Title: I Won't Call You My Weakness, But I Will Call You Mine
Author's Note: Thanks to those who have commented. I hope you enjoy this chapter too. Have a great start to your week!
"I'm sorry, you did what?" Danny asks in confusion later that afternoon when Steve finally arrives back at headquarters.
"I, well, Duke said-"
"You took back the case?" Danny says, his voice rising on each word as he uses his hands to emphasize each word of his statement.
"Well, I mean, technically, it was ours first. I told Duke we'd look into it and do what we can," Steve explains quickly, looking at Chin and hoping for the other man's support as he faces a frustrated Danny.
Chin looks at him thoughtfully before speaking. "Not that we don't want to help-"
"Not like we have a choice, do we?" Danny scoffs with a glare thrown Steve's way.
"As I was saying," Chin begins again, "not that we don't want to help, but Duke seemed pretty clear about HPD taking over with the gang angle. We turn over cases sometimes. What changed your mind?"
Steve shifts restlessly on his feet, and tries to avoid the annoyance in Danny's eyes to focus on Chin's more calm, inquiring gaze. The soothing brown of them reminds him of Kono; that could explain why he can answer the man's question honestly, like how looking into Kono's eyes seems to lower his defenses in a completely different kind of way. "I stopped by HPD to talk to Duke, and this guy Mahuki's wife and son were there, and-"
"Ah." Chin nods knowingly, the light of understanding flaring into his eyes.
"What?" Steve asks defensively, looking back at Danny who is now also nodding emphatically in understanding.
"Of course there's a kid who lost his dad involved, Steven, that explains everything," Danny declares. "Like we don't already have five open cases and a shitload of paperwork to get through before the end of the month, you just had to ask Duke for more homework and throw a gang of island drug dealers into the mix!"
"Look, he was a good guy, Connor," Steve snaps at Danny. "He was trying to do the right thing and keep the island safe, and he got gunned down for it. So, we're going to take the case because that's what we do, alright?"
"Of course, Steve, we'd be happy to help with this case that you've taken a personal interest in, thanks for asking us... oh, wait," Danny drawls sarcastically. Chin bites back a chuckle.
"I don't need to ask you anything because I am the boss," Steve reminds his partner arrogantly, "and just like the Governor told me this morning, I get to pick and choose which cases we work on when we're not working on the cases we have to be working on. And I pick this one."
"Don't pull that boss crap on me, you asshole," Danny growls. "You owe me. Like, a long weekend off, making pancakes for Grace, getting me something nice for my birthday owe me."
"Whatever. Where's Kono?" Steve asks, craning his neck to look toward the offices since Kono has not yet joined them at the smart table during the entire conversation.
"She took her mom to a doctor's appointment cause she was having car trouble," Chin tells him.
"We have to tell her we still have the case because she sent all that stuff to HPD before she left," Danny says.
"I will. I'll tell her tonight," Steve replies with a nod.
"Oh, I bet you will," Danny teases. He stops smirking when both Chin and Steve glare at him. "Right, no mention of their nighttime activities, my bad."
"So, let's get what we can about this Chan guy so we're ready to go in the morning, alright?" Steve nods at them enthusiastically as he ushers them back to the smart table, and effectively back to work. "Come on, guys, it'll be fun."
"Great. Fun for him means someone's gonna get shot while working this case," Danny mutters to Chin as they follow their benevolent dictator back to the computer console.
"And with his track record, it'll probably be you," Chin says with a grin.
"Not funny, Chin."
"Hey, what are you doing here?" Kono asks as she opens her front door later that night to find Steve on her doorstep.
Steve takes a step as if to cross the threshold into her living room, but pauses to peer inside first. "Wait. Your mom's not here, is she?"
"No," Kono answers with a laugh as she tugs him inside. "We went to lunch after her doctor's appointment then I took her home. I played hooky the rest of the day."
"I noticed." Steve follows her to the couch, taking off his badge and gun and setting it on her coffee table after the long day. He'd much rather be out in the field leading a mission, hell, even disarming a bomb than having to sit for an hour or two in the Governor's stuffy office to recap cases they've already completed and closed the book on. Plus, having to carefully pick and choose which potentially illegal details to share from the course of their investigation and which to exclude can be troublesome. Not to mention having to wear a dress shirt for some aura of professionalism instead of his regular work attire that allows him to breathe and move freely. This collar seems to be choking him.
