haole_cop | 00:00:00

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"Now it's my crime scene."

Those could have been, should have been, the last words he heard from McGarrett, and in a kinder world, they might have been, but the world hates Danny Williams, and he's not exactly feeling all that generous towards it, himself, so he's honestly not even a little surprised when the authoritative rap on his door comes attached to a too-tall, too-broad, too-aggressive Navy SEAL with revenge on the mind and Daddy issues from here back to the boardwalks of Wildwood.

He hates him.

Because of this joker, he's home in the middle of the day, instead of at work, work, he might point out, where he's attempting to catch the guy who did this to McGarrett, Sr., which is normally what the child of a murder victim wants, right? They want the cops to do their damn job and haul the dirtbag in for justice.

They don't storm in and take over like it's their goddamn platoon out in fucking Afghanistan.

Except McGarrett, okay, he doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. There's a reason officers don't get involved if the deceased was a family member, and this is exactly why: it makes people angry, irrational.

(He hopes to hell this is McGarrett being irrational.)

It's too close, too personal -- and it's also not his case anymore, so he's got no idea why McGarrett, shirt sticking to his skin from the soaking rain that just hit, because it rains every goddamn day here, what a fucking miracle, Hallelujah, is standing on his doorstep, because it isn't that.

(And it's not that either, he refuses, it's not happening, and there's no possible way this whackjob noticed. It could be he doesn't even have a timer, or got his blown off while single-handedly stopping an insurrection with a couple of grenades and a can-do attidtude.)

So he just stands and waits, with one hand still on the doorknob, ready to slam it shut just as soon as possible.

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He glances back, eyebrows lifting with mild interest, to see the beer foaming up and attacking Steve's chin, hand, shirt, and floor in equal measure. "You're gonna wanna watch out for that," he says, helpfully, lifting his own in a rolling gesture. "Bottom musta gotten knocked."

Well. Not purposefully. He thinks.

It actually wouldn't be a surprising thing to do, if Steve were Meka (or...but long practice shuts off the name Peterson before it starts, hitches a hard breath on Grace). Tap the bottom. Wait until the poor sucker tried to open it. Laugh himself sick on the results, while enduring being sworn at and threats of revenge.

It's the kind of thing partners do, when they know each other, when they're buddies. Day in and day out as the most permanent fixture in a life aside from spouse of child (and sometimes more permanent than either of those).

(While the red zeroes on his wrist keep telling him this is somehow supposed to be more.)

So it wasn't on purpose. But that doesn't mean he's not grinning, amused and a little more relaxed at seeing Lieutenant Commander Too-Many-Medals-To-Wear-At-Once getting spattered with beer foam like a regular, fallible human being.

There's a flash fast wave of annoyed flavored accusation, when his mouth is full of foam and his lips are curved around glass still. Gulping down foam and beer like air isn't a thing he needs. He's held his breath for much more important reasons, and he's not going to start coughing beer everywhere else in the kitchen. His hand is wet with beer, and it's dripping off his forearm and elbow due to gravity.

But he doesn't think Danny didn't it on purpose. At least not more than for about ten percent of considering it.

Because Danny actually looked stumped surprised, before he just started grinning to split the side off the hilarity of it.

Steve doesn't love it. But it's mitigable, and it's just a beer. He can roll his eyes, chagrin by taking it on the chin. He already took a real one from Danny, and it's not like it costs him anything to shake his head and test the bottle. Pulling it out of his mouth, while the beer only goes back down this time, and shifting hands. Once. Twice, to his left, and starting to contort a shoulder. "I'll watch for it with the others."

Already pulling off his overshirt from one shoulder and using the fabric to start dabbing at the beer on his arm, even while he was frowning at the brown splatter on his white one. It'd be good after a wash but it was a mess now.

"You do that."

Grinning into taking a swig of his own beer, standing out here on the planks of the porch, with the sinking sun spreading long, low, melting golden rays across the yard and water behind him, and it's actually, somehow, not terrible. He doesn't feel awful. Or awkward. Or unhappy. Or even all that angry, anymore.

