From @/Bgrizz on ao3:

"Hi could you do one where Robby's being hurt in some way by kreese and silver and Miguel finds out and helps him please?"

I did get another request on ao3 for just Kiaz, no prompt (which is fine, I like either coming up with prompts or having a specific request, it doesn't make a difference to me) so this is also for @/WordsToLife and @/LFG on ao3. Great way to, uh...kiss a couple birds with one stone lol

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Miguel had left the karate tournament to figure himself out, but he had no plans to leave the country.

No, on his path to figure himself, he was staying local. It was cheaper that way, after all. Now, Miguel was in the strip mall in Reseda, where Cobra Kai was originally held before being taken over by some psychopathic grandpas.

Miguel had just come out of the convenience store with a Fruit Punch Gatorade, the bell ringing behind him. He closed his eyes, taking a sip of the drink and trying to reminisce about the origins of his karate training. Helping Sensei Lawrence set up the original dojo, recruiting students and becoming friends with them, defending Sam from those asshole guys at school. How had that all lead to where he was now? Why had it become some crazy karate war in which he were a simple--expendable--soldier?

Miguel was snapped back into reality by the sound of sobbing, and he opened his eyes to see a figure slumped against the door of Cobra Kai. He moved closer, anxiety growing within him at the thought of what that place may hold now. For all he knew, someone could know he was here and try to play a trick on him. As he stopped a foot away from the broken form of Robby Keene, the King Cobra himself, Miguel was sure someone was playing a trick on him.

Even so, even if Robby was the monster that had hurt him in so many ways (as they hurt each other in so many ways)...he did look drastically injured. His hair was caked with blood (was that his own, or someone else's?) and he had a slash across his cheek. Robby gripped his side, wincing, and there was so much blood smeared about that Miguel couldn't tell what kind of injury it was.

"Robby? Hey, what happened?" Miguel found himself asking, surprised his voice was so gentle regarding him. He wondered who had beat him up, and he also wondered if Robby deserved it.

He hated himself for thinking like that.

Robby must have been dazed, must have seen an older man with light brown skin and dark hair through his watery vision. "Mr. Larusso?" he asked faintly. "Mr. Larusso, please...I'm sorry..."

Miguel wonders, briefly, when his stress started making him look that old. He shakes his head, putting a hand on Robby's knee to bring him down to Earth. "No, it's...it's Miguel." he looks around the area again, and damn it all if it is some trick, but he's not leaving Robby here just in case. "I'm going to help you."

"You don't need," Robby started shaking his head, his voice wheezy, his speech slurred and disoriented. "I can't...let you...I just...I told him I was leaving and he--I can find somewhere else to go--"

Miguel didn't really understand what he was talking about, but he started to lift Robby up, supporting him and walking him down the sidewalk. "Try not to panic, there might be something wrong with your lungs."

"My...rib. Maybe more than one...I can't let them mess Kenny up, he was so--so--" Robby dissolves in a coughing fit just as Miguel brings him to the passenger side of his mom's car, which he'd taken from the tournament. He figured that his mom and yaya could get a ride from Sensei Lawrence, anyway.

Miguel started to piece together what might have happened and, provided he wasn't lying, it looked like Miguel was making the right choice. His mom would be proud, if she wasn't upset about the blood in her car.

He situates Robby in shotgun and gets his belt on so that he doesn't have to move. He starts to pull away before he feels Robby's hand on his wrist. "Miguel," Robby utters, and Miguel is unsettled by the whisper, like it's from a dying man. He locks eyes with Robby and is surprised he doesn't go into fight-or-flight mode; the tension doesn't alleviate from his muscles, though. "You could've left me. Could've finished me off...but you're helping me..." he sounds confused, as if no one had helped him for the price of nothing before. "Thank you..."

Miguel's head is spinning with how surreal the situation is, but he finds himself nodding. "What happened at the school...it was an accident. You're still an asshole, the absolute worst, but...that's not important right now. This is beyond both of us." He spares one more glance at the doors of Cobra Kai, darkened in its tiny spot in the shitty strip mall, wondering if there's anything more significant he has to say. He turns back to Robby, who's looking back up at him with a mixture of confusion and something akin to longing. Miguel himself is certainly longing to understand all of this that came before them.

"Try not to bleed all over the car, cleaning'll cost a fortune." Miguel settles simply. "And try not to die--I'll be the first suspect."

It might be the creaking of the car door as he shuts it, but he thinks he hears Robby laugh softly.

