Title: Superhero (1/1)
Characters: Kurt, Blaine, and OC(s)
Rating: PG
Prompt: When tragedy strikes, where's Superman when you need him? Written from the POV of Kurt and Blaine's adult daughter, Danielle.
Warning(s): Kind of angsty. Okay, very. Again, can't say I didn't warn you. I apologize in advance. There are also illusions to cancer and terminal illness.
A/N: This falls again under myself and a friend's daddy!Klaine headcanon, only much further in the future. The end is left open for a reason. Take that as you will.
To Danielle and Jacob, Dad and Papa were superheroes for one simple reason: they never got sick. Ever.
Sure, in real life, Kurt and Blaine always did a fine job of harboring their 'sick days' from the kids. Maybe it was a tolerance for sniffy noses or a parental instinct to not get the kids sick or simple luck, but Danielle and Jacob rarely saw their two dads come down with anything, despite the fact that Kurt and Blaine barely moved an inch from the kids on their sick days.
And even if they were swept with an illness, Kurt and Blaine hid it at the confines of work or school, barely missing a day on the job to contend with runny noses or coughing fits.
Yes, even after forty years, Danielle Elizabeth Anderson-Hummel had barely witnessed either of her two dads sick or injured, save for the occasional headache or twenty-four hour bug.
That was all about to change.
It all started around Christmas, which was usually a huge spectacle in the Anderson-Hummel household. Danielle and Jacob had both gone off and gotten married and had kids of their own, which led to even greater festivities. The grandkids in the center were tearing apart their presents in a not-so-orderly fashion, but decorum was a thing of the past.
A few things hadn't changed, however. Kurt still picked his food at the holidays, fasted weeks before Christmas, and still managed to stay trim as a rail. As for Blaine, he was chipper as always, but unmistakably sluggish as he handed Dani, their affectionate nickname for their headstrong daughter, now a tough as nails sassy lawyer, her last present.
"Just a little something from Papa and me." He flashed a smile and she gasped softly, pulling out an intricately cut necklace in her birthstone, resting in fourteen carat white gold.
"Dad, it's gorgeous! You didn't have to…"
"Take care of it, all right? It was Grandma Anderson's. You two just so happen to share a birthday month."
Danielle made a soft sound at that, touching her heart closely. Grandpa Anderson's heart attack was hard, but Grandma Anderson was always close and her death a few years back had wrecked Blaine.
Danielle stood up from the sofa and into Blaine's arms, hugging him tight in appreciation. At times, it was impossible to believe that she wasn't their little girl going to tap or going on about her performance on the debate team. Blaine had to laugh as she tugged him close from around the neck, before he crinkled his brow and let out a soft hiss.
"You're welcome, sweetie," he muttered, running his fingers through his daughter's fair hair and frowning softly. Kurt took notice as he rubbed Danielle's back and handed Jacob another present. Blaine sat back against the arm of the chair, rubbing his forehead once more while Kurt watched in silence. Blaine had been complaining about headaches more and more and casting them off as work-related stress, but lately they'd become more and more frequent.
"Get me a drink, Kurt?" He whispered as his husband brushed by, his hand sliding easily over Blaine's shoulder.
"How about a water instead?" Kurt asked delicately, to which Blaine nodded, rubbed his forehead against Kurt's palm, kissed it, and rocked his head back. When Kurt returned with a glass of water and two aspirins, Blaine took them with a silent thank you.
And that should have been the end of it.
But it wasn't.
Because if it wasn't Christmas, it was New Years. And if it wasn't New Years, it was Blaine coming home early from a day in school (because he refused to retire until he was on his deathbed) or flat-out calling out. Or worse, growing so irritable and calloused and out to lunch that Kurt's knuckles whitened to keep from punching a hole in the wall.
By mid-January, Kurt insisted on a doctor's appointment, and while Blaine insisted they were just migraines (another heated argument), Kurt knew that the man disguised as his husband was not the Blaine Anderson he had come to know and love and spend his life with.
When Blaine felt a numbing sensation in his arm, clear from his shoulder down to his pinky, he knew something was wrong.
Something was very wrong.
"When is dad coming home from the hospital?" Danielle asked the second weekend in February, holding her coffee inside a café on the Upper West Side. She had returned to New York after college, having studied on the West Coast for a while. After too much sunshine and too many fake smiles, she returned to the Big Apple, joined a law firm, met her husband, and settled her own roots.
Kurt sat opposite his daughter, spinning his wedding band around his left finger as he thought about it. He seemed lost in his own world then and hadn't slept in… god, it was weeks. It was funny how one doctor's appointment could turn your whole world upside-down. If he'd been avoiding grey hair for years, it seemed to all hit him at once.
"Week, they say. Once the swelling..." he hissed softly. "They say it's good though. They say it went well. They cut out… you know, good portion of it, should knock out the rest with—and he's already bald, too, so that's good."
"Papa."
"Is Meg's broken leg doing better?"
