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Surveillance is not Steve’s favorite thing in the world. It’s by definition a lot of waiting around for other people to do something that warrants a response, and that makes him antsy. He prefers being the person doing the things, and as much as Danny likes to accuse him of having control issues, he’s pretty sure Danny feels the same way.
But it’s… interesting, to say the least, being cooped up with Danny for an indeterminate amount of time in this tiny apartment that’s decorated like somebody tried to find the most stereotypical cat lady décor there was. At least the cat is nice.
When the knock at the door comes, Steve throws the bag of weed he found in the cupboard on the kitchen counter. He doesn’t try to hide it, because he’s not expecting to do much more than answer the door and send whoever it is on their merry way. He keeps Mr. Pickles on his shoulder with one hand – the cat makes a nice distraction for anyone who has even half a suspicion that he could be an undercover cop, and besides, he still needs to feed it.
The person on the other side of the door turns out to be a little old lady in a pink dress. She is holding a plate of cookies and immediately crowds into the small space afforded by the half open door. “Oh, aloha, neighbor,” she says, with a little old lady voice and a smile.
“Yes, hi,” Steve responds, already overwhelmed. He had hoped for a salesman whose face he wouldn’t feel guilty about slamming the door into, but he can’t do that with this woman.
“You must be Agnes’s nephew,” she says, gesturing at Steve with wide eyes. “I heard you were housesitting.”
Danny, behind Steve, raises a hand and points at himself. “No, that’s me. News travels fast, huh, around here.”
The lady puts a hand on her own chest as she does something almost like a curtsey. “I’m Ruth Tennenbaum from 2D.” Her voice goes up at the end as if it’s a question, but she’s not hesitant when she enters the apartment, nonviolently forcing her way past Steve before he has a chance to deny her. “I made you a batch of my signature macadamia nut cookies,” she continues, as she determinedly shuffles over to the table.
“Nice,” Danny says, mildly. Steve closes the door before any more nosy neighbors with baked goods can slip in. He goes to stand in the middle of the room, taking Mr. Pickles with him.
Mrs. Tennenbaum may be old, but she is clearly not blind, and on her way to the table her gaze wanders over the surveillance monitors set up at the window. “Oh, I see you boys like to snoop too,” she says, and laughs a bit, which confirms Steve’s suspicions that this visit is slightly more than just friendliness. Mrs. Tennenbaum is on a surveillance mission of her own, which he can certainly appreciate, but is highly inconvenient at the moment.
He allows himself a sigh and steps forward, putting on his best politely-addressing-elderly-ladies face. “Ruth, hi,” he starts, and then reconsiders. “Uh, Mrs. Tennenbaum, I’m Steve McGarrett. This is my partner, Danny Williams.” He gestures at himself and then Danny, to avoid any kind of confusion.
Ruth nods. “Hm, I see,” she says, face a little pinched as she looks away. It makes sense; most people wouldn’t be happy to find out their building is under any kind of surveillance. For the average citizen, it feels like an undeserved invasion of privacy.
“We’re trying to keep a low profile,” Danny says, “so if you can keep this to yourself, that would be nice.”
“We don’t want anybody else in the building to find out,” Steve adds, pulling a face that shows he feels awkward about this and stroking Mr. Pickles’ fur. He hopes he looks disarming enough that Mrs. Tennenbaum will agree to keep quiet about their operation. Their other option is calling Duke to come get her and detain her until they wrap this case up, but he’s not looking forward to having to suggest that to Danny.
Mrs. Tennenbaum laughs again, still a touch uncomfortable, but she does seem to have been taken in by them at least a little. “Oh, I understand. Some of the alta cockers in our building are so small-minded.”
Maybe Steve should have seen it coming at that point – it’s not the first time something like this has happened, after all. The truth is that he doesn’t, and is instead trying to work out in what way small-mindedness would make people object to pretty standard police work.
“Just so you know,” Ruth earnestly continues, “I fully support-” She throws a glance around the room, in a way that signals she is about to tell them a secret. She leans forward and whispers the end of her sentence loudly. “Gay. Marriage.”
Yeah, no. Despite all the married jokes they’ve heard over the years, Steve still wasn’t prepared for this.
Danny starts laughing and Steve turns, careful not to jostle Mr. Pickles, to look at him. He doesn’t really know what comes over him, then, except that he’s perhaps a little hurt and feeling vindictive. They’ve been at each other’s throats more than usual lately, so disagreeing with Danny over trivial matters is a deeply ingrained instinct by now.
Whatever the real reasoning behind his split second decision may be, it doesn’t lead to the polite denial that he has every room for. Instead, what comes out is aimed at Danny, and so is his frown. “What are you laughing at, babe? You know this is a serious matter.”
