Well, More. Um, Good?
We Have a Situation
Word Count: 2,536
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nico/Dani (eventually)
Spoilers: up to 1x07, goes AU in the middle of 1x06, though.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I just break things.
Summary: She thinks he thinks everything is a situation. Trouble is, he's right. She just doesn't know it yet.
Author's Note: I am clearly no therapist, and I know I wouldn't know what to do, and I'm not sure what Dani should do, but she's still trying to figure that out, too. At least I explained... part of things. That's good, right?
A Crowd
"Adoption? No, no, I feel so bad for that boy with a single mother because I know how hard she has to work-don't give me that look. I know you know what my checks are, but it's not like I don't work-but no. TK is not ready to adopt anyone."
"I do not disagree," Nico said, leaning against the car a little. This was hardly the worst wound he'd ever suffered, but it grated on him more than most. He wasn't usually fooled, but that little act had gotten past him, and now he had an annoying gash in his side, one that Santino was all too quick to make too much of. "You're going to have to talk him out of this."
She shook her head, and Nico found himself disliking the way her wheels were turning. "Maybe we should let him go ahead with it, like when we gave him the trade he wanted."
Nico frowned. "I am no stranger to reverse psychology, and I agree that your method worked in the previous instance, but this does not just affect TK. This is much bigger than TK. Adopting a child is a life long commitment-"
"You think I don't know that? I'm a mother. I have two children. Of course I know that," Santino snapped, and Nico reached out to catch her arm before she got lost in a tirade.
"I am not saying that you don't know that. I am saying that TK doesn't know that. He is not thinking of anything more than proving you wrong," Nico explained, and she sighed. "Whatever the impact on TK, he would probably handle it better than the boy in question. At this point, we might have to put the child's needs above TK's. That means talking him out of this."
"Which would probably make him more determined to do it," she said, rubbing her forehead like she had a headache. Nico didn't doubt it. TK had his own form of migraine, not that the man knew it, or he would simply have a larger ego than he already did. "Never mind. Just call the team's doctor and get in the car so that we can deal with both of these problems. We can talk about it on the way, but you are getting medical attention."
Nico considered arguing with her, decided it was not worth the time it would take, and got in the car. He could have refused, but he knew that he was not going to be able to handle TK on his own. The receiver had been supposed to be sick of the child already, ready to give him to anyone else who would take him off his hands. It was not supposed to go anywhere near adoption. Sometimes Nico found himself wishing that Santino had never found her way into Donnally's bed and into the Pittman Group. He did know that she was no longer physically involved with Donnally, but that changed little when it came to the emotional entanglements and conflicts of interest that their relationship created. It also had done little to earn Santino much respect at first. It was good that the way she'd been hired-on Donnally's recommendation after he'd slept with her-was not common knowledge. The men on the team would never have accepted her as any sort of authority figure.
"How did you get stabbed?"
"How many times are you going to ask me that?"
"As many as it takes for you to answer me," she told him, and he leaned his head back against the seat rest. "You may as well get it over with. I can be very persistent."
"Tenacious."
"That I am," she agreed. She looked over at him, frowning a little. "Nico, please. You came into my house and announced that I needed Xeno's protection and you were bleeding at the time. You're still bleeding. I need to know what's going on here."
"I am not entirely certain of all the details," Nico began, shifting in the seat and trying to find a place where the annoying scrape wasn't as irritating. "Whoever it was followed me from your house, and that may have been the sum of your involvement in it. Still, I prefer not to take chances, and you should, too."
"Okay, fine, I get that, but why is it so damn hard for you to tell me how you got stabbed? I mean, you did get stabbed, right? So... what? It was some whack job in a clown suit and the whole thing is just too embarrassing for words?"
"Clown suit? Really?"
"Hey, you should have seen the guy that served me the divorce papers," she said, shaking her head. "I take it there was no clown?"
"I wish I could say that he was dressed as ridiculously or had the appearance of a clown, but the man was extremely and deceptively ordinary, hence the mistake I made in approaching him," Nico said. He moved again, thinking that the bandage was actually irritating him more than the cut itself. It was not sitting in the right way, causing it to rub against the exposed area unpleasantly. "He hit me with a car door and stabbed me in the side before I got the upper hand, and I have someone looking into the license plate of the car he drove off in as well as monitoring the hospitals."
"So... after getting stabbed, you kicked his ass? Impressive."
"Not particularly. He was an amateur, at best."
"Do you have to refuse to take a compliment for what it is? Really?"
