Title: Shower Solutions
Fandom: Iron Fist (Marvel TV Universe)
Rating: G
Length: 1100 wds
Content notes: set post-S2
Author notes: n/a
Summary: Not everything is five-star hotels and private bathrooms.



"Where's the bathroom?" Ward asked, as Danny slung his backpack off his shoulders and dropped it next a bunk in the hostel. "Wait -- how many of these beds do we -- are there other people in -- Danny, are we sharing this room with other people?"

"To answer your questions in order, down the hall, two, yes, and yes." Danny contemplated the merits of top vs. bottom bunk and grinned; top bunk it was. He climbed up and flopped gratefully with a leg dangling over the side. Funny how quickly he'd gotten used to sleeping in beds again. They'd been hiking through the jungle for two days, and his hair was full of sticks and bugs, and there'd been a time in his life when this was just normal but he was awfully glad to have sheets and pillows and hot running water again. (Lei Kung would say the modern world was spoiling him, but Danny didn't mind.)

He got all of half a second of peace before Ward smacked his ankle, prodded his leg, and then when Danny didn't respond, a heavy weight landed on his stomach.

"Oof," Danny complained, opening his eyes to find that Ward had tossed a backpack on top of him.

"Why are we sleeping in some kind of ... of dorm when we could afford a hotel?" Ward demanded indignantly.

"Because it was here," Danny said. He rolled over and propped an arm under his head. "And it's a small town, and I don't want to hike all over it trying to find out if there's an actual hotel in town when the backpacker's hostel is, I cannot emphasize this enough, right here."

"If you haven't found a hotel, you just aren't looking hard enough."

Danny waved a hand. "Door's there, knock yourself out."

Ward glared at him and then sank down on the opposite bunk. Danny propped himself up on his elbow. It would have been hard for him to even picture Ward like this, once upon a time: sweaty, unshaven, half covered in mud from falling into a swamp, wearing a stained T-shirt that was technically Danny's, with bug bites all over his arms. The last time Danny had seen him look this bad, he was coming down off drug addiction, and that had been completely accidental; they didn't even know each other then.

"What are you grinning about?" Ward demanded.

"Nothing ... just ... look, if you really want to find a hotel, we can go find a hotel."

"Whatever, I don't care. We're here now and I'm too tired to move, thanks to someone dragging me all over the goddamn jungle. If I get bedbugs, I'm blaming you."

"You're no more likely to find bedbugs here than in any hotel." Danny rested his chin on his arm and grinned down at him. "You didn't mind sharing a tent with me."

"Yeah, but that was you. I didn't mind sharing a room with Joy when we were little kids either, but that doesn't mean I wanted to invite her entire girls' swim team for a sleepover." Ward heaved a sigh and dragged a hand through the loose, sweaty mop of his hair. "I just want a shower. I'm itching in places I do not want to be itching in. Bathroom down the hall, you said?"

"Yeah," Danny said. He rolled off the bunk and dropped to the floor, and grabbed his towel. Ward was already down the hall, finding a brand new thing to complain about.

"-- communal showers?"

Ward looked absolutely scandalized, like he'd been asked to strip naked on a streetcorner. There were times when it hit Danny squarely between the eyes just how different his upbringing and Ward's had been; those moments had been happening frequently on this trip, and this was one of them, especially when it occurred to Danny that Ward might never have showered anywhere but a private bathroom in his life.

He must have done it at the gym or ... something? Right?

"Stop being weird about this," Danny said, nudging him. At least it was just the two of them; the hostel was nearly deserted. They'd only run into one other patron in the kitchen on their way in. "There's a privacy curtain."

"Oh, like that makes it better."

"Do I need to tell you what showering in K'un Lun was like?"

"Danny, I swear to God --"

"We fetched buckets of ice-cold water first thing every morning from the well and poured them over our heads while standing in the courtyard. It wasn't too bad in the summer. Winter was when it really sucked."

"I can never figure out how many of your K'un Lun stories really happened and how many of them you make up just to mess with people."

Danny gave him a little shove. "Go take a shower with your nice hot running water, Ward."

"I hate you," Ward muttered, peeling off his muddy T-shirt.


*


Six months later, when they were lodging with a rural farm family and Ward discovered that the shower facilities consisted of a rusty bucket with holes punched in the bottom, all he did was heave a resigned sigh, pick up a non-holey bucket and go off to fill it.

"Bet this makes you feel right at home, huh?" he shot at Danny on his way past. Danny was hoeing melons as a thank-you for the family letting them board the night.

"Strangely enough, yes."

"I'll make sure and get the coldest possible water for you, then."

"Thanks, on a hot day like this, that's really thoughtful."

"I hate you."

"I know," Danny called after him, flicking a clod of dirt in Ward's general direction.

He cheerfully lost himself in the meditative nature of weed-hoeing, which resulted in complete shock when an icy deluge poured over his head and shoulders. Danny shrieked and dropped the hoe, and stood with a puddle around his feet, wiping water and sodden curls out of his eyes. Then he turned slowly to look at Ward, on the other side of the low wooden fence around the melon patch, holding a bucket.

"Cold enough for you?" Ward said through a face-splitting grin.

Danny took a deep breath and launched himself over the melon fence.

"Aaaaaaaa!"

They ended up clean eventually, but they both got thoroughly covered with mud first, and had to mend two freshly broken fences and wash splattered mud off a corner of the woodshed. Danny decided it was worth it.