Danny falls silent abruptly. His eyebrows shoot up and he leans forward a bit with one fist still planted on the sofa’s backrest, incredulous. “Excuse me?”
Steve has another chance there to back down, but instead he hitches Mr. Pickles up and goes for broke, raising his own eyebrows. “If more people thought like Mrs. Tennenbaum here, we could finally get married.”
Danny stares at him for a very long second. His eyes flicker ever so briefly to behind Steve, where Mrs. Tennenbaum must still be standing, before he straightens up and smiles at Steve in a way that reminds Steve of shark week. “Well, honey, I’m just really happy to hear we have the support of this charming lady who brought us cookies. They’re cookies that come with support for gay marriage, which is good for us, because that’s something we want. To get gay married. Because we’re very gay and in love, clearly, and I’ve always known that, of course. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Steve thinks Danny is laying it on a little overly thick, but Mrs. Tennenbaum titters. “Ah. Young love. My husband and I were once like you, you know?”
“I sincerely doubt it,” Danny mutters, but it’s low enough that Steve dares to hope he’s the only one that catches it. He shoots Danny a look and turns back to Mrs. Tennenbaum, smiling politely.
“Is that so?” he asks, which is all that is needed to prompt a response.
“Yes, yes. We were so in love – when we got engaged, he could never stop telling people about it. He even stopped strangers on the street so they could take a look at my ring and congratulate us.” She smiles at empty air, lost in memory. Then her smile falters. “Of course, he died many years ago. Now I’m all alone. A little old lady.”
Steve is at a loss for how to respond to that. He’s equipped to deal with armed terrorists and drug dealers, not lonely old ladies. He’s just about to thrust the cat at her, for lack of a better idea – who (except for Danny) doesn’t love cats? – when Danny saves him.
“I’m so sorry to hear that, Mrs. Tennenbaum,” he says, and it’s sweet and simple and Steve feels pretty stupid for not thinking of it himself.
Mrs. Tennenbaum’s smile is watery. “Oh, you’re such good boys. I bet you would never steal a plant.”
Steve turns again to look back at Danny, only to find Danny already looking at him. Apparently it’s his turn again. “Uh,” he says, feeling clumsy, “no, we sure wouldn’t.”
Mrs. Tennenbaum nods. She carefully lowers herself into one of the chairs, which is just about the opposite of the direction Steve wants her to move. “There’s been a lot of crime in this building, you know? I’m warning you, it’s hard to feel safe here nowadays. Just the other day, a plant was stolen from right outside my front door.” She sounds like she is actually about to cry now, and a slightly panicky feeling bubbles up in Steve’s chest. He thought they were past this when they safely left the topic of the dead husband behind them.
“Ah, well,” he says. “We don’t have any front door plants.”
“That’s a tragic story, Mrs. Tennenbaum,” Danny says, always the backup Steve needs. “Luckily, my fiancé here doesn’t believe in green stuff he can’t eat.”
Steve is aware that he is the one that started it, but it’s still a shock to hear Danny call him his fiancé. He’s absurdly grateful for Mr. Pickles, suddenly, because at least holding the cat during this messy conversation gives him something to hide behind.
“Ah, yes.” Mrs. Tennenbaum nods again, still looking a little teary eyed. “I see there’s a big bag of greens on the counter. From looking at the two of you, I would have thought you were the wife, but it’s good to know one of you keeps you both fed and healthy.”
Danny makes a noise of complaint. “I cook, too,” he says, although he looks like there are more words he would like to say.
There is so much to unpack there that it almost makes Steve dizzy. He bites his tongue at both the casual albeit well-meaning homophobia and the instinct to laugh, and instead takes the two steps he needs to reach the kitchen area and throw the huge bag of weed into one of the bottom cupboards at random. Ruth seems to have forgotten about the hardware by the window for the most part, but they don’t need to tempt their fate by letting her have a good look at the greens he is supposedly feeding Danny.
Mrs. Tennenbaum watches him do it with a mournful look. She takes one of her own cookies from the plate on the table and bites into it more somberly than Steve thought it was possible to eat anything, let alone a home baked macadamia nut cookie. “Did I mention it was a fern?” she asks, after swallowing the first bite.
“What was?” Steve asks, as he comes back around to the middle of the room. On impulse, he moves to stand directly beside Danny and throws the arm that isn’t holding a cat’s butt around Danny’s shoulders. It gives him a thrill that without so much as a millisecond of hesitation, Danny rolls with it, slipping an arm of his own around Steve’s waist. They always did mesh instinctively in tactical situations.
“My stolen plant,” Mrs. Tennenbaum clarifies. “Six years I had it, before those hoodlums took it.”
“Hoodlums?” Danny repeats. He manfully keeps almost every trace of amusement out of his voice, but Steve knows him too well. With his arm over Danny’s shoulders, he can literally feel the way his body shifts when he swallows his laughter.
