Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize…
A/N: Well, we reached the middle of this crazy story. There will be one more chapter now I'm almost sure. And dunno why but now I really want to write a true noir story, with Steve and Danny in long trench coats and maybe fedoras, Catherine playing the femme fatale who walks into their office one day, Chin the cryptic bartender and Kono the cigarette girl who helps out Steve and Danny.
Also I'm kinda sad that I couldn't fit Chin into this story anywhere. But I have another idea, kinda similar to this, where he'd run a goverment agency with our crazy ohana.
Anyway, thanks for all the lovely reviews, all the alerts and favs. It's a pleasure to write for such a darling audience.
Tell me what you think!
Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I'm closer to where I started
I'm chasing after you
/Lifehouse/
Steve spends the next month trying to forget.
Kono has made it more than clear that, while enjoyable, their fling in Paris was just that: a fling. The knife to his neck in the alleyway made that abundantly clear.
"You'd think that the whole stealing-all-your-shit in Paris would have made that clear," Danny drawls with disdain making a sharp gesture with his beer bottle, when Steve shares his thoughts on the Kono situation.
Steve flicks beer caps at him.
Mary Ann just rolls her eyes at them.
The odd pair is back from their deep cover and they are crashing on Steve's pull-out couch indefinitely. They alternate between making fun of him and acting as his wingmen. They go out one Saturday to watch rugby, and Steve gets drunk on cider and nearly takes an attractive brunette home. They're outside, kissing under the street lights and trying to catch a cab, when Steve looks down, realizes that he's clinging to a drunk Kono look-alike and that's not really fair to anyone involved.
He hails a cab for the woman and pays for it, makes his excuses, and gets slapped across the face for his troubles.
He wakes up the next morning with a hangover and a spectacular scratch under his eye, which earns a painfully long rant from Danny, and Mare laughs at him for half an hour straight.
"It's really not your year, is it?" Mary Ann gasps, finally, and Steve ignores both of them in favour of drinking all the coffee in the apartment.
It's business as usual after that, more or less. Mary Ann stops pushing slim brown-haired women at him when they go out, and Danny doesn't make too many jokes about Steve being celibate.
He thinks it's time for them to find a place, preferably on the other side of the globe.
Or at least the city.
Steve takes a job in Dublin, and then one in Morocco. He comes back to London from Morocco with a tan, craving strong tea and rainy days, which London delights in providing him with. He goes out with Danny and Mare and comes home alone, and he tells himself that he's getting over Kono. He has, at least, stopped jumping every time someone who looks remotely like Kono crosses his path.
He's doing just fine, and then Jenna calls him.
It's late, which means that it's either an emergency, or Jenna is drunk. She drunk dials Steve once or twice a month, leaves him long rambling messages, or talks to him for hours about Lori and Paris, but tonight, her voice is clipped and sharp. Steve is awake and reaching for the knife under his pillow before he can think about it.
"You still mooning over that gorgeous thief?" Jenna asks, and Steve would hang up on her, but she isn't teasing.
Steve does a quick check of his surroundings and eases his bedroom door open to verify that Danny and Mary Ann are still asleep on the couch, alive and safe, if snoring (Mare) and drooling (Danny).
"Yes?" Steve returns to his room and starts to get dressed with only one hand, keeping a firm grip on the hilt of his knife.
"Good," Jenna says, and her voice softens. "Because I think she's in trouble. She tried to pull a fast one on these big deal, fucking terrifying art dealers. Bad people, sooner kill you than look at you, you know the type, right?"
Steve does know, and his insides turn cold at the thought. He reaches for his shoes, his gun, and his jacket, moving efficiently in the dark, focused on getting dressed so he can get out and find Kono.
"Where is she?"
"They pulled her out of her apartment two days ago. They've got her in a warehouse in Birmingham."
"Two days?!" Steve hisses, and Jenna hums down the line.
