Tiger & Bunny - Keith/Karina

[lirillith]

Title:  Mockingbird
Fandom:  Tiger & Bunny
Characters/Pairing:  Keith/Karina
Word count:  ~2200 words
Rating: G
Warnings:  Nada
Summary: When Keith gets sick the night Karina's crowned Queen of Heroes, she takes care of him, because she obviously can't count on him to take care of himself.
Notes: Written for a prompt on the T&B anon meme, requesting Karina singing to soothe a sick or injured Keith.

****

Karina hadn't noticed anything wrong with Keith. He was always a little spacy, air-headed, and given to repeating himself, especially in official Hero TV appearances, and of course his helmet covered his whole head. As he gave his speech congratulating her on becoming Queen of Heroes, he did seem to be repeating himself a lot -- sometimes three times in a row -- but "Congratulations, and congratulations, and again, congratulations!" wasn't too far off-base for him. It wasn't until the awards ceremony was over and they were all going to change for the after-party that anything struck her as out of the ordinary; he fell behind the rest of the group, and she happened to notice he was missing.

She found him some ways back, in the hall leading away from the backstage area; he was leaning against the wall with his helmet off, and his hair was matted with sweat. "Sky High?" she asked. "Are you okay? Keith?" He didn't look up until she said his name.

"Oh. Miss Rose. Hello. And congratula--"

"Keith, you said that already, like fifty times. We're offstage, you can stop."

"But I wanted to congratulate you," he said. "You are Queen of Heroes! It's wonderful! Truly wonderful!"

"Yeah, well... are you okay?"

"I am not sure..." he said, putting his hand to his head, and then he pitched forward and she had to run to try to catch him, nearly twisting her ankle in the process. He'd fainted? What the hell was wrong with him? He felt really warm. She managed to shift his weight to her shoulder -- it probably wouldn't be very nice to prop him up with ice -- to feel his forehead, which was sweaty and really hot. Feverish. And she'd picked the wrong hand, so she had to heave him back against the wall to get to her call band and let Agnes know something was up.

---

There was a first aid station in the stadium, but the on-duty nurse was gone. Karina was able, with some assistance from Agnes calling the stadium office, to get a couple of maintenance workers to help her move Keith to the little infirmary area until his transport could get there. She didn't think to try to cover his face again until they showed up, so she was left trying to figure out how his helmet went on while they carried him there and settled him on the sort of reclining couch. Then she had to take it off again, worried about his breathing. At which point he woke up.

"Wha..." he mumbled, sitting up. "Miss Rose? We need to get to the afterparty."

"No, I do," she said. "You need to take some aspirin to lower your fever and then go home and sleep." She reached for the pill bottle as she said so, popping open the child-proof lid. She was pretty sure Keith wasn't really a total idiot, and could probably open a bottle of aspirin on his own when he was firing on all cylinders, but he'd just woken up and he was sick; she might have had problems with it too under the circumstances. "Why'd you go onstage if you were this sick?"

"I needed to congratulate you!" he said. "You did an amazing job this season! Really--" He broke off to cough; deep, lung-congestion kind of coughs. "Amazing," he croaked, then coughed again.

"Keith, stop saying everything twice. Your throat has to hurt even saying it all once. Here." She passed him the pills, and got up to fill a paper cup with water from the tap. "You didn't need to do that."

"Yes I did," he said, sounding stubborn. "I wanted everyone to know I wasn't upset you outscored me, even if my boss is."

"Well, that's... that's really sweet of you," she mumbled, touched, and probably blushing. "But you should have told someone you were sick."

"I thought I would be fine," he said. He accepted the cup of water, and swallowed the pills.

"Clearly you weren't," she said. "You fainted. I called Agnes to let her know I'd be late, and she made sure your transport's headed here."

"You should go to the party," he said. "This is a special day for you! Very special! This is your first celebration of becoming Queen of Heroes!"

"I'm not going to just leave you here," she said, and then he started coughing, again, so hard he actually floated a little way off the couch-bed. "See? You need somebody here making sure you don't die." She got up and pushed down on his shoulders until he was back on the surface of the couch.

"I am not going to die," he said. His call band beeped; "Transport Arrived," she read, upside-down.

"Okay, I'm taking you to meet your transport and then I'm going to the party," she said. "Happy?"

"I can find my transport."

"I was the one who was conscious while the maintenance guys brought you here! I'll help you find your way out and then I'll go. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, weakly.

---

Considering that he'd actually collapsed, she thought it was perfectly reasonable that she spent most of the after-party worrying about him. He clearly couldn't be trusted to take care of himself. "I'll help you with a care package tomorrow," Nathan promised, when she explained to him why she'd been late. They'd done that before, checking up on all the guys when they got discharged from the hospital after the fights with Jake, and if she remembered right, Keith had really needed it; he'd been taking better care of his dog than of himself.

Care packages were great and all, but she wanted to check on him tonight. Otherwise she'd just worry. She'd been to his apartment once, with Nathan and Pao-lin, to deliver that care package, and its address was in her call band's contact info for him. He couldn't be counted on to do anything sensible, like drink lots of fluids and get some rest.

Maybe she should do the sensible thing instead, like realizing it was after midnight and waiting until the next day. Or maybe she should just call to check on him. It was really late and he ought to be asleep, but hopefully he'd taken off his call band so he wouldn't hear it ringing. If he didn't answer, she'd just leave him alone overnight. He was probably right; he wasn't going to die of the flu or whatever in twenty-four hours, and if he didn't take care of himself, she and Nathan would just fix him up in the morning.

