Chapter Text
Daniel waited another week after the fight before he gave Johnny two unmarked manila folders, one only a few pages and the other so thick Johnny let out an oof when they landed on his lap. His nose was still bruised, the skin settling into a nauseating rainbow of yellow and green from the bridge of his nose all the way to his eyes, but his cracked tooth had been repaired, and the sling on his right arm was now more a nuisance than anything else.
He still had to keep it on for another two weeks, but that didn’t stop him from experimentally moving his shoulder when he managed to get it off, before Daniel could reprimand him and goad him into putting it back on.
“What’s this?” he asked, his left hand reaching for the heavy stack of paper first, struggling to flip the folder over and open it. “Are you suing me for something?”
“Defamation of character,” Daniel said, faux-seriously, sitting beside him on the couch. “For all those times you said Pizza Hut makes better pasta than I do.”
“Theirs has more cheese, LaRusso –”
“I’m not having this fight again,” Daniel retorted, reaching for the folder when Johnny’s hand slipped again. “Here, let me.”
He leaned over Johnny’s lap to undo the little metal hooks around the envelope, rolling his eyes when Johnny occupied his left hand with systematically ruining his hair. He pulled the stack of papers out of the envelope only halfway, so when he leaned back and Johnny’s eyes went down to the papers, the word “divorce” was clearly visible.
Johnny took in the words across the page with a soft smile before rearranging his face into his shit-eating smirk. “Are you divorcing me?”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “I’ll marry you and then divorce you.”
“Don’t write checks your ass can’t cash, LaRusso,” Johnny joked fondly, using his left hand to awkwardly pull Daniel toward him for a kiss on the side of his head. “She really signed them?” he asked, looking down at the papers.
“Yep,” Daniel said. “Shared custody of the kids, she gets the house but I get this property, and we work together on the business.”
“I’m sure Anoush had something to do with that.”
“Yeah, well, I think he worried I’d fire him if I got complete control,” Daniel shrugged. “Which I wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, you need your little suit jockey to help you sell cars –”
“Be nice to Anoush,” Daniel warned. “He helped make the whole divorce process less of a headache.”
“Yeah, because he was totally doing that out of the goodness of his heart,” Johnny said sarcastically. “Goodness of his dick, maybe.”
“What are we talking about?” The sound of Robby’s voice sent a sigh through Daniel, who fixed Johnny with a glare.
“Nothing,” Johnny laughed, ducking his head to avoid Daniel’s eyes. “Where are you going?”
“Double date,” he said, grabbing his wallet off the counter. “Be back by ten.”
“Ten?” Johnny asked, turning in his seat to survey his son. “Make it eleven.”
“My court ordered curfew is ten,” Robby said with a laugh. “So I’ll be back by ten.”
“Thank you, Robby,” Daniel said before Johnny could say anything else. Johnny just grinned at him until Robby was gone, shutting and locking the door behind him.
“He knows I was kidding,” Johnny defended weakly.
“Uh huh,” Daniel rolled his eyes. “Open the other one.”
Johnny shoved the divorce papers over to Daniel’s lap and reached for the smaller envelope. “Can I tear this one open?” he asked, the envelope already on its ill-fated journey to his mouth.
“No,” Daniel snatched the envelope and opened it, pulling out the two sheets of paper inside and passing them over to Johnny, who looked down at them, read the words at the top, and then looked back at Daniel.
“You didn’t –”
“Of course I did.”
“How?”
“I have lawyers, Johnny,” Daniel said, laughing when Johnny rolled his eyes.
“When?”
“Pretty much the day you found out that Cobra Kai had no existing trademark.”
“You – you hate Cobra Kai.”
“I hated Kreese,” Daniel corrected gently. “I hated Terry Silver. I hated what Cobra Kai represented. It doesn’t represent that anymore. And you deserve to have the opportunity to change Cobra Kai’s history.”
Johnny wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, ignoring Daniel’s satisfied smirk. “Did you just do this because you don’t want to teach with me anymore?”
