A/N: I've always wanted to come back to this little story, and I was waiting for inspiration. This happened - let me know what you think.

#*#*#*#*#

The assumptions continue when people realize that this thing - this thing between Danny and Steve is for real.

Like, forever for real.

This one trips up Kono, even, which is remarkable.

"Danny, I've been thinking," she says one day, quietly, when it's just the two of them in the office. Danny's wrenched his bad knee again, and Kono is fighting off a vicious migraine. It's premenstrual, which Danny knows, because he keeps up with these things - growing up with sisters, and then a female partner, and then years of marriage taught him a thing or three about self-preservation.

"We all cower in fear when you or Steve say that, you know this, right?" Danny quips.

Kono pulls a face but then smiles at him, soft and fond. "You know, they legalized same-sex marriage in Hawaii. In 2013, actually. So, you gonna propose to Steve, or what?"

Danny isn't surprised by her question. He's not surprised that she thinks he's the one that would be interested in legalizing and formalizing their relationship. After all, he's the one that grew up with an intact family, that did the whole marriage-and-kid thing. Steve - well, Steve was a functional orphan at sixteen, did the friends with benefits thing with Catherine for (too many) years.

There's also the fact that Kono knows that Danny takes the . . . lead in many aspects of the relationship. How she knows this - Danny chooses to chalk that up to uncanny female intuition.

Though he wonders, sometimes, from the way she smirks at him in the mornings, if he should sweep for bugs.

"What makes you think I want to get married? Again?" he asks her, smiling.

"Well . . . don't you?" she responds. She slouches comfortably in his office, tossing one long leg over the arm of his chair and propping her head on her hand on the other arm. She's apparently oblivious to the careless sensuality of her posture.

Danny's pretty sure that she's so enamored with the idea of him and Steve, she forgets that they're both, technically, bi. Either that, or she simply accepts that her team is the one group of men who allow her move through life without having to censor herself.

"No, babe, I don't," he says. "I've done that. Broke my heart in a million pieces. Steve and I . . . we work together, professionally. DADT has been repealed, but he's still Navy. He already slowed down his career to create Five-O. I don't want to affect his career any further. Besides - I'm good with the way things are. I don't need a ring or a piece of paper to define us. You know Steve. When he's all in, he's all in. I don't have any doubts."

#*#*#*#*#

Everybody knows everybody in Honolulu, or so it seems, so Steve waits until he's on a reserves weekend, stateside, to go shopping. One of his fellow officers recommended the store - quiet, refined, specializing in estate and classic pieces.

The shop owner nods and smiles when Steve expresses an interest in an engagement ring.

"Certainly," she says, and Steve likes her immediately. Interested but not intrusive, her smile is genuine and her voice is a husky alto. She's pleasant but not obnoxiously chipper. "A diamond solitaire? Traditional engagement ring . . . or . . ." she eyes his tattoos and tilts her head. "Hmm, maybe traditional with a twist?"

"Traditional with a big twist," Steve says, grinning. He doesn't fault her for her assumption. He is, after all, six plus feet of muscle, towering over her in combat boots and cargo pants. "I'm working up the nerve to propose to my partner. His name is Daniel."

"Nice twist," she says, and she grins up at him. "Law enforcement? Military?"

"Both, for me," he says. "Danny is a detective."

"Ah. You'll want silicone rings to wear on duty then," she said. "Matching engagement rings?"

He thought of that for a moment. "No, I don't think so. I was thinking just the one ring, for him. Is that weird?" It wasn't like he knew a lot of guys that were couples. And the ones he did . . . well, he'd been with Catherine at the time, so had hadn't paid attention.

"Not weird," she said firmly. "Lovely, in fact. Okay, so . . . for starters, are we thinking gold, silver, platinum . . . titanium?"

"Titanium . . . " Steve said, thinking about it. "He was married before. Gold ring. Yeah, let's start with titanium . . ."

