Work Text:
Danny held the piece of paper loosely between two fingers, like it would bite him if he managed to get a better grip on it. "What is this?"
"It's a gift certificate." Keeping a straight face was hard, but Steve had learned early on that smirking would deflate any truly epic rant. It just wasn't as funny if Danny wasn't riled up into a full-out flush of righteous indignation.
Danny's face slipped out of consternation and towards constipation. "Yeah, I can see that, thank you very much. Why did you get me a gift certificate for two to the," he craned his head to read it, "Ihilani Spa?"
Steve scratched absently at the line where his cast rubbed the skin of his wrist. "I thought you could take Grace."
"You thought I could take Grace."
"Yeah, that's what I said, Danny. I thought you could take Grace. Since she likes pedicures better than hiking."
He loved this moment, the one where Danny finally got it - the way his mouth opened into a smile instead of a gape and the skin at the corner of his eyes wrinkled with amusement, maybe fondness if Steve was lucky. Steve hadn't grown up with people like this, who took a joke like a sign of affection, who greeted pranks and nicknames like it was expected. Seeing Danny's face transform, he could understand the appeal.
"Oh I see, so you thought since my daughter doesn't enjoy endurance training it might be a good bonding opportunity to get our feet handled by strangers. Well, let me tell you, Steven," he shook the gift certificate in Steve's face, startlingly close to Steve's eyes. Steve would have ducked, but he'd taken a painkiller a few hours ago and was rooted to the spot by a combination of pharmaceutical sluggishness and the absolute faith that his partner wouldn't react to a prank by trying to paper-cut him in the eyes.
"I am not emasculated by this sort of thing, not at all. If I can watch The Little Mermaid forty-seven thousand times in a row and then discuss which Disney Princess I would rather be and why, I can handle a little foot care, okay?"
"Okay," Steve agreed, because he liked the way unexpected amiability sometimes made Danny sputter like a lawn sprinkler.
Danny's eyes narrowed. "I see. Well, thank you for the gift certificate, I'll see if they can't write your name on my toes as a thank you." He pulled his wallet out and with a complicated waggle of his eyebrows that Steve took to mean 'see? here I go, I have risen to your challenge and I will not back down,' he folded the gift certificate and slipped it inside. "Now, can we get back to work? Because we have work. Lots of it - paperwork for your attempted dive off a cliff, forms for randomly discovering bodies. Not to mention how we have to try to write off last night's dinner as a police expense, which ought to take some complicated finagling. You're welcome to watch and learn, and then may do some it your own damn self."
Steve wiggled his arm like a wounded bird, frowning just a little. "Oh that sounds enticing, it really does, but you know, my arm really hurts. I think I ought to take a vicodin and just lay down for a little while. Just until it feels better."
"Ah. And you anticipate it feeling better..."
Steve glanced at the clock and did the math until closing time. "About three hours from now."
Danny rolled his eyes. "Right, naturally. Go on, go lay down," he shooed Steve off like a fly. "I will take care of your paperwork but believe me, you will owe me, alright? You will owe me."
"Absolutely, Danno. Next time, beer's on me?"
"Next time and the last three times. I am going to start duct-taping your wallet to your ass."
"I think I can probably file a sexual harassment claim for that Danny, I'm just saying."
"I've got Deb from HR wrapped around my finger. Your claim would never see daylight. Now go, lay down, stop distracting me. I have all your paperwork to do."
"Make Kono do it," Steve suggested.
Danny tapped his nose thoughtfully. "She is the rookie. It's important to take advantage of that."
"It's good practice for her," Steve agreed, and wandered off to play Angry Birds.
***
Steve was speeding along the highway a week later when his phone went off. It was a difficult battle to stay on the road and answer the phone with a broken arm, but Steve overcame the challenge with only a few swerving events. SEAL training was sometimes very handy for the struggles of what constituted his daily life. His neighbors never bothered him for not mowing the lawn or having loud parties (though the increasingly common shootouts at his place probably helped too).
"This is Steve." He automatically raised his voice to compensate for Danny screaming about his life flashing before his eyes, but Danny wasn't actually in the car so much as he was on the other end of the line.
"Steve, I'm bogged down in court and I can't pick up Grace. Would you mind...?"
"Sure, sure, not a problem." Steve coaxed the school's address out of him and then spent another moment trying to program it into the GPS before straightening out and proceeding forward. A car in the opposite lane beeped at him so he flashed his police lights just to be an asshole. The car pulled over and he honked back obnoxiously, waving as he passed.