"I only just heard about it, I'm sorry. I'm sending you the address now." Steve's phone beeps against his ear, and thank god for Jenna, Queen of the Geeks.
"Thanks Q," he says, scrawling a note on a post-it and sticking it to Danny's forehead, before booking it out of the door, and taking the stairs down to the street at a run.
"Anytime, Moneypenny," Jenna murmurs into his ear in a soft, concerned tone. "Good luck."
Steve hangs up and slides his phone into his pocket. The trains aren't running this late at night, and he thinks he might lose his fucking mind if he had to sit patiently on a train while it made its way to Birmingham.
He slips down his street instead, pulls a wire out of his pocket and checks that the street is empty before breaking into the car. He slides inside and hotwires it, sighing in relief when it purrs to life beneath him. It's a nice car, slim and black, and he pulls out of the spot it had been parked in and guns it down the quiet London streets.
It's still hours away from dawn, and the centre of London is mercifully quiet. He drives in silence, only flicking the radio on when the thoughts in his head become too loud. These bastards have had Kono for nearly two full days. The address that Jenna sent him is for some sketchy warehouse and who is to say they didn't just kill Kono, dump her body and get the hell out of dodge?
It's been two days.
Two bloody days.
Steve tightens his fingers on the steering wheel, turns the radio louder to drown out the dread in his stomach, and follows the signs leading out of London.
Dawn is just breaking on the horizon when he makes it to Birmingham. He calls up the GPS on his phone and braces it on the dashboard, following the directions Jenna had provided him with, and feeling more and more unprepared for whatever lies ahead.
It's possible that he had been too hasty. That he should have waited for Danny and Mary Ann or should have called some friends in London to help him. He has no plan, besides getting in, saving Kono and getting out.
Alive, hopefully.
He parks on a street a few streets away from the warehouse. It's a sketchy neighborhood, even the buildings look unfriendly, but it's still early, and the streets are empty. Steve turns off the car, checks his gun, and steps out into the cool morning.
He has no fucking idea what he's doing. He's just one man, with one gun, and a thing for unruly art thieves. There is a very good possibility that he's going to get killed. There is also a very good possibility that if he survives this and Kono survives this, Kono is just going to run away again and go back to being beautiful and distant and living a life of thievery.
Or maybe she'll shoot Steve this time.
Steve blinks hard, shakes his head to clear it, and starts walking towards the warehouse.
It's nondescript, and there's nothing but silence inside. Steve slides his gun out of his pocket, and walks carefully around the building, looking for an entrance. There's a door in the back, firmly locked, but the lock is rusting and Steve gives it one hard kick and manages to break it. He lets himself in, and steps quietly.
It's very, very quiet inside, and it doesn't take him long to find Kono. There's a space in the middle of the warehouse, cleared of all the boxes and other sorts of detritus, and two men with thick arms and leather jackets. It's so cliché that Steve would laugh if Kono wasn't tied to a chair a handful of meters away from where the thugs are drinking coffee. She's tied with thick rope that seems to be the only thing keeping her upright. She's listing dangerously to one side, her chin to her chest, and her bare feet are bloodied. Steve takes a few, silent steps closer, and he can see that there's blood on Kono's face, too, matting her long hair and dripping onto the yellow dress she's wearing.
Steve is suddenly, and entirely furious. He lets out one sharp breath through his nostrils and the sound echoes in the empty space. The thugs with the coffee freeze and one of them reaches for the gun tucked into his waistband.
Steve steps out from behind the racks of shipping containers he's standing behind, a manic smile stretching across his face. He fires, clipping the first guard in the shoulder and ducking back behind the shipping containers when the second guard draws his own gun with a shout.
He runs, drawing their fire, ducking behind containers and firing at them whenever he gets a clear shot, anything to keep their bullets and their fists away from Kono. He gets the first thug with a lucky shot, straight to the thigh, and the man goes down and stays down. The second man fires and the bullet tears into the wall inches away from Steve's shoulder. He ducks and rolls away, firing blindly in the man's direction, when there's a scream of pain, and a thud.