But from the way her eyes brighten, Kono seems to like the look.
"I wanted to tell you-"
Her arms wrap around his neck, her body falling into his because she knows he'll catch her, and he does. Her lips are on his, applying just the right amount of pressure so he begins to kiss her back without pause. His mouth easily settles into a rhythm they've set over the past months together. Steve's hands slide through her long hair to cradle her face. He tugs her closer, appreciating the feel of her soft curves against his chest, the way her hands rub the skin at the nape of his neck.
She breaks the kiss to smile at him, watching fondly as he opens his eyes and blinks away the cloud of arousal to meet her gaze. "My mom's here."
The arousal is gone in an instant, replaced with panic as he unconsciously takes a step back from her and turns his head, as if expecting Diana Kalakaua to be watching them kiss from the kitchen doorway with a frown on her elegant face.
"What? Where? Why didn't you-"
"Just kidding," Kono teases, only shrugging when he scowls at her. "Come on, I couldn't resist."
"That's not funny."
"I don't know why you'd be worried. My mom likes you, it's my dad who doesn't, remember?"
As if he could forget the way Luka Kalakaua always seems to be staring at him when they meet, frowning when he sees the ink of Steve's tattoos or hears stories from his Navy days. He still hasn't won the guy over, no matter how much charm he tries to muster at family dinners. Kono doesn't care, but he wishes the man would simply blurt out what the problem is so Steve can try and fix it. But he has an idea that it's everything about himself that he can't change, not even to impress Kono's father when she drags him to Kalakaua family events to put in an appearance.
"And she made you lasagna." Kono heads into the kitchen to pull out a container from the fridge for him.
Steve stares at the tupperware box in heartfelt surprise. "That's... really nice of her."
"She said she hates to think of you all alone in that big, empty house, and since I can't cook for you," Kono shrugs as she hands him a Longboard from the fridge, "enjoy."
"Tell her thanks," he says with a smile, trailing behind her to the living room again as he takes a seat on the couch to fill her in on the rest of the day. "So, you know that case from this morning? The body we found at the mall?"
Kono nods, her mind flashing back to discovering the remains and the horrid smell that had greeted them when they arrived at the scene. Even after all this time, all these years, it still catches her by surprise the first instant she walks onto a crime scene, as does the flash of emotion when she looks down at the body that will breathe no more. "Yeah, Connor something or another."
"Right, Mahuki," Steve nods. "We're taking the case."
Her brow wrinkles in puzzlement. "But I thought Danny said HPD was gonna take over. Something about building a case against a small-time gang."
"Yeah, but it's ours now."
"Why?" Kono asks, turning to him with a slight frown as she watches him over the rim of her beer bottle. "What happened?"
Steve rolls his eyes and wonders when he became so easy to read. Definitely after he moved to Hawaii because no one had ever been able to read him so quickly during his military days as the three co-workers in his life now could. Probably because they became more than just co-workers - they became family.
"Why does everyone keep asking that?" His tone is already defensive like it had been when Chin and Danny had turned on him in the office. "Nothing happened. It's a good case. The guy's dead, we have the pieces of the puzzle. We just need to put it together."
She nods at his answer that isn't really an answer at all, remaining patient despite his abrupt answer and sudden change in attitude. "Okay. Well, I did most of the preliminary research before sending what I had to HPD, but I didn't get ballistics from the lab or-"
"I finished pulling the rest of it," Steve tells her. "And Chin and I went and spoke to his co-workers."
If Kono's surprised at the pace of their work, she keeps it to herself. "Good. Okay."
That's all Kono says before she falls quiet and takes another sip of her drink. She doesn't ask any more questions or demand an answer to the sudden change in their workload. She knows there's something behind Steve's reasoning, something must have changed his mind for him to change Duke's mind, but he doesn't want to share, and she doesn't want to push. She remains silent, enjoying the lull in conversation even as he remains tense at her side.