Just, look at the guy. He looks like anyone, standing there, frowning at his shirt and shooting accusatory glares at Danny, like Danny somehow masterminded this whole thing, in a way that just makes Danny snort a laugh and hold up his hands, showcase a lack of weapons, his total innocence that's probably marred by the grin. That finds it's way regardless, because it's funny, okay? It knocks McGarrett down a notch or two, into someone who sometimes does stupid shit like spill beer all over himself, and it's honestly a pretty good look on him. Less robot, more human man. Less distance, more connection. While Danny motions with his bottle at the man, mouth quirking into a half-smile, amusement and the kind of mild sympathy that comes from yeah, I've been there."So this is where our military training tax dollars go. Not a good look, letting carbonation get the drop on you."

Which is a lie. It's actually the most he's liked the guy all day.

Edited 2014-09-11 02:16 (UTC)

He almost looks real when he does that. Danny. Laughing. It makes something in Steve's brow furrow at the words.

Acting the fool, like he's utterly innocent of the scene that's taking place. Taken place. Leaving Steve, and the floor, dripping. Arm a little sticky, but not wet, when he's trading hand with his bottle again, tugging the dark over shirt off entirely. Dropping a little to mop at the beer on the floor with it, too. Because he might as well. Why dirty a kitchen towel if the shirt already needed washing from cleaning up the beer elsewhere.

"Weren't you getting a seat, or something?" Steve tossed out, shaking his head and standing. A little rigid and little giving, before he's standing back up and headed toward Danny and the lanai. Tossing the ball of wadding of dark blue cloth on the table with a grey-green duffle still resting on it from he snuck in the back door earlier this morning. Setting down his beer next to it, to start digging out a fresh shirt from the little everything else he'd brought with him.

He could do laundry tonight. That would fill another few minutes in the epic wait between evening and morning. Between standing still and waiting for the go mark, to get this guy, and through him Hesse. It wasn't like Steve was planning on getting much sleep until he had Hesse.

"What, you mean that seat?"

He half-turns, casts an exaggerated glance at the chairs sitting by the water, a little further onto the actual beach than the wicker set with cushions and an actual table over on the grass, and how big is this property, anyway? "Yeah, found it."

Turning back with a smartass smirk, while Steve rummages through the duffel bag that must have been here since this morning. When Steve first showed up, and tried to remove evidence from the crime scene, and...how the hell did they wind up here, again?

Which just leaves him shaking his head, and actually turning to walk down the gentle slope of the lawn towards the beach and the chairs, one hand holding his bottle, the other tracking a wide, graceless arc to encompass it. "Nice spot. You know, for everything other than hurricanes and tidal waves. Or coastal erosion. But nice."

He pulled a black shirt out. It could use a wash, itself, too, but it was clean enough for the night. For Danny and just rambling in this place until everything else was clean again. Or he was in another one tomorrow. He's zipping up the bag while throwing Danny a look as the man goes off about a pair of chairs, like they are just that. A pair of chairs. On a beach. Like it was a thing that happened everyday.

Like the world doesn't shiver, while staying perfectly clear, and there aren't two people laughing and drinking coffee.

Because there aren't. There's no one else here. No one in the chairs, and no one else lounging or racing around the backyard.

Leaving the bag, Steve grabbed his beer and the shirt and headed after Danny. There was a nearly a snort for the tragic words falling out of Danny's mouth. Like anyone, anywhere, on the planet agreed with him. Like anyone, anywhere, looked at this beach, golden and glimmering, setting sun, and thought about coastal erosion. Every moment Steve thought there might be a glimmer of something real and sane, he opened his mouth and this came out, too.

It seemed to be his go to when he really wanted to get under someone's skin. Or keep them back. Start listing the things he hated about this place, like it was the best way to build walls between himself and whatever else was going on around him. Like a trigger, or a social mechanism for keeping himself that haole that everyone had reiterated he was, and that Steve was starting to wonder if he wore as much as a badge of pride as a mask over whatever else was under there.

Down in the flickers of reality, when he laughed in the kitchen or when he'd been talking to his daughter in the car.

