Disclaimer: Nope, don't own.

A/N- Spoilers for 1.04- written for the prompt " When I see a couple where one is very tall and the other is very short all I do is wonder about them having sex." Annnndddd this is my first fic for the fandom! And its not even what it started out as...wow. oh well, we'll see how this one turns out.

"When I see a couple where one is very tall and the other is very short all I do is wonder about them having sex."

"Wait a minute," Danny protested, eyebrows furrowing and lips quirked down. "I am not very short."

"And I can't believe you're talking about my love life." Steve added, refusing to look his sister in the eye.

"What love life?" Danny picked up on the rest of the statement, looking like he was trying to decide whether to be insulted over his height or the implication that he was having sex with his partner. "We're not together- he's like James Bond on crack or something and I'm…"

"You're what?" Steve cut in, frowning at the man sitting next to him. For the size of the couch they really didn't need to be sitting that close together but they didn't seem to have noticed it and Mary wasn't going to say anything.

"I'm the guy who gets mistaken for a waiter." Danny finished with a little hand gesture and a slight smile at Mary.

"You're no waiter, Danno." Steve was quick to reassure him. "You're more like…"

"If you say the plucky comic relief I swear to god I'll,"

"I wasn't going to say that."

"Really? Cause I got the feeling you were going to."

Mary quirked an eyebrow as the two men unconsciously mimicked each other's movements, crossing their arms over their chests and turning back to her as though they had both just remembered that she was still there.

"Are you two always like this?" She asked, humour sparkling in her eyes. She hadn't seen her brother in years but it looked like something had changed. She'd never seen this before, the closeness to another human being.

"No." Steve said at the same moment Danny said,

"Yes."

They shot each other a look but it didn't seem nearly as irritated, as it should have been.

"Anyways," Danny uncrossed his arms and rubbed his palms on his pants. Next to him the tension flowed out of her brother faster than she'd ever seen before. "Back to your original statement, we're not together. Like, at all."

She looked from Steve to Danny and back again. Then she snorted.

"So, you're not having sex?"

Steve's eyes got kind of wide for a moment before he could school his features- probably faster than Danny would have noticed but he was her brother.

"No." Steve said firmly.

Danny clenched and unclenched his hands looking studiously away from the other man.

"Hmm." She tapped a finger to her mouth and sat back in the armchair she'd taken over. "You two should be." Mary was enjoying their stunned looks too much. She turned to Danny and grinned at him. "But since you're not, want to take me out for a beer?"

Steve's immediate, "No!" nearly knocked loose the laughter she was having trouble keeping in.

"I'm going to get us some more beer." Danny fled to the kitchen with his and Steve's empty bottles fairly quickly for someone who had left his cane leaning against the wall in the living room. Mary glanced down at her own and decided she could get herself something in a minute after she was finished messing with her brother.

"Mary," Steve started the second Danny was out of the room, warning voice in place, the one that he'd gotten from Dad. She hated that voice.

"Don't," She held up a hand to forestall his rant. "I was just joking, I know he's taken." She smiled a little at the pinched look on her brother's face. "Even if he doesn't know it yet."

"So this is some kind of twisted blessing?"

She smiled at her brother, fond and warm. The hardened lines on Steve's face softened for the moment, something that had been so rare years ago but she had so much of in the past hour, just sitting in her brothers living room with him and his partner. "I suppose so. Oh man, if Dad knew though,"

The pinched look wormed its way across his face again just as Danny walked back into the living room.

"What's with the aneurysm face this time?" He handed one beer to Steve and then sank back down onto the couch, thighs and shoulders pressed together. Tense lines had appeared in his shoulders and face but Mary didn't make the connection until Steve reached out, rubbing Danny's hurt knee for a moment and she watched as the tension seeped out of him.

"I just got my sisters blessing." Steve raised his bottle to his lips, took a large sip and then set it down on the table.

"Blessing?" Danny parroted, looking between the two with suspicion.

"Yeah, Danno." Steve sent her a significant glance and she took the hint, heading off to the kitchen. Mary paused just out of sight though, pressed against the wall and listening, just to make sure her brother didn't screw this up. "To do this."

There was a suspicious silence for a couple of minutes and she sent up a silent cheer, before sneaking off to the kitchen to get herself a beer.