Once he saw how many cars were pulled up at the school trying to pick up their kids, he wondered if maybe keeping his lights on would have made this process faster. The cement was swarming with children, and it took him a few minutes of rapid crowd-scanning before he spotted Grace, dressed in the brightest pink skirt he'd ever seen and towing a backpack on wheels behind her. He rolled down the window and grinned at her. "Hey Gracie, your dad told me to pick you up."
"I know," Grace said, smiling sweetly at him as she hopped into the truck.
He helped her buckle the seat belt. "Oh, he told you he would be working late?"
"Yeah, he told me on Monday."
Steve blinked, because it was Thursday. "He did?"
Gracie hummed happily and pulled a wrinkled piece of paper out of a pocket in her skirt. Steve hadn't been aware that skirts were designed with pockets these days, but it seemed a lot less relevant or important when she unrolled it and held it up in front of his face, the words 'Ihilani Spa' clear in glittering gold. "Danno said you were coming to take me. I'm so excited!"
"Yeah," Steve said, hiding his grimace. "Me too, Gracie, me too."
***
As it turned out, Thursday was not Danny's typical day to hang out with Gracie. Rachel's lack of surprise when Steve dropped her daughter off definitely indicated coordination. Grace thanked him profusely and tugged off her shoes to show her mother, then insisted that Steve do the same so Rachel could see the color Gracie had picked. Rachel's tightly pressed-together lips did little to hide her laughter.
Conspiracy, definitely.
***
Danny was smug as shit the next day, his smirk stretching all the way up into his hairline. "Commander! How was your evening!"
Steve sank into his chair and toed off his shoes and socks before putting his feet up on the desk, letting the pink nails shine in the sunshine pouring through his window. "Oh it was fantastic," he drawled. "I learned so many things about you, Danno. Who knew that a grown man would find the seals in 'Happy Feet' so intimidating?"
Danny's cheeks reddened. "They're vicious, horrible beasts, and of course you would spend a 30 minute spa treatment grilling Grace for information." Danny rubbed a hand over his face. "I am never leaving you alone with my daughter again."
"Oh, really?" Steve pulled the gift certificate out of his pocket and waved it around like a flag, a flag of pranking victory. "So then next week you're going to take her for her father-daughter facial? Because I hear that's longer, and Gracie and I were just about to get really started on the topic of your sleep attire-"
Danny tried to snatch the certificate out of his hand, but forgot that Steve was a SEAL and therefore whole light years more coordinated than he was. Steve used the force of Danny's momentum to tug him into Steve's lap, grabbing his flailing arms and pinning them against his side. "You know what else she told me, Danno? She said that you liked me. A lot. And that she'd be totally okay with it if I became her Step-Steve."
"Yeah, well," Danny managed, even his hair looking flustered, "it's like that show, 'Kids say the Darndest Things,' except all the time, so I wouldn't take it too seriously. She also told me she's going to marry Justin Bieber, so clearly she dedicates herself to fanciful whims on at least a weekly basis because she doesn't get to date until she's 32 and has completed her second doctorate-"
Steve grinned and tugged Danny down for a kiss. There was a fair amount of bumping teeth and incredulous noise before Danny got with the program, and then Steve wasn't so much pinning Danny into his lap as he was twining his fingers through Danny's hair while Danny plundered his mouth like some sort of marauding tongue pirate, rubbing his fingers over the edge of Steve's jaws like he was trying to interpret the braille of his stubble. It was hot, it was wet, it was about as crazy as anything else they did and Steve couldn't help the laughter that bubbled up out of his chest.
Danny pulled back with a disapproving look, his hair sticking up in all directions like a bleached sea urchin. "What, are you fucking kidding me right now? This is not a moment for humor, this is a moment reserved for other things, nicer things - why are you laughing like a hyena?"
Steve grinned, wrapping his fingers around his partner's tie to prevent his inevitable escape attempt. "Grace assures me that my toes are your favorite shade of pink, by the way. It's the same as the dress in Sleeping Beauty, right? Because the pink dress is better than the blue one?"
"Oh, I see, we're back to the mocking now, are we?" He scowled, the effect ruined by the fact that his neck was still bright red and that his collar was flipped up on one side and crumpled on the other. It was hard to look disgruntled and thoroughly groped at the same time.
"I lured you in by painting my toes the same color as a Disney princess, Danny. Trust me, the mocking here will never end."
In the interest of being gracious, Steve let Danny kiss his laughter away. He was a patient man, he could always follow the line of conversation later. 30 minutes of toe scrubbing and painting had revealed all sorts of dirt on his partner that he could exploit... just as soon as he wasn't more interested in panting into Danny's mouth and wishing his office didn't have so many windows.
He planned on starting with the rubber ducky pajamas.