It is easy to inject, without responding, ignoring or just agressive talking over Danny without any apology or cover for it, after reaching down and peeling the beer splattered shirt off of himself. Put it and his beer down on the chair, before going about searching for the bottom of the black shirt. "You ever gonna tell me what Danno means?"

Look, he doesn't deserve this.

He's minding his own business, meandering down to the waterfront in exactly the way treacly vacation commercials have shown happy golden people doing while on their vacation in Hawaii -- minus the happiness, and the gold for anything that isn't beyond his control, the beach lit like a professional photo shoot. What they call the golden hour, that perfect, suffusing natural light, low flooding rays of sunshine that fall heavy as actual bars of gold, shatter over the waves like gold leaf. It's all very pretty, and soothing, and a real slice of Hawaii or whatever, like Elvis Presley might start crooning about the blue evening any second, and then McGarrett goes and shucks his shirt off with the same ease Danny uses for absolutely none of his articles of clothing, because Danny would never so much as take his shoes off in front of someone he only just met. Or had known for less than six months. Or wasn't related or married to.

He will, generously, down the line, tell himself that it's the surprise that makes words die in his throat, but that's not quite it, or even what happens: it's more like they suddenly clench into a fist and go slamming into his vocal cords before gripping his windpipe and dragging it violently back down into his lungs, where it lashes like a dying animal and chokes itself into a knot. Which must be happening, because for a second, he can't breathe. Not like, sappy, romantic, Tom-Cruise-romancing-Kelly-McGillis funny feelings in his stomach that splash up and dissolve the rest of him, but like someone snuck up behind him and wrapped his throat in a rear naked choke, and he's about to black out. It's not fun. It's not romantic. It's not a swell of music or a rush of suddenly clarified emotion.

It's like getting kicked in the stomach, because Steve is -- there's really no other word for it -- perfect. Literally. Danny can not see a single flaw -- not on his skin (suddenly bared and paler than he would have thought, painted thickly with the falling sunset light) or in the suddenly present tattoos (arms and back and he really doesn't want to know about any possible others) -- before he's steadfastly looking out at the water. Like. People do. On Hawaii. They watch the sunset over the ocean and there is nothing romantic or attractive about it and also he wonders how long it would take him to pass out if he decided to just off himself with his tie, right here and right now.

It's not like. Okay. He noticed. That Steve is a good-looking guy. That Steve is downright handsome, in a Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart kind of way, leading-man looks and carriage. Or that he's immune. He's not. No one ever knows who their numbers will land on, so it's not like he'd never thought it could be a guy.

But this guy. This guy is sculpted. This guy is completely unfair even with his clothes on, and Danny has never felt quite so schlubby or like his shirt is so wrinkled or his five o'clock shadow is more evident. He's not so bad, but he's nowhere near Steve's league.

Which is just another hilarious joke the world's pulling on him, right?

So. Water. Sunset. People keep saying he should pay attention to those things, now that he's here, so. He does. No time like the present, right? "Yeah." Punching right back, even if it lacks heat -- more like sparring, while he steadily looks anywhere but at Steve. "When you tell me what's in the box."

Yeah. Okay. That's actually fair, is the thought while Steve is pulling the shirt up over his arms. He's not even against quid pro quo, honestly. It's a fair question, and not one he would have answered the guy in his Dad's Garage. But Danny's not That guy anymore. Sure, he's still loud mouthed haole who got set on the case for twisted back politic reasons.

But he's, also, his partner now, and they guy who punched him, and the one who stayed to have a beer.

"Truth is I don't know yet." Steve pulled the shirt over his head, popping his head through and tugging it in a messy, fast swipe down his stomach, so he could go about leaning down to grab his beer, and follow it up with dropping in the chair the bottle had been resting in. "All I know--"

He looked out far into same ocean Danny was looking at. That one that never changed from looking back. That one that no other of the hundred shores he'd seen since would ever feel the way this one did when it appeared in the fucked up tilt-o-whirl of his dreams.

"--is my father wanted me to find it." Which was bent enough. Just that alone. Before the apologies and those three words. Before the blood and Hesse and Anton. (Freddie.) It wasn't like they'd ever been close. Him and his dad. It wasn't like they'd stayed in touch much. After. Or needed to know where the other was or how they were doing. There weren't ever cards and presents, and the rarest of calls had gotten even rarer over the last decade once he was in the field more than he was ever out of it.

