[#cicada]

“Steve has abandonment issues the size of a planet (which resulted in his trust and control issues), and Danny has this thing where his brain refuses to let him acknowledge and enjoy any kind of happiness by immediately jumping to the worst possible scenario. They’re both aware of these issues, and they both sort of… ignore them. That’s how it is, whatever, I’ve been messed up for a while now, I can deal. Except, and that’s where it’s beautiful and devastating all at once, Danny won’t let Steve ignore his problems, and Steve won’t let Danny ignore his.

I think that’s what’s happening in s5 with Danny. He constantly, repeatedly, almost forcefully, tells Steve that he’s here to stay, he’ll stick with Steve, he won’t go away, and he will make all the efforts it takes for their relationship to work because said relationship matters to him, Steve matters to him.

On the other hand, Steve keeps telling Danny to let things go, to not worry so much about everything, to appreciate the little things. Grace will always love you, you will always be Danno to her, nothing is going to happen to her, you have a second kid now and that’s great, my driving is fine we’re not going to crash, etc. I don’t remember all of their arguments (LAUGHING who can), but 90% of them seem to be Danny freaking out about something and Steve telling him that it’s really not that big of a deal, Danny, calm down. Steve wants Danny to be happy, and after 4x19 he realises that Danny genuinely cannot (and god but I love this scene even though it breaks my heart every time. Danny), because Danny’s not wired that way, so he does his best to always be rational and put things into perspective, tries to lighten the weight on Danny’s shoulders so that he can breathe and appreciate the good in any given situation.

The problem is, as mentioned, they help the other with his issues, but they don’t do anything about their own. So Steve, who believes nobody stays, that the only thing for him to do is be needed enough that people maybe won’t leave right away, who is a trained Navy SEAL and thus prone to throw himself into the line of fire to protect other people/just because, keeps doing exactly that without really expecting anything better for himself, and pushes Danny to be happy with other people (here again, 4x19), because the only constant with Danny is that he loves Grace. Every space in his heart is for his daughter. He’s here because Grace is here, and if Grace leaves, Danny leaves, and Steve has no control over that.

And Danny probably goes to work every day convinced that Steve is going to get himself killed, that today is the day Steve’s stupid luck runs out and he will die. Not beat up, not kidnapped, not half conscious with two black eyes and concussions that have their own concussions, no, dead. Cold, and lifeless, and lying on Max’s table dead. He probably sees it very vividly every time Steve goes off without calling for backup, every time he’s unreachable for longer than 2 minutes. So he yells at Steve, of course he yells at Steve. And Steve gets pissed at him, because of course he does, because Danny is overreacting and overly dramatic and, wow, Steve really can’t do anything right if Danny’s always shouting at him. He knows that’s how Danny deals with stress, but at some point you can’t help taking it personally.”

src