded with a huff as he dropped his hand. "At least we caught the guy."
"I caught the guy."
"I slowed him down."
"By falling on him," Steve pointed out. "Badly."
"This is your fault."
Steve just gave him a look as he turned toward the Camaro. HPD had come and gone with their perp - some small-time crook that got himself into too much trouble. Five-0 had picked up the case as a favor to Duke Lukela; HPD was swamped and didn't want to let this one through their fingers. They hadn't had the manpower to track the guy and Five-0 was conveniently not that busy, so Steve McGarrett's crack team of high-profile crime specialists had taken to running down a small-time dealer and sometime car thief.
Whom Danny had promptly fallen on when he'd corralled the kid. It was a little more complicated than that. Danny had made an impressive one-armed collar; Steve could give credit where credit was due and Danny usually deserved a good amount of it when it came to their cases. This one, though... This one had been a bit of a fluke. Danny had the kid well in hand when he'd been kicked just so in the ankle. Off-balance, Danny had snarled at the kid and tried to yank him back under control. They'd both gone down and it took Steve to sort out the tangle of casted and cuffed arms. Danny had been cursing up a storm while cradling his arm, the kid had been screaming about his bleeding nose he'd cracked on the asphalt, and Steve had been (silently) berating himself for even letting Danny convince him he was all right for field work with a cast on his right arm.
Idiot. Every last one of them, including himself, was an idiot.
"I'm serious," Danny called behind him as he fell into step. "Your fault."
"You fell, Danny. I didn't trip you."
"My arm hurts."
"Of course it does. You fell." Steve glanced over his shoulder. "I'm driving."
Danny threw his left hand into the air, right arm clamped to his abdomen. "When are you not?"
Steve made a show of tossing the keys into the air, catching them, and sliding into the driver's seat of the car. Danny grumbled all the way to the passenger's door.
Another day in paradise.
Kono met them at the doors into the offices. Tall and slender, she was the definition of a breath of fresh air. Her dark eyes danced with a humor that had seemed far too absent of late and Danny raised a brow at her as his step faltered. Must not be a new dead body, he reflected as her full lips parted in a smile. "Hey guys," she said as she crossed to them, manila envelope in hand. As she passed, she pressed it to Danny's chest. "Come with me."
Throwing Steve a questioning look, he turned to watch Kono as he fumbled with the envelope. The woman halted mid-step and looked over her shoulder at him. "Do I have to say it again?" she asked.
"Why?"
"Because you're not following me."
"I meant..." With a huff, he trailed off while Steve attempted not to look so amused. Danny waved a hand at his partner. "Paperwork. We have some. You have some. Do it."
Steve raised his hands and retreated without a word. Kono, meanwhile, motioned Danny forward.
"What?"
Kono inclined her head toward the manila envelope Danny was still holding to his chest. "Those need dropped off at the crime lab. Duke called, too. He wants to talk to you. Something about the arrest today."
Danny nodded once. "Two birds, one stone. Why are you going when I could run the errand?" He jogged a few steps to catch up with her, then fell into step beside her.
"I want out of the office." She shrugged one shoulder. "I didn't get to run anyone down today," she said with a mock pout.
"I would have traded places with you," Danny told her seriously.
Kono looked askance at him before she reached out to take the folder from him. "You really should be wearing a sling, brah. And maybe not chasing down suspects."
Expression flat, Danny answered with, "I can carry an envelope."
Kono's brow furrowed. "You were carrying a surfboard, weren't you? When it happened. Am I right?"
"Shut up," Danny said without heat as they stepped into the brilliant sunshine. They went a few more steps before he raised his left hand and, still without much heat, half-turned to point at her. Whatever he was going to say was lost in the deafening echo that shattered the afternoon chatter of a city's normal sounds. Kono's training kicked in before she registered what it was she saw: one hand pulling her service weapon, she was looking around as she crouched next to Danny.
As her hand settled on his shoulder, it all caught up with her. Hit her with enough force that she couldn't draw a breath. Gun trained on nothing and aim shifting at every subtle movement in the street, she was horrified at the thought of even looking down at him.
He'd dropped. Right in front of her. His eyes had fluttered and he'd dropped bonelessly to the ground. A million horrible images flooded her mind even as she kept her gaze flitting about the area. People milled around, looking panicked. Some had the presence of mind to pull out cell phones - Kono made a absent, clinical note to see if anyone started recording the scene. Behind her, she heard the doors open. Heard Steve calling her name, a near-frantic question in his tone. Heard him call Danny's name and panic laced his voice.
Oh, God. Danny.
She looked down.
She looked down and stopped breathing.
Blood pooled under Danny - under his head, oh, God - and she nearly scrambled to her feet, ready to run, when she realized her knee was planted right in the middle of a growing pool. Horror filled wide eyes and her weapon wavered. Swiftly holstering the weapon without thought, she reached for Danny with both hands, one hovering over his neck as if to check his pulse and the other over the mess of blood at his temple. She heard footsteps on concrete, the skidding of boots as Steve slid to a stop over them, gun drawn and gaze predatory.
"Kono!"
At the sound of her name, Kono moved. She drew a desperate breath and nearly jammed her fingers into Danny's neck. Pulse, pulse, please be a... pulse! There. "Alive," she whispered, then took another breath and tried again. "Alive." She clasped her hand over the bleeding wound. Ignoring Steve - she could clearly see him in her mind's eye, tense and ready to pounce on anything that might seem a threat - Kono dug in her pocket for her cell phone.
Her hand shook as she dialed for help.
tbc-