Which made it....all odd. Awkward. Impossible to explain. All the history. Important, but not. Which made it even more so.

Making him look toward Danny, before looking away and raising his beer. "Right now, it's just a puzzle."

Edited 2014-09-12 03:58 (UTC)

It's not fair. That he should be saddled with an insane person, who looks like that, and is now starting to sound like...

Like a real person. Like he's not just a tin soldier, or robot, or some anonymous someone behind layers of cement walls and DO NOT CROSS lines. Steve actually answers, and it's not mouthing off, and it's not shutting Danny down, and so Danny's looking back over before he can help himself, curious and a little cautiously compelled.

Fortunately, the black shirt is on. Which helps.

(As if that image hasn't been seared into his brain, now, as if he could unsee it, or even wants to, selfishly, somewhere behind the disgust at the universe and this bare, wary olive branch that seems to be extended between them.)

But it's not fair. Because he gets this. The way Steve's slouched in his chair, the confusion that's written clearly on his face, the mystery behind his words. He gets it, and -- worse? better? -- he's getting an invite to get it. To see it, and understand.

He does. Family is complicated. Fathers and sons, parent and child. And maybe he can't relate completely with his own father-son relationship -- they get along fine, they're buddies, sort of, without ever really talking over anything too deep or real -- but he knows what it's like to try to do the best by your kid, and know that, inevitably, you'll just screw up.

"You know, me and Grace, we like puzzles."

It's not a random statement. Not even one brushing off Steve's. It's related. It's. Well. Like holding out a beer. Offering a hand. A small gesture of peace. An offer of his own.

Edited 2014-09-12 04:11 (UTC)

It's not a response he's expecting, or knows, which makes him look over at Danny again, swallowing down a mouthful of beer that really didn't have the time to get cold enough. But doesn't keep it from being a good momentary distraction from first words, and the looking over.

Danny, standing there in the easy orange-gold light of Hawaiian sunset that is still too slow, mellow and cool to do anything but annoy Steve's general keyed-to-focus state. Danny, with that faint, warm smile of affection that has nothing to do with the fact he's looking at Steve, and everything to do with the fact he's talking about his daughter, again, and....

Steve isn't even really sure what to do with that. This look he's sure his father never had while look at him, or talking to him.

But then Steve's never made any bones about what his father wasn't. That his partner actually is. "You're a good father."

"Yeah. Maybe. I don't know."

Said too fast, and too gruff, and back out at the ocean, following a lift of his hand. He tries. He tries all the time, every day, and it means more to him than any other possible thing on this sad, broken planet, and she's the only thing, in the end that really matters to him.

But it's hard, sometimes, talking about it, so maybe it's just as well that Steve's practically a perfect stranger, that Danny could just as easily be talking out loud to himself, or to the water. "You know, there's three ways of looking at it--"

When he actually does look over, because he's moving as he speaks, because words and motion go hand in hand, and it's a faint jolt to see Steve watching him, but not enough of one to slow him down or stop him, because he doesn't look bored, or annoyed, or distant. He actually looks...interested? Or, some other word Danny can't go searching for just yet, so he starts counting them off, back out to the waves.

"One: I could get myself killed chasing some methhead scumbag, and then what kind of father would I be?"

Danny moves while he talks, even out here. Little steps. Shifts of his shoulders. Hands. That beer. Where he's looking. When Steve has the time to be watching it, for itself, without a distraction, now. Sitting more still, himself, than he's gotten to since pretty much getting off the plane this morning. Before the ball started rolling and didn't stop until he was sitting here, drinking a beer with the man, on the back nine of the last empty echo of his own childhood.

Listening to Danny give the speech that isn't all too unknown even where he comes from. The one about wives and kids.

"I always looked up to my father for that." It had always been true. No matter what flaws and failures the man had. His service and duty. It'd made Steve want to join the police, made him want to do his tour in the Navy, like his dad and his grandfather, set him on the path to being a SEAL. The life he had now, where he hardly had what people, like Danny, would consider a life. Because it all weighed out in the end. The safety of the world worth -- "The sacrifices he made."

