For some reason, I kept giving Steve a sex change writing this – I must have had to go back and change she into he fifty times – I don't know why. If you notice any we missed please let me know.

/ / / Needless \ \ \ s03e15 - Hookman

Steve slipped into the car and drove, hoping that Kono would take the shot before Stoner managed to shoot him. Danny rushed out of the safety of the building laying down a stream of cover fire while Kono took the shot and their guy was down on the roof – threat neutralised.

Steve climbed out of the car and had to bite down on his anger as he strode back towards Danny. "What was that? What are you Scarface? What were you thinking?"

"I don't know. I guess I misinterpreted your game plan. Which, for the record, was seriously flawed."

Steve couldn't resist smiling when he realised why Danny had put himself in danger. He ignored the soft, indulgent expressions on Kono and Chin's faces. "You were worried about me."

"Worried? No, I was worried about my car," Danny said, sarcasm dripping off his words.

"I'm touched."

"Yeah, you're touched, you're touched, you're touched in the head," Danny said, stamping off towards his car.

"You might want to go after him, Steve," Kono offered.

Steve turned to look at Danny assessing his car and shook his head. "He was just worried."

-)(-)(-

Steve followed Danny into the house watching as Danny threw the door open and stomped inside.

"Danny."

"No!" Danny said, spinning around and glaring at Steve. "I am going to have a shower."

"Danny."

Danny glared at him harder and stomped up the stairs. Steve sighed and decided to give Danny some space – he'd go down and swim for an hour or so and when he got back Danny would be calm enough to yell at him and then they would be fine.

Danny wasn't calmer when Steve walked back into the house, slinging his wet trunks over the sink and wrapping himself in a towel to walk through to the bathroom. Danny was in the kitchen chopping vegetables when Steve walked to the door after his shower. He didn't turn away from what he was doing even when Steve walked into kitchen and stood next to him. Steve stepped closer but Danny didn't react.

Steve pulled back completely and looked at Danny from the tense line of his shoulders, down to the tight hold he had on the knife and the way he was viciously slicing up the carrots.

"Danny?"

"I don't want to talk to you right now, Steve," Danny bit out briskly.

Steve took a step back and folded his arms over his chest. "You can't just ignore me."

Danny dropped the knife and turned to look at Steve. "I want to throttle you so I'm asking you to leave me alone."

"Why?" Steve asked, confused.

Danny didn't answer him and went back to chopping vegetables. Steve took a step further back and watched Danny. He assumed this was a reaction to the threat against Steve's life earlier but Danny had never completely shut him out before, never shut down after a dangerous situation. Danny would normally yell at him and claim he was a one-man band or something about missing chromosomes or lack of common sense. Steve had seen Danny quiet but he'd never dealt with Danny completely closed off in this way.

It left Steve with no idea what to do.

He had never dealt with this and he had a feeling that his normal method simply wasn't going to work. Steve didn't move, just stood there and watched as Danny put the vegetables in to bake with a few pork chops. Danny started to clean up without looking at Steve even though they had always worked under the rule that the non-cook would clean up. Steve didn't think offering would even earn him a response. When the kitchen was once again clean, Danny walked past Steve and out of the kitchen – grabbing the book he'd been reading and sitting on the single lounge chair. Steve followed him into the lounge room not sure what he was supposed to do to fix this. He sat on the couch and watched Danny for a moment then grabbed one of his magazines and tried to focus on it. In the end, he flicked through the pages without looking at any of the content and when he was done he started again.

Danny huffed out a breath and closed his book. Steve looked up at him immediately.

"I thought you were going to die." Danny said, voice accusatory.

"I was inside of the car."

"You mean the car with all of those windows? The car that isn't designed to withstand bullets?"

"I wasn't a clear target."

"He was a marksman."

"With prosthetics."

Danny made a disbelieving noise. "He had already killed two police officers and seriously injured another one. He'd written your name, your name, Steve, on a bullet." Danny's voice cracked and he shifted awkwardly on his seat while he rubbed his hands on his knees.

"You didn't say anything earlier."

"We were trying to save you, but you couldn't help but throw yourself in front of the man trying to shoot you."

"You weren't exactly being safe either," Steve pointed out.

"He wasn't trying to kill me. Did you see Williams engraved on a bullet? Because I'm almost certain, Steven, that it was McGarrett etched into the bullet."

"It wasn't really about me, it was about my father."

"That makes it better? No, that doesn't make it better, that makes it worse, so much worse, Steve. Now, not only do we have your recently resurrected mother bringing her CIA past to Hawaii, and our lives, now we get to worry about the people that your father brought to justice. On top of that, Wo Fat's still out there and just itching to kill you."

"Danny," Steve said, trying to get him to stop overreacting.

"You left the cover of a building, a building which is generally better equipped to handle gun fire, and walked out into the open with a sniper wanting to kill you."

"I kept down," Steve offered.

"When I'm left mourning you, I don't think I'm going to be comforted that you kept down!"

Steve half stood up to walk over to Danny but Danny's body tensed even more and he sat back down heavily. "I wasn't going to die."

"All Stoner wanted, he knew he'd been caught, and all he wanted was you dead, Steve."

"I wasn't going to die."

"You're not invincible," Danny yelled. "I don't know what the Navy did to you but you're not invincible, Steve."

"I don't think I'm invincible."

"Then why did you run out under sniper fire?"

