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The party breaks up early in the evening, and Steve is glad for it. Grace has been let go from the hospital, but she still has a long way to go towards recovery, and all the guests seem to have reached a wordless agreement to allow her as much rest as possible. In the end, Rachel, Grace and Charlie are the last to leave. Steve and Danny wave at them from the sidewalk in front of Danny’s place until Rachel’s car disappears around a corner.
It occurs to Steve that he should probably be begging off, too. He hovers in place for a moment, pretty certain he should be making movements towards his truck, but hesitant to actually go. He could tell himself he doesn’t want to leave Danny alone after this week of worry and stress, but his true motives are far more selfish than that.
Danny is already at the front door when he halts and looks back. He seems confused to find that Steve is more than a step behind him. “You coming?”
“Yeah,” Steve says, figuring this is all the excuse he needs to stay a little longer.
When Steve draws the door shut behind him, Danny is standing in the middle of his own living room. The room bears marks of the great turnout of Grace’s welcome back party everywhere. There are plastic plates and cutlery scattered on every flat surface, the leftovers of the buffet are slowly inching towards inedible, chairs have migrated to opposite ends of where they usually reside, the decorations are still up and it looks like someone shredded a paper napkin and used it as confetti, because there are snippets of it speckling the floor like very confused snow.
In the midst of it all, Danny looks tired but smiling. Steve doesn’t have much of an eye for the mess.
Danny glances up at him, surprisingly shrewd. “This was all you, wasn’t it?”
Steve does his best to make his shrug look innocent, but he’s pretty sure it turns out pleased more than anything else. “I have no idea what you mean. Adam told you that Charlie put up the banner.”
“You’re a goof,” Danny says, with enough affection it makes Steve want to throw a hundred parties. “Thank you for this, seriously.” He gingerly pokes at a balled-up napkin on one of his bookshelves. “Even if those guys made a total mess in my home. I thought we were going to have a big celebration at yours?”
“That’s for Grace’s graduation. Keep up, Danno.”
Danny grins at him. “Of course. My bad.”
Steve can’t keep his hands to himself any longer. He steps further into the room so he can rest one hand on the back of Danny’s neck, briefly, and give it a squeeze. “Hey, come on, I’ll help you clean up. If we both get to work now, it’ll be done in no time.”
“Just what I wanted after a long day. Your freakish cleaning habits.”
Danny grumbles about it, but he does help Steve get out the necessary cleaning supplies from the hallway closet. Steve gets there first, and he maybe slips past Danny to make sure of that. He likes knowing where things are in Danny’s home. It feels intimate in a very comfortable, domestic way, which he hasn’t had a lot of in his life.
As he’s shaking out a trash bag, he wonders if Rachel would know where Danny keeps his dustpan nowadays. He thinks she probably doesn’t. It’s truly pathetic how good that makes him feel.
Danny dumps the dirty bookshelf napkin in the trash bag, before deftly pulling it from Steve’s hands and replacing it with a broom. “You sweep, I’ll collect trash,” he says.
“Why?”
Danny has already moved on to slowly clearing the dining table. “Because this is my house, so I make the rules.”
Steve has half a mind to protest, but he doesn’t want to risk getting kicked out, so he takes the broom to the dining room. He’s cooperating, but that doesn’t mean he can’t intentionally bump into Danny and faux-accidentally block Danny’s way a couple of times.
While he sweeps, his thoughts stray to the party, inevitably getting stuck on that one specific moment. He isn’t melancholy, exactly, but he isn’t in the hopeful mood he thought he’d be in, either. He has Danny literally within arm’s reach right now, but in his mind Danny is miles away, separating himself from the rest of the gathering to go sit with Rachel on Danny’s tiny two-person terrace just to bring her an extremely significant plate of food. Osso buco – Rachel and Danny’s first date meal.