#*#*#*#*#

Danny, as a detective - and a damn good one - knew better than to ever, ever assume. Assumptions made people miss obvious clues, blow cases, screw up evidence, and let the bad guys get off.

He prided himself on never assuming anything.

Except maybe, just maybe, assuming that Steve didn't want to get married.

So Danny was shocked - shocked - when he came home late from work to see Steve's truck in the driveway.

"Steven?" he called out, loosening his tie and divesting himself of badge and service weapon as he came through the front door. "Thought you weren't due home until tomorrow, babe? I stayed late to get caught up, I woulda come home."

The house was quiet, but he caught a glimpse of flickering lights on the lanai. Curious, he stepped out, and gaped, speechless.

"Steve?" he managed to breathe out.

The lanai was awash in candlelight from dozens of candles, their flames dancing in the gentle ocean breeze. And Steve, standing there, hands in his pockets . . . the pockets of the jeans that Danny loved so much, but Steve didn't wear them often, because, as he'd explained earnestly - 'The pockets don't hold stuff, Danny.' After that, they'd been dubbed 'date night jeans' because a) Danny loved them and two) Danny stubbornly and inexplicably insisted that Steve not carry small explosives on their dates.

And Danny had assumed that Steve was still in transit home from San Diego, not here, much less here surrounded by candles, wearing date night jeans and a white button down shirt, standing on their lanai in his bare feet looking as nervous as he had the night that Danny had explained to Gracie that she would notice that he and Uncle Steve now shared a bedroom and . . .

"Oh, babe," Danny breathed out, and he was wrong. He was totally wrong, when he assumed Steve didn't want to get married, and even more wrong when he told Kono that he didn't want to get married, because if that's not what Steve was up to, he was going to be incredibly disappointed.

"Danny," Steve said, and he kept his hands in his pockets, because they didn't do so much of the hand-holding stuff. "We've never talked about getting married. I know you've been married before, and if you don't want to again, I understand, and it won't change how I feel about you. But I've never been married, because until you, I never imagined wanting to spend the rest of my life with someone. We could get married, and I'd really, really love to be married to you, Danny."

Danny felt his knees go weak with relief, and Steve was there in one long stride, his strong hands grabbing at his biceps and steadying him.

"Yeah," Danny said.

"Yeah?" Steve murmured, his eyes going wide. "Yeah, Danny? You're sure?"

Danny stared up at him. "As sure as I love Gracie, Steve. That sure."

#*#*#*#*#

Chin had assumed that with Danny already having a child, and Steve's dual careers in Five-O and the Naval Reserves, and the general insanity that was their life, that the couple wouldn't pursue adding children to their family.

He was shocked, then, to see a look of significance pass between Steve and Danny in the emergency room, when the nurse sighed and offered to call child services for the toddler and infant bandaged and sedated in the trauma room. Five-O had pulled them out of a horrific meth-lab-gone-wrong scenario. The addiction had claimed their parents long before the fatal explosion. Kono was still in the locker room trying to regain her composure.

"Yeah?" Danny said, raising his eyebrows at Steve.

"Yeah," Steve said, nodding. He turned to the nurse. "We'll call CPS. We already have a family lined up for them."

Chin looked back and forth between Danny and Steve. "Your hearts are in the right place, guys, but you can't just take kids home from the hospital with you."

Danny smiled. "You can, actually, when you've been approved as foster parents for children, including victims of trauma and domestic violence, up to the age of fourteen. The process takes about a year."

"What - you - seriously?" Chin asked, breaking into a huge smile. "Wow."

Kono came into the room, wiping her eyes. She took in the scene in front of her: Steve and Danny, bent over the beds, carefully stroking tiny cheeks. And Chin, standing, his arms folded, and a soft smile on his face.

"Kono," Chin said quietly, "looks like we're going to be Uncle Chin and Auntie Kono."

"No shit?" Kono whispered. "I mean, I figured they'd have kids. I just assumed that they'd find a way to defy the laws of biology, and that Danny would manage to knock Steve up."