Danny tipped up his beer without words, as Steve continued to watch him take slow steps this direction.

"I'm sure Grace is going to feel the same way." He didn't see it as much of any other possibility.

"Yeah, maybe."

Which is repeating himself, but it's different, now. It's not shutting that comment down, or arguing against it: it's possible, definitely possible, and this yeah, maybe is almost an agreement. After all, he felt the same way about his own dad.

It's just a response, after a swig of his beer, while finally taking a seat in the empty chair and immediately leaning to rest his elbows on his thighs, squinting against the glare as he looks up, out, toward the water, towards the sky, towards Steve, and away again. "Either that or she might just think I'm a selfish son of a bitch."

Without really looking at any of those, because he's stuck on an internal loop, this hard truth he can't hide from, that Rachel wields like a weapon, that Steve guessed within ten seconds of entering his apartment. His dirty, pitiful little secret. Why he stays, even when he hates this place, and he hates the people he's forced to work with, and he hates himself for always making it that much harder, always swinging first. "Because the truth is -- this is all I got."

Confessed to the sand packed under his shoe soles, but he glances up toward Steve for this, because this, this is his honesty, this is the only thing he's got on offer. Follows it up before it can stop. "I need this."

As close as a confession as he'll ever get, bare, raw honesty. If Steve wants to be partners, if the numbers on his wrist can even hope to have a chance, if he's going to be here without going insane -- this is what he's got. The truth. "I wanna do what I'm good at, I want to be reminded I'm good at what I do."

He is. Has a great record. Glowing references from Newark, and good ones here, even if they're reluctant. Which they are, because he hasn't given this place the chance a lit match would have a in a rainstorm, has punched back as often as he gets kicked down, or before.

But. If Steve's serious about this task force thing, if Steve really wants his help, if Steve's going to let him invite himself in and drink a beer on the beach, instead of telling him to fuck off and keep it cold and professional --

Then maybe this is a chance.

Not has a chance. Is. To prove he's still good. To prove he can do this, solve the case, be the guy Steve needed in order to catch a killer.

This, though. This, he's not great at, which is why he takes a second, a breath, looking up at the sky and gathering himself. "If that means having to put up with your twisted belief that you are never wrong -- "

Which he just can't help, because the guy is a lunatic, all right, and this day has been insane, even without the line of zeroes stamped on the inside of his wrist, but it's not actually sharp or angry or exasperated. It's almost -- along with finally turning back to Steve and a faint touch of amusement at the corners of his mouth -- teasing. The kind of familiar ribbing partners do. Already theatrical weariness, like Steve hasn't actually, at times throughout the day, surprised Danny by being. What. Human. And kind of...

Compelling? Appealing?

Likeable?

" -- then so be it."

Edited 2014-09-12 22:14 (UTC)

Steve might be a hardass. When the job needs it. Might know how to turn anything in the backass end of a joke only broke glass and beaten minds could laugh hard at even in the middle of hell. When he or his men or the situation needs it. But it's that, and those people, and those times, that also have these. The moments he knows better than to do either. When what you're hearing is someone's bare and beaten truth. Awkward and honest and ripped from whatever dark place people shove these things.

The kind of thing it's impossible to find words for, or for anyone else to understand on the same line.

But he likes to think he does get this one. At least as much as he needs to.

Danny, with his inability to keep look anywhere, like he can't quite sit right with himself over it, and a devotion to his kid that Steve's dad never had for either of his kids. This willingness to move half the world away, to a paradise he hates, to keep doing a job he thinks he's good at even if everyone around him hates him, and to keep going anyway. For her, and for the job. Put together and torn apart by those two magnetic forces.

It's not a problem Steve's ever had, but it's not one that's ever been missing from a team. Not even this part, where Danny rounds out those few hard, pried words, while Steve isn't looking away, for a sharp, more spiking edge to an insult at him. Which isn't. Sharp, or spiking, or an insult. Well. Maybe it is. But what it's not is put like it was earlier. Like when Danny was snapping in the car. Or those vicious, low words right after punching him.