"Papa." She slid her hand over Kurt's and gave it a soft rub. He offered her a small smile, feeling so delicate and fragile in that moment that he could snap in half. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing really came out.
It was hard to be brave. She'd always assumed she was. She always had, because that's what her dads had taught her to be, but she hadn't known bravery before. Not like this.
"Blaine, you have a visitor again today," Blaine's nurse chimed from his room, knocking softly on the doorframe. He waved a slight hand as he caught sight of Dani and urged her to come closer. They'd only been given the clearance to visit a few days ago, and while Kurt was off getting a coffee, Dani had decided to steal some time with her dad.
He hadn't changed much; not really, save for the large white bandage wrapped over his hilariously shaped head. And clearly, he'd lost weight over the last couple of weeks, but nothing Papa couldn't fix.
And that's when it hit Danielle all at once, staring at her father, the man who had read to her and held her during scary thunder storms and taken her temperature when she had a fever. This time, the tables were turned and it all seemed so sudden and real and terrifying, all at once. She gasped softly to herself and barely registered Blaine's face shifting from happiness to worry.
"Daddy, you're sick," she suddenly whimpered, sounding more and more like a little girl as she touched Blaine's cheek. Blaine frowned and took her hand, thumbing over his wrist affectionately.
"Nobody's perfect," he mumbled, cracking a smile as Dani laughed quietly despite her own objections. "Besides, hasn't that son of yours wanted a haircut like this for months now?"
Dani felt a tear trickle down her cheek, which she brushed away in embarrassment. "It's not the same and you know it."
Blaine tilted his head slightly, looking up at his baby girl that he'd held in his arms from the first minute she was born. Their first born and the apple of both their eyes. God, they'd made so many mistakes and were nervous as hell, but she'd turned out all right, hadn't she? He pulled her hand away to slide his fingers through, giving her palm a soft squeeze.
"Listen, they're telling me I can leave here in a couple of days. Then everything's going to be okay after that, all right? It's just these wires, they freak everyone out. And the hair, or lack thereof."
Danielle had to laugh again, giving Blaine's hand another squeeze back. "Yeah, I bet papa's already ribbed you for it."
"Please, papa's been insisting I go bald for years now. Something about catching up to my age. Talk about taking that one step too far, eh?"
"Dad, be serious. For once in your life." Dani's face fell once more as she looked at Blaine, looking far too much like Kurt when the sadness sits just on the surface. Blaine frowned, too, then.
"No, Dani, no. No, I can't be, I'm sorry. Not when everyone's looking at me like I've got an expiration date written on my forehead. We all do, honey."
She took in a sharp breath at that, shaking her head. "Dad, you need to stop. All of this is too much for me. And for papa."
"Don't I know that?" He crinkled his brow, which looked rather funny without those familiar locks, once silver and black and now non-existent. Dani wiped away another tear as it fell freely down her cheek. He managed to lift her chin up higher and brush his thumb back against her cheek, brushing his thumb back against her soft skin.
"Dani, I know you were expecting me to be already dead once you got here, but I'm not going to let this beat me. It beat Kurt's mom and it sure as hell beat mine, but it isn't getting me."
She was silent for a few more moments as she watched her father, rigid and self-contained and absolutely terrified at the thought of any of her fathers dying. She opened her mouth to speak but Blaine cut her off.
"Look, I know you're thinking about what's realistic or statistics or the fact that it smells like stale toothpaste in here. You're just like your papa that way. He takes one look at me and he thinks I'm going to break. He handles me with child gloves and even offered to fix my catheter."
He shuddered slightly at that and breathed a slight sigh of relief, before he continued. "But I've been beaten down before."
"Dad, not like…"
"… And I got back up, because I had your dad, or you, or Jake, or something inside of me telling me to keep going."
Dani's face froze in she took in her father's words, but it didn't add color to his cheeks or sprout hair on his head or transform that hospital gown into a well-fitting suit.
"You're something, you know that?" She practically whispered, looking around the room with a sad smile.
"That's what the nurses keep telling me. I think they have a crush on me." He shrugged a shoulder back and rested his head back against the pillow, his eyes glazing over with relaxation. There was a comfortable silence between the two of them as Dani stewed on her thoughts and Blaine recounted the miniscule freckles on his daughter's cheeks.
"You're not a superhero, daddy," she finally said, wishing she could take back the words the moment they left her lips. They were harsh and cold and part of her felt her own childhood break from under her. Even Blaine bristled slightly, knocked from his peaceful riverie where everything and everyone was young and juvenile and healthy and not broken like him. But he attempted to contain it.
"No, but I used to be. Remember?"
Dani nodded her head with a sad smile, peeling away Blaine's hand to give another squeeze. She even kissed the back of his palm and leaned in, kissing him on the cheek, her grandmother's necklace dangling from her blouse. Blaine fell back to sleep within minutes, his daughter singing softly under her breath as she held his hand and rubbed his fingers softly through her palm.
"You still are, dad," she finally muttered. "You still are."