1
When Kono was six she played Monopoly at a family reunion, at the kids table with an untouched bowl of poi on a pink paper tablecloth, cousins crouched in cheap plastic chairs. When her youngest cousin Sunle bankrupted her she threw the table at his head, sending the poi bowl flying. Her dress smelled like taro the rest of the day.
/
Kono has always wanted to be the best, first with surfing, then rehab, then at the shooting range with Chin Ho dropping ear and eye protection on her face and calluses forming on her trigger finger and the tip of her thumb, from pressing bullets into the clip, one by one.
"No, no no, no." Chin says, playful warning, "You don't play games with Kono. Sore loser." Danny shuffles the cards again, thiwk thiwk thiwk from one hand to the other.
"Shut up," Kono says, and refuses to sink into a pout. "Deal," she says to Danny, and Danny laughs a little. "I can be competitive," she admits with great dignity.
"No," Danny says in what Kono privately thinks as his Steve voice, "you?"
"Shut up, haole," she says, and Danny blows out a sigh so hard it flutters his tie.
"What is it with that," he complains, "what's the Hawaiian word for Hawaiian so I can call you that all the time, see how you like it." Kono giggles, and feels quietly warm that she can giggle with these people and not feel like less of a professional.
"Kama'aina," Chin says, totally straight faced, and Danny's eyes narrow.
"Are you screwing with me? What is wrong with the Hawaiian language?" Kono swivels in her chair as Steve walks in.
"Don't you guys have work to do?" Steve asks.
"-all the streets start with K and end with ua-" Danny doesn't let Steve interrupt his rant.
"Hey," Kono says, "what's wrong with starting with K and ending in ua?"
"Paperwork," Steve interjects more firmly, "why are none of you doing it?"
"We," Danny says with an emphasizing gesture, "have done our paperwork. You have not." Steve looks over at the pile of paperwork on his desk and almost makes an expression unrelated to the possibility of explosions. Kono giggles again, and smiles with her tongue between her teeth when Danny deals her a full house, ten high.
Ten minutes later she bets the last of her pretzels and Danny has a pair of Aces to her pair of eights. Danny moves to take her pretzels and Kono's eyes slide to the stapler on his desk.
"Fold," Danny says swiftly, and Kono beams as Chin laughs.
2
When Kono was fifteen a hapa haole boy asked her to the beach on a date. He watched her surf without jealousy and said you're so beautiful in a breathless way that sounded sincere. She went out to impress him and got distracted, wiped out and hit her head coming down on her own board. He dragged her out of the water and sat with her on the beach on sun-hot sand, rode with her in the ambulance.
Later he crouched outside her window until her mom bustled away, then crawled through and kissed her headache away. But she remembers that fuzzy concussion feeling, cotton mouthed and constant nausea, pounding in her temples.
/
"Chin," Steve says into his phone, "we're here." Kono scrambles free of her seatbelt and out of the backseat to stand next to Danny, peering at the warehouse, broken glass and boarded up windows.
Chin's voice crackles through the speakerphone, "Tracking device is going strong, they're definitely in there." Steve tosses his phone through the open window into the backseat and walks over to pull the trunk open with one hand.
"No." Danny says immediately, "no, no no no-no. You are not-are you insane? I seriously want you to take a second and make a personal assessment of your mental state in this moment."
"They're serious arms dealers, Danny," Steve argues, "we need matching firepower."
"You are not storming a warehouse with a bazooka," Danny says. "Looks, there's one door and one fire escape. You gonna climb up that rickety metal ladder with a bazooka?" Steve pulls his hands back as Danny slams the trunk shut.
"What kind of warehouse has a fire escape," Steve says, sighing, and reaches for his vest. Kono straps hers on, reflecting that the only thing she wears more than her vest are tops that show a lot of skin and a wire in her ear.
"Hey," Danny says to her as they pause behind a small outerwall so Steve can radio in their location for backup, "how come you didn't mention the fire escape?" Kono shrugs and tries to look innocent.
"Didn't notice it," she says, and flexes her index finger against the trigger guard. Danny stares at her.
"You, you wanted the bazooka," he says, "you two, I can't even-"
"It was my turn," Kono says over him, in what is most definitely not a whine.
