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Steve watched Avery and Grace stare wide-eyed out the window of the airplane they were currently flying in. Avery’s nose was pressed against the glass as she oohed and ahhed at the tall buildings of New York City. Grace was leaning over her sister, her small fingers pointing to different buildings she knew the name of, “That’s called the Empire State Building and it’s got like a thousand floors and you take this really fast elevator up to the top and if you make it all the way to the top you can see the whole city. It’s really cool, we should make sure Danno and Uncle Steve take us there!”
Danny laughed, squeezing Steve’s hand across the aisle, before leaning towards the two girls seated next to him, “I’m pretty sure the Empire State Building doesn’t have a thousand floors, more like a hundred.”
“Well, a hundred is still a lot, Danno,” Grace chided as she turned back to the small window and the aerial tour of New York she was currently giving Avery.
Danny turned towards Steve who was sitting across the aisle from the rest of his family, silently cursing the unfortunate two feet of space between him and his husband.
Husband.
That was still such a weird word to say, feeling slightly foreign on Steve’s tongue. He and Danny had been married for only six months, but some days it felt a lot longer. Like the days that Danny kicked him in his sleep, rousing him awake at 0400, and then making it impossible for him to go back to sleep, what with the thrashing Jerseyan laying beside him. But, most days, actually all days, no matter what happened, Steve was thankful that he got to come home to Danny. And he was looking forward to being able to call Danny his husband every day for the rest of his life.
“What’s on your mind, babe?”
Steve’s musings were interrupted by his aforementioned husband. “Just thinking about how wonderful it is to call you my husband.”
Danny blushed, his eyes pulling away from Steve’s for a moment, “Aw, shucks, now you’ve gone and made me blush.”
Steve laughed and kissed Danny’s hand, the only part of his body Steve’s lips could reach. He heard a man clear his throat in the row behind Danny, but Steve was too excited to be going on their first real family vacation to care too much about whatever bigoted fool happened to be sitting in the row behind Danny.
No one on the airplane knew Steve was a sailor, and with that freedom he was going to treat Danny like anyone else treated their husband, with love and affection, bigoted passengers be damned.
“We should be landing soon, twenty minutes tops,” Danny started, “Mom and Dad will meet us at baggage claim and we will be heading right over to their house so Mom can stuff you silly with all of her wonderful home cooking.”
Steve groaned, “Danno…”
“Don’t you dare say a word about my mother’s cooking, Steven. You hear me?” Danny scolded, “I will have you know that my mother’s food is the most amazing thing you will ever have the pleasure of putting in your mouth.”
“I highly doubt that, Danno. I can think of one thing that I really like to put in my mouth.”
“Shhh,” Danny screeched, “Our children are sitting a whole five inches away.”
“One, they’re six years old and have no idea what I’m talking about, two, your mind went straight to the gutter, not mine, and three, they are not even listening.”
“Yeah, but some of us are,” said the throat-clearing man sitting behind Danny.
Steve chose to ignore him and continue on with the conversation, “Danny, I won’t insult your mother’s cooking. I will just have to run a few extra miles to make up for the increased caloric intake.”
“If anybody could handle a few days of extra caloric intake it’s you, Super SEAL.”
“Fine, I will not run a few extra miles and it will be your own fault when we go home and the first night back you realize you are doomed to spending the rest of eternity with a flabby husband.”
“Well, then maybe I’ll make sure you do a few extra sit-ups after those extra miles.”
“Dear god,” said the man behind Danny. Steve took a second to look back at him, but immediately noticed that everyone sitting around them was glaring at the intruding man, making Steve feel even more comfortable about grasping Danny’s hand again, rubbing the guy’s nose in it just a little. Could you blame him?
“Shh, Danno, our children are five inches away.”
Steve laughed as Danny pulled his hands from Steve’s grasp, “Bastard.”
“Danno, five cents in the swear jar when we get home,” Avery announced to the entire cabin as her head whipped around to her father.