“Yes, John,” Daniel said sarcastically. “That’s exactly why.”
He pressed a kiss to Johnny’s hair and smiled when Johnny turned to meet him.
***
The All Valley Tournament had been the witness of feuds between Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence spanning generations. This All Valley Tournament was the first one that saw Cobra Kai and Miyagi-do compete fairly, with no disqualifications, and no serious injuries.
Daniel and Johnny watched the tournament play out from opposite sides of the room, their students surrounding them both. It was surreal, their gazes meeting over the mat, knowing they would be getting into the same car after this and going back to their shared home, together.
Miguel watched from the stands, wheelchair gone, holding a sign with Sam’s name on it. Moon sat beside him, sharing her popcorn.
By the semi-finals, the only four students left were Sam, Robby, Tory, and Hawk.
Not that either of their senseis were surprised.
Hawk’s defeat came at Sam’s hands, a loss from strategy rather than strength. He grimaced when her last point landed (a punch right to the middle of his chest), but shook her hand and laughed when she said something to him no one else could hear. Demetri met him at the edge of the mat with outstretched arms.
Robby’s loss to Tory was much closer. He wasn’t sure where Tory managed to keep her speed, or her agility, but even Robby’s quick reflexes couldn’t match her unorthodox kickboxing influence and concentration.
She had been almost a model student since Kreese disappeared. Aisha spent a long time trying to convince her to come back to Cobra Kai now that Johnny was in charge again.
“I think she’s embarrassed,” Aisha told him after training one day. “Kreese really got to her.”
He managed to track her down at the roller rink, where Sam told him she still worked. He had to wait patiently for her to go on her break, and even then, she had tried to avert her eyes and pretend he wasn’t there. He caught her, in the end, trying to decide if he should allow her to run from what she’d done or if he should do for her what he always wished someone had done for him.
“I don’t blame you,” he said immediately when he managed to convince her to sit down across from him. “No one blames you for what you did.”
“They should,” she said firmly, and he caught that determination in her eyes, the fire that Kreese had been drawn to, that he had capitalized on. “I was…”
“You were manipulated,” Johnny said. “He found what you wanted to hear and said it to you, and then he took away all of his approval so you’d work even harder to get it. I know what he does, Miss Nichols. He did it to me.”
He caught her gaze again, swimming with tears, and felt a pain in his chest. “I did horrible things.”
“We all have,” Johnny said simply. “But all we can do is try to fix them, right? That’s what I’m doing, sitting here, talking to you.” He looked out over the rink while she considered his face silently. “I shouldn’t have allowed Kreese to take over in the first place. I should have fought harder to protect my students from him. But I didn’t, and so whatever you did, whatever you blame yourself for, it’s partly my fault too.”
“Sensei –”
“I’ve never really been a sensei to you,” he admitted. “Kreese was. But if you’re willing, I’d like to try to be your sensei, for real this time.”
She stood in front of him now, eyeliner smudged at the edges where she had wiped at her sweat, her tight French braid releasing little hairs that settled around her young face. Johnny had seen Aisha fixing the braid before the tournament, a soft smile on her face, bobby pins sticking out of her mouth.
“You can do this,” Johnny told her, smoothing one of the little hairs that she kept missing with her hand. “We knew she would probably make it to the finals.”
“Yeah,” Tory nodded, her eyes landing on something far away, her mouth settled into a thin line.
“Hey,” Johnny ducked his head, catching her gaze again. “We’ve talked about this. No more dirty fights, no matter how angry she makes you.”
Tory smirked. “It’s okay, Sensei. I’m not angry. I’m just…you know, in the zone.”
“Right, sure, yeah,” Johnny said, looking up and catching Daniel’s gaze, his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Just go out there and do what you do best, and think about it this way,” he pulled Tory into a hug. “Kreese didn’t think women could fight in the tournament. Now look at the finals, not a boy in sight.”
She laughed, squeezing him tight before pulling away. “Thank you.”