This one where Danny barely looks at him until just the end. Just calls him the next mountain Danny Williams has to get by. He gets that. He might even respect it. That might be what that glimmer of a thing at the edge of his mind is when he's nodding to Danny and raising his beer toward the man, like it's a backwards tacit agreement. Maybe a better one than this afternoon by far.

Edited 2014-09-13 14:39 (UTC)

Steve's reply is only to pause, before holding out his beer, and that's the perfect button, a universal gesture. Olive branch in the form of brown glass.

So, maybe, they understand each other. Enough that Danny responds by tipping his own bottle and clinking the necks together, which is almost friendly enough that he's tripped into a grin before he realizes it, before letting it spread once he does. Because it's kind of nice, almost. Sitting here. Talking to Steve. Feeling like a person, and not a loaded gun that keeps getting dropped.

Turning out that Steve maybe isn't a hardass all the time, obsessed with work and incapable of normal human interactions, because there's something softer about his face now, though he's still watching Danny with a strange kind of intent. Like he's trying to translate words and expressions into something he understands. Or like he's not totally sure what Danny might do or say next, but founds himself wanting to know.

Danny's got no idea, but he doesn't mind. This might be the first time today that they've gotten along, but it clicked, somewhere, while he wasn't looking.

Maybe that's no bad thing.

Maybe this could work, after all.

He looks more real, more human, more relatable, like this. Less like a junkyard dog growling and snapping vicious bile in every direction at anything that dared to take a step near. That sudden shot of a warm smile creeping out fast, like the flash of a flare gun, that Danny just can't get his hands around to stop. Maybe even seems to realize that, as it's happening and before it's gone.

Maybe he won't be someone Steve has to push around and force to get the job done. Different people needed different thing to get it all done. To see the world, and how to organize themselves to be able to handle that world, itself, as it shifted them around with no more concern than a ship surrounded in every direction by the ocean.

But it sticks, the shred, a strike, a small splinter of curiosity, for Danny, with his three contingency plans for that.

One said his daughter was proud of him, and understood. One said he was an asshole who put this before her.
Which left one last one as Danny was looking down and out, with that ironic smile. "So, what's the third?"

Third thing--?

Oh. Right.

(It's more of a surprise that Steve was paying attention enough to keep count than than Danny forgot his own train of thought.)

Grace understanding. That was one. The one that Steve got to even before he did. Or Grace hating him for it. The second one, that's first in his head, and a constant worry, behind this. The constant. Continual. The thing that keeps him going, even here, dragged so far from home, shoved into a place he hates. "Well, even if I tell myself this isn't permanent..."

He was looking away, but he turns it back to Steve, now, because that's not a confession, it's the thing he's been saying all day. It's not permanent, not home, not where he wants to be, not his choice; but he's here anyway, which makes this a little defiant. "...It's Gracie's home, now."

Which makes his duty crystal clear, inarguable. "It's my job to keep it safe.

There are so many ways those words could be said. So many emotions, rejections, biting back ironic and arrogant and irate ways they could be put. Danny's used a good dozen this day over already. But none of them are there. When Danny says those words, ducking his chin toward his shoulder, and looking in Steve's direction only between things. Which is about being a good father, but it's even more.

Eventuality, and something like acceptance Danny hasn't had at any other point of this day.

Steve was just going to open his mouth when his phone rang, and his attention snap like a band. Letting him rock back his position and start digging in his pocket to pull out his cell phone. Looking at Chin's name on it, only for a moment, before holding it up to his ear. Eyes on the horizon, but not seeing it or hearing the waves, as everything keyed to the phone. "Yeah?"

The world goes white. Even when he knows he'd hear a twig snap. He could turn and throw himself on a dime. But everything inconsequential goes gray and gone for Chin's words. Before he's nodding, barely, like there's anyway it could be seen. "Alright. Good work."

Phone clicking off and coming down, eyes still on it, as his mind was spooling out into new direction.

Tomorrow morning. Right supplies. Right plan. An opening avenue they could use, he could use. A chance.

