A/N: Because, really, this is how it should have happened . . .

#*#*#*#*#

"Come here," Steve said, his long arm wrapping around Kono and pulling her close. Lights flashed in all directions as HPD swarmed to clean up the mess.

"You don't write, you don't call," Kono murmured, as Steve chuckled.

"We missed you," she said.

He pulled back, keeping one hand wrapped around her shoulder, and studied her for a long moment. He glanced at Adam, who was being shuttled into an HPD cruiser, and then back at Kono. The lights from a turning SUV cut across her face.

He saw it then, faintly: an abrasion, across her mouth, onto her cheeks. A tiny split in her full, soft upper lip.

"Kono," he said, his eyes narrowing in concern.

He glanced at Chin. The man's jaw was clenched, his eyes glinting as he stared at the back of Adam's head through the rear window of the retreating cruiser.

Steve looked back at Kono, carefully. "Let's go ahead and get the paperwork done," he said, trying to make it sound like a suggestion that she was obligated to follow. He pointed to Lansing. "Nice reflexes, by the way. Good shot."

"I was trained by the best," she shrugged.

"I don't have my truck here," Steve said. "Mind driving?"

Chin's eyes met Steve's, a slight nod exchanged between the two men, and then Chin's eyes cut almost imperceptibly to Kono's wrist. Steve caught the subtle motion and tilted his head in acknowledgement.

#*#*#*#*#

Steve followed Kono into the elevator. She was antsy; coming off the inevitable adrenaline dump from taking a kill shot. She tapped her foot impatiently and pressed the button for the second floor again, her sleeve riding up as she reached out her arm.

His hand was on her forearm, gently, but wrapped around her sleeve in such a way that it wouldn't slip back down, keeping her wrist exposed so that he could trace a long, careful finger around the torn and bruised skin.

"Steve, I can explain," she started, her halting words interrupted by the ding of the elevator.

His eyes met hers, his expression unreadable. He kept his hand carefully wrapped around her arm, his touch warm but feather-light, and his other hand settled on the small of her back as he steered her into his office.

He nodded his head toward one of the comfortable chairs, and she crossed her arms over her chest, stubborn.

"Kono," he sighed, tilting his head to the side and looking at her. "Please. Sit down."

She sat, tucking one foot under her. He glanced down, saw the unmistakable residue and threads of duct tape still clinging to her boot. Silently, he turned and pulled a small first aid kit out of his desk drawer and placed it on the corner of the desk closest to her. He rummaged for a moment and came out with a handful of gauze pads, antiseptic, and antibiotic cream.

"You want to explain this to me," he asked quietly, "or do I get the story from Chin?" He dampened a gauze pad with antiseptic as he talked.

"It's not a big deal," Kono said, watching him warily as he sat in his desk chair and rolled toward her.

He picked up her arm in one hand, and Kono winced as he started dabbing at the broken skin with the other.

"Then it shouldn't be a problem to explain," he said, as he painstakingly applied the cream. He waited for her to speak, wrapping her wrist in clean gauze.

"I was with Adam," Kono said, her voice low. "WoFat killed his father, and Adam had a plan to exact revenge. I tried to talk him out of it, but . . . "

Steve picked up her other hand and started repeating the process.

"So, he demanded that you hold out your hands, and you did, willingly, and you let him bind and gag you with duct tape?" he asked. "Something about that doesn't add up." He looked at her then, his eyes searching hers for a moment, then he dampened a fresh gauze pad and started carefully dabbing it on the broken skin across her mouth and cheek.

She winced when the gauze grazed over the cut on her lip.

"Sorry," Steve murmured. "You just let him tape you up? I think you could have taken him."

He was not going to let this go, Kono realized, and she sighed. "He pulled a gun."

He picked up another pad, moistened it, and pressed it gently to her cheekbone, where the brighter light of his office had revealed a scrape and a bruise.

"He hit you?" he asked, his voice dangerous.

"No, I . . . no. He didn't hit me, Steve; I was on the ground, trying to get loose, and I guess I just hit my face . . . "

His fingers were impossibly tender as he rubbed cream over the bruised, puffy skin.

"So, he pulled a gun on you, put tape over your mouth, around your wrists and ankles, and left you? Alone. On the floor of . . . where? Where, Kono?" He leaned over her, brushing her hair away from her face, searching for more injuries.

"One of the abandoned houses that he, or his father, or the Yakuza own," she said, quietly, dropping her eyes.

He tucked his fingers under her chin, tilting her face up to look at him.

"And who found you?" he asked, his thumb stroking over her jaw.

"Chin," she said. "He'd followed us; saw that Adam left but that I wasn't with him."

"And what if Chin hadn't been there? Adam left you there, alone, defenseless . . . "

Kono snorted, her eyes flashing, and Steve had to smile. "Alone, and bound," he amended.

"But he -"

"He. Hurt. You," Steve growled, and she couldn't deny the shiver that raced up her spine at the sound of it.

Shiver aside, she looked at him defiantly. They'd worked together for over a year; he was her boss, her friend, her mentor. She'd never acted on the undercurrent of attraction that had been there from that first moment on the beach, when Chin introduced them - but she'd never denied it, either. He'd had ample opportunity, but his damn officer-and-gentleman sense of honor and duty was impenetrable.