It's so sudden that Steve looks down, half expecting that he's the one who cried out, but there's no blood on him. He raises his gun and steps forward, back into the emptied space in the middle of the warehouse. The second man is sprawled on the concrete floor, down for the count, the ropes that were binding Kono to the chair are pooled loosely on the ground, and Kono is standing unsteadily above the second thug, holding what looks like a jagged piece of coat hanger.
She raises her makeshift weapon when Steve steps out into the clearing, lowering his gun in disbelief. Something like amazement flickers over Kono's face, beneath the bruises and the blood, and Steve's heart aches.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Kono spits out a mouthful of blood , clutching the twisted piece of wire despite the fact that it looks like she's having trouble remaining upright.
Steve flicks the safety on his gun. "I was…I'm here to rescue you."
"Why?"
"My friend called me, and told me that you were in trouble. And I couldn't… I had to…"
Kono looks like she can't believe that Steve is real. "So, what, you stole a car and broke into this warehouse and shot a man?"
Steve hesitates and Kono's eyebrows climb into her matted hair.
"Fucking hell," she mutters. The piece of wire in her hand clatters loudly on to the cement floor. "I owe you one."
Steve tucks his gun back into his holster and they look at each other for a long minute that stretches awkwardly between them. Kono is listing to the side again, but she manages a cocky smirk.
"So, you got in here, did you have a plan for getting out?"
And Steve would smile at the Star Wars reference, but Kono's knees buckle and he has to rush forward to catch her. Kono's head lolls against his shoulder just as his phone begins to ring, and he props Kono up while sliding it out of his pocket.
"BIRMINGHAM?!" Danny shouts in his ear as soon as he gets it open, and Kono groans. She's turned a chalky shade of pale, and Steve heaves her up, against his shoulder while Danny continues to yell at him.
"You fucking idiot, you could at least have woken us up, we could have provided backup instead of acting as the getaway driver and…"
"Getaway driver?" Steve repeats, heaving the warehouse door open and making sure that Kono's head doesn't hit it as he gets them both out.
"Yeah, I stole a fucking car to come and pick up your stupid ass from Birmingham and drag you back to London where we will form a plan and then we can go storm the fucking warehouse…"
"How far away are you?" Steve asks, "I've already done it, I got her, but she's bleeding pretty badly, and she passed out a little while ago."
There's a moment of silence before Danny blows up.
"What?! Jesus fucking Christ, please don't tell me you stormed a fucking warehouse on your own, Steven, I swear to god…"
"There were only two guards," Steve mutters, "and Kono took out one of them. It's fine."
"It's not fine, they could have killed you, you ungrateful son of a bitch." Mary Ann bellows from the background and Kono stirs against Steve's shoulder.
"But they didn't, and I need you to come pick me up, because I need to get the fuck out of here and try to bandage her head wound, okay?"
"Head wound," Danny mutters. "It's not even seven yet, fucking hell."
"How far away are you? I just texted Mare the address."
Danny swears colourfully while Mary Ann fumbles with her phone and then sighs. "Give us fifteen minutes. Get the fuck away from that warehouse and don't get shot."
"No promises."
Danny swears at him again and Steve closes his phone and sets Kono down. She sways and grabs Steve's shoulder. He winds an arm around her to keep her upright.
"Can you walk? We should get out of here."
Kono grunts at him and takes a couple of long minutes to just breathe. Steve fits his hands around her ribs and hopes that she hasn't been kicked hard enough that she's bleeding somewhere where they can't see it.
When Kono moves forward, and Steve moves with her, hurrying them down the street as quickly as they can. The city is stirring, and walking away from a warehouse with torn clothes and bloodied faces is probably the most conspicuous things that they could have done.
Danny and Mary Ann come screeching around the corner in an unfamiliar car about twenty minutes later, just as Kono is slowing down to a crawl, and Steve is starting to get agitated, checking over his shoulder every other minute for the men he's sure are following them.
