Chapter Text
Denki never meant to become a thief. It just sort of happened.
Like most other boys in the town he grew up in, he had wanted to become a hero. Cool outfit. Bad ass sword. Saving people.
Endor was big enough a port town to get its share of heroes traveling for one quest or another. It’s a good entryway to the East. It’s not as big as Mustafar, not as near West as Hosu, but that just means prices were cheaper there so travelers who were not pressed for time and wanted to save coin preferred to come through Endor.
When he got older and discovered girls, the saving people part kinda warped into save damsels-in-distress but he still wanted the cool outfit and sword, mostly to impress the damsels he planned to de-stress.
And then somehow, somewhere along the way, the saving part got sidelined in favor of getting cool outfits and impressing ladies and those things take money. Money that Denki didn’t have. So he started taking it from other people who did have it. Simple economics, really.
It wasn’t anything big in the beginning. Just a few coins here and there, random pockets, some satchel left unattended by an inattentive traveller, that sort of thing.
He never took money from people who needed it! Most times he’s even shared what he got to people who really needed it. After he got his new suit and bedded some beauties, of course.
But then some guy he knew who used to live down the block from his ma’s old house came to him and asked if he wanted in on a little job. Denki said yes. He was stupidly nervous about it but it turned out to be easy and he got a LOT of money for it. So when the guy asked again, what was Denki gonna do? Say no?
And one job led to another and another and Denki had a shit load of money pass through his hands but he can never seem to keep any. So it was always one more job. Cause Denki still has a need for cool clothes and cooler women.
But don’t let them rumours tell you otherwise because Denki never stole from those who couldn’t afford it. And he never hurt anyone in any of those jobs neither.
So anyway, Denki was a thief. A pretty good one too, if he has to say so himself. You want to get inside some well-guarded temple? Denki’s your man. A rich man’s house? Denki. Some lord’s castle? Yep, still Denki.
He’s gotten a bit of a reputation these days and some jobs require him to travel between cities. One even took him as far as Hosu.
But the last job he was on took him to Alderan. That’s like so Far East it’s almost West!
He didn’t know anyone there but it wasn’t a rush job. And Denki wasn’t book smart but he was plenty okay in reading people and getting what he wanted from them. So he went to a couple of bars and asked around and found the right sort of wrong people and soon enough he had floor plans and guard schedules and everything a good little thief needed to get inside Overhaul’s palace.
Now, Denki didn’t know this Overhaul guy. Remember he wasn’t from around there. He was just hired to do a job and the money’s pretty decent. More than decent actually. Obscenely good.
Which on hindsight should have been his first clue.
The second should have been how antsy people got when he said he was looking to get info on the guy’s place. Denki‘s a pretty easy guy to get along with, and that plus his willingness to spread (his employer’s) coin around should have opened doors for him. And yet seedy door after seedy door closed on his blond dumbfounded face.
But if Denki’s got something going for him, it’s his tenacity. He just doesn’t give up. So finally, eventually, he did get what he needed.
He picked a time, picked a date. And went in.
He didn’t know if one of his sources tattled on him or if he got bad info or if the guy’s security is just that good but Denki ended up surrounded by guards in the guy’s treasure room with the red scroll in his hand. Caught red-handed you could say.
The less said about his treatment in the guy’s dungeon the better. Actually, that should have been his third clue, when he got the floor plans and saw ‘DUNGEONS’. Who keeps dungeons??
But he digresses.
Denki got caught, spent a lovely amount of time in the dungeon, and just as he was adjusting to his life as a permanent resident, he was hauled before a magistrate and was tried for his sins.
Denki could be persuaded to say that being sentenced to death is preferable to being tortured in Overhaul’s dungeon but torture, once it stops, doesn’t hurt anymore. And death is kinda permanent. So yeah, on the whole, Denki doesn’t prefer this new development.
So he did say he’s a thief right? And that he’s pretty good? Well, the thing is, a thief is only as good as the opportunities he has. If you’re bound hand and foot, in a windowless room with a solid wooden door without any kind of implement you can use to (a) get out of your bonds and (b) open the lock with, then you’re a bit stuck, master thief or no.
So Denki was in the middle of deciding if he should just resign himself to dying in the morrow or keep trying to escape his bonds when he heard a commotion outside. The door was quite thick but explosions and people screaming followed by death gurgles had a way of penetrating.
Denki tried to edge away from the aforementioned door but being tied up hampered his efforts a little. Still, Denki is scrappy and he was quite proud of the few inches he managed to move himself when the door exploded.
The blast made him fall on his side and so the first time Denki laid eyes on Bakugou Katsuki, he was sideways. He was also quite deaf, his ears ringing from the blast.
So there Denki lay, sideways on the stone floor, hands and feet still bound, ears ringing and this absolutely huge warrior type towers over him, mouth opening and closing. Words of import, Denki’s sure, except he can’t hear a damn thing.
The warrior lifted him by the scruff of his admittedly very scruffy shirt and did more of the opening and closing his mouth bit. Alas, Denki still cannot hear him.
With a growl that Denki felt rather than heard, the man set him down and made short work of the ties binding Denki’s limbs. Turns out the big-ass sword the warrior was carrying was handy for cutting ropes as well as unsuspecting guards.