Or so she'd thought. The look in his eyes right now, as he studied her, might beg to differ.

"Barely broke the skin," she said, aiming for self-assured and almost managing, as she stood. "Thanks for patching me up. I better go get started on the paperwork."

She made it two steps toward the door before his hand was on her hip, fingers barely grazing, but it was enough to make her hesitate.

"Something else you needed, boss?" she asked, concentrating on keeping her voice level as she heard his chair roll back slightly, sensed the solid presence of him standing close behind her, his fingers tightening ever so slightly.

"I should have been here," he said, quiet, close to her ear, and a lesser woman would have been startled.

She turned, boldly staying in his space, and his hand ended up at the small of her back.

"You were otherwise engaged," she drawled, half-grinning, "you know, bringing in a fugitive international arms dealer and what-not."

He shook his head slightly. "Not worth it; not if while my back was turned, someone's here, hurting what's mi-" He stopped abruptly. "My responsibility. My team."

"Is that what I am?" she asked quietly. "Boss?"

He swallowed hard, his fingers flexing at her waist. "Yes."

She reached up and traced a long, elegant finger over the cut on his forehead - so much worse than hers, it was bruising, maybe enough that he should be checked for a concussion. His breath hitched when she stepped even closer to him, reaching behind him for the antiseptic and gauze. She mimicked his motions in dampening a gauze pad, pressing it gently to the wound.

"Is that what I am?" she repeated, gently and carefully cleaning away the blood, her hands cool and soothing on his overheated skin. "Steve?"

"Yes . . ." he said, closing his eyes and leaning into her touch.

"Are you sure that's all you want?" she whispered.

He stopped breathing. Lines. There were so many lines, and they were there for good reasons. There were probably rules. Danny would have been able to tell him what page they were on, in the handbook. And Chin.

And Chin's shotgun.

"No," he whispered anyway.

"Say it. Say what you were going to say," she murmured, and he was pretty sure it was a bad, bad sign that he couldn't find it in himself to resist.

He opened his eyes, looked into hers.

"Mine," he said, and it was quiet, and low, but it was no whisper and there was no hesitation, no question. The fingers that had been resting gently at her waist now splayed possessively across her lower back, his large hand covering as much territory as possible as he pulled her closer to him.

His eyes darkened as he gently touched the bruise on her cheek, and the tiny cut on her lip.

"Mine," he repeated.

She nodded, her pulse quickening, and he bent his head the few inches between them and kissed her carefully, mindful of the cut. His hand slid from her cheek into her hair, tangling in the tousled waves and angling her face just so until he was rewarded with a breathy moan.

He knew that from now on, his life would be meaningless without that sound.

"Say it," he whispered, his eyes holding hers.

"Yours."

He tried - tried to be careful, to be mindful, but he tasted a hint of blood, salt and copper on his tongue, and he pulled back, his breathing ragged, and pressed his forehead to hers for a moment, pulling on the reins of his considerable, Navy-trained self-control. He grazed his lips tenderly over the bruise on her cheek instead, and lifted each of her now-bandaged wrists in turn and pressed kisses there.

"I'm taking you home," he said. "With me," he added, and she nodded. Of course he was. That's where this had been headed, all along, and they both knew it.

"What about the paperwork?" she asked.

"Will Lansing still be dead tomorrow?" he drawled.

"Yep."

"Then the paperwork can wait until tomorrow."

#*#*#*#*#

"Hunh . . ." Danny said, scratching his head and looking around. "Kono's office is untouched, but Steve's office is a bit of a mess, which, gonna say, is one of the first indications we've had that he's human."

"Ummhmm," Chin said, looking past Danny at Steve's desk, littered with first aid supplies.

Danny turned around again, looked - really looked - at the mess on Steve's desk.

"Wait," Danny blurted out, holding up a hand. "Steve had a little graze on his forehead, I think, but he wouldn't have messed with that here . . . what -"

"Kono," Chin said, his eyes darkening, "had a bruise on her cheek and abrasions on her wrists. You wouldn't have noticed last night, in the dark and the chaos."

"Wait, Kono had - who -" Danny's brows furrowed in confusion, as his brain tried putting together a dozen combinations at once.

"Adam," Chin said, spitting out the name.

"Adam . . . Noshimuri?" Danny repeated, incredulous. "He put a hand on her? On Kono."

"He did."

"So Steve found out, and he -" Danny gestured to the antiseptic and gauze.

"Looks like."

"Oh," Danny said, as he thoughtfully picked up the tube of antibiotic cream, dropped it back into the open kit. "Oh." He looked back at Chin, grinning. "Well, we wondered what it would take."

"We did."

"How long do you think before they show up," Danny asked, smiling and rocking back and forth a bit on his heels.

Chin looked at his watch. "I'm guessing right about now is when it's dawned on Steve that he has to make eye contact with me at some point today."

"Ah. So we have plenty of time . . . wanna go to that diner, the one with the really good waffles?" Danny suggested.

"Yeah, that sounds good," Chin agreed, and they started walking toward the elevator.

As the elevator doors closed, Danny looked at Chin once more. "Hey, Adam Noshimuri is safely in HPD custody, right? I mean, he hurt Kono . . . "

Chin nodded and grabbed his phone.

"Hey, Duke . . . "