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When Steve was a kid, his dad would tell him stories. Stories of the islands, of course, of the goddess, and stories of great warriors. He would sit in a chair at the edge of the bed, with Steve and Mary curled up next to each other in the blankets, and he would speak in a voice too low for Doris to hear in the other room.
“These warriors,” John would say, “they didn’t let anybody best them. They were strong. And the strongest of all had been dipped into the river Styx by his mother, and he was invulnerable, and nobody could hurt him.”
“Achilles,” Steve would whisper, because John had told him this story before, and Mary’s hand would tighten in his.
“Achilles,” his dad would agree. “Achilles was the strongest of them all, and the bravest of them too. He was what every warrior wanted to be. Everybody in all the world wanted to be as strong as Achilles, because if they were as strong as Achilles, they would never be in pain.”
“I want to be like Achilles,” Steve had said. He knew it was what his father was looking for. To see the resolve in his only son, the flickering light of strength that would only get stronger as he grew.
John would smile, leaning forward in his chair, and he wouldn’t look at Mary as he did so. He had eyes for Steve only, and Steve refused to shrink under the attention.
“Of course you do,” he said. “And you can be. Anybody can learn to become invulnerable. You just have to have determination, yes? You must be strong. You must let your skin harden like Achilles did, until there is nobody who can hurt you. Understand?”
And Steve would nod with wide eyes, and he would tell himself that he couldn’t be hurt, and he would ignore Mary’s hand in his. He swore he could feel himself hardening, his skin growing as strong as Achilles’.
(except for his hand, sheltered by Mary’s, who did not like to let go).
And then John sent them away.
At school, Steve learned that Achilles had one weakness, a heel that John had left out of his bedtime stories. And maybe a love, a best friend, somebody he would have done anything for.
Steve flexed his hand, ignoring the story. He was long past needing to hear the words to be invulnerable.
~~~~~~
Then there was Freddie.
It was stupid of Steve to love him, love him in a way that was somehow more than the way he loved his SEAL teammates, and yet he couldn’t manage to push the other man away.
They’d shaken hands when they’d met, Steve’s hand being his heel, and Freddie had smiled, and there was somehow no coming back from that.
Freddie had a weakness, a girl, a name he’d tattooed on his arm like a promise. Steve told himself that if Freddie had a weakness, Steve would have to be strong enough for the both of them.
He hardened himself further, he refused to let what he felt for Freddie slip through his skin. He held his gun in his right hand, centered his defense in one weak palm.
He lost Freddie anyway.
~~~~~~~~
Danny had nice hands.
Danny had nice hands, and a nice smile, and a voice that never stopped. He ranted at Steve every day they worked together, his hands in the air, his gestures violent.
And yet he softened when he had to, when he smoothed the hair away from his daughter’s eyes, when he wiped chocolate from his son’s fingers, when he gave Steve a hand and pulled him out of the water even though Steve needed no help.
“You Neanderthal, what did I just say?” Danny ranted when Steve was back on dry land, dripping wet, a bruise forming on his jaw.
“You told me not to put myself in danger,” Steve replied. “I’m a SEAL, Danny. Do you really think he would have got the better of me in the water?”
The man they’d been chasing had been pulled out of the surf by Chin, who was cuffing the man’s hands behind his back and easily ignoring the argument that was taking place behind him.
“No,” Danny replied, “See, you don’t get to use your SEAL status to get out of everything. He hit you with his gun before you jumped into the ocean, you animal. If you had passed out underwater, I wouldn’t have gone down there for you!”
Danny kept ranting, his hands in the air, but Steve drowned out the words. He was busy trying to ignore the way Danny’s voice washed over him, threatening to slip through the cracks of Steve’s invulnerability. He tucked his right hand into his pocket, feeling the corner of his mouth tilting up without his permission.
Danny stopped.
“What? What is that face?”
Steve shook his head. “Nothing. Did I say something? No. C’mon, you want Kamekona’s?”
He resisted the urge to reach out and snag Danny’s arm to pull him along, but Danny followed anyway.
~~~~~~~
Danny’s hands could hold a gun just as easily as they could hold his children, but what Steve hadn't expected them to do was cook.
They were in Steve’s kitchen, flour on the counters, Steve on a barstool as he watched Danny’s hands fold and knead dough. He wasn’t even sure what Danny was making, hadn’t paid any attention to what the other man had said when Steve had strolled into his own house and found that Danny had commandeered his kitchen.