"I'm telling Chin-"
"Oh, mature, tattling now-"
"Ladies," Steve interrupts, "can we-" Kono hears the whistle before she feels the explosion, and Steve has lunged for her and Danny just before the heat hits her, followed by a wave of solid air that picks her up and tosses her sideways. She takes the fall on her side, sliding in the scrabbly brown grass and rolling dirt in her hair. Her gun skitters out of her hand. Reclaim your weapon she thinks.
She drags herself forward and fits her palm back over her gun, fingers so tight her joints creak. She can feel a trickle of wet dripping down across her cheek from her hairline, and she closes her eyes for a second.
"-Kono," Steve is saying when she opens her eyes again, "you good?" She can half hear him over the ringing in her ears, but it's not as bad as the time Chin fired his shotgun less than three feet away from her. She swallows down a bout of nausea and grits her teeth.
"I'm good." She says, and shoves herself to her feet.
"Bet you wish I had the bazooka now, huh Daniel," Steve is saying, and Kono moves to cover him so he can kick down the door.
"Fuck you Steven," Daniel snaps, "that flammable rocket launcher is at least partly responsible for the lump of metal that was formerly my car." Steve kicks the door down and cold clocks the moron standing just behind it. Kono circles around, mirroring Danny, and lays down covering fire so he can pin a dark haired man down and disarm him. "I love that car," Danny snaps, and kicks him in the ribs.
Kono waits until she hears twin cries of clear, and then she reaches out for the wall and slides down it.
"Kono?" Steve calls, and Kono touches her fingers to her temple, just above her eyebrow. They come away red, and the blood makes her eyelashes stick together. She retches weakly and coughs.
"Clear," she calls, and leans her head back against the wall. Her earpiece falls out and dangles against her neck. Kono takes a deep breath, in through her mouth, out through her nose.
/
She wakes up in the hospital, feeling really, really awesome. She recognizes the feeling of intravenous painkillers. She can feel waves of air floating out from the floor, rolling and ebbing with her breathing. She reaches out and lets her hand ride the waves. Someone catches her hand, making a soft noise. She smiles and opens her eyes.
Danny tucks his thumb against her palm and presses her hand away from the waves. She struggles a little. "Hey," he says firmly, soothing, thumb moving gently against her skin. Kono thinks disjointedly that Danny's always been more touchy feely than Chin and Steve.
"You're on some really good drugs, Kalakaua," he says, "Chin is calling your family right now." Kono hums.
"You said my name right," she says cheerfully. Danny smiles at her.
"Yeah, I been practicing." Steve shuffles in, looking awkward. There's a white bandage wrapped neatly around his forearm, matching the brace on Danny's wrist and the stitches Kono can feel pulling on the skin above her eyebrow.
"Boss!" Kono says, and waves both her and Danny's hand at him enthusiastically.
"High," Danny mutters to him. He lets go of Kono's hand and surreptitiously pushes the little morphine button out of her reach. She rolls her eyes, and gets distracted looking at the ceiling, little dots of paint globs blurring together in pretty rows. Her hand moves out to surf a little more.
"Why's she doin that," Steve asks Danny.
"I told you, she's high as a freakin kite-higher than all the kites in the sky, you hear that, Kono?" Kono rolls her gaze over to meet Danny's grin, "You're better than all the other kites."
"The best kite," Kono says solemnly. She reaches for Steve's hand, and he looks at her like she's just suggested the Army Rangers could beat the SEALs in a football championship. He pats her forearm gingerly from a distance.
"There, there," he says.
"Are you serious?" Danny says, and takes her hand again, reassuring. "Were you raised by wolves in the wilderness?"
"I'm being comforting," Steve argues, but it sounds a little like a question. He sidles a little closer to her bed and taps his fingers against the thin hospital sheets. "You're okay," he says, but in that same weird question tone. Kono reaches over with her free hand to pat his wrist, tit for tat.
"There, there," she says cheekily, and Danny snorts.
"Kono," Steve says seriously, "you're-it's my team, and my responsibility. I'm sorry-" He stops as Kono tangles their fingers together, interlocking knots.
"Boss," she says seriously, and he looks at her properly for the first time since he's entered her hospital room. She drags his hand over to lie on top of Danny's, her hand, then Danny's, Steve's, hers. Tiered family.
"I now pronounce you man and wife," she says, and giggles again at their faces. A wave of tiredness takes her abruptly, and she curls on her side, facing them and falling asleep to their argument on which of them is the wife.
3.