As if Denki didn’t know a rescue job when it blasts his prison door open and cuts his bindings free, the man insists on hauling Denki forcibly along. Like Denki wouldn’t choose to follow him of his own volition. Denki may not know this positively violent warrior but, hey, he’s on his way out and Denki’s happy to trail behind.
So the warrior cuts where he needs to and explodes when he needs to, leading them out of prison. Excellent trick that, explosions. Denki should think of that the next time he gets captured and sentenced to death.
They got out a side entrance and the warrior just kept hauling Denki along and he is BIG, okay, and Denki is a thief, not a fighter so he just tried not to trip over his own legs too much and followed wherever his rescuer led.
Where his rescuer led, was to the edge of the forest just outside of town. Denki’s ears have stopped ringing at this point and he would have been delighted to make the acquaintance of this scowling giant of a man but the warrior just looked at him and hauled him some more.
They finally stopped before a tree that looked like any other tree to Denki. Admittedly, Denki was town born and bred, a true street rat, so he wasn’t familiar with trees but the warrior seemed to like this particular one and Denki is not one to judge.
It turns out it wasn’t the tree the warrior was particular with but the creature nestled on its roots.
It was a rabbit.
Again, Denki is a town boy and his knowledge of rabbits usually involved stews but if there was a prize for the most beautiful rabbit in the whole wide world, Denki would put all his coins on this one.
Even without touching, Denki could see that it’s fur was the softness of down. It was lush, rich and the most unusual shade of green. It’s twitching nose was cute, the long ears made Denki’s hand itch to pet it.
But the most bewitching of all were the eyes.
Denki was once commissioned to, ehem, procure some very fine emeralds from a merchant’s mansion. He had enjoyed toying with them in his room before he gave them to his employer, letting the firelight reflect on the surface of the jewels.
Those gems paled in comparison to the brilliance of the green eyes that looked at him in what Denki would swear was curiosity.
The warrior scooped the rabbit up with a gentleness that belied his earlier violence and cradled it against his chest. The rabbit was obviously a pet of some kind because it did not protest and instead had come willingly, even nuzzled his head against the bare chest.
Bare chest? Ahh, maybe Denki did skip that part but he could be excused considering there was a jailbreak in progress and the very real possibility of being killed by either his angry looking rescuer or the pursuing guards. Until the warrior killed them off and none were pursuing anymore, of course.
But back to his rescuer. When Denki first saw him, sideways and all, he thought the man was a giant. He seemed to fill the blasted doorway. This impression didn’t change as the man fought off guards and Denki got dragged through the town back alleys. His red eyes burned fierce, lips curled in a vicious snarl that Denki could see, even if he couldn’t hear it at the time.
As previously mentioned, the warrior was bare chested under his red cape save for a short skin-tight coat that just covered his arms and shoulders. And who can blame him? If Denki had those pecs, he’d go around bare chested too. He had bracers on his arms and mighty interesting tattoos that Denki would have loved to inspect closer if he wasn’t so attached to his life. The man had wielded the big ass sword like he was born with it.
But here now in the forest the warrior stood cradling a rabbit. It wasn’t that the warrior was diminished. He still stood tall and proud and his muscles have muscles and that big ass sword is still there by his hand. But he seemed more human, less a hulking, malevolent, spawn of dragon hell.
The warrior seemed preoccupied in greeting the rabbit, stroking the green fur with the gentlest of touches, and Denki didn’t want to be rude cause his ma raised him well, so he just sort off tried to sidle away, all quiet-like.
Before he can take two steps, the red eyes turned to him and Denki found himself rooted to the spot. Like one of the very many trees around him which Denki just now realized was where the phrase rooted to the spot came from because trees can’t move just like Denki now for fear that the big ass sword would cut him in half, thereby wasting all that rescuing effort and, really, that would be a shame.
“Ah, hello? I don’t know if you told me who you are earlier, coz I couldn’t hear good. I’m Kaminari Denki. Thanks for the jailbreak. You really saved me there.”
Denki reached out to shake hands but the warrior just looked at him, one hand on the hilt of his big ass sword - did Denki already say it was a BIG ASS sword? because it really was - the other still holding the rabbit. Which was also looking at Denki with those big, green eyes.
Denki cleared his throat and used his hand to ruffle his blond hair awkwardly instead.
“So, yeah. Thanks again. It’s getting late and my ma would be looking for me so I better go -“
“You’ve been inside Overhaul’s palace,” the warrior said. His voice was low, harsh. Fierce even in the quiet of the forest.
Denki laughed nervously.
“Is that the rumor going around these days? Overhaul huh? It doesn’t ring a bell, I’m afraid. You got the wrong guy. ”
“If you are not the thief Kaminari Denki who was able to enter Overhaul’s palace, then I have no use for you.”
The warrior did not move a muscle but Denki will swear that his life flashed before his eyes. In slow painful clarity.
“Ha ha ha, oh you mean THAT Overhaul! Yeah, I did. I got all the way to his throne room. Yep, I’m your guy. Call me Denki.”
The rabbit twitched its nose and lifted its head. The warrior looked down and red eyes met green.
“We have need of you. There is something inside Overhaul’s palace that we would kill to have.”
Oh dear. Denki was afraid of that.