“You’re dripping on my rolling pin,” Danny chastened, reaching out to take the tool away from Steve. Steve traced the path of his hand, covered in flour and sticky bits of dough, and leaned away from his reach.
“Maybe you want to go shower, hm?” Danny raised an eyebrow, washing his hands in the sink.
Steve shook his hair out like a wet dog, ignoring Danny’s cry of disgust.
“Hey, hey, hey! If I wanted sea salt in my cinnamon rolls, I would have brought some! C’mon, get away from my stuff. You want Grace eating your seawater cinnamon rolls, huh?”
“You’re in my kitchen,” Steve pointed out.
“Yeah, your kitchen, with all of its space and appliances, and all you ever use it for is protein shakes and microwaved eggs.”
“I can cook!” Steve defended, and immediately wanted to shove the words back in his mouth. It didn’t matter how true they were, warriors were not supposed to be in the kitchen. John had always let Doris be the homemaker, coming home late to dinners that were already on the table.
Danny could cook, Danny could bake, but Danny was not Achilles.
(another name floated in the back of his mind, a best friend, a weakness, something more, and Steve banished it).
Danny rolled his eyes. “Fine, you putz, come here then.”
He did not notice that Steve hesitated, too busy spraying his pans down. When Steve rounded the counter, Danny sliced his dough in two and passed one half to Steve.
“Here,” he said. “Watch what I do, ok?”
“Danny,” Steve started, unsure about what he would even say, but Danny shushed him.
“I’m not making all of these on my own,” he replied, even though he’d done all the cooking himself up until then. “If you’re here, you’re helping. Wash your hands.”
Steve did not point out again that they were in Steve’s house, that Danny had just shown up here during Steve’s morning swim and had been halfway through his recipe before Steve even returned to shore.
(he did not tell Danny that, if the other man wanted, Steve would gift him the kitchen and everything inside).
~~~~~
Danny did not let him eat the cinnamon rolls.
“I made them!” Steve cried, twisting away from Danny with icing on his finger.
“For Grace’s bake sale!” Danny ranted, glaring when Steve popped the icing into his mouth.
“What, we can’t even have one?” Steve asked.
“Don’t give me those eyes! That’s called the price of being a parent.”
Danny didn’t seem to realize that those words knocked the argument straight out of Steve. Something grew in Steve’s chest, tightened behind his ribs.
He flexed his hand. He stomped it down.
~~~~~~~
There was a scar on his chest.
Steve was covered in scars, warriors' scars, scars from missions, from gunfights, even from hell week. But this was not a warrior’s scar.
He stood shirtless in his mirror, tracing the line from his transplant. He wondered if Danny did the same thing.
Weeks before, when they’d been in the same hospital room, beds side by side, Steve hadn’t been sure how to thank Danny for the organ that had saved his life.
He told himself he would do it when the time was right, when he figured out the right words, but the right words never came. Neither did the time. In fact, the minutes slipped into days, the days into weeks, and Steve never said anything.
Instead, he did what he always did.
He riled Danny up, he accepted hugs from Danny’s children, he argued over the TV remote. Anybody who passed by their hospital room would have assumed they were enemies instead of best friends.
But Steve could not get past the feeling of wrongness in his chest.
Bullets had sliced him open before. He’d been cut, he’d been hit, his knuckles had split on the skin of the scum of the Earth.
Doctors hadn’t sliced him open like this before.
A scalpel, one that opened his skin so easily. Cuts, severing one broken, useless organ from the rest of him. Hands inside of his body, past every shield he’d ever put up.
It was a stark, breathtaking reminder that Steve had failed. That he hadn’t made himself invulnerable. That he’d hurt Danny just by getting hurt himself.
Danny, whose liver was now a part of him.
Danny, who had sacrificed a part of himself to keep Steve alive.
Danny, who would not be able to give to his children if they ever needed anything again. Who’d given so much of himself already.
Steve could not wrap his head around it.
The door opened downstairs, and Steve knew who it was without having to look. Danny hadn’t bothered to knock in so long that if he had, Steve would have thought there was something wrong.
He threw a shirt on, hiding his weakness, his vulnerability, and went downstairs to greet his friend.
~~~~~~
The world was on fire.
The world was on fire, and Danny was at the center.
Steve couldn’t see him.
He wasn’t sure how they even got there, to the docks where everything had gone wrong. Surely it had started with a case, a lead, something that brought them to the water. Surely there was a reason for Danny to be in so much danger, but if there was, Steve couldn’t remember it.