Steve doesn’t know if Danny remembers telling him, but Steve certainly recalls being very skeptical about putting a dish with that kind of history on the menu of what was back then still going to be called Steve’s. It had reminded him of that time Danny wanted to take him to the London pub where he went for his first anniversary with Rachel. Except this was worse, because it wasn’t just one afternoon of misery, but it was going to keep reminding Danny of something he lost for the rest of their natural lives, if their careers as restaurateurs were to turn out as successful as they’d imagined.
Steve had asked why the hell Danny would want to constantly drag up all the memories associated with that one particular dish, of course. “Because this way, I can put all my emotions into the food and serve it to other people and let them eat my emotions,” Danny had said, and at the time, Steve had thought that was enough of an explanation. He’d even thought it was pretty clever.
He doesn’t know what he thinks about it now.
He does know that he can be a bit of a martyr, and that this past week – landing on top of everything before it – has hit him hard too, not just Danny and Rachel and everyone else. He steals a glance at Danny. They’ve both moved back to the living room, Danny working his way around the coffee table and Steve mechanically herding the crumbs and napkin shreds into a little pile. The quiet has been comfortable so far, but Steve can see Danny’s open terrace doors from here and suddenly he can’t take it anymore.
“It’s good to see you and Rachel grow closer again,” he straight-up lies. Is he deliberately hurting himself? Is he misguidedly trying to make things better by stomping out a hope he’s been harboring in his chest, or by desperately clinging to Danny’s happiness if he can’t have his own? Who knows. He forces some cheer into his voice. “I’m happy for you.”
He hears Danny put down the stack of used plastic cups he’s been collecting with slightly more force than plastic tableware usually deserves, even if it’s polluting the environment. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Danny’s living room really isn’t all that big, and Steve is pretty sure he’s swept this corner before, but he does it again with extreme precision. This is very important work. So, so important. There’s absolutely no way he could possibly look up at Danny right now and risk missing a single piece of napkin confetti that’s crept between the flooring and the baseboard.
“Steve,” Danny says. When Steve doesn’t answer, he repeats, in a voice that sounds like he ran out of patience around the same time Steve first opened his mouth (which he’s regretting now), “Steven.”
Steve gives up on that bit of confetti and leans his broom against the wall. He turns, crosses his arms and sighs, which might be a step too far if he still wants to believably play this casual, but he’s trying. He’s trying so hard, and Danny isn’t making this easy on him. “What? What do you want from me?”
Danny is still standing next to the coffee table, which is clean by now except for the neat stack of plastic cups he deposited. He has an odd mix of emotions on his face. “I want you to tell me why you were saying ‘closer’ like that.”
“Like what?” Steve bounces back. Not many people have ever dared to call him a coward, but that doesn’t mean he never thinks it at himself. Danny makes him a better person than he’s ever been, but Danny also makes him want to hide his head in the sand more than he ever has before.
There’s just so much to lose.
Danny runs both of his hands over his hair before he starts gesturing with them wildly. He’s angry now, and it’s messed up, but Steve likes this a lot better than whatever was happening a moment ago. This is familiar – Steve can handle this. “Like you’re congratulating me, but accusing me of something at the same time. Like you think Rachel and I are getting back together.”
There’s only one conclusion to be drawn from the way Danny says it. Steve’s heart jumps. “You’re not?”
“How stupid do you think I am?” There are wide gestures, furrowed eyebrows, and a very perturbed tilt to the corners of Danny’s mouth. One thing there isn’t, is an actual answer.
“Is that a trick question?”
“No,” Danny bites back, “it’s rhetorical. It’s pretty obvious you think I’m an idiot if you’re going around assuming I’d even consider starting anything with Rachel after all the shit she pulled.”
That’s an answer, which means Steve can’t dance around giving one of his own for much longer either. “I just figured-” What? What did he figure? That he’d bring the subject up to torture himself with his own quiet jealousy? “It might be nice for Grace and Charlie if their parents were together. I thought you’d want that.”
That was either the right thing to say, or a very, very wrong one. Danny’s arms drop to his sides, the fight visibly leaving him. He appears lost now, more than anything. “I do want that.”
