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Kono wakes up to the noise, sitting up in the bed groggily and she notices that Steve is awake too; reaching for his gun he keeps in the nightstand. It becomes clear to her that there's someone in the house. She looks at him and he signals her to keep quiet, throwing the covers aside, getting up and heading towards the door. She is out of the bed a second later with her gun in hand, following him silently, thanking every deity that they had gone to bed with their sleepwear on. They are moving in perfect sync, sneaking down the stairs, searching for the intruder.

There's a guy, dressed in all black, kneeling beside Steve's desk fumbling with the Champ box.

"Turn around." Steve says in his scary SEAL voice. "Slowly. Get up. What are you doing with that, huh?"

The guy stands and Kono moves away to turn on the lights.

It's a huge fucking mistake, because the next moment the floorboard creaks behind them and she barely has enough time to move away from the blow that comes out of nowhere.

She's such a fucking amateur sometimes. Shit.

All hell breaks loose after that and she fleetingly thinks about how much she hates redecorating the house in every two weeks before everything goes black.

.

.

"What are you eating?" Kono eyes Danny suspiciously when he appears with two Ziploc bags from the kitchen.

"Nothing." He mumbles around the whatever in his mouth, pushing one of the bags into her hand. "Ice, for your heads."

"You'd better not eating my chocolate." She grumbles, pressing the package against the nape of her neck with a relieved sigh.

Steve, of course, tries to brush his partner off, but Danny can be as stubborn as him so he finally takes the ice. Kono finds their argument very amusing.

"See," she grins at Steve cheekily. "I told you that polygamy has some perks."

"Poly – what?" Danny's eyes go wide, his mouth hanging open for a full minute before he starts to rant. "Oh, you are hilarious. We should stun you more, it improves your humor. How many guys were there anyway?"

"Five." Steve says, glaring at Kono. He hates when she jokes about Danny being his other wife.

"Five, okay, good." Danny starts to wind up. "'Cause I was wondering how a little burglar comes in and takes advantage of a Navy SEAL and his equally badass sidekick."

"I love you too, dear." Kono drawls, throwing a dirty look at Danny.

"He wasn't a burglar." Steve feels the need to verify that.

.

.

"God, Mary." Kono bursts into Steve's office with a concerned look on her face, hugging her carefully. "Are you okay? You scared the hell out of us."

"I'm fine." Mary Ann says. "Is he mad at me?"

"Mad?" Kono pulls back to look her in the eye. "He's not mad Mary, he nearly lost his mind when he found blood at your place, thinking it was yours. I seriously don't know what he'd do if something happened to you."

"I'm sorry." Mary Ann mumbles, bowing her head.

"It's okay." Kono sits down beside her, throwing an arm around her shoulder. "The only thing that matters that you are safe now."

Steve finds them like that, Mary's head on Kono's shoulder and he thinks about how these two women are harder to keep in line than a SEAL team.

Not that he's complaining or something.

Okay, maybe just a little.

"Hey, kiddo." He says and holds out the mug.

Kono stands up, heading towards the door, giving him a look that means 'go easy on her or else' on her way out.

In that moment he honestly misses his men.

.

.

"I can't believe you took photos of everything in that box." Steve stares at his sister.

"I'm sorry I went behind your back." Mary Ann mumbles.

"I think I'll get over it."

"I think you have a future in the family business." Kono smiles at her.

"Well, we already covered the ass kicking part, didn't we?" Mary Ann grins back.

"I'm sorry, what?" Steve gives them a confused look.

"I knocked out the guy's tooth, Steve." Mary Ann sighs. "What do you think where I learned that move?"

"You are teaching my little sister to fight?" Steve glares at Kono.

"I just showed her some moves." Kono shrugs. "I'm not exactly the nail painting kind of girl so we had to find some other bonding activities."

"I can't believe you." Steve shakes his head. "Couldn't you just take her surfing or something?"

"She already knows how to surf." Kono shoots back defiantly.

"Can we focus on the pictures, please?" Mary chimes in. "If it's okay with you two? I mean it's nothing important, just some very bad guys targeting us. Did I mention how I can't wait to be kidnapped again?"

Steve thinks that he's close to losing his mind because Mary sounded disturbingly like Danny. He hopes that it's just his imagination and not the result of them hanging out together without him knowing. Now that would be a reason for his so called aneurysm face.

.

.

"Whoo," Kono says, checking out the bikes in the parking lot. "They got nice rides. Maybe I should have asked one like this from Santa."