-------

Miguel is falling asleep, tired after being shaken in the waiting room for what felt like several dragging days. He'd read through all the magazines and couldn't give a damn about what new makeup brand Jennifer Lawrence was endorsing. When he was finally called to visit Robby, however, he jumped up as if he'd just had a double-shot of espresso.

While he's being walked back, he thinks to himself that he could have just left Robby here. He had his phone on him, calling someone to pick him up should have been no problem. Miguel was sure Sensei Lawrence would do it, no matter what his relationship with his son looked like. Then again, he knew his family probably wouldn't be happy with him if he left Robby to wake up with no one. He also knew he wouldn't be happy with himself.

When he walks in, Robby is already looking his way, his green eyes tired but alight, as if expecting anything.

Miguel was, naturally, uncomfortable in hospitals. He'd only been to one once if he could remember, when he was young and yaya had had a heart attack. Then, he'd brought her flowers and a stuffed bear from the gift shop, wishing her well, which was easy to do because he loved her.

He didn't love Robby. He didn't even like him.

Even so, Miguel thinks on how Robby doesn't have anyone that's really there for him wholeheartedly. Sensei Lawrence was never a good dad, and he said Robby's mom wasn't exactly mom of the year herself, though she was in rehab to better herself. If what he was suspecting about Kreese and Silver were true, he didn't expect that they would be rushing to get him a get well card.

And so, there was Miguel. Alone, with Robby's ridiculously good looking face and those piercing green eyes (he doesn't like the guy, but he's not blind) staring at him, as if expecting him to attack or do some kind of trick.

"How are you feeling?" Miguel asks instead, because that's a thing people ask in hospitals as they sit in the chair beside the bed. He does just this, twiddling his thumbs.

"Everything hurts," Robby replies, bluntly, and Miguel is for some reason surprised. "Listen...thanks for, you know, taking me here, but...don't hold this over my head, okay? I get it, you're the good guy and I'm the asshole, just..." he takes an unsteady breath. He's wearing a white button-up shirt, but it's open to leave breathing room for a large patch of a bandage across his side. His hair has been washed out, and there's a bandage on his cheek. Miguel, strangely, is reminded of his time in elementary school, getting bandaged up after horsing around on the playground; his Clifford Band-Aid was nothing compared to this, though.

"Don't worry about it," Miguel says simply. He's not entirely sure what he wants to say, what could toe the line of not letting Robby off easy but also not stressing him out after he was assaulted. "I'm not gonna, like, brag about this or anything. Anyone would have done it...but I would like to know what happened. I think you owe me that much."

Robby nods. "And more," he mutters, and Miguel is unsure if he's supposed to have heard it, so he ignores it. He looks up at Miguel, then down at his bandages; Miguel imagines Robby is telling this to someone else, anyone but him, and that makes sense. "I...between Kenny becoming a bully because of what Cobra Kai is teaching, and what Tory told me about how Silver bribed that ref--"

"Wait, Silver bribed the ref so Sam would lose?" Miguel interrupts him.

Robby looks a cross between vexed and scandalized that Miguel would interrupt something so serious. "Yes. He's rich and has no morals. Any more questions?"

Miguel just shakes his head. He and Sam's relationship was crumbling--probably only short of the actual break-up talk, especially after their unfortunate prom--but he still cared for her and wanted her to succeed.

"I...was stupid, and hotheaded..." Robby says, as if talking about something that happened years ago versus hours ago. "I confronted Silver, told him I was quitting and taking the others with me. He called me a coward, said I was a loser just like my dad..." he spared Miguel a glance at this, as if expecting him to argue and call Johnny a great man. Miguel said nothing. "And then he took me down. I thought I was so strong...but he beat me, and he just kept going, like it was all he wanted in the world...and he was laughing, convinced I would never get the others out. He knew...that I'd never protect anyone from Cobra Kai, because I couldn't even protect myself..."

The silence between them thickened into something significant--again, something beyond themselves that they couldn't begin to understand.

"Welp, that's enough emotional vulnerability for today--" Robby tries to lay on his side but winces, settling for laying down flat.

"It's not your job to protect everyone from Cobra Kai." Miguel starts, and not particularly because he's trying to say something positive to Robby, but because it's how he actually feels. "You can go through and try to make the right choices, encouraging others to do right and calling people out when they're doing wrong, but...at the end of the day, you're just a karate student. I'm just a karate student, too. This issue, between the dojos...it's been handed to us, but it can end with us. We shouldn't have to be...soldiers in some karate war. If you ever want to come back to Miyagi-do...and, I guess, Eagle-Fang...just learning karate without all that other stuff should be something you enjoy."