"I am merely clarifying. I assure you that nothing was 'impressive' about that confrontation. I actually find it surprising that you would be impressed by violence," he added, pulling at the edge of the tape. She reached across the car and smacked his hand.
"Stop that. The least you can do is not bleed all over everything."
"You are not a medical doctor," he reminded her coldly. "This is, at the very least, not properly applied. It is acerbating the wound."
"And to think, I was going to get you a thesaurus," she muttered, taking the exit for the Hawks' stadium. He just looked at her, then focused his attention back on the bandage. They were almost there, and he was not going to let that thing continue to bother him. He'd had gunshot wounds that were less trouble than this. "Nico!"
"I said I would let you put it on. I never said how long I would leave it on."
She groaned and probably would have hit her head on the steering wheel a few times if she wasn't still driving.
"Stop picking at it. Jeez, it's only going to be a few minutes before you're in to see the doctor, and then you can leave that alone," Dani said, yanking Nico's hand away from his bandage again. He was being a child about it, and she was not in the mood to put up with it, not right now.
"It should not be this irritating," he insisted, frowning at the bandage.
"Just point me in the right direction, and we'll get you there and the doctor will take it off, okay?" she asked, trying to decide if he needed to be propped up or not. He seemed to be walking on his own, and he would probably make it, but she was still worried. Very frustrated, but still worried.
"This hall, take the first right, then the second door on the left," Nico told her. "I can walk there by myself. I do not need to be supervised."
"Yes, you do. I don't believe that you're actually going to go there, for one thing, and for another, we never did finish discussing what to do about TK."
"Let him fall, right?" Nico asked, turning the corner. He must have taken it too fast because he stopped and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. She ducked under his arm and propped him up. He sighed but didn't pull away from her. "There are ways to tie up the adoption into so many knots that TK wouldn't get custody for over ten years even if the paternity results were positive."
"Then maybe we should do that and let him go ahead with filing for custody," she agreed, and Nico shot her a look. "If it doesn't go through, it can't do that much damage, not yet."
"Unless he tells the kid he's doing it."
Dani sighed. She was hoping that wouldn't happen, but Nico raised a valid point. It wasn't fair to get Devin's hopes up, either. She could see TK as a mentor figure, maybe, a big brother program volunteer, but not as a father. He had far too many things to deal with before he took that responsibility on. It was true that he might already be a father, but a part of her hoped that he was not so that he could learn to take care of himself properly first.
"What do you suggest?" she couldn't help asking. Nico's approach to things was very different from hers. "Taking Devin away from TK by force? That is not going to fly, and you know it."
"The truth is that there is little we can do to affect the situation," Nico said, attempting to stand on his own for a second. "This will be about minimizing the collateral damage."
"Collateral damage? Is that all Devin is to you?" Dani demanded, tempted to poke Nico in the side again. She could not believe he saw that boy like that. "He's a child. He is caught in the middle of something he is not going to understand, and his mother is still in the hospital. He's going to hold onto the only thing he has, and that is TK. It doesn't matter that TK isn't ready for this. No one is going to walk away clean from this mess."
"Then we do as you originally suggested, let the custody process begin. It doesn't have to finish, but it will at least give TK the sense that he's getting what he wants, right?" Nico got distracted by trying to check the bandage again, and she moved to stop him, pushing his hand away and getting right in his face, holding the bandage where it was.
"You are not going to take that off, do you understand?"
"Dani?" Matt asked before Nico answered, and Dani looked back, forcing a smile. "I didn't know you were coming down."
"You didn't hear about the thing with TK?" Dani frowned a bit. She shook her head. "If you haven't, we'll explain later. Nico needs stitches first."
Matt frowned, and Dani grabbed a hold of Nico's arm, shoving him forward and toward the second door that he'd said was the doctor's. "It's a very long story, and he hasn't given me all the details."
"I'm also fine, but the good doctor is apparently prone to overreaction," Nico added. "I thought you were aware of the situation with TK and the boy."
"I thought he was out of the hospital and things were good," Matt began as he followed them into the doctor's office. Nico ditched his shirt and ripped off the bandage as the team's doctor got up from his desk, coming over to them.
"I see you need my assistance again, Careles."
"I don't, but the other doctor disagrees," Nico said, hopping up onto the examination table as if he was proving his point. She rolled her eyes. She knew that he was wrong, that he needed help, and the more he disagreed, the more he pissed her off. She turned back to Matt.
