Work Text:
This is not Danny’s idea of a good time.
Hiking has never been Danny’s idea of a good time but Steve likes it and because Steve likes it, Sarah likes it . There a lot of things Danny’s never expected to see on Steve’s person and an infant hiking pack is one of them but he’s wearing one now and Sarah’s perched comfortably in it, periodically pushing herself upright and gabbling eagerly about something that’s caught her eye before settling back down, her feet drumming a lazy rhythm against her father’s lower back.
“That’s it,” Danny tells her. “Kick the pony, make him go faster.”
“Kick!” Sarah agrees, and increases her tempo. The look that Steve throws over his shoulder at Danny is hilarious. It’s funnier still when Sarah really gets going and grabs two fistfuls of her father’s hair and pulls. “Kick pony!”
“I’m going to kick you,” Steve tells Danny, not shortening his ridiculously long strides an inch or, you know, slowing down at all as he reaches up to untangle Sarah’s fingers from his hair. If Danny tried that, he’d end up with a dislocated shoulder. Did, in fact, tear a rotor-cuff once trying to remove a water bottle from a pack without taking it off but he doesn’t intend telling that story again, ever.
They wander around for a few hours – honestly, the Israelites have nothing on Steve McGarrett, who can wander endlessly, easily and aimlessly through the damn jungle without a map and still end up where he wants to be. It’s sickening, really, the skills that man has. Danny would be jealous, if he enjoyed hiking even a little bit.
Which he doesn’t, for the record. Not one bit.
They stop for lunch in an open clearing with enough room for Sarah to run around in, which she does with all the speed and direction of a round up toy while Steve digs through the pack Danny’s been carrying for their lunch.
Another thing Danny would not have expected, ever, to see on Steve’s person the first day he met him: a juice box. A mashed up banana in a Tupperware container. A soft plastic baby spoon, because Sarah still catches her teeth sometimes and he has an irrational fear that she’ll chip them one day. Danny, who watched Grace teethe on his car keys without damaging a single tooth, is far less worried about it. But he doesn’t say anything, because it’s hilarious to watch Steve handle that small piece of plastic in his big damn hands.
Several times over the five minutes it takes Steve to lay out lunch, Danny finds himself redirecting Sarah’s determined effort to climb a rock to one side of the clearing. It’s not that tall, only about waist height, but it’s taller than Sarah and Steve can worry about her teeth but Danny chooses to worry about her breaking limbs or splitting skulls because that is what a responsible adult should be worried about, thank you very much.
Sarah, unfortunately, doesn’t appreciate his concern and her frustration is growing exponentially when Steve intervenes with a peanut butter sandwich. She plops down on her butt to eat it, follows it with some banana, and pauses long enough to swallow a mouthful from the juice box before she’s up again, marching determinedly back to the rock.
Danny goes to intervene but Steve catches his arm. “Let her try.”
Steve squats down behind Sarah, close enough to catch her if she falls, far enough away to allow her to move freely. “If you’re going to do this, kiddo, you better learn to do it right,” he tells her. “Three points of contact at all times.” He takes hold of one hand and directs it back to the rock face; repositions her left foot slightly.
Danny stares at him – at the two of them – gobsmacked. “Three points of – Steven, what the hell do you think you’re doing? This is your daughter, not some army recruit-”
“Navy,” Steve interjects.
“- who needs to learn how to scale cliff faces!” Danny continues. “She’s fifteen months old, for crying out loud! You teach her to climb, you’re gonna turn around in three weeks’ time and find her standing in the middle of the kitchen table with one foot in her oatmeal, seconds away from cracking her head open on the tiles on the kitchen floor, because that happens, my friend, I am telling you that happens and I never did anything so idiotic as to instruct my daughter on the finer points of scaling cliffs when she was barely fifteen months old!”
Steve’s shoulders are shaking and Danny is reasonably sure the son of a bitch is laughing at him.
Sarah huffs impatiently and she can’t count to three, has no idea what a point of contact is, but she resumes her determined climb the moment Steve releases her wrist. She figures it out quickly enough, though – that she has better traction if she uses her legs to push up at the same time she pulls up with one arm, that she doesn’t slide back down again if she keeps her feet and her other arm locked, that she can balance herself better by pressing her round little tummy into the rock face.
And okay, maybe that last is less deliberate and more chance, but hey, the kid’s a genius so Danny’s not ruling anything out at this point.
She reaches the top with a crow of triumph, scrambling up to stand on it, arms outstretched. “Did it,” she announces, and Steve’s answering grin is bright and proud. “Good work, Sammie!”
“Danno catch!” she calls, and launches herself off the rock.
Danny, who’s been expecting this outcome from the moment she first started to climb, leaps forward and catches her by the waist before she hits the ground. He swings her around and she shrieks with delight, clutching at him when he finally brings her up to settle her on his hip.
She’s filthy – her hands, her face, her overalls all dusty and smeared with dirt. There’s a mushy piece of what Danny suspects may be banana caught in her hair, just above her left ear. She spilled some of her juice box at lunch; her t-shirt is still damp and sticky with it. But she’s grinning at him as she wraps her little arms around his neck and squeezes; calls to her father “Danno catched me!”
And okay, maybe – maybe – Steve might have had a point with this climbing thing, because watching her scale random objects is likely to give him a heart attack well before he’s past the prime of his life, but this, the catching thing, her complete and absolute trust in him to keep her safe, well, that twists his heart in his chest and damn if he doesn’t love this little girl with everything he is.