“Okay,” Steve says, completely thrown by this turn of events, and not in a direction he likes very much.
“Just not with Rachel,” Danny continues, eyes boring into Steve.
Steve’s brain fruitlessly tries to fit the puzzle pieces he’s been handed together in a way that makes any lick of sense. He arrives at a possible solution that he’s sure must be wrong, but still makes him frown deeply. “Stan?”
“Stan? Are you-” Danny stares, shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. He looks disappointed in Steve’s intellect, but Steve has no idea how to fix that or follow up on his unlikely guess. “Stan? In how many of the pictures in Grace’s graduation video did Stan appear, huh?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen it.”
“I know you haven’t seen it! That’s not what this is about.” Danny starts counting points on his fingers. “Steve, you complete dork, who visited Grace every single day this past week, except for me and Rachel? Who was there when we got the news she was going to be okay? Who offered to throw her a graduation party at his place? Who organized a welcome home party for her at my house and tried to make Charlie take all the credit for it, even though he’s six?” That last question deserves two fingers in Danny’s system for some reason, so he’s holding up a full hand by now.
Steve looks at it and wishes he could just take it, maybe, and hold it for a bit. “I did.”
Danny spreads his arms wide again. It’s a good thing the stack of cups is on the coffee table, because Danny would have knocked it over about three times by now if it had been on a slightly higher surface. “Right. And who do I tell I love him at least once a week? Who’s the person that’s always had my back, and who makes me want to yell at him daily because he’s an idiot with no self-preservation instinct and a staggering lack of self-confidence in certain areas for someone who is a literal Captain America, patriotically blessed face included? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not Rachel or Stan.”
“Me. That’s me.”
“Bingo. So, all things considered, which of my kids’ parents do you think I’d want to kiss all over their stupid face?”
It’s possibly the scariest word Steve has ever said. There are so many things contained in that sentence that he wants, but never thought he would be allowed. “Me.”
Danny makes a sweeping ‘there you go’ gesture. “Got it in one.”
“Okay. So-” He takes a breath, and then another one. He feels hot and cold at the same time, but also like he just swigged down a whole bottle of carbonated water and now all of his insides are tingling.
Danny wants to kiss him. Danny considers him one of Grace and Charlie’s parents. Danny wants to kiss him.
His mind gets stuck in a loop, so what comes out next is perhaps not surprising. “Are you going to kiss me, or what?”
Danny rolls his eyes. “Oh, I see how it is,” he says, as he steps around a corner of the coffee table and starts advancing on Steve. “You’re gonna make me do all the work, as usual.”
“I’ve been sweeping your floor for you, Danny.”
Danny is right on the edge of his personal space now and Steve wants that and so much more, but he still finds himself ceding ground at the last minute, backing up, quite literally, against a wall. He almost knocks over the broom, too, but he manages to catch and right it before it clatters to the floor.
“What’s up?” Danny asks. He’s more patient than Steve thinks he deserves.
He chews on the question for a moment, but he knows he can’t keep it hidden for very long. “Why did you bring Rachel the osso buco?”
“It wasn’t that deep,” Danny says. “She was sitting there all on her own and she likes osso buco.”
“It’s your first date food.” Steve hates himself just a little for bringing that up.
Danny doesn’t look surprised he remembered it. Mostly he looks surprised Steve is still talking, which Steve is, too. “Yeah, because as I said, Rachel likes it. You remember that the only reason there was any even osso buco at the party today, is that this was one dish on the menu of a restaurant we were going to run together as a retirement plan, right? A restaurant I’d agreed to name after you?”
The fizz is back. It’s followed by a smile, this time, of the type he couldn’t keep off his face if he wanted to. “Good point.”
“I thought so, yes.”
He lifts a hand, a little hesitant, but Danny either reads his mind or his body language, because he comes just that last bit closer. Steve curls his fingers around the edge of Danny’s jaw. His heart almost stops when Danny leans into it.