“Of course,” Danny sighed, “Out of everything in this conversation you hear that.”
Steve stopped laughing long enough to say, “I thought you were happy they didn’t hear the rest of the conversation, Danno?”
“That was before I got reprimanded and fined five cents.”
“Those are the rules, Danno,” Grace chimed in.
“Yeah, Danno, those are the rules,” Steve added.
“Shut up, you,” Danny pointed his finger in Steve’s face, “You’re the one that got me into this mess in the first place.”
Steve didn’t respond, but rested his head against his seat as the pilot turned on the ‘fasten your seat belt’ sign, signaling the beginning of their descent into Newark.
“You have a beautiful family,” the woman sitting next to Steve said. Steve looked over at Danny who was leaning towards the window with both girls squished into his chest, pointing out the few sights Newark, New Jersey had to offer.
Steve smiled, “Yeah I really do.”
*H50*
Carol Williams was excitedly shifting from side to side as she tried to find her son and son-in-law in the slew of arriving passengers. Steve noticed her first, blessed with the tall frame Danny liked to complain incessantly about, and couldn’t help the smile that spread on his face. Next to her was Michael, standing at parade rest, awkwardly looking anywhere but at the direction of the incoming people. Steve sighed, knowing that Michael was okay with their relationship, but even his acceptance of their love didn’t stop the father-son relationship from changing.
Danny didn’t talk about it much. He tended to gloss over the difficult parts, the fall-out of his decision to come out to his family and marry Steve. But Steve knew. He knew that Danny was his father’s son, knew that Danny had grown up and become a police officer because his father was a public servant, and Danny wanted to show him that he could do it too. He knew that Danny didn’t play baseball anymore because it was something he started doing, many years ago, with his father. Danny rarely watched the Yankees, only when Grace was over and both girls begged to watch, because Michael was not interested in dissecting the play-by-play with him any longer.
To an outside observer it would appear as if the father-son relationship was fine, only shifted as Danny grew older and his life changed. But, Steve wasn’t an outside observer, and he knew that it had changed in a way that made Danny ache for things to be like they were before.
Steve felt a pang of guilt grip his chest as Carol finally noticed them in the crowd and began speed-walking towards them, Michael remaining at the baggage carousel.
Without qualms, Carol bent down to hug both Avery and Grace before acknowledging Steve and Danny’s presence, “Oh, my girls. I’ve missed you both so much! I’m so glad you were able to come and visit.”
“It’s summer break, Nonna,” Grace laughed, “Of course we were going to come and visit!”
Carol smiled, stood up, and pulled her son and son-in-law into a hug, “I’m so happy you boys are here.”
Danny gripped her back, “I’m just glad to be back in civilization where everything is right in the world. Pizza doesn’t have fruit, grenades aren’t normal accessories, and the ocean isn’t waking me up every thirty minutes when it laps across the beach.”
A groan slipped out of Steve’s mouth as Danny listed off the same three things he’d been griping about since they met, “Couldn’t you just let it go, Danno.”
“If I did that then I wouldn’t be the man you fell in love with.”
“That’s true, Dad,” Avery chimed in as she tugged on Steve’s hand. Steve laced his fingers with hers and rubbed his free hand across the top of her head, pulling her braid.
“Dad, stop ruining my hair,” she whined as she tried to maneuver her head out of the vicinity of his hand, but she didn’t let go of the death grip she had on his hand.
Although Avery called Carol, Nonna, and Michael, Papa, she still felt nervous when she first started talking to them. She made pictures for them and helped her father and Danno write e-mails, making sure they included every detail of her latest swim meet. But Avery still felt like she didn’t truly belong in the family unit, not as naturally as Grace did. So, she held onto her father, felt the comfort of his touch, and she slowly began to open up; by the end of the day she was acting like she never had a worry in the world.
