Work Text:
Title: A Twist of Fate
Category: AU, Hurt/Comfort, Slash
Characters: Steve/Danny, and Grace
Rating: PG
Summary: Injuries change Steve and Danny's destinies, but it can't keep them apart.
Word count: 1800+
Danny Williams had made a rash decision when he chose to move to Hawaii with his daughter, Grace.
Danny had grown up in New Jersey knowing that he wanted to be a police officer. When he figured out that he was gay, he knew that he would have to deal with harassment from some fellow officers, but he never changed his mind about being a police officer. Things hadn’t always been easy, but life had been good. His hard work had allowed him to quickly move up the ranks to become a detective, and life outside work was even better.
He had met a chef named Rich, when he was training to be a police officer, and a few years after Danny joined the force, they decided to adopt. The process went quicker than they had expected, and six months after filling out all the paperwork, they received word that they were the new parents of a four-month-old girl from Hawaii. They named her Grace Daniela, and at that moment, life was perfect as far as Danny was concerned.
When Grace was four, Danny was shot in the leg while pursuing a suspect. Even though Danny worked hard in physical therapy, hoping to be able to continue to be a police officer, it wasn't enough. He was given the option of taking disability or sitting behind a desk for the rest of his career. Danny chose getting disability over being chained to a desk for well over a decade. He was angry and depressed, and the cold New Jersey winter wasn’t helping. The cold was making his leg hurt worse, and the snow and ice made it a constant battle to keep his leg from buckling under him. Then Rich took off with a hotel developer, and Danny had decided there was nothing holding him and Grace to New Jersey, so it was time for a fresh start. He probably should have done a little more research on where to live before he decided to get as far from New Jersey as he could. It turned out that his disability payments weren’t enough for Gracie and him to live comfortably in Hawaii, so he was forced to look for a job that he could work. As if that wasn’t hard enough, he also had to find one that allowed him to only work when Grace was in school because paying childcare would have eaten up his entire paycheck.
As luck would have it, that was how Danny met Steve. Steve owned a private detective company and placed an ad in the newspaper for an assistant.
****
Steve McGarrett wanted to be a police officer, like his father, until the first time Steve visited Pearl Harbor on a field trip, then he knew he wanted to join the Navy when he grew up. By the time he had reached his teens, he knew his goal was to be a Navy SEAL. All that changed when he was 15, and the car he was riding in was hit by a drunk driver. His mother, who was driving, and his little sister were killed on impact, and Steve was left paralyzed from the waist down.
With some of the money from the insurance company, Steve’s father, John, had a bedroom and an accessible bathroom added downstairs in the back of the house. He also widened doorframes, added a stair lift, and redid the kitchen, so it was more accessible for Steve. He set the other money aside for anything else Steve may need in the future.
Steve spent months in the hospital recovering and getting therapy to help him learn how to take care of himself while living in a wheelchair. By the time Steve was released to go home, the already strained relationship he and his father had was even worse. Steve and his father hadn’t been close in years, since his father always worked a lot, but after the accident, it seemed as if his father didn’t know how to act around Steve.
While Steve was at home by himself for long hours, he spent a lot of time watching TV and got hooked on Magnum, P.I. He knew being a private investigator wasn’t as glamorous as it looked on TV, but since being in the Navy or being a police officer wasn’t an option anymore, he couldn’t help but wonder if being a P.I. wouldn’t be the most adventurous job, he could still do. He didn’t mention it to anyone at the time though, but he started doing research at school, and his senior year he worked up the nerve to discuss his plans with his guidance counselor. He hadn’t thought about the fact that his guidance counselor would tell his dad, which led to an epic argument, but in the end Steve won. He never knew for sure if his father finally saw things his way, or if he had just worn his father down, but as long as he got his way it didn’t really matter to Steve.
Steve got his private investigator’s license when he graduated high school and got a business license for SEAL Detective Agency. He setup an office area in the downstairs den at home and started out only getting cases about missing pets. It hurt Steve’s pride, but slowly he started getting better cases. When he started getting more cases, he rewarded himself by buying a truck and had it fitted, so he could drive it.
Steve’s father was killed working a case when Steve was 20. John left the house and everything else to Steve. A couple days after his father’s funeral, his father’s partner, Chin Ho Kelly, went to see Steve and told him, that his father was the one responsible for Steve getting cases other than missing pets. John recommended his son to people who were looking for missing people that didn’t qualify as police cases or didn't stand a good chance of being solved.