“Yes!” The cookie is half gone by now. “I don’t suppose you could help me find them? Capable young men like you?”
Because one of Danny’s hands is resting on Steve’s side, he only has his right hand to do his usual gesturing. “Oh, we’d love to help, but we’re kind of, uh, tied up.”
Steve prays poor Mrs. Tennenbaum’s mind doesn’t go to the same place his does at Danny’s choice of words. He squashes that thought and has another impulse. Mary once said he was a man made up of impulses, stubbornness and daddy issues, but he figures it’s okay when his impulsive thought is to improve an old woman’s day.
“Hey, uh, we might know someone who could help you with that. He’s…” He flounders for a bit, trying to come up with an authentic description of Jerry’s career that doesn’t make Mrs. Tennenbaum think he’s trying to send more hoodlums her way. “A kind of PI,” he eventually settles on, which if not entirely true, definitely isn’t entirely wrong, either. He breaks from Danny – and feels an unexpected loss when Danny lets go of him – to step over to the table and offer Mrs. Tennenbaum his hand to help her up, because it’s really about time she gets moving. “We’ll send him your way soon, alright?”
Mrs. Tennenbaum gets up and lets herself be gently coaxed towards the door, still nibbling at the cookie. “Be sure to return the plate when you’re finished with it,” she says, the sorrowful note remaining in her voice, and Steve sternly tells himself he should not feel bad about trying to create some space to do his job.
“Okay,” Danny promises. “Thank you very much for the cookies.”
Upon arrival at the door, Mrs. Tennenbaum turns around once more, despite Steve already holding it open for her. “Oh, sweet kitty kitty kitty kitty,” she babbles, grabbing at Mr. Pickles’ tail.
“Yeah, he’s- He’s good,” Steve agrees. He’s quietly glad Mr. Pickles really is good, because he can do without scratch marks on his back. Eventually, finally, Mrs. Tennenbaum lets go of the cat and takes another few steps into the hall, but Steve still has to persuade her to keep going by slowly closing the door further and further as they keep saying goodbyes.
When the lock clicks, he sends Danny a vexed look.
Danny doesn’t really respond. He’s studying Steve and his hands are buried in his pockets for once, even when he speaks. “So you, ah, you went with the gay thing, huh?”
“Yes,” Steve says, and hopes the sudden swoop in his stomach doesn’t translate to any strange facial expressions. “You have a problem with that?”
Danny shakes his head, lips pursed. “No. But you do realize that you just turned this into an actual undercover op, don’t you? Specifically one where we’re undercover as a couple?”
Steve doesn’t know what to do with Danny’s tone. Danny sounds and looks like he’s carefully trying not to give anything at all away about how he feels about this. “I think we can pull it off,” Steve says, because he’s starting to feel a little defensive about this plan of his, even if it’s something he might be having some of his own doubts about now that he has time for reflection. His instincts told him this was the way to go, and they rarely disappoint him.
Danny pulls a face, which is more like what Steve expects of him. “Please never let Kono hear you say that, babe.”
“I won’t,” Steve promises, horrified at the thought.
Danny takes a moment to drink him in again, to the point where Steve starts petting Mr. Pickles to distract himself from feeling self-conscious. That’s not something that happens to him often.
“I do have to admit,” Danny almost drawls, “out of all your many, many crazy plans, this one has the greatest potential to be a good thing.”
Swallowing is a little harder than Steve remembers it being. “It does?”
“Yes. It explains why Agnes’s nephew takes his handsome friend with him when he goes to housesit his aunt’s tiny one bedroom apartment, at least.”
“Right,” Steve says. He briefly considers pointing out that Danny just called him handsome with no prompting, but a conversation about how he volunteered them to pretend to be a couple doesn’t seem like the right time for that. He files it away for later. “That’s what I was thinking.”
“You’re a liar,” Danny points out, but he’s grinning, so Steve figures he’s already forgiven.
He still puts up a token protest while he returns to the kitchen area to continue rooting around the cupboards for cat food or more illegal substances. “Am not.”
“You so are. And you know what you get as punishment?”
“I think you’re about to tell me.”
“Correct,” Danny says, with such unholy glee that Steve stops what he’s doing to look at him. “You, my darling fiancé, get to be the one to tell our co-workers about this impromptu engagement.”
After everything that happened, this is what makes Steve drop the cat. It lands safely on its feet; Steve can only hope the same will be true for him, metaphorically.
“Hey, now, that’s not fair,” he tries, but it lacks any real heat. His shoulder feels cold now that it’s deprived of its fluffy white blanket, and Danny in all honesty has a good point, and on top of that, Danny is grinning at him.
And as long as that’s true, maybe this isn’t so bad.