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From the moment they first met, right in the middle of the Spring Tennis Tourney at Peach’s Castle, Luigi had known that Daisy wasn’t someone who often listened to reason. Her thoughts were like a wild river twisting and turning through an unexplored forest, every new idea like a splash of water hitting whatever unsuspecting person happened to be closest. As for the woman herself, he wasn’t sure whether “tornado” or “fireball” described her better.
Daisy was someone who did whatever she liked, and Stars forbid anyone try to stop her. Of course, this led her into trouble more often than not. Nothing serious ever came from her shenanigans - until one day, Luigi saw her slip and hurt herself because she chose to dash through a bathroom in wilful ignorance of the very noticeable wet floor sign.
She went over backwards and smacked her head on the cool tiles, and Luigi, who had been behind her at the time (it was a unisex bathroom, alright, he wasn’t a creep), only had time to suck in one sharp breath before panic set in.
He’d always hated having to be responsible in scary situations, preferring to let someone more suitable - like his brother or Princess Peach - take charge. His tendency to flail and flounder aside, he hated the idea of something going wrong because of his decisions. But when it came to Daisy, he wasn’t sure if he could consider her the responsible one between them.
And there hadn’t been anyone else in the room at the time.
He waited all of five seconds, desperately hoping that someone would materialise out of nowhere and take charge, before his instincts began to push him forwards. Daisy might have a head injury; she wasn’t moving; she could be unconscious; if he didn’t act now she might--
His knees hit the floor and his hand carefully slipped beneath her head, both to cushion it and to check for open wounds. Auburn hair, damp with sweat, caressed his fingers. He found himself idly wishing that he wasn’t wearing gloves.
Her eyes fluttered open, but didn’t seem entirely focused. They aimlessly wandered the ceiling for a moment before forcing themselves to settle on Luigi’s face with what looked like obvious difficulty.
“Woah, woah, woah, don’t move,” he said - not because she’d tried to but because he knew the idea would enter her mind soon enough.
“Weegee?” He was relieved to hear her voice sounding normal - if a little dazed - but more relieved to hear the familiar nickname falling from her lips. She recognised him. Good sign.
“Don’t move,” he repeated. “You just, ah, fell and hit your head. I need to call for the medics.”
Her head rolled in a feeble imitation of a nod, pushing against his hand. He wondered if she was in pain. “Yeah, OK. I’ll just... stay here, I guess...”
Despite not wanting to leave her, Luigi propelled his wobbly legs into action, got outside, and managed to wave down a group of Toad medics within five minutes. He dithered in the doorway like a spare part while they clustered around Daisy and piled her with questions (“Do you know what day it is?”, “Do you remember what happened?”); to his relief, she was able to answer all of them with only a moment’s hesitation. The Toads put her on a stretcher and took her to the hospital anyway, despite her insistence that she was fine.
“Head injuries should be taken seriously, Miss!” one young Toad squawked. “You might have... internal bleeding!!”
The next day, Luigi was sitting at the edge of one of the tennis courts, watching the sky fill with clouds and wondering if today’s matches would even be able to go ahead, when he saw a familiar yellow and orange shape approaching out of the corner of his eye.
“Weeegeeee!”
Compared to the last time he’d heard that word, it was spoken in a tone of utter confidence. He instinctively got to his feet (was it rude to stay sitting while a princess addressed you?) and was promptly pulled into a hug vigorous enough to be considered a form of attack.
“Uh, hi, Daisy...” he said meekly. It came out muffled because his mouth was being pressed against her upper chest. He tried very, very hard not to think about this.
She pulled back far enough to look into his eyes, but her hands remained firm upon his shoulders. He had never seen her grin so widely, and that was saying a lot.
“Thanks!”
“...What for?”
“For helping me out, obviously! I remember everything that happened. I slipped and fell in the bathroom, and you were the only one there, and you got the medics for me!”
“Oh. Well... you’re welcome, but you don’t need to thank me. Any decent person would have done it.”
“Yeah, but not everyone is decent,” she said, nodding wisely. “So thank you for being a decent person, Luigi.”
And that was pretty much where the conversation ended, because right at that moment, people started showing up for the tennis matches. For the rest of the day, Luigi’s interactions with Daisy consisted mostly of her hitting balls at him as hard as humanly possible while he flinched and let them fly by unchallenged. His doubles partner, Birdo, gave him a lot of peeved looks that day. But Luigi didn’t even care, because he had Daisy’s praise playing on repeat in his brain.
They had never exactly been friends before, but after that incident, Daisy never let him believe they were anything else.