When Kono was twelve she was suspended from Leilani Middle School. She sat sullenly in the office with two black eyes and listened to her mom rail at the principal. Her mom yanked at her collar and shouted about how little Kono weighed and when the Principal bowed to her arguments and they walked out of the office Kono smirked at the two boys she'd pounded for bullying her friend. Her uncle took her to Zippy's and bought her a milkshake and she missed her bruises when they faded.
/
Kono pulls a pair of strappy kitten heels out of her desk drawer and pauses to reflect on the fact that she keeps slutty accessories for undercover work in the same place as her nine millimeter.
"How's my date," Danny says, and then whistles. Kono lets one black strap fall off a shoulder and shakes her hair out. He offers her his arm and she balances to slip her shoes on.
"Not so bad yourself," she says, and tugs on his tie playfully before walking her fingers on it teasingly, lip pulled between her teeth. Danny grins at her, and wraps an arm around her waist so they can walk out together.
"Watch your hands, brah," Chin grumbles, and Kono lets her own hands wander low just to appreciate Danny's little jump. She holds her hair back as Chin fits the necklace wire around her throat and fastens the clasp.
"Want me to do your cufflinks, darling?" Steve asks, and Danny snorts.
Kono waits until they're past the security guards at the front door to press Danny against the wall and use his neck to hide the movement of her lips. "We're in," she whispers, and pulls away, Danny's arm on her shoulders as she hears Chin confirm the connection.
"This is my baby," Danny says, sugar sweet to the first person that greets them, "her name is Honey." Kono pinches him beneath his jacket.
"Stoppit, Danno," she says viciously, and Danny knocks his hip into hers, hard.
"You know," he says when they're alone again, leaned close to her to she can hear his murmur, "I outrank you, rookie. I still outrank you."
"Remember when I got fired and was undercover but none of you believed me and arrested me?" Kono asks, hand around his tie as she talks quietly into his ear. "Yeah, that was hard for me too."
"Touche," Danny whispers, and then, "there he is." Kono tracks her eyes across the room.
"Okay," she says, and dials her smile down to dopey pretty girl.
"Mr. Key," Danny greets, offering a hand, and Kono drapes herself against Danny's side. "Nice party." Kono giggles supportively and eyes the security guards against the wall for threat assessment. Rafael Key, she thinks, drug dealer. She steels herself, and then catches a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye, two men in dark suits and earpieces peeling away from the crowd and heading down a hallway.
"Powder room," she trills, and winks at Danny when he turns to look at her, questioning. He nods and goes back, talking business with Key, doing a really good job of pretending to be a sleazy drug dealer from the mainland. Kono ducks down the hallway and affects a drunk girl stumble in case someone catches her.
"Kono?" Chin says in her ear. A guy catches her arm hard and leers. He tugs at the strap of her dress.
"Oh," she slurs in a breathy voice, "hi there handsome-" she brings her knee up hard directly into his groin and he drops. She follows up with a hard hit to his adam's apple and steps over his prone body, shaking her hand out.
"Stop distracting me, cousin," she says, and Chin sighs down the wire at her.
"I feel for Auntie," he says, and Kono snorts as she rattles door after door. One gives under her hand and she goes in, rifling through filling cabinets. The first two drawers she opens are empty, but in the second cabinet she hits gold, neatly packaged bricks ready for divying up and sale.
"Gold for raid," she says, and closes the drawer.
"Copy that," Chin reports. Kono walks quickly out and turns a corner in the hallway to walk facefirst into a security guard.
"Hi," she says, crossing her eyes a little, "I lost my boy." The guard frowns at her, suspicious. Kono giggles a little more and sways, and lets herself be steered back down the maze of hallways into another room, where Danny is sitting across from Rafael Key.
"Baby," she calls, and trips over to him to sit in his lap. She smashes her face into his neck and giggles some more.
"She can't be here," Key says sharply, and one of his heavily tattooed associates stands up, grinning at her. Danny's hands tighten around her waist before relaxing.
"This my girl," he says, "she's cool."
"She was wandering," someone says, and Key frowns.
"She needs to be checked," Key says, and Kono slides out of Danny's lap.
"Okay," she says brightly, and gives Danny a look to keep him in his seat. When the door shuts behind her she tucks a curl of hair behind her ear to cover tugging the tiny earpiece out of her ear and dropping it. She hopes Chin wasn't lying when he said her necklace wouldn't ping any detectors.