"If you count filing for custody as a good thing, then sure, everything is good," Dani said. Matt blinked, having a hard time taking that one in. "Yeah, TK is filing for custody of the boy Devin that might be his son."
"You're not going to let that happen, are you, Nico?" Matt demanded, shaking his head. Dani looked at him, frowning a little. Did he expect Nico to make this situation disappear, too? That was not going to happen. It didn't work like that.
The doctor didn't even seem to notice that the conversation was taking place, just went around doing what he needed to do, examining Nico's side. "Someone already cleaned this out. Still, you need stitches."
"Ha! I told you so," Dani cried, smiling smugly at Nico, who gave her a dirty look. She turned to Matt. "I told him he needed stitches, and he's been disagreeing with me ever since."
"Exactly what does this have to do with TK?"
"Nothing other than it happened in the middle of our collaboration on how to handle the situation," Nico answered. Matt looked at him. Nico was not pleased. "Do not give me that look. Santino was not involved or in any danger. She was not present when this happened. She is fine, obviously. Can we get this over with quickly? I have to speak to the team's lawyers."
"Can TK actually do that, adopt the boy?"
"It is very possible that all this is-TK could be reacting to what I said. I asked him if he would be doing all that he was if the boy wasn't his son, and I think he took that too far," Dani admitted. "I just wanted him to think about what he is doing. That poor boy is going to be so jerked around by all of this that he will need years of therapy, and I do not know what to do, to be perfectly honest."
"I'm sure you'll figure it out."
Dani smiled. Even if she wasn't really okay with Matt's situation with Laura-wow, Dani was spending way too much time with Nico-and she didn't feel all that certain about it, she was glad he believed she could do something about this. "That's for the vote of confidence."
"This will take a while," the doctor said. "If you two have some place else to be...?"
"I am going to wait for Nico," Dani told him. "I want to know that he is actually going to get the stitches, and we're supposed to work on a strategy for handling TK, right?"
"We have a strategy?" Nico asked, and she sighed. This was going to be an even longer day than she had thought. Was it only this morning that she'd been arguing with Jeanette over the pictures?
"I don't know how much help I can be, but I'll join you."
Dani turned to thank him, but she couldn't help noticing the dark look that passed over Nico's face at Matt's offer.
Chapter Six
Word Count: 2,536
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nico/Dani (eventually)
Spoilers: up to 1x07, goes AU in the middle of 1x06, though.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I just break things.
Summary: She thinks he thinks everything is a situation. Trouble is, he's right. She just doesn't know it yet.
Author's Note: I am clearly no therapist, and I know I wouldn't know what to do, and I'm not sure what Dani should do, but she's still trying to figure that out, too. At least I explained... part of things. That's good, right?
A Crowd
"Adoption? No, no, I feel so bad for that boy with a single mother because I know how hard she has to work-don't give me that look. I know you know what my checks are, but it's not like I don't work-but no. TK is not ready to adopt anyone."
"I do not disagree," Nico said, leaning against the car a little. This was hardly the worst wound he'd ever suffered, but it grated on him more than most. He wasn't usually fooled, but that little act had gotten past him, and now he had an annoying gash in his side, one that Santino was all too quick to make too much of. "You're going to have to talk him out of this."
She shook her head, and Nico found himself disliking the way her wheels were turning. "Maybe we should let him go ahead with it, like when we gave him the trade he wanted."
Nico frowned. "I am no stranger to reverse psychology, and I agree that your method worked in the previous instance, but this does not just affect TK. This is much bigger than TK. Adopting a child is a life long commitment-"
"You think I don't know that? I'm a mother. I have two children. Of course I know that," Santino snapped, and Nico reached out to catch her arm before she got lost in a tirade.
"I am not saying that you don't know that. I am saying that TK doesn't know that. He is not thinking of anything more than proving you wrong," Nico explained, and she sighed. "Whatever the impact on TK, he would probably handle it better than the boy in question. At this point, we might have to put the child's needs above TK's. That means talking him out of this."
"Which would probably make him more determined to do it," she said, rubbing her forehead like she had a headache. Nico didn't doubt it. TK had his own form of migraine, not that the man knew it, or he would simply have a larger ego than he already did. "Never mind. Just call the team's doctor and get in the car so that we can deal with both of these problems. We can talk about it on the way, but you are getting medical attention."
