Title: Bonding time.
Pairing: Kono/Steve
Disclaimer: blah blah blah not mine
Spoilers: None. Well just Jenna isn't dead here because I figure Kono REALLY need a female friend to talk to.

A/N: ok so I've been thinking about Steve and Kono bonding time, like A LOT, and I really wanted to write something about them going shooting and stuff BUT since I'm a die hard shipper I just couldn't help but thinking MY version of their bonding time would include LOTS of making out. Maybe this one shot fic doesn't have LOTS of making out but...yeah, I tried!

This was basically inspired by a picture of sniper Kono. Someone pointed out how Steve was a Navy SEAL and how she had learned how to shoot.

Also, Jenna is not dead here because I figured Kono needs someone to talk and I do like if she was a little bit of OOC.

btw, this is my longest one shot ever.

ok, off to read now my lovely ninjas! don't forget to review!

Fran

Italics are flashbacks

How I got myself into this situation is beyond my wildest comprehension. I know I did this to myself; I was the one who decided to say yes in the first place, right? Not that I'm complaining, I mean not that I WAS complaining when we were… doing it.

I just never thought I would be so conflicted right now or that I could feel so uncomfortable having him around. You know how sometimes you do something embarrassing and there's this guy you like watching you and then you just cannot look at him in the face because you know everything will be weird? That's the feeling I'm having right now.

I just hear him talking outside my office with Jenna and all I want to do is hide my face, my cheeks already turning red with embarrassment.

"Kono?" Jenna's head appears from the door and I lift my head slowly because I wanted to make sure Steve was not with her. "Are you alright?"

"Me? Of course, I'm fine."

She watches me, walking inside and closing the door behind her. She takes a seat in front of me and waits for me to talk. I forgot she was a detective which meant there was no point in lying to her.

"Spill it," she says.

"Okay, but you have to promise me you won't say a word to anybody. Especially Danny."

"Alright, I promise. Now tell me what happened between you and Steve."

I frown, confused. How did she know?

"How do you know is something about me and Steve?"

"How? Well I have eyes, for starters, and you two have been ignoring each other all day. No wait, that was just you. You have been ignoring him so you must have done something wrong."

I wouldn't call it wrong, you know? Just… unexpected.

"I haven't done anything wrong. WE did. I mean it wasn't wrong, it was…"

"Strange. Unexpected, good but changed your relationship a little bit?"

Is she a mind reader now?

"How do you...?"

"You guys were fine on Saturday, which means something must have happened on Sunday. Right?"

I cover my face with my hands again, just reliving that event in my head once again. I swear I could close my eyes and feel him, see him getting closer and closer…

"Tell me what's bothering you," Jenna speaks and I look at her, sighing heavily.

"Fine. I'll tell you what happened..."

Sunday morning.

When Steve said 'let's go shooting' instead of 'go surfing' I giggled, because I honestly thought he was joking. Let's just say he wasn't, which explains why we're walking towards the highest mountain, oayk fine maybe not the HIGHEST but it was pretty high, of the island, carrying two sniper rifles. I should have seen it coming though; what is Steve's weekend without shooting a gun right?

"I thought it was a joke, boss," I speak once we stop. He smiles and I could be mad at him for changing his mind at the last minute, because I really wanted to go surfing, but he looked so happy (and handsome), now I don't have the heart to complain.

"And I thought you wanted me to teach you how to shoot."

"Yeah, that too."

"So let's get started then," he fixed the sniper in front of him and I watch him work intensely. I feel like such a stalker watching him like a hawk, but my God he looked divine so concentrated on the task at hand. My heart beats faster seeing how his muscles contract with the movement of his arms, or how his tattoos barely peek out from underneath his black shirt.

I have to stop myself for a moment because this is my boss I'm talking about. This is definitely unprofessional.

"Want me to try first?" he speaks and I snap out of my thoughts.

"Yeah, sure, go ahead."

He bends forwards and his black shirt lifts ever so slightly, showing the skin on his back. My eyes drifted a little lower and I already feel guilty for thinking this way about him but he was right there, in front of me, there's no way I can pretend I don't feel something.

"Your turn," he snaps his head towards me and our eyes lock for a brief second. He sees there's something different, like the air suddenly changed. I step closer, moving in front of him, he freezes in place and then moves slightly away. I bend forward, Steve still standing close to me.

I have no idea what I'm doing, this being the first time I have a sniper rifle in my hands, besides the fact Steve is so close to me I can't concentrate enough.

"You're not holding it right," he speaks, moving possibly closer to my body. His arms come to mine, embracing me from the back. His warm breath crashes against my neck sending shivers down my back. I lost focus for a brief second while his hands come upon mine, helping me hold the rifle properly, but then again to me there's no point really since I cannot hear anything but the sound of my heart beating fast inside my chest.