Kono's guard goes back up when the car screams to a halt in front of her, her hands clench into fists despite the fact that she's practically dead on her feet, and Steve would find it endearing if Kono weren't still bleeding from her face.
"It's okay," he says, "it's my sister and my brother-in-law."
They get out and Mare stands guard while Danny helps Kono into the backseat with Steve following her in. There are at least four sawed off shotguns thrown haphazardly on the seats in the back, along with a messy selection of lockpicks and a grappling hook, of all things.
Danny pulls away from the curb and frowns as Steve tosses the arsenal back into the front, hitting both Danny and Mare in various places in the process, so he can try and keep Kono upright.
"I didn't know if you'd have it under control." Mary Ann explains with a shrug.
"You three," Kono slurs quietly, from against Steve's chest. "You three are so fucking weird."
They ditch the car when they get back to London, and Steve takes off his shirt and wraps it around Kono to conceal the bleeding as much as possible. A wide-eyed housewife watches them carry Kono up into Steve's apartment, but she seems more fixated on Steve's bare chest then the way Kono is bleeding through the button-up they'd forced her into, so he figures they're in the clear.
They manage to maneuver Kono into the claw-footed bathtub Mary Ann had scored at an auction a couple of years ago, and Danny fetches bandages and iodine and the rest of the first aid kit while Steve runs the water, and starts un-buttoning the shirt he had lent to Kono. He's peeling the fabric away from her shoulders when she catches his wrist and twists. Steve swears, loudly, and Kono blinks at him. Her eyes are unfocused and there is blood matting her hair to her forehead but her hands on Steve's wrist are steady.
"I'm still armed," she croaks, letting her eyes slide closed. "Don't try anything."
"You are the stubbornest bitch my brother has ever brought home," Mary Ann says from over Steve's shoulder, and when Steve moves to elbow her in the stomach, she ducks out of the way.
"You're wearing PJs, anyway," Danny says from the doorway while Steve leans over the side of the tub to adjust the temperature of the water. "Where are you hiding weapons?"
Kono, bloodied and gorgeous, and half-collapsed in Steve's bathtub, smirks at the three of them and reaches a shaky hand up to pull a slim blade from her tangled hair.
"They never think to check the hair," she says, and lets the blade fall onto the tiles in the bathroom with a little clinking sound. Mary Ann whistles and leans into the bathroom far enough to clap Steve on the shoulder.
"I'll leave you and your weapons kink alone then, shall I?"
Steve throws a roll of bandages at her and shouts: "Bring us coffee!"
Mare just flips him off over her shoulder, and keeps walking, pulling a still sputtering Danny after her.
In the bathtub, Kono has her eyes closed again, and the water swirling around her legs is a rusty red. Moving slowly, so he doesn't get shanked, Steve reaches for a cloth and wets it. He cleans Kono's wounds carefully, hyper aware of the warm skin beneath his hands. He cleans the blood from Kono's arms and gravel and dirt from the cuts on her feet. There are bruises blooming on Kono's hips and back that he ghosts the cloth over and pretends he doesn't notice when Kono hisses and jerks away from the pain.
He unhooks the showerhead from the wall and runs it over his fingers to test the temperature, before pressing gently at the back of Kono's neck so she doesn't get water in her eyes.
Kono, warm and pliable and mostly clean, leans forward agreeably and sighs quietly when Steve lets the water run over the crown of her head, and through her hair. It takes a while for the water to run clear, to get rid of the mud and plaster and blood, but Steve moves patiently, using his fingers to comb Kono's hair. He's done this before, for Mare, when she was young and stupid and constantly getting herself into fights that she couldn't finish. Thank god she met Danny to keep her remotely grounded.
When he's done, he switches the water off and hands Kono a towel.
"I should bandage that cut on your shoulder," he says, quietly, holding out his hands for Kono to use to extricate herself from the bathtub.