"Seriously?" Danny shoots her a resentful look. "Do you have this urge to point out every opportunity you have that you are a female Rambo?"

"Riding a bike isn't an uncommon thing for women, Danny." Chin informs him with a grin. "Especially in our family."

"You know what, I really don't wanna know how many of your female relatives are running around being all scary assassin like." Danny flails his hands around. "It would ruin my love life completely."

"You have a love life?" Kono looks at him with wide eyes pretending to be shocked. "Does it mean that you don't love us anymore?"

"Steven!" Danny whines with a desperate expression. "You have nothing to say about this?"

"You know something?" Steve points at the bikes. "I always wanted to ride one of these."

"Here we go." Danny throws up his hands in exasperation.

.

.

"Frequency what?" Danny asks confused.

"Frequency Analysis." Kono starts to explain. "It's a study of a frequency of letters or group of letters in a cipher text."

"What, are you guys talking about things like that in your free time?" Danny turns towards her with a disbelieving expression.

"Yeah, brah." Kono drawls. "Because cryptography makes me so hot and bothered."

"Stop it." Danny holds out his hand. "Ew, I didn't need that mental image thank you very much."

"This is it." Steve says, ignoring the banter beside him.

.

.

"I'm sure your father was in the same position 18 years ago." Danny tries to reason.

"Hey, listen to me; I'm not my father, okay." Steve cuts him off angrily. "I don't have kids to protect."

"What about Kono, huh?" Danny explodes.

"Nobody knows about that." Steve says defiantly.

"Why are you so sure? You didn't find it suspicious that they sent five guys to your house?" Danny rants. "Don't flatter yourself, they would have sent less, like three if they thought you would be alone. Look, you can hide a fuck but it's impossible to hide when you love someone. It just shows up in everything you say and do."

Steve stares at his friend, realization downing on him. He presses his palms against the hood of the car, taking a deep calming breath.

"Fuck." He mutters. "You are right. They know."

"So please don't go out and do something stupid." Danny pleads.

"Like what? Put bullets in Koji and Hiro's head?"

"Yeah, that would qualify."

"I'm sure she'd understand." Steve says, getting into the car.

"You are not getting my point, are you?" Danny grouses, opening the car's door.

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.

"This is so stupid." Mary Ann groans. "I didn't even want to be here. Now I don't wanna go. With you and Kono it started to feel like home again."

"What are you talking about? This is always gonna be your home." Steve reassures her. "But while Koji's a free man and until this is over I know it's safe for you not to be here."

"Well, I don't see you putting Kono on a different plane to the mainland, like Dad did with us." Mary grumbles.

"Believe me, if I didn't know that she would shoot me for even mentioning it, she'd be here too with a packed bag."

"She'd like LA." Mary laughs.

"Yeah, she would." Steve grins at her. "Maybe I can convince her to visit you soon."

"You know that she's not going to leave your side, especially right now."

"I know." Steve steps closer, hugging her tightly. "Try to stay out of trouble, okay?"

"Sure." Mary nods against his shoulder. "Tell Kono that the next time we meet I expect a big baby bump from her."

"Yeah, okay." Steve chokes out a laugh.

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.

Kono finds Steve leaning over the smart table with a careworn expression.

"Hey." She says softly, sneaking her arms around his waist from behind. "What are you doing here in the dark?"

"Thinking." He lets out a deep breath, placing one of his hands over hers, squeezing her fingers lightly. "Why aren't you home?"

"I thought you'd end up here." She shrugs. "Did Mary leave?"

"Yeah." Steve turns around, pulling her into a proper hug.

"I'm sorry." She mumbles against his chest.

"You know it might be safer if…"

"Don't." Kono cuts him off sharply. "I'm not going anywhere."

Steve pulls back a little to look into her eyes and he can see that stubborn determination he loves and hates so much at the same time and he knows there's nothing he could say to convince her otherwise so he does the only thing that can save his ass from being kicked.

Kono kisses him back with equal passion, her fingers sneaking into his hair and pushes her body closer to his. He places his hands on her hips, lifting her up and starts to walk towards his office when her legs come around his hips with a practiced ease.

"I wanna try this table too but we really don't want Danny to walk in on us." He explains when she looks at him questioningly.

"Again." She laughs.

"Oh, by the way." Steve mutters between kisses. "I got us one of the bikes from the Yakuza punks. The red one."

"God, you know how to sweet talk a girl." Kono laughs breathlessly, pulling him closer.