And there it was, the idea clicking in Miguel's mind. He'd returned to his roots, one of those roots being Robby. He wanted to enjoy doing karate...and strangely enough, even though the invite would never work, he wanted Robby to find a place he could enjoy karate, too. Preferably one that wasn't run by war criminals. Robby could make some nice friends that way, and Miguel wouldn't have to sit here having heart-to-hearts with him in a hospital room. Not that he wasn't enjoying himself, of course.

To Miguel's surprise, Robby starts to smile a little, though it's more of a condescending smirk. Something that reads: "You sweet baby, of course it won't work out for me. Keep dreaming, though." And it frustrates Miguel to no end; he wants to show Robby that things could work out, if he'd only wait a moment more.

"I...don't know about that." Robby says, and his voice sounds more hoarse than before. "I...can't be used and tossed away anymore. I don't think I can keep going back to my dad and hoping for a change. And Mr. Larusso...I'm sure he wouldn't want me back after everything I've done. I dunno," he looks amused for a moment. "Maybe I'll try a new dojo, give All Star a chance to actually make the semifinals..."

Miguel couldn't help but laugh at that, which was even more surreal. "Really? I don't think I could take you seriously, sporting all that All-Star merch...but you'd probably still make it to the top, I'm sure. You're definitely not as weak as you think..."

Robby smiles at that, and Miguel wonders how long it's been since the guy got a legitimate compliment that wasn't from some old karate creep. "Why are you being so nice to me? It would've made more sense for you to kick me while I was down." His smile fades.

"I told you, Robby, I'm not that kind of person." Miguel insisted. "Besides, you clearly realize that Cobra Kai was wrong...and Mr. Larusso and Sensei Lawrence weren't really in the right either, leaving you to stay there. Maybe we could start over. I'm not saying everything's okay, there's still a lot of work to do...but this, right now? It's a start."

"Yeah?" Robby seems uncertain, but hopeful. "Well, I'd love to try and start again...before all the fighting and dating drama...it seems so small, now. You know, I hardly know anything about you. We really should get to know each other better if we're gonna keep sparring at the All Valley."

"All right," Miguel nods, though the question if he's still going to even be in the next All Valley is up in the air. "We should hang out sometime, then." And he can't believe he even said that, or that Robby is nodding in agreement, and all the difficulties around it were being put to rest for now. Miguel picks up the TV remote. "What kind of stuff do you like to watch?" he asked, turning on the TV and flipping through some channels.

"Stop!" Robby settles, and Miguel thinks for a moment that he picked the wrong channel. It's a movie about some girl at a summer resort of some kind; the TV guide button reads that the movie is called "Dirty Dancing", some famous movie Miguel had never seen. "I love this movie."

Miguel wants to respond that it looks like a chick flick, but he holds his tongue, because then the girl is dancing with a toned guy. Miguel is suddenly very invested, watching the pair of them like a tennis match. "Is it because the guy and girl are both hot?" he asks, and a moment later realizes that he sort of unintentionally outed himself as bisexual. He didn't really mind, he'd tell anyone who asked, but he didn't imagine that would be the sort of thing he'd tell Robby Keene.

"Well, yeah, that did answer some questions." Miguel can practically hear Robby's eyeroll. "But, it's just...this is where my middle name comes from. Robby "Swayze" Keene. My mom and I watched this movie all the time when I was a kid, and she used to lift me up like in the end scene."

"What happens in the end scene?" Miguel asks. "To lead to a lift-up, I mean. You know, the "Dirty" in the title makes it sound like it's not suitable for kids--"

Robby scoffs. "Just watch the movie, Diaz." he says, and Miguel smiles a bit, because he's really getting somewhere now.

He had no idea that this was the "somewhere" he wanted to go.

Miguel falls asleep on the visitor's couch just after the closing credits, and when he wakes to sunlight streaming in through the blinds, his mother is calling for what looks like the fourteenth time. Well, a small price to pay for a lull and a redo in the karate war.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was a long boy, that's for sure...gimmie attention :')

Much like the Sam/Demetri fic from last time, I went into this not really into the ship (I wasn't opposed but I wouldn't actively look for content of it) and now I'm a bit more into it. These two don't get enough interactions in the show and when they do it's always bonkers, so...looking forward to writing more of these two

Speaking of Sam/Demetri (platonic or romantic) the fandom wiki has Demetri listed as one of Sam's best friends (and vice versa) and I think that is...very cute of them. They need more content, preferably platonic

Last thing, I was looking into podfic (like audiobooks for fanfic) for Cobra Kai/Karate Kid and could not find any. I'm a person on the go with a short attention span so if anyone would like to point me in the direction of some underground lawrusso podfic...I'd be into it

ciao,

~mw