*H50*
Their first few days in New Jersey were uneventful. The whole Williams-McGarrett clan was jet-lagged and tired, trying their best to overcome the extreme time difference between Hawaii and New Jersey. Family members from far and wide seemed to gravitate towards Carol and Michael’s house, and Steve’s face hurt from smiling at second cousins twice removed, great aunts, and a brother-in-law of a deceased grandmother that he had never heard of before.
On their third night in Jersey Steve crawled into bed beside Danny, exhausted. Danny’s fingers trailed up and down his side, lulling him into a relaxed state.
“Tomorrow we are all going into the city,” Danny whispered, trying not to wake the two girls camping out on the air mattresses set up on the floor of Danny’s childhood bedroom.
“We? Who is we?”
Steve couldn’t hear Danny’s laugh but he felt the man vibrate next to him, “Just the four of us, you Neanderthal. You really are incapable of human-to-human interactions for extended periods of time, aren’t you?”
“Danny, I can’t meet another distant relative of yours. Do you want to know how big my extended family was growing up? I will tell you, two.”
“Two?”
“Yes, two. My mother’s sister lived on Lanai and my grandmother lived a few blocks away from us for the first few years of my life.”
“You didn’t have any other family?”
Steve shook his head, “Everyone moved to the mainland when they grew up, except my dad. And my mom’s parents died young, and she only had the one sister.”
Danny’s hands encircled Steve’s larger frame, “Well, now you have a family.”
“Yes, I do, but I was always fine with the small family; I never wanted a big one.”
“Well, I hate to tell you but Danny Williams comes with a lot of baggage, Italian baggage, which means I come with a lot of family.”
Steve laughed, “As long as you don’t leave me to fend for myself in large groups of your relatives I think I can handle that.”
Danny kissed him soundly before rolling over and quickly falling to sleep, his snores lulling Steve into a deep sleep.
*H50*
“I have a surprise for you,” Danny announced to the two girls happily snacking on ice cream cones as the four of them strolled through Central Park.
“What sort of surprise, Danno,” Avery asked, slurping up a trail of melted ice cream that had fallen onto her hand.
“A good surprise.”
“Danno!”
Steve and Danny laughed as both girls whined until Danny relented, “I got us tickets to a Yankees game.”
Their whoops could be heard across the park as the girls high-fived and hugged Danny around the waist, “You rock, Danno!”
“I know I do.”
The girls spent the rest of the walk giggling and talking wildly about the game later that evening, discussing their favorite players and how tall they thought each player would look in person.
Steve looked towards Avery and Grace who were walking a few steps in front of him and Danny. He smiled and turned towards his husband, “I guess this is the precursor to preadolescent crushes on movie stars and teenage heartbreaks, huh.”
Danny groaned, “Please don’t put those thoughts inside my head.”
Steve laughed and stole a bite of ice cream from Danny’s cone, “I’m just saying, they’re growing up fast.”
“They are still in diapers, walking on wobbly legs.”
Steve went silent, and didn’t even notice that his legs had stopped moving.
“Babe?”
Danny’s concerned voice snapped him out of his trance. He cleared his throat, felt the heat of a blush creep up his neck, “Sorry, zoned out there for a second.”
Danny raised an eyebrow at him, silently telling him that he wasn’t going to let this go that easily, “It’s stupid,” Steve started, averting his eyes from Danny’s glare, “It’s just, when you said walking on wobbly legs. I just, um, I never got to see Avery’s first steps. I was deployed. I got back a couple months later and flew to Hawaii for a visit, and as soon as she saw me she demanded her grandfather put her down and she walked a good twenty feet towards me, falling into my legs, wrapping her tiny arms around me. I missed so much, you know. I left and she was crawling. The next time I see her she’s basically running across an airport terminal to hug me.”
Danny didn’t say anything at first, grabbing Steve’s hand and giving it a squeeze, “Well, you are here now, just in time for preadolescent crushes and teenage heartbreaks.”
“I think first steps would be easier to handle.”
“Nothing is easy to handle when it means our children are growing up, but we’re going to handle it together.”
“Yes we are.”