Nico considered arguing with her, decided it was not worth the time it would take, and got in the car. He could have refused, but he knew that he was not going to be able to handle TK on his own. The receiver had been supposed to be sick of the child already, ready to give him to anyone else who would take him off his hands. It was not supposed to go anywhere near adoption. Sometimes Nico found himself wishing that Santino had never found her way into Donnally's bed and into the Pittman Group. He did know that she was no longer physically involved with Donnally, but that changed little when it came to the emotional entanglements and conflicts of interest that their relationship created. It also had done little to earn Santino much respect at first. It was good that the way she'd been hired-on Donnally's recommendation after he'd slept with her-was not common knowledge. The men on the team would never have accepted her as any sort of authority figure.
"How did you get stabbed?"
"How many times are you going to ask me that?"
"As many as it takes for you to answer me," she told him, and he leaned his head back against the seat rest. "You may as well get it over with. I can be very persistent."
"Tenacious."
"That I am," she agreed. She looked over at him, frowning a little. "Nico, please. You came into my house and announced that I needed Xeno's protection and you were bleeding at the time. You're still bleeding. I need to know what's going on here."
"I am not entirely certain of all the details," Nico began, shifting in the seat and trying to find a place where the annoying scrape wasn't as irritating. "Whoever it was followed me from your house, and that may have been the sum of your involvement in it. Still, I prefer not to take chances, and you should, too."
"Okay, fine, I get that, but why is it so damn hard for you to tell me how you got stabbed? I mean, you did get stabbed, right? So... what? It was some whack job in a clown suit and the whole thing is just too embarrassing for words?"
"Clown suit? Really?"
"Hey, you should have seen the guy that served me the divorce papers," she said, shaking her head. "I take it there was no clown?"
"I wish I could say that he was dressed as ridiculously or had the appearance of a clown, but the man was extremely and deceptively ordinary, hence the mistake I made in approaching him," Nico said. He moved again, thinking that the bandage was actually irritating him more than the cut itself. It was not sitting in the right way, causing it to rub against the exposed area unpleasantly. "He hit me with a car door and stabbed me in the side before I got the upper hand, and I have someone looking into the license plate of the car he drove off in as well as monitoring the hospitals."
"So... after getting stabbed, you kicked his ass? Impressive."
"Not particularly. He was an amateur, at best."
"Do you have to refuse to take a compliment for what it is? Really?"
"I am merely clarifying. I assure you that nothing was 'impressive' about that confrontation. I actually find it surprising that you would be impressed by violence," he added, pulling at the edge of the tape. She reached across the car and smacked his hand.
"Stop that. The least you can do is not bleed all over everything."
"You are not a medical doctor," he reminded her coldly. "This is, at the very least, not properly applied. It is acerbating the wound."
"And to think, I was going to get you a thesaurus," she muttered, taking the exit for the Hawks' stadium. He just looked at her, then focused his attention back on the bandage. They were almost there, and he was not going to let that thing continue to bother him. He'd had gunshot wounds that were less trouble than this. "Nico!"
"I said I would let you put it on. I never said how long I would leave it on."
She groaned and probably would have hit her head on the steering wheel a few times if she wasn't still driving.
"Stop picking at it. Jeez, it's only going to be a few minutes before you're in to see the doctor, and then you can leave that alone," Dani said, yanking Nico's hand away from his bandage again. He was being a child about it, and she was not in the mood to put up with it, not right now.
"It should not be this irritating," he insisted, frowning at the bandage.
"Just point me in the right direction, and we'll get you there and the doctor will take it off, okay?" she asked, trying to decide if he needed to be propped up or not. He seemed to be walking on his own, and he would probably make it, but she was still worried. Very frustrated, but still worried.
"This hall, take the first right, then the second door on the left," Nico told her. "I can walk there by myself. I do not need to be supervised."
"Yes, you do. I don't believe that you're actually going to go there, for one thing, and for another, we never did finish discussing what to do about TK."
"Let him fall, right?" Nico asked, turning the corner. He must have taken it too fast because he stopped and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. She ducked under his arm and propped him up. He sighed but didn't pull away from her. "There are ways to tie up the adoption into so many knots that TK wouldn't get custody for over ten years even if the paternity results were positive."
"Then maybe we should do that and let him go ahead with filing for custody," she agreed, and Nico shot her a look. "If it doesn't go through, it can't do that much damage, not yet."
"Unless he tells the kid he's doing it."