Then there's a shot, loud and clear. I never noticed when we pulled the trigger or if I did it or he did but I guess it was sort of a successful shot because I see the smile again on Steve's handsome face.

"It was good for your first time," he says.

"Thank you, I guess I have a nice teacher."

We smile at each other and there's the air changing again. I feel weird all of a sudden being here with him, alone, or maybe it's because this is the first time we've spent time together without the rest of the tema, though I've always wanted to create a bigger bond with him. If he would have asked me a year ago I would have said yes immediately with no hesitations but today, right this moment, my feelings for Steve had changed immensely, to me he's not just my boss anymore… he's the biggest crush I've ever had.

"We should get going," I speak, taking my forgotten bag from the ground. When I turn around he is still close, watching my every move. He grabs my hand out of the blue, it is so unexpected I have no time to pull it away or to step back; he just gives it a light squeeze.

I thought he was going to move away now, take a few steps back and grab his things like I did, but he didn't. Instead he moved closer and then he just kisses me. Just like that. My hands wrap around his neck and his hands travel to my waist, pushing me impossibly closer to him.

But suddenly I snap back to reality. This was my boss, yes he is also my friend, but before being that he was my boss and no matter how much I wanted this, no matter how many times I've dreamed about it, all of this will complicate everything.

I push him away slowly, he frowns when he pulls away and I look down embarrassed.

"I'm sorry…" I whisper, "I shouldn't have done…"

"Kono…"

"We should head back. It's getting late."

I turn around quickly, very conscious Steve was watching me as I moved away and he follows me a few seconds later. I replayed the kiss over and over again on a silent way back home, the feeling our relationship (or nonexistent one) took a quick turn very vivid in my brain.

"So you guys kissed?"

"Yes."

"That's why you haven't even looked at him?"

"Yes," I shake my head, feeling the embarrassment surfacing once more.

"Honey, why do you feel so bad about all of this?" she asks and I have just two main reasons above all, one of them breaks my heart just thinking about it.

"He's my boss, Jenna, we work together and everything that has happened just makes everything uncomfortable. And, well… he just sees me as a friend, nothing more, someone to hang out with. I'm pretty sure that kiss meant nothing to him."

"If he kissed you that means you're not just a friend, or a co-worker. He definitely sees you as something else."

"Maybe he just saw an opportunity and he took it. We were alone, nobody was watching us so he thought 'I'm gonna take my chance, just kiss her and forget about it'. Simple."

Jenna shook her head vigorously, clearly disagreeing with the words coming out of my mouth.

"Why can't you even consider the possibility of Steve actually liking you?" she asks and I frown at her question. Seriously? Steve liking me? No. Of course not. I'm the one with the crush on him, not the other way around.

"Because… because he's my boss! He's… no. I mean I'm sure I'm not even his type," I'm in denial, I know. But there's no room in my head to think he could like me, not even a little.

"How do you know?"

True.

"He's dating Catherine."

"They broke up two weeks ago. They were talking on the phone. I eavesdropped, couldn't help it."

Pretty sure she's just trying to make me feel better, like a high school friend explaining to the other friend how this guy she likes glanced back at her for a brief second so he MUST have a crush on her, though she knows it's not true.

And who breaks up with someone over the phone anyways? That's just rude.

"No." I state.

"Kono it is perfectly clear to me you're in denial," she's analyzing me and I hate it. It always comes to the point in which she has to analyze whatever I say like I'm some crazy chick desperately seeking a remedy. "You're being too hard on yourself about the possibility of Steve feeling the same way you do."

How does she know?

"The same way?"

"In love with you, of course."

"I don't know what you're saying," now that's me being in denial.

"You're definitely not a very good liar," she watches me and I wish I had a good answer to her statement but I don't. Besides, she's right about pretty much everything. "You love him, don't you?"

I wish I could look straight into her eyes, shake my head and tell her how mistaken she is but I can't. I love him; I can't lie about it... not anymore.

"Yes."

"And you think he knows and he kissed you just because he had to or because he felt like it?"

Is she a secret mind reader or something?

"Sweetie, the way I see it, these thing you're feeling, these doubts won't go away unless you talk to him about what happened," she continues.

"How am I supposed to do that if can't even look at him?"

"Just go. Ask him, or tell him what's on your mind."

Telling him everything that was on my mind is definitely not an option, especially since some of those things are not very professional, at all.

"Do it now otherwise you're just gonna chicken out," she insists, getting up and walking towards the door. "You better hurry unless you want Danny to eavesdrop."