There's a short moment of tension that's not tension, not unpleasant, just a pause --

And then Steve's phone rings, sending him shifting back while Danny leans forward, peering out at the water and taking a sip of his beer and letting Steve have a little privacy for the call. Or, taking a moment for himself; who could blame him? That got...

Personal.

Surprisingly so. A lot of that is stuff he hasn't even talked to Meka about in so many words, though he's sure Meka's guessed, or figured it out. He's a good detective. And it's not like it's a secret, but it's also nothing he saw himself talking to Steve about, a few hours ago, when his face was in the dirt and his arm was twisted behind his back. Or before that. Or after.

And yet, here he is, sipping beer on the beach behind Steve's childhood home, like they were always going to end up right here...or something. He doesn't put a lot of faith in fate, no matter what his wrist might try to tell him.

Not looking back until Steve's hung up, and then it's only: "What've you got?"

His eyes shift to Danny, but they can't stay still. Nothing is still, even as he isn't moving much himself. Everything in his head rolling over. Taking over whatever space had been emptied for a few seconds. Diverting all focus back to the case. Back to the girl, and Hesse, and the tool box in the garage that isn'r related but is, because it's his father.

"That was Chin." Informative. "Sang Min bought the pitch." Flat. "He meets Kono tomorrow morning." Fast.

They were go for picking off the bastard who drugged little girls and sell them to the highest bidder. To get whatever they could from him, along with the chance of getting him, and getting him to turn on whoever was above him, as far as it took to get to Hesse. Who was on the shadow-y edge of this system, because it was one of the things he did everywhere and it was the fastest way to get himself out.

Using the same door to get out that all of these people were using to bring people in.

Except that Hesse was going to find Steve in the door of that exit. That was how this was going to end. Here. Now.

"Alright."

It's a good start, for sure, good news, but he's cautious by nature, and Steve's slung straight back into the tunnel-vision of obsession. Someone's got to remind him that plans don't always work out the way people want, that things could still go wrong, because Steve charged in without backup earlier, and it was only by sheer chance that the worst that happened was a graze on Danny's arm. "Still no guarantee he's gonna tell us where Hesse is, though."

He's got the light of the fanatic in his eyes, the softer, considering expression of a second ago vanished like it never happened at all. Back behind the wall.

But there. Danny saw it. So maybe, they can go into this as partners. Maybe he can keep those size eleven boots of Steve's on the ground, and not leaping off a cliff chasing a blind lead.

Probably not, but there's something in the fact that he even wants to try.

"He has to." It comes out hard and fast.

Maybe harder and faster than Steve knows it should.

Especially given Danny didn't actually insinuate it wasn't. That he didn't want it to. He just laid it out there, quick but calm. Like it was a reminder of logistics. Probability. One Steve knew better than anyone on the planet. How many time The Hesse Brothers had slipped through his and everyone else's fingers. How many times the floor was left littered with bodies, either bloodied with death or sullied beyond human recognition.

It's actively an effort. That one second pause. To swallow down an insane need that can barely be reigned back. Especially in this place, with this view, on these chairs. Where it's all too clear, and maybe he can almost risk letting it be that bare. After all these words, and Danny lack of understanding through half the day how much it matters, even when Steve can't let it.

How much that never stops it, even when he has to keep stopping it. Keep doing more.

"It's the only chance I have of finding the man who killed my father."

"Yeah."

It coasts on an outgoing breath, both his hands wrapped around the bottle, green glass catching the sunlight and refracting it just like the waves do, but he's studying Steve, that face, that certainty.

He's seen it before. Sort of a Captain Ahab deal; men and women obsessed with revenge, or something less final but no less all-encompassing. That burning need to take them in, make them pay, win, even though it can't ever bring back the people lost. Hesse will still have fired that bullet, even if Steve catches him. He and his brother will still have terrorized the world for years.

But it's not about bringing people back, and Danny can get that, too. It's about laying them to rest. About making sure no one else ever gets hurt by that man again. White hat versus black -- and sometimes the motivation? That's all the difference between them there is.

He hopes to God Steve knows it.

"Okay. Then that's what we'll do."

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