“Steve!” Kono yelled; her voice nearly obscured by the crackling of the fire.
And how had they set the water on fire?
Lou was crouched next to him, a hand on his gun, though the weapon was quiet, the smoke too thick to find somebody to shoot.
“We need to get out of here!” Kono continued, her eyes wide, frantic, and Steve could feel the heat on his skin. He should not have been able to feel the heat on his skin. He tried to push it away.
“Where’s Danny?” He yelled back.
Chin glanced back at the two of them, his weapon pointed still at the mess in front of them. There was still nobody to shoot.
“I’m sure he got out,” Lou replied. “But we aren’t going to see him if we get blown up! You see that?” He nodded toward the docks. “That’s gasoline. And in a second, that fire is going to find its way to the boats, and if we aren’t out of here, we’re going up in flames.”
Steve clenched his jaw.
His team was not invincible, he knew that, and he wouldn’t keep them in danger. But Danny...he didn’t know where Danny was, and he wasn’t sure he could leave without him.
“Yeah, go, go!” Steve ordered. He watched Lou and Kono duck away until they were almost obscured by the smoke, but Chin stopped for a moment, turning back.
“Steve,” his voice said. His eyes said he already knew it was useless.
“I’ll see you in a minute,” Steve replied. A muscle jumped in Chin’s jaw, but he didn’t make any attempt to argue.
In seconds, Steve was alone.
He tightened his right hand into a fist, hiding his palm. He ducked into the fire.
~~~~~~
People sometimes forgot that Patroclus was a warrior too.
Not Achilles, not invulnerable, but he didn’t need to be. In the stories, Achilles would have killed for Patroclus. Would have died for him. In certain stories, he did.
But Patroclus could still fight.
He did so because he was good. Because he cared. Because it kept him at Achilles’ side.
Steve will be damned if he loses his Patroclus.
~~~~~
When Danny comes stumbling through the smoke with his arm wrapped around their perp, dragging him away from the roar of the flames, the knot in Steve’s chest loosens. Though they’re surrounded by fire, though the heat is building on Steve’s skin, he smiles.
Danny does the opposite.
His mouth opens in shock when he sees Steve, anger sparking in his eyes like the fire around them, and he yells something unintelligible. When Steve doesn’t respond, he raises a hand, his left hand, and gestures for Steve to turn around.
Flames leap up between them. Steve shoves through them.
By the time Steve has reached them, Danny is coughing, the smoke too much for his lungs. The guy they were chasing is half limp against Danny’s side, no help to Danny’s attempts to escape.
“You idiot!” Danny yells through the chaos, his voice grating like sandpaper. “What are you doing here?”
“You want to yell at me, or you want to get out?” Steve replies.
Danny’s jaw clenches, but he finally nods, letting Steve pull the guy’s arm around his shoulders.
They find safety just as the boat behind them explodes, the force tossing them forward onto the concrete. The rest of their team have them in seconds, dragging Steve and Danny to their feet and toward the waiting ambulances.
Danny has burns up and down his arms, he’s coughing, and through it all he’s glaring at Steve. Steve has a few of his own burns. He doesn’t feel them.
(is this it? is he invulnerable?)
“What the hell was that?” Danny demands, tossing the oxygen mask off his face the second the EMT leaves him alone.
“What?” Steve replies, nearly choking on the word, throat burning. “Keep that on.”
“Keep that on,” Danny mutters, mocking him. “You know what. Usually, when there’s a fire, people run away from the flames, not toward them.”
“You were still in there,” Steve shrugs.
Danny looks at him incredulously. “I was getting out! That’s what I was doing!” He has more to say, but the smoke in his lungs chokes him, and he doubles over to cough. The EMT glares at Steve, forcing the oxygen mask back onto Danny’s face, ignoring Danny’s insistence that he’s fine and he’d like some space to yell at his partner, actually.
“Go to the hospital,” Steve demands. “Get your burns looked at.”
He knows Danny has Grace and Charlie this weekend, knows he’s supposed to pick them up in an hour. “I’ll grab the kids, ok? I’ll meet you at home.” He knows Danny doesn’t want Charlie at the hospital ever again, knows Chin or Lou or Kono will drop Danny off at Steve's.
Knows Danny won’t argue with him.
The ambulance doors shut. Steve ignores the looks his team gives him.