Danny’s hands settle on his hips. “You with me, Steve?”
“God, yes.” It comes out a little too much like a sigh, but it seems unlikely that Danny would call him out on it right this second. This second is all that matters, anyway, until the next. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Danny says, with not an ounce of hesitation. “But you’re stupidly tall. Has anyone ever told you that? Get down here, you giraffe.”
“You like giraffes,” Steve points out, even as he slumps against the wall. He spreads his legs and pulls on Danny’s shirt to get him even closer. Their faces are almost level now.
“I do. I’m kind of partial to them, even.” Danny sounds not far from laughter. Steve thinks maybe it should bother him, but he knows Danny far too well to think he’s laughing at him.
When Danny leans in, Steve lets his hand drop to Danny’s neck and his eyes fall shut. The expected touch to his lips doesn’t come, though – instead, Danny veers to the right and kisses Steve’s cheek.
He opens his eyes. Danny is still so nearby Steve can hardly see him clearly. “What are you doing?”
“I’m kissing your stupid face, like I said I would.”
Dangerously warm feelings unfurl in Steve’s ribcage. “You’ve been calling me stupid a lot,” he says, because the only other option would have been to melt completely.
“Ssh.” Danny kisses his other cheek. “You’re ruining the moment.”
Steve shuts up, because he has no more clever comebacks. He closes his eyes again when Danny kisses his nose. He huffs a laugh, but also finally gives himself over to this curiously gentle treatment.
Danny keeps going – one eyelid, then the other, very softly. The bridge of his nose, his temple, both cheekbones. His chin. A whole row of featherlight kisses scattered along his jaw and then, finally, the corner of his mouth. Danny’s lips almost brush his as he moves to the other corner.
By the time Danny kisses him fully on the lips, still so excruciatingly soft, Steve is convinced he can feel his heartbeat thrum in the very tips of his fingers. He trails them over Danny’s neck and slips them just under the collar of Danny’s shirt, and Danny shivers and opens his mouth. Steve presses forward. He’s never felt more alive when not in battle, and he’s never felt more safe and loved ever.
They’re both breathing hard when they break apart, but Danny stays close. Steve is glad he doesn’t try to move away, because he needs a moment.
“Do you have any more questions about osso buco?” Danny asks.
“Nah. I think I’m all good.” Steve can see the yellow WELCOME HOME GRACE banner over Danny’s shoulder, still hanging above the door on the other side of the room. Things really are good. “I think we got a little distracted from our cleaning up.”
Danny groans and dramatically hides his face against Steve’s shoulder for a second. It’s all kinds of wonderful, mostly because of the simple fact that it means Danny is touching him. “Sure, we’ll finish that. But you know what we should do first?”
“What?”
“Have a nap.”
Steve had expected any number of answers, but this isn’t one of them. “We should?”
“Yeah, we should.” Danny taps Steve’s chest and it occurs to Steve that this is dangerous, because he’s bound to grow addicted to so much easy intimacy. It’s probably already too late for him, all things considered. “And before you start claiming you’re fine, I’d like to point out that even a SEAL needs sleep.”
“The Navy fully recognizes the importance of naps, Danny.” He says it seriously, following the pattern of their usual banter, but then he hesitates. He has Danny literally right in front of him, so it’s time to stop being a coward. “Can we… have a nap together?”
“Of course,” Danny says immediately. It’s the best possible antidote to how stupid Steve feels asking for things he wants from Danny. “That’s the whole point.”
“I thought the point would be to sleep,” Steve volleys back.
Danny’s earlier tap to Steve’s chest is repeated as a poke. “There can be multiple points.”
“This is turning into an unexpectedly pointy nap.”
Danny rolls his eyes and turns away, but not before he grabs one of Steve’s hands. He drags Steve along when he starts moving, maneuvering them around Steve’s swept-up pile of dust and paper. “You’re the worst,” Danny says, but Steve can’t bring himself to be too worried about it, because everything Danny does speaks of the opposite.