Dani sighed. She was hoping that wouldn't happen, but Nico raised a valid point. It wasn't fair to get Devin's hopes up, either. She could see TK as a mentor figure, maybe, a big brother program volunteer, but not as a father. He had far too many things to deal with before he took that responsibility on. It was true that he might already be a father, but a part of her hoped that he was not so that he could learn to take care of himself properly first.
"What do you suggest?" she couldn't help asking. Nico's approach to things was very different from hers. "Taking Devin away from TK by force? That is not going to fly, and you know it."
"The truth is that there is little we can do to affect the situation," Nico said, attempting to stand on his own for a second. "This will be about minimizing the collateral damage."
"Collateral damage? Is that all Devin is to you?" Dani demanded, tempted to poke Nico in the side again. She could not believe he saw that boy like that. "He's a child. He is caught in the middle of something he is not going to understand, and his mother is still in the hospital. He's going to hold onto the only thing he has, and that is TK. It doesn't matter that TK isn't ready for this. No one is going to walk away clean from this mess."
"Then we do as you originally suggested, let the custody process begin. It doesn't have to finish, but it will at least give TK the sense that he's getting what he wants, right?" Nico got distracted by trying to check the bandage again, and she moved to stop him, pushing his hand away and getting right in his face, holding the bandage where it was.
"You are not going to take that off, do you understand?"
"Dani?" Matt asked before Nico answered, and Dani looked back, forcing a smile. "I didn't know you were coming down."
"You didn't hear about the thing with TK?" Dani frowned a bit. She shook her head. "If you haven't, we'll explain later. Nico needs stitches first."
Matt frowned, and Dani grabbed a hold of Nico's arm, shoving him forward and toward the second door that he'd said was the doctor's. "It's a very long story, and he hasn't given me all the details."
"I'm also fine, but the good doctor is apparently prone to overreaction," Nico added. "I thought you were aware of the situation with TK and the boy."
"I thought he was out of the hospital and things were good," Matt began as he followed them into the doctor's office. Nico ditched his shirt and ripped off the bandage as the team's doctor got up from his desk, coming over to them.
"I see you need my assistance again, Careles."
"I don't, but the other doctor disagrees," Nico said, hopping up onto the examination table as if he was proving his point. She rolled her eyes. She knew that he was wrong, that he needed help, and the more he disagreed, the more he pissed her off. She turned back to Matt.
"If you count filing for custody as a good thing, then sure, everything is good," Dani said. Matt blinked, having a hard time taking that one in. "Yeah, TK is filing for custody of the boy Devin that might be his son."
"You're not going to let that happen, are you, Nico?" Matt demanded, shaking his head. Dani looked at him, frowning a little. Did he expect Nico to make this situation disappear, too? That was not going to happen. It didn't work like that.
The doctor didn't even seem to notice that the conversation was taking place, just went around doing what he needed to do, examining Nico's side. "Someone already cleaned this out. Still, you need stitches."
"Ha! I told you so," Dani cried, smiling smugly at Nico, who gave her a dirty look. She turned to Matt. "I told him he needed stitches, and he's been disagreeing with me ever since."
"Exactly what does this have to do with TK?"
"Nothing other than it happened in the middle of our collaboration on how to handle the situation," Nico answered. Matt looked at him. Nico was not pleased. "Do not give me that look. Santino was not involved or in any danger. She was not present when this happened. She is fine, obviously. Can we get this over with quickly? I have to speak to the team's lawyers."
"Can TK actually do that, adopt the boy?"
"It is very possible that all this is-TK could be reacting to what I said. I asked him if he would be doing all that he was if the boy wasn't his son, and I think he took that too far," Dani admitted. "I just wanted him to think about what he is doing. That poor boy is going to be so jerked around by all of this that he will need years of therapy, and I do not know what to do, to be perfectly honest."
"I'm sure you'll figure it out."
Dani smiled. Even if she wasn't really okay with Matt's situation with Laura-wow, Dani was spending way too much time with Nico-and she didn't feel all that certain about it, she was glad he believed she could do something about this. "That's for the vote of confidence."
"This will take a while," the doctor said. "If you two have some place else to be...?"
"I am going to wait for Nico," Dani told him. "I want to know that he is actually going to get the stitches, and we're supposed to work on a strategy for handling TK, right?"
"We have a strategy?" Nico asked, and she sighed. This was going to be an even longer day than she had thought. Was it only this morning that she'd been arguing with Jeanette over the pictures?
"I don't know how much help I can be, but I'll join you."
Dani turned to thank him, but she couldn't help noticing the dark look that passed over Nico's face at Matt's offer.
Chapter Six