He answered the phone. "Sky High here."

"What are you doing up?" she demanded.

"Miss Rose!" He sounded guilty.

"You had to see my name on caller ID."

"I... wasn't thinking...?" Well that was no surprise. She'd never say it out loud to him, though -- he was too sweet for that. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing to me? You're the one who's sick! Honestly." She sighed irritably. "You should be at home where it's warm, getting some rest."

"I tried..." he said sheepishly. She could hear wind in the background. Where was he? "I kept falling asleep, and waking up, and falling asleep again and waking up again--"

"Okay, I get it."

"So I went out to do my patrol."

"You're out flying around in the middle of the night when you're sick like this?!" There was "total boy scout" and then there was "suicidally dedicated, or maybe just stupid." And then there was "Wild Tiger," which Keith was actually approaching. Flu could turn into pneumonia, and people died of pneumonia. "Go home right now."

"I feel better now!" he said earnestly. "I feel much better since you took care of me at the stadium."

"Just because your fever came down doesn't mean you're well. Go home! This minute! I'm going to check on you so you'd better be there to let me in."

---

He was wearing a ratty-looking sweatsuit, not his hero suit, when he let her in. He must have taken her orders pretty seriously, and rushed right home and changed, because it hadn't taken that long to get to his place. "I am feeling worse again," he admitted, sheepishly, as she stalked in, heels in hand. She hadn't even changed after leaving the party. John came up and sniffed her thoroughly, paying special attention to her shoes, then licked her hand. She set her shoes down and scratched him behind the ears.

"No wonder you're feeling worse, flying around at high altitudes in the cold when you're already sick." It probably had more to do with the aspirin wearing off, but if she made him feel guilty enough maybe he'd take care of himself. "Did you take any aspirin when you got home?"

"I do not have any aspirin," he admitted.

She facepalmed before she could stop herself. "Do you have any kind of painkillers?"

"Of course!"

"Bring them here."

He scurried off, and she flopped down on the couch. It had been a really, really long day. She probably shouldn't be ordering poor sick Keith around, but stomping around his apartment rooting through his medicine cabinet might bother him more. His apartment was nice, but modest; the couch was upholstered in fabric and he'd clearly had it a while, the TV was a little on the small side and had a few scuffs on the frame, and the prints on the walls were movie posters and one of a fancy fighter jet of some kind, nothing expensive. The bookshelf and desk were both recognizable from Ikea; she remembered her dad swearing at them as he put together his home office a couple of years back. John jumped up on the couch next to her, turned in a circle a couple of times, and flopped down. "Are you supposed to be up here, boy?" she asked, rubbing his ears.

"He's allowed," Keith said, returning from the hallway. "Maybe I shouldn't, but I allow it."

"It's not like you have any reason not to," she said. "It's your place, right?" She took the bottle of Tylenol he handed her. "Yeah, this is fine, take two of these," she said. "Like every four to six hours." Maybe she should have just trusted him to see the "fever reducer" on the label.

"I will," he said. "You look very pretty tonight, Miss Rose."

"Um, thanks," she mumbled. "Where'd that come from? You can just call me Karina."

"You just look very pretty," he said, which was apparently his idea of an explanation. He went into the kitchen, and she could hear water running.

"You need to drink lots of fluids!" she called over the sound. "Water and juice!"

"I understand," he called back. She heard the water turn off. That reminded her, so she stood up, stretched, and closed her eyes. She reached mentally for the ice in her hair, unwinding it from the bun she'd iced it into, pulling it free from her hair, and pulling all the streams and crystals of it in front of her to gather into one lump of blue-tinted ice that dropped into her hands. It left her hair dry -- she couldn't control water without icing it, but if she didn't mind it being ice at the end she could control it completely -- and while it took a little concentration to keep it from melting, it was a lot more comfortable than wearing a wig. She shook her hair out, letting it fall back into place. When she opened her eyes, Keith was in the living room, staring.

"Oh, um... so now you know how I do that," she said.

"Very impressive!" he said, but he started coughing again before he could repeat it. She patted his back gently as she walked past him to drop the ice block into his sink.

"You should get to bed," she said, when his coughing subsided. And she should make a note to pick up some cough syrup for the care package.

"But I had so much trouble sleeping..."

"I'll sing you a lullaby or something," she said. "Is there anything that helps you get to sleep? Opening a window? Closing a window? Turning on a fan?"

"Um," he said, blushing a little. "Would you really sing to me? I'd appreciate it if you sang to me."

"Really? Okay, I can do that, I guess. What do you want me to sing?" Did she know any lullabies? Brahms's, but she didn't know the words to it. She could hum it, maybe.

"Whatever you would like!" he said, enthusiastic as a puppy.

"Okay," she said. She'd come up with something. John jumped down from the couch to follow them down the short hallway and to the bedroom. Like the rest of the apartment, it was modest; a bed, another Ikea bookshelf, a dresser that might be from there as well. You'd never guess he was in practically every other commercial on TV. He climbed into the bed, pulling the covers up to his neck, and then rolled over onto his side. John re-settled himself on the doggy bed at the foot of the human bed, and after she looked around for a minute, she turned off the light, then sat on the edge of the bed, too. What did her mother used to sing when she was little?

"Hush, my honeybee, don't say a word,
Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird..."