"We had to stop him, Kono was the best option."

"We could have waited for backup, we could have talked about it, we could have done something that didn't make me picture you dying in a pool of red blood."

"You followed me out," Steve pointed out, hating the way Danny was looking at him. Danny didn't look angry, he looked hurt, wounded, like Steve had actually, physically, done something to hurt him and Steve wasn't sure what to say to make sure Danny never looked like that again.

"I couldn't just leave you out there to die, Steve."

"I wasn't going to die."

"He was shooting at you."

"I get shot at all the time." The moment Steve said the words he knew it was the wrong thing to have said. The look on Danny's face just confirmed it. "So do you." Steve knew that really wasn't helping so he stopped talking.

Danny dropped his head down into his hands; the line of his shoulders defeated.

"I don't want you to worry about me," Steve said, standing up and sitting on the coffee table. He didn't reach for Danny but he wanted to.

"Normally, most of the time it's just part of the job, you love to throw yourself into danger and it's okay, well, it's not really okay, but it's how we've always worked. But this, today, with you putting yourself out in the open with a sniper wasn't normal and it wasn't okay, Steve. You have to know that."

"Tell me what to say," Steve asked, voice barely more than a whisper.

Danny's hands wrapped around Steve's. "I know you, Steve, you're going to do it again. You'd do it every day before you'd let someone else get hurt."

"You're shutting me out," Steve said, and he hated the way his voice sounded.

"I know that's you but I'm still so damned angry. I'm angry because I can't ask you not to do that again and I can't protect you from getting killed and I love you, I love you and the idea of losing you today was…" Danny trailed off, one of his hands rubbing the skin around his mouth and then he looked at Steve. "I don't even know how to deal with this, Steve."

Steve felt his chest constrict and then he remembered all of the things that Danny kept telling him. "You keep saying we should do this stuff together."

Danny nodded and yanked Steve off the table and into his body. He kissed Steve desperately, holding him closer, tighter, and Steve arched up into his hold. Danny pulled back and buried his face in Steve's neck, holding on so tightly that Steve's bones ached. Steve held him back, willing to do anything to reassure Danny.

"I can't lose you, Steve."

"I'm not going anywhere," Steve told him.

Danny didn't say anything just pushed Steve away and up to his feet, following behind the taller man as he started pushing him towards the stars and their room.

"You understand," Danny said, yanking Steve's shirt off, "that I wish you would talk to me, to us, about these stupid, insane, touched, ideas that you get into your head."

"I'll try," Steve said, trying to get to Danny's skin beneath his clothes and being hampered by the Danny's hands which felt like they were everywhere.

"No, you'll keep throwing yourself between bad people and good people and I'll keep following along behind you," Danny mumbled and then shoved his hand down into Steve's pants.

"Yeah," Steve said, thrusting his hips forward.

"And I'll hate both of us for it a little," Danny continued, almost harshly stroking Steve, "because neither of us can stop throwing ourselves into danger."

"We're…fuck, Danny, you're a cop not a kindergarten teacher."

Danny rolled his wrist and almost brought Steve to his knees. "That would be funny if I believed you'd ever seen the movie."

"What?" Steve gasped out, grabbing Danny's hips and free-falling back onto the bed.

"There are cops out there that never get involved in shootouts, Steven," Danny pulled his hand back and forced Steve's pants down his body until Steve was stretched out below him naked. "There are cops out there that don't carry grenades in their car boots. There are cops out there that don't get targeted by snipers." Danny's fingers set to work on Steve's body and the brunette gave himself over to what Danny was doing. "Not only does Five-0 get involved in shootouts weekly, we have signals set up because we get kidnapped and into trouble so much. That's not reasonable, Steven."

"No," Steve breathed out, barely even listening to Danny anymore.

"I want to grow old with you, old and grumpy and grey…greyer than you already are, and I want to have all my limbs when I'm eighty and telling you off for racing your assisted mobility vehicle."

Steve grabbed the back of Danny's hair and yanked him up and into a kiss, groaning at the loss of Danny's fingers on his body but wanting to taste Danny anyway. "I'm going to be there." Steve said, pulling away for a moment to lick back into Danny's mouth.

"You are," Danny agreed, setting himself back to his task, stealing Steve breath and working his body exactly how he wanted, "because I am going to keep reminding you how much you want to live and come home."

"Don't need to," Steve said, "but…yes, fuck, yeah, Danny…"

"No dying," Danny ordered, as Steve came apart beneath him. Steve had no idea what he'd said or what Danny had said when he came back to their conversation but Danny was curled around him like a second skin.

"What was that?" Steve asked, voice rough.

"I believe psychologists would call that an affirmation of life," Danny offered.

"My life or yours?"

Danny smiled into the skin of Steve's neck, licking at the salty flesh before kissing him. "Both?"

"I don't think I've had my turn yet." Steve said.

Danny curled his hands around the back of Steve's skull, fingers sliding into the soft hair at his nape. "I was serious, Steven, I'm adding a rule to this relationship, you are not, never, allowed to die."

Steve smiled. "I can't agree to never."

"Then after me."

Steve's stomach twisted. "No, at the same time, when we're old and you're a great-grandfather."

Danny smiled at him. "You just want someone to call your Grandad."

"Damn right."

Danny laughed and Steve flipped them over for some more reaffirmation.

/ / /