He's just sitting there, writing frantically on his report, like usual. There's nobody else in the office but me and him; Danny had disappeared after he got a phone call from Rachel, Jenna had left with Chin to buy some coffee, which now I think was intentional. So now we're alone. I haven't even reached his door when he snaps his head up as if sensing I was standing there, watching. Just like up in the mountains I feel like such a stalker.

He stares at me and I swallow hard at how intense his look is. Yes I have been avoiding him for 24 hours straight, he had called me once and I didn't pick up (right after he dropped me off after the kiss) and now, all of a sudden, I'm standing outside his office ready to bust in and tell him how I feel. That must be sort of strange, right? Then I have this weird thought inside my head that tells me this is so wrong, that maybe I just pretend nothing happened and move on with my life, because God this is such a life changing situation. How can I look at him or even stay in the same room if I tell him how I feel? Then if he says 'Kono this was a mistake, it will never happen again' what's gonna happen to me then?

This is wrong, so wrong.

I wonder if I can walk away, pretend I wasn't there at all.

He gets up, walks towards the door. Nope, no time to run away now.

"Hi," he greets me as if we hadn't seen each other in the entire day. Oh right, not speaking, of course.

"Hi,"

"I've been meaning to talk to you," he says and I nod slowly. I figure he must have been but since I've been walking past him without a second look he stopped trying.

"Really? What about?"

"Well you have been avoiding me the entire day and I was just wondering if there's something wrong?"

I'm so absolutely crazy about you, that's what's wrong.

"No. There's nothing wrong…" liar, liar pants on fire.

"Then why have you been avoiding me?"

"I haven't…"

"Kono I called you on the phone and you ignored me. I told you we should go together to interrogate a witness and you said no, told Danny to go with me instead. I told you to have lunch with me you said you weren't hungry but then you went out with Jenna. If that's nothing wrong then I don't know what it is."

Yeah right, so he was right about all those things. I'm not very subtle when it comes to avoiding him.

"Okay fine, you want to know what's wrong?"

"Yes"

"I'll tell you what's wrong. I can't stop thinking about the kiss. I can't stop thinking about you, alright? I can't. I've tried but your face and your lips are stuck in my brain and I think I'm in love with you. Happy now?"

He blinks. Once, twice and then he smiles.

"Very."

"You — what?"

"I'm very happy," he shrugs casually, sitting on the edge of his desk, arms crossed against his chest as if what I just said was the most common thing in the world. "Thrilled even."

"Wh—what? I don't…"

"Especially the part when you were thinking about my face and my lips. I liked that."

"You… I just told you I loved you, Steve. Like real love and you're not gonna say a word?"

"What? You asked me if I were happy, I said yes."

God, here's the feeling of regret again.

"I knew it. I knew this was a mistake, I knew you didn't felt the same way. I'm so stupid…" I whisper looking down at my feet, speaking more to myself than to him, truth be told.

"Who said I don't feel the same way?"

I snap my head towards him quickly. He's walking towards me, slowly; his hand comes to cup my cheek and the other one to rest on my hip. Flashbacks to the mountains, to the kiss that brought everything I felt to the surface, came back to my brain once again. How his lips casually rested on mine, sweet at first to turn more passionate later. It was haunting me.

"You never…"

"I never said a word, I know. I'm sorry. But I thought that kiss, our kiss, made everything clear. I thought there was no point on telling you how I felt anymore."

"I thought it meant nothing, I thought it was just that; a kiss."

"It meant everything."

I close my eyes for a brief second, my breath suddenly becoming erratic and my heart about to escape from my chest.

"What are-?"

His lips crashes against mine, silencing me. I instinctively move closer, his chest against mine and my hands traveling to his neck. I moan against his mouth and he wraps both hands around my back lifting me from the ground without breaking apart. I come to sit on his desk, separating my legs so he could stand between them. Air becomes a problem for a brief minute and I let him go slowly already missing his warm lips, his hands still wrapped around me.

"I guess that bonding time really does work," he whispers, removing a rebel hair from my face.

"I guess it does…" I smile closing my eyes briefly at the gentle caress from his hand.

"Also changing my mind at the last minute."

"That too."

"There's one thing I will never change my mind about."

"Really? What's that?"

"That I love you and I should have never waited this long to tell you that."

"Well, you can now tell me every single day and we can catch up with the missing times."

"Will do."

"How about if we start catching up right there," I motion to his brown leather couch.

He smiles lifting me from his desk towards the couch.

"I love the way you think."

"Oh if you only knew the things I have in my mind, you wouldn't believe it,"

I giggle as his lips come to kiss me on my neck and his hands barely touch the exposed skin.

I need to remember to thank Jenna for pushing me to do this. But right now I have other things in mind.

THE END!

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