SEAL Detective Agency continued to grow, and Chin helped from time to time, but it was becoming more difficult for Steve to handle all the cases himself. So he placed an ad in the local paper seeking somebody to help him. He wanted them to have military or police experience, so it would make getting them a private investigator’s license easier, and they wouldn’t need as much training.
When Danny showed up for his interview, he wore a tie, had a limp, and talked a mile a minute. Steve's first thought was that there was no way he could stand to spend much time with him, but as the interview went on, he realized that there was something about Danny that he really liked, and Danny was determined, which Steve really liked. He went ahead and interviewed several other people, but he couldn’t get Danny off his mind and wound up hiring him.
****
Danny put Grace in preschool and arranged to only work mornings. The arrangement worked well for several months, until they got a tip on a missing person's case that he needed to follow up on that afternoon. Since Danny could blend in better as a tourist, Steve told Danny that he’d watch Grace, if Danny followed up on the tip. Danny trusted Steve, but he still did a lot of threatening before he finally left Grace with Steve. Danny wasn't prepared for his daughter to instantly fall in love with Steve and make his life miserable if she didn’t get to go see Steve often, and Steve wasn’t any help because Grace had him wrapped around her little finger.
After that, Danny found him and his daughter spending more and more time at Steve’s house. It started out just being friends but the more time they spent together the more both Danny and Steve started realizing that they wanted more.
About two years after Danny started working for Steve, Steve made Danny a partner in the agency, and six months after that he asked Danny if he and Grace would move in with him. Danny sold his furniture since when he moved to Hawaii he had bought whatever was cheapest to furnish the apartment he rented. They painted Steve’s old childhood bedroom and bought new furniture for it for Grace.
****
Danny woke up to Steve curled around him and took a moment to enjoy the feeling. He knew it wouldn’t be long before Steve woke up since he was usually the first one up in the morning. Sure enough within minutes, Steve shifted and stretched as he woke up.
“Good morning, Babe,” Danny said as he turned over on his back.
“Good morning,” Steve replied as he leaned over and kissed Danny.
They both got up and started getting ready for the day ahead. Steve had finally convinced Danny to allow Grace to take surf lessons, and her first lesson was later that day. With as excited as Grace had been at bedtime, it was only a matter of time before she came bursting into their room to make sure they were awake.
Steve had found out that Chin’s cousin, Kono, was a former pro surfer, who had to retire due to an injury and now gave surf lessons. He arranged for her to give Grace lessons knowing that having an expert would make both Danny and him feel better.
Sure enough while Danny shaved and Steve put his shirt on, Grace came running into their bedroom.
“What have a told you about knocking first, Gracie,” Danny asked, peaking his head out of the bathroom doorway.
“Sorry Danno,” Grace answered as she ran over to give him a hug before running over to Steve.
“When’s the surfer going to be here Dad,” Grace asked Steve as she gave him a hug.
“The same time we told you she was coming last night,” Steve answered as he playful got her nose.
Steve and Grace headed to the kitchen to start fixing breakfast as Danny finished getting ready. On the weekends, Steve cooked breakfast in exchange for Danny cooking supper. Grace got the eggs and vegetables out to make omelets, while Steve got the pan and a bowl to fix them in. The omelets and toast were almost done when Danny came in and finished helping Grace set the table. Much to Danny’s dismay, all Grace talked about during breakfast was surfing. He wasn’t sure who to blame for that. It could have been in her blood, or his fault for moving here, or Steve’s for having a beach for a backyard.
By the time, Kono showed up exactly at 10 that morning to start Grace’s lesson, Steve had switched to his beach wheelchair, and all of them had gone down to the beach. Steve and Grace were swimming while Danny sat in a chair nearby watching them. Danny knew how to swim but he didn’t share Steve and Grace’s love of the ocean. When Kono got there, Danny went to the garage and came back with the surfboard Steve and he had bought for Grace. Grace quickly thanked Danny and Steve as she ran to grab the surfboard. Danny gave it to her, and then helped Steve out of the water and into his wheelchair. Danny and Steve sat on the beach watching Grace’s first lesson.
“I’m so thankful that you decided to move to Hawaii,” Steve said as he leaned over and kissed Danny.