“Go kick some ass, Miss Nichols.”
***
He was holding Johnny’s hand when Sam landed the match-winning point, a sweep that even Tory’s lightening reflexes couldn’t avoid. They were tied, two points each, when Johnny walked up and offered his left hand for him to take.
He had it squeezed tightly in his own, so tightly that Johnny huffed and forced him to loosen his grip, turning the ring on his fourth finger around before Daniel could squeeze his hand again. The dojos were a mixed mass of black and white gis behind them both, huddled as close to the mats as they could get, watching with bated breath.
Everyone was in agreement that this was the best final match they’d seen at the All Valley since ’84.
When the point was done and the crowd exploded, Sam leaned over and offered Tory her hand, both of the girls bowing low before the announcer and their friends could come in and celebrate.
Daniel couldn’t remember when he’d seen two finalists bow at the end of a final match.
He let go of Johnny’s hand and reached for his daughter, who hugged him tightly until the announcer took her right hand and thrust it into the air.
“The 2019 All Valley Champion, Samantha LaRusso of Miyagi-do Karate!”
***
“Mr. Miyagi would have been proud to see Sam holding that trophy today,” Johnny said in a dark booth in Applebees, one eye on the kids while they toasted with nachos, back in their normal clothes.
Daniel chuckled and took a sip of his martini. “No, he wouldn’t,” he said ruefully. “Mr. Miyagi hated the idea of competing. Karate is for defense only, remember?”
Johnny shrugged one shoulder. “If he’s got a problem with the way my husband teaches karate, he and his spirit can take it up with me.”
“You can’t sweep the leg on a ghost, John,” Daniel said, putting down his martini and reaching for Johnny’s Shirley Temple, the trademark drink for the designated driver. “Besides, I know that teaching these students karate might not be exactly what Mr. Miyagi wanted me to do, but I know that if he saw how happy I was, he wouldn’t have a problem.” He pulled Johnny’s arm over his shoulder. “All he wanted was for me to be happy.”
“Okay, you’re getting a little too Lifetime movie for me,” Johnny remarked.
“You love it,” Daniel protested.
“Mhmm,” Johnny hummed, wrestling his Shirley Temple back to take a sip.
It was easy to feel like they were at the end of a Lifetime movie when they had a view like this, happy children given the opportunity to be children, a warm feeling of accomplishment, the knowledge that the loose ends of their lives had slowly started to tie themselves up. Johnny could look up at Robby and know that he didn’t have a court-ordered curfew anymore; he was going to visit his mom for the weekend tomorrow morning.
Miguel, standing without help, no wheelchair in sight, no lasting injuries.
Amanda and Anoush, grateful for a night to themselves, with Anthony occupying one of the other booths, his Nintendo Switch lighting up his face while he played, his best friend at his side with a matching device.
Kreese gone, so far gone no one cared to find out where he went, Cobra Kai safe from his poison.
Hawk, with a much smaller mohawk, his arm slung around Demetri’s waist while the taller, lankier boy regaled Chris with all the ways The Witcher television series was going to be better than the last game, whatever that meant, Hawk smiling up at him with a peace and satisfaction that Johnny had never seen on his face before.
Robby, lining up a cherry to toss into Moon’s mouth, a laugh already on his lips.
Sam, sitting next to Aisha, her head on her shoulder, drinking a banana shake.
“You okay, John?” Daniel asked, pulling Johnny from his reverie.
He looked down at him, all dark hair and dark eyes, the gold band on his left hand a dull shine in the dim light, and shrugged.
“It could be better,” he said. “Cobra Kai could have the trophy.”
“Oh my God,” Daniel rolled his eyes. “You had it last year!”
“And we will have it next year, LaRusso, mark my words,” Johnny said, pulling his husband close for a kiss to his forehead.
“Yeah, yeah, consider them marked,” Daniel grumbled. “Wanna take bets on who it’s gonna be?”
Johnny looked back down at him. “Hell yes I do.”