Kono looks at his hands warily, but holds onto them when her knees buckle as she stands. Her grip is shaky, but still strong.
"I can do it myself," Kono says, stiffer and far less pliable now that she's out of the bathtub and standing (mostly) on her own.
"You're dead on your feet," Steve says, reaching for the bandages that Danny left on the bathroom sink. "And if you try to bandage your own shoulder you'll only stretch the wound wider and end up with an infection."
"That's never happened before," Kono drawls with sarcasm, removing her hands from Steve's and swaying slightly on her feet, but remaining upright. Steve rolls his eyes.
"Will you please just let me help you?"
Kono's shoulders go uncomfortably stiff at that, and she looks away.
"I can't afford to owe anyone any favours," she says, quietly.
Steve shakes his head forcefully and puts the bandages back in the sink, reaching for Kono, and curling his hands up when she jerks away.
"I'm not doing this so you'll lend me your favourite rocket launcher when I need to take out a small European country," Steve says, pushing his hands into his hair in exasperation. "You don't have to pay me back, except maybe by not stealing all of my shit in the morning. Or like, not putting a knife to my throat. Again. I'm doing this because I heard you were in trouble, and you don't deserve to be shot in a warehouse in Birmingham by some asshole gangster."
Kono raises an eyebrow at him, but she's smiling, a little bit, and listing slightly to the side again. Steve reaches over and steadies her with two big hands on slim shoulders, and Kono lets him.
"As far as romantic declarations go," Kono says, later, when she sits on the closed toilet seat, letting Steve dab iodine against the cut on her head, "that was one of the strangest I've ever had. You are one of the strangest I've ever had. People generally lose interest when they find out that I've stolen their passport and their shoes."
"My sister and I are made of stubborn stock," Steve says, pressing butterfly closures against the cut on Kono's head and stepping back to study his handiwork. "My father chased our mother across two continents before she agreed to marry him. Mare was supposed to take out competition but ended up following Danny for months and then she decided that he worth more alive and well, you saw the result."
Kono laughs quietly, running clever fingers over the closures on her head and the bandage on her shoulder.
"It runs in the family, then," she smiles. "The chasing."
"We know what we like," Steve says, shrugging. "And we don't let distance deter us."
"I can see that," Kono nods. "Distance, or a knife to the throat, nothing stops you."
She's smirking, and Steve tucks the bandages and the iodine back beneath the bathroom sink and points at her.
"I walked all across Shibuya for you," he says, and Kono shrugs, still smiling.
"I never asked you to fly to Tokyo for me."
"Jesus Christ, you two make me sick." Mary Ann sticks her head into the bathroom, scowling. "Is there blood in the bathtub? I'd really like to take a shower without getting someone else's blood on me."
Steve stretches out a hand to help Kono up, and they move out of the small bathroom. Mary Ann leers at him behind Kono's back as they go, and Steve does his best to ignore her. He leads Kono into his bedroom, and helps her in to the bed, refraining from tucking her in only because Danny would never let him live it down.
"You know where the bathroom is," Steve says. "I'll be on the couch if you need anything, just shout."
Kono nods, her fingers skimming across the bedspread and the sheets, and her eyes taking in the crowded bookshelf, the Guns and Ammo magazines on the floor, the dart board and the post cards tacked to the wall of Steve's room. Steve waits for another moment, and then leaves her to it, closing the door softly, and joining Danny with a couple of beers on the couch.
"So I can see why you like her," Danny says, quietly, when their beers are half gone. "She's stubborn, suicidal and batshit crazy, just like you."
Steve shoves at him half-heartedly, and Danny laughs loudly, and then covers his mouth, glancing at Steve's closed bedroom door.
"She's good at what she does," Steve says, and Danny nods, taking a long swig of his beer and letting his head drop back on the couch.
"I liked the part where she hid a knife in her hair," Danny grins. "Anyone with knives in their hair gets my blessing."
Steve laughs this time, and gets up to get them both another beer.