Aside from a little extra groping on the patdown, everything goes smoothly and she's told to sit down and drink her champagne until Danny and Key are done. Kono giggles until she gets a headache and resists the urge to roll her eyes every five seconds. The tattoo guy glares at her until she drinks from the glass, trying not to tap her fingers impatiently, and she realizes why he wanted her to drink when the world starts to get a little fuzzy around the edges. She lets herself sway in the chair and slurs, the glass tipping in her hand and spilling the drink on the carpet.
There's a crashing and shouting in the distance, and Kono breathes a sigh of relief. Danny must have gotten Key to talk business on the wire and triggered the raid. Tattoo Guy looks antsy and confused, his gun pulled. Kono tries to look out of it, which isn't that hard; she feels too warm, sticky and flushed. He comes over, reaching for her, but his eyes are on the door, so Kono breaks the glass against his face and smacks the gun from his hand. He catches her in a backhand that knocks her from the chair. She kicks out with a foot and connects, her heel digging into one of the cuts from the glass. Kono rolls over and tries to breathe through tunnel vision.
The door splinters and Steve comes through to kick Tattoo Guy in the ribs with what Kono sincerely hopes are steel toed boots.
"You're pretty," she says, and hopes that later when she's sober she can remember the look on his face, because it's amazing. Steve shoves Tattoo Guy at another cop and helps her up, which is good because Kono totally cannot stand on her own right now.
"Danny," Steve calls, and Danny comes in, his tie loose and rumpled.
"What happened to her?" Danny asks, and Kono points at Tattoo Guy, who's being cuffed against a wall.
"Book em, Danno," Kono says, and Steve snaps his fingers in front of her face.
"I need a flashlight," he says, and lowers Kono back in the chair.
"Is now really the time for science SEAL," Danny is saying, but is interrupted by Kono leaning over and throwing up over the arm chair so hard her chest hurts after. She smooths her hair back with shaking hands.
"Gonna check your pupils, okay, Kono?" Steve says, and then there's a sharp light in her right eye. She bats at him, and then blinks the spots away. She feels better already.
"Something in my drink," she says, her thoughts slowly coming back together. "Didn't drink that much of it. I'll be fine."
"You're going to the hospital," Steve and Danny say in stereo, and then look faintly horrified to be agreeing on something. Danny does some kind of ridiculous bowing thing and offers her his arm. Kono takes it with great dignity and not at all because her legs are wobbly and they step through the rubble into the front parking lot, where Chin appears to hover around her and make pained faces at the thought that he might have to explain another hospital visit to her mother.
Kono sees Tattoo Guy sitting in a cruiser, and notices through his apoplexy look that he's picked up a couple new bruises.
"He fell," Chin says, and Kono punches him lightly. She's careful to give Tattoo Guy a pretty smile and a little finger wave on her way out.
1.
"Careful," Danny says, "you do that too many times and Super SEAL will propose on the spot." Kono shakes the impact shock of the roundhouse kick out of her leg.
"It does highlight my legs," she says thoughtfully. Danny nods seriously.
"Shapely," he notes. Chin makes a grumbly noise from behind them but Kono thinks he shouldn't talk because the loving way he handles his shotgun is a lot weirder than her penchant for spin kicking criminal douchebags.
"Ha. Ha. Ha." Steve says.
"Seriously," Danny says, "have you always done this? Did you karate kick the competition off their surfboards?" Kono fits her gun back in her holster and feels the weight of her graduation gift, bulky in her second holster. Chin leans his shotgun against his shoulder and smiles at her, out of that miserable rent a cop uniform that made the lines in his face harsher and sadder. Steve and Danny knock shoulders companionably.
Kono thinks that her graduating class is running coffee for detectives and giving traffic tickets, but that's not why she's happy here. People toss around the term ohana like it's nothing now, but she thinks that they'd all take a bullet for each other, if push came to shove. Well McGarret would probably take bullets for old ladies and small fluffy dogs and maybe every other Friday just to make sure he still can, but Kono knows that she is theirs and they are hers.
"Next time you and Chin are going undercover," Danny is saying, and Kono smiles.
"You have the cheekbones for it," she teases Chin, and leans her head on Danny's shoulder. The ocean roars and rolls in her ears and she can smell salt spray and fine black sand. The island sings to her, and she listens. It feels like the crest of a wave and the first dive into sapphire blue water sparkling in the sun.
No, she thinks, quietly content, I've never done this before. This is brand hew.