~~~~~~
It’s late when the kids go to bed. Charlie are Grace are both thoroughly reassured that Danny is fine, that the burns are superficial, and he didn’t even burn off any of the hair on his head.
“The hair gel makes it fire resistant,” Steve had said, and Danny had glared at him.
Now the sun is gone, the kids are in bed, and Danny expects an explanation.
He’s not going to get one without prying.
They sit where they always do, in their chairs on the beach, bottles in their hands that go untouched as long as there is silence.
Danny breaks it first, because Steve wouldn’t, and it’s more desperation in his voice than it is anger.
“Why would you do that, Steve? What were you thinking?”
Steve doesn’t know what to say, the answer feeling so obvious. “You hadn’t gotten out yet,” he replies. “I couldn’t leave you in the fire.”
Danny tosses his hands in the air. “I was on my way out! I had a radio, which you didn’t even think to use by the way, all you had to do was get to safety and I would have been right behind you!”
Steve shrugs desperately, because he can’t explain, can’t even begin to.
“What if we had passed each other?” Danny asks. “What if I had gotten out and you’d gone back in, and we missed each other? You would have been wandering through flames, alone, until, what? Until you passed out from lack of oxygen?”
Steve frowns. “I would have found you.”
“Maybe not!” Danny cried. When Steve looks at him, his voice softens.
“You are not invulnerable, Steve.”
The words hit him like a punch in the gut, like Danny has been reading his mind.
Steve doesn’t know how to respond for a moment, but Danny is waiting, and Steve can’t ignore Danny’s eyes on him.
“I’m supposed to be,” he says softly.
He turns toward the ocean so that he doesn’t have to see Danny’s reaction. The words are like ash in his mouth, admitting that he could never measure up to what his father expected of him. Admitting that he’d failed, that he was never as strong as he was supposed to be.
He’d given too many people the opportunity to hurt him, and now he has to live with that.
“That’s ridiculous, Steven, what are you talking about?”
Steve has always liked the way Danny says his name, pushes the word into every sentence.
“I’m supposed to be invulnerable,” Steve repeats. “I’m supposed to be Achilles.”
Danny shakes his head. “You’re not making any sense babe. Are you sure you didn’t hit your head today?”
He’s gone too far now; he has no choice but to explain. He keeps his eyes on the ocean as he does. He talks about his dad, he talks about the stories, he talks about Mary’s hand in his and Freddie's hand years later, he tells Danny that there’s always been this expectation of him. He says it all.
Danny rejects it.
“Nope. Sorry babe, but sometimes your parents were idiots.”
Steve is almost surprised at the vitriol in the words, before he remembers that he shouldn’t be. Danny fights with words just as well as weapons.
“I...” he stutters and doesn’t know how to respond. “Danny.”
“No,” Danny replies. “I’m not trying to speak ill of the dead here or anything, but your father was wrong. You are not invulnerable. Nobody is. Which is great, because we’re not supposed to be.”
His accent is thicker, like it sometimes is when he gets angry, the words coming out with broken endings. Steve focuses on that to keep him anchored.
“If you think that the right way of living is to toughen yourself up until you can’t feel anything at all, you aren’t actually living. I don’t...” Danny stutters here, like words have escaped him.
“I don’t see how you could do everything you’ve done and still not think you’ve done enough. You’re not Achilles, but you are a hero. You don’t need to be invulnerable to be it.”
Danny finished the rant like he’s not sure it’s enough.
It’s enough for Steve.
He laughs. “I’ve been conditioned this way my entire life,” he says. “I don’t think I can stop now.”
“I’ll teach you,” Danny insists. “And the first lesson is, don’t throw yourself into danger because there’s a part of you that’s been trained to think you’re invincible. Let your team take some of the danger, ok?”
Steve finally looks at him.
“What?” Danny asks. “What’s that face?”
“Nothing,” Steve replies. “I didn’t say anything, did I?”
It’s enough of a promise for Danny.
~~~~~~
Two days later, Danny asks Steve a question.
“Hey, if you were supposed to be Achilles, who was I?”
Steve feels his lips tilt up just slightly, Danny having paused in the middle of making dinner in Steve’s kitchen to ask.
“Patroclus,” he says.
“Patroclus,” Danny repeats, leaning against the counter where he’s forcing Steve to cut the onions.
“You know, there are a lot of different stories about Achilles and Patroclus. A lot of different interpretations.”
“Yeah,” Steve agrees. With his right hand, he reaches out and takes Danny’s.
Danny’s smile makes him feel invincible.