"I ran into his wife and kid at HPD when I went to see Duke," Steve admits quietly. She turns to face him at the explanation, her eyes going soft at the mention of Mahuki's mourning family coping with their sudden loss. "They were..." He struggles to find the right word, but there isn't one so he lets out a deep breath, trying to finish the sentence the best he can. "They were a mess."
"I can imagine," Kono says softly. Her hand reaches out to rest on his knee, squeezing in comfort to let him know she's there, that she's listening to whatever he wants to share, and won't push for him to share what he won't.
The touch is hesitant, but firm, and he tries to find a way to explain to her what he felt when he stumbled across Mahuki's grieving widow and son in Sergeant Duke's office. He'd looked into the eyes of a confused teenager who was struggling to understand why this happened to his father, to his family, and how to make sense of the rest of his life that he knew would never be the same. Steve knew what those feelings were like; he had been that teenager struggling to find clarity when his world had been shaken after the death of his mother. He had worked tirelessly for years to find answers regarding the circumstances surrounding the loss of his parents, and even though the cases are considered closed now, the feelings from the past do not simply vanish, not even decades later.
"We're at a standstill with the other cases, I thought we might as well try and tackle this one," Steve elaborates, looking into her eyes and trying to make her understand how important this is to him. It's important for him to try and provide answers for someone else when he'd worked so hard alone to find his.
But not all alone - his ohana had been at his side. She had been at his side.
He wants them to help Connor Mahuki's kid in the exact same way.
"We'll figure it out." That's all Kono says as she curls into him, arching her neck up to brush her lips against his softly. "We will put our very best men on it. And me," she says with a soft smile.
He smiles back at her, his hands on her cheeks as he looks into her eyes and marvels at how she's come to know him so well in such a short amount of time. She knows when he wants to talk and when he doesn't, when he wants to fuck and when he just wants to sit quietly on the couch with a cold beer. He has never thought of himself as an open book, and it unnerves him to think he's revealing so much of himself so easily. But maybe he hasn't become an open book at all; maybe he's simply a book she's determined to read.
"So, our little fish is a guy named Marcus Riko. Banged and bruised in the hospital, not a pretty face right now." Danny winces as he recalls the hospital visit and the patient he and Steve had met to question regarding Connor Mahuki's pro bono work and the suspicions of his death.
"Marcus also suspects Chan was the guy to kill Mahuki because the lawyer had nearly convinced Marcus to turn on Chan regarding his involvement in some of the island's small time drug dealings. The deal was for them to meet at HPD and discuss giving a statement, wearing a wire, all of it," Steve says to the rest of the team. "Obviously, that didn't happen, and he believes Chan kicked it up a notch to murder him and send a message to the rest of his boys. Thankfully, bystanders called the police before our Marcus guy was beat to death."
"Surprised they didn't shoot him when they had him," Chin says wryly.
"Even Marcus says he got damn lucky," Danny relays, shaking his head in amazement.
"They gonna help him out with relocation so he can stay safe?" Chin questions with concern as he hears Steve and Danny's recap of the interview. "At least he tried, right?"
"Yes, they are trying to get him safely to another island," Danny assures him, "because, well, he did at least try. It's not his fault."
"Well, I ran everything on Chan, and trust me, the guy's a real piece of work." Kono puts up Akoni Chan's record on the smart screen, letting the guys skim down the list of offenses and look at the picture of Chan smiling smugly at them from his mugshot. "A nice long list of drug dealing crimes, battery, assault. The petty stuff started right from his early teens. He's managed to stay low on the radar the past couple of years even though there's suspicion he's been involved in many of the local gang crimes. No evidence though."
"That'd be too easy, of course," Chin comments with a sigh. "Anything from Max we can work with?"
"We're heading there once he calls," Danny says. "Hopefully he can give us something. Because from the way the way this guy manages to slip and slide through the constraints of the law, we have our work cut out for us."
They all turn to look at Steve, waiting for him to toss an idea their way or direct them where to start, but he seems lost in thought as he stares at the plasma screen. Finally, he shakes himself out of the trance and looks back at them, back in commander mode as he directs orders for the rest of the day. "Okay, Danny and I will see what Max has to say. Kono, Chin, check out the crime scene photos again for what we could have missed. Anything we find, we send to the lab for verification. I don't want to cut any corners on this one."