"Invincible"

by: Riter's Fury

Prologue

"Why is it you always drive my car?" Danny asked Steve not for the first time.

"Because I like to drive," Steve replied.

"I think you have control issues. Actually, I don't think, I know you do."

"Look, as soon as we get to my house and I grab what I need, I promise you can drive. Alright?"

"It's my car and you are promising me I can drive it. You have a truck why don't you drive that?"

"Danny, if we always drove around in two different cars when we were working on a case, we would waste gas and we wouldn't get to have all these pleasant conversations."

"Waste gas? Like you are worried about that."

"Look, it's a whole lot easier to talk to you when you are sitting in the same car as me as opposed to in a car behind me, okay."

"So you just assume that you would be driving in front of me?"

"Please tell me you aren't being serious right now?"

"Of course not. I'm not that petty. Whoa," Danny said as they pulled into Steve's driveway. "Why are we driving this when that is sitting in your driveway?"

Steve stared at the silver Corvette sitting in his driveway.

"It's not mine, Danny."

"Then who do you know that drives a car like that?"

"I don't know anyone. No one that drives a brand new one anyway."

They got out of the car and Danny walked over to admire the Corvette.

"This is one expensive car," Danny said looking in through the window.

The car appeared to have every luxury and extra possible. Danny let out a whistle.

"If I had this car you wouldn't ever get me out of the driver's seat."

Steve didn't stop to look at the car; he just headed toward the house. The front door was unlocked and he walked in. Danny finally pulled himself away from admiring the car and followed him.

"So I am guessing this person has a key?" Danny said. "Who else has one besides you and Mary? And what about your alarm system? You do actually set your alarm right, because if you don't, it kind of defeats the whole purpose."

"Only Mary and I know the code," Steve said.

There was a crash from the upstairs. Danny's hand went to his gun, still not knowing if the person that had disabled the alarm was indeed a friendly one.

"Danny, I don't think you need that," Steve said.

"Do you care to explain why not, Steven, when we don't know who is in your house right now?" Danny asked, his voice lowering to a whisper.

"I know who it is."

At that moment a young man, dressed surprisingly similar to Steve, came down the stairs. The only difference was that he was wearing a pair of adidas sneakers instead of combat boots.

"What are you doing here?" Steve asked.

"Visiting," the man said.

"You could have come a little sooner," Steve said coldly. "I was the only one at dad's funeral.

At this the man looked away and Danny jumped in saying, "Wait, this is your brother? I thought you only had a sister?"

"I never said I didn't have a brother," Steve said.

"You always talked like it was just you and your sister," Danny said.

"Well it kind of was," Steve's brother said.

"I tried to locate you after dad died, but I kept getting the runaround from your boss," Steve said.

"Yeah, I was…busy. I would have been there, but…" he said trailing off.

"I just came to get something and I'll be gone for the rest of the day. If you go out make sure you lock up. Alright?"

"Yeah, sure, Steve."

Steve left the room to get what he needed and Danny, feeling the awkward tension that had filled the room at the mention of their dad, decided to try and lighten the mood.

"I'm Danny Williams. I work with Steve," Danny said holding out his hand.

"Nathan. But I usually go by Nate," he said shaking Danny's hand.

"That is a really nice car you have out there."

"Thanks. I have an old 1984 Corvette too that I rebuilt, but it's in storage back on the mainland."

"Nice," was all Danny could think to say, which was unusual.

Steve came in shortly after that and without another word to his brother he walked out the front door. Danny, saying goodbye, followed him out.

Steve walked to the driver's side of the car and opened the door. Danny noticed of course, but let Steve's earlier promise slide. Danny was more concerned about his partner's strange behavior toward his brother.

"Is it just me or was it a little cold back there?" Danny asked motioning back toward the house.

"Its eighty degrees, Danny," Steve said knowing full well that Danny was referring to how he had treated his brother.

"How is it that you have a brother and you never told me?"

"I didn't think it was relevant," Steve said pulling out of the driveway.

"Oh, really?" Danny said. "But you needing to know every detail of my life is relevant."

"I don't want to talk about this right now. We are in the middle of a case and we should be going over what facts we have."

"Look, you were there for me through that whole mess with my brother and I just want to help you if I can."

"I appreciate that, Danny, but there is nothing to help with."

They rode in silence for a few moments while Danny seemed to be thinking about something.

"What did he do?" Danny asked after a long silence.

"What?" Steve said looking away from the road briefly to look at his partner.

"Well, he must have done something, right, because there was some serious tension between the two of you."

"Would you just let it go, Danny," Steve said, probably a little louder than he had meant to.

"Fine. It wasn't anything illegal was it?" Danny added after a short pause.

"Danny!"

"Alright! Alright! But if you need to talk about it-"

"I know where to find you, Danny."

"Good," Danny said satisfied.

Danny's phone rang shortly after and he answered it.

"Hey, what's up?"

It was Chin.

"Hey, Danny, first tell the Boss his phone is off and the governor was really annoyed about it to say the least. Then meet us at the Ala Moana Center."

"May I ask why?" Danny asked curiously.

"There was a shooting about an hour ago and a family friend of the governor was the target. She gave the case to us."

"Lovely, we will just add that to the stack of other cases we are working on."

"Danny, the governor told me that this was our priority right now. HPD will handle the others."

"Okay, we'll be there."

"And, Danny, she wants us there yesterday."

"Got it," Danny said and ended the phone call.

"What was that about?" Steve asked.

"Chin said your phone is off and the governor wasn't too happy about it."

"My battery died. What did she want?"

"Apparently a family friend just got shot at in the Ala Moana Center about an hour ago and she wants us there."

Steve stopped at the red light and tapped his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel.

"Did I mention the governor wants us to get there as fast as possible?" Danny said.

That was all it took for Steve to flip on the lights and make sure he was clear to go before speeding through the intersection.