Work Text:
“Staring at the gate isn’t gonna bring Danny out here any faster,” Joe says. His voice breaking Steve out of the jumble of thoughts and fears in his head that he can’t make sense of. His thoughts have been moving too fast since he heard the words “arrested for muder” and “extradition to Columbia,” since he saw Gracie’s terrified face and felt the keen stab of it in his own heart.
He shakes his head, but his thoughts remain muddied. He is just about to speak, though what he is gonna say has not yet come to him, when Joe’s hand grips his shoulder and he leans into the touch and glances over to see kind eyes looking back at him.
“He’s okay, Steve. A little banged up and bruised, I’m sure. But he’s alive and he’s coming home. You can relax now.”
Steve nods and is proud his voice doesn’t betray him when he speaks. “Yeah, well with all due respect to both governments, I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Joe nods his understanding, his eyes drifting over Steve’s shoulder before he smiles. “Then I suggest you turn around and get to believing, kid.”
Steve feels himself freeze and then everything happens in slow motion and all at once and later he would be hard pressed to tell you who moved first or in what order everything happened, because all he can remember is turning around to see Danny standing there (slightly hunched over) but definitely alive and then the world became a short haze of white noise until he had his arms wrapped around Danny and he could feel his heart beating against Danny’s where their chests were pressed close together.
“Don’t lie. You missed me didn’t you, Steven,” are Danny’s first words and Steve can’t tell if he’s laughing or crying when he feels the warmth on his face but he just smiles and buries his face into Danny’s shoulder just a little bit as he tries to remember how to breathe.
“Like you wouldn’t believe, partner. Like you wouldn’t believe.”
Steve loses track of how long they stand like that, but after a while Joe taps him on the shoulder and they separate. Danny hugs Joe and laughs at something he says that Steve misses in the shuffle, before Steve inserts himself back next to Danny to help him to the car.
“Let’s get you home. There’s a little girl in Hawaii who is really missing her Danno right about now.”
Danny looks at Steve then, tears in his eyes and without words Steve can read in them that he thought he’d never see Grace again and he feels his arm curl a little more protectively around the man next to him. Danny will tell him later, when he’s dozing on Steve’s shoulder on the plane with a few drugs in his system to keep him comfortable, about his phone call to Grace. How he had honestly thought it would be the last time he’d ever talk to her. How terrified he’d been that she would grow up without him, but how certain he had been that Steve would protect her like she was his own.
Steve tells him that she might as well be. That he loves her enough that genetics are basically meaningless at this point and Danny smiles at him in that way he has that sometimes keeps Steve up at night before he drifts off and Steve is left alone with his thoughts again. There is less of whirlwind this time with Danny safe beside him, but his thoughts haven’t settled quite yet. He reaches a hand out to tuck a stray hand of blonde hair behind Danny’s ear and his eyes catch Joe’s for a moment across the aisle. There is an understanding there, completely without the layer of teasing their “marriage” usually comes with, that knocks Steve off kilter. He knows that this is a conversation they’re going to have later, can see it in Joe’s eyes, but for now just smiles.
After an indeterminate amount of time spent reassuring himself that Danny really is safe beside him he takes a deep breath and leans back in his seat a little bit to stretch his legs as he closes his eyes. His thoughts slowing down enough with the warmth of Danny next to him that he finds himself drifting off into a peaceful sleep.