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It was around three in the afternoon, and the air was just developing that slight bite of October cold that told Katsuki that the last wave of summer heat was over and that soon he would need to switch over to his winter costume. The streets where he patrolled every other day were thankfully clear, most civilians at school or work, with something better to do than loiter around for a chance to see the prickly pro hero.
He was about three-quarters of the way through his usual route, thinking about what he and Ei were going to have for dinner when the distress call went up. A loud beeping came from the earpiece that his agency forced him to wear, the one that connected him to his partner in case anything went wrong. Ei had been acting off the past couple of weeks; normally he and Katsuki did their patrol together and stopped at a restaurant on the way home after work if they didn’t feel like cooking, but recently Ei had been taking his patrol by himself and coming home late after work, after Katsuki had gone to bed for the night. It was startling to hear him call for help, especially when they’d gone six years of working at their joint agency together without using them. Though, maybe that was because they’d always been together in the first place.
After the beeping finally let up, Ei’s terrified voice crackled in his ear, interference cutting him off in several places. “-atsuki? Kat-- need h-lp --- -dropping the lo--tion-- hurry!”
His phone pinged in his pocket, and Katsuki hurriedly pulled off his glove to grab it. When he saw the place Ei had airdropped him he was moving in seconds. It was all the way across town - almost the furthest he could possibly be from Katsuki without leaving the city limits. He debated clicking his earpiece on and calling for backup, but fuck it. He didn’t think he would be able to think straight for long enough to hold an intelligent conversation, even if it was just to tell anyone where Eijirou was, where he was heading.
He ran where he could, he needed all the sweat his gauntlets could store up, but it wasn’t fast enough. He used his quirk, against his better judgement. His husband was a menace when he wanted to be, strong as fuck, he couldn’t be taken down easily, and although that meant Katsuki would probably need every ounce of power he had, the fear that he would be too late made him irrational. His hands ached by the time he landed near the place, Ei had sent him, probably dry and red beneath his gloves, so he ran the rest of the way. Finding Eijirou was the only thought in his mind.
He rounded a corner and ducked down an alley, immediately tripping over something invisible, and fell heavily onto the concrete. Someone lept onto his back and he screamed out in frustration, bucking them off, palms sparking like fireworks. He didn’t have time for this! He needed to find Eijirou before it was too late!
He jumped to his feet and turned around quickly, palms raised in front of him for protection, to see a small group of masked people. One man stepped out from the middle, his white hair a stark contrast against the purple shadows of the late afternoon. A man that had vanished halfway through Katsuki’s three years at Yuuei.
Shigaraki?
He smiled that creepy smile that Katsuki still saw in his night terrors on his worst nights, and then something hit him in the back of the head, and the world went dark.
He opened his eyes and immediately tried to jump to his feet, but only succeeded in tipping the chair he was tied to over onto the freezing cold floor. Ouch… that’s gonna fucking bruise.
“Ground Zero,” a voice spoke up from above him, and when Katsuki looked up, he was treated to the familiar sight of Shigaraki standing over him. “Bakugou Katsuki.”
It took him a minute to remind himself that he was older. He was stronger. He could fucking take this asshole … As long as his hands weren’t tied behind his back and he wasn’t in an unknown location without backup. Fuck.
That was beside the point.
“Where the fuck is Red Riot.”
“Haven’t gotten any more eloquent, have you.” Shigaraki drawled.
Bakugou spat at his feet. “Fuck you. Where’s my fucking partner.”
Shigaraki chuckled, and Katsuki felt someone pick his chair up off the floor like he weighed nothing, but the way his head was tied down stopped him from seeing who. His chair was placed back down facing the white-haired motherfucker.
“We’ve got some intel that you heroes,” he made quotation marks with his hands when he said the word, “have some fucking plan about to go into affect that we would very much like to know the information on. And you’re the little bird that’s gonna give us that knowledge.”
Like Katsuki would fucking tell them anything. He knew what he was talking about, of course he did, it was a mission that he and Deku were supposed to lead in about a week’s time. Eijirou had been left out of the planning stages no matter how much Katsuki had fought against the decision, and it was a highly secret mission. Katsuki wasn’t sure how Crusty fucking knew about it, but the fact that the League was desperate enough to know about it that they would kidnap one of the top ten heroes was telling. They were desperate and there was no way Katsuki could spill anything.
“So you abducted me? What the fuck makes you think that I, of all people, would tell you what the hell is going on?”
The person behind his chair chuckled, low and humourlessly. Shigaraki smiled.
“Because I think we’ve got something that’ll make you sing .” Fuck , what were they doing to Ei?
Shigaraki questioned him for hours, though ‘questioned’ was probably too gentle a term for it. Katsuki’s arms were covered in red from where the fuckhead had activated his quirk, blood streaming down to drip into a slowly growing puddle beneath the chair. It hurt so much more than the mental scars from last time he’d been face to face with the monster, but he couldn’t give in. Not when Ei was still alive somewhere. He couldn’t hurt him, even if it was indirectly.
All he could do was scream, voice breaking, yell that he wouldn’t say a thing unless they let Eijirou go.
Finally, after Katsuki’s arms went numb and there was blood dripping into his eyes, Shigaraki pulled back, grin wider and a little more unhinged than it’d been before.
“I’m starting to get the feeling that this isn’t working, what about you?”
“You’ve known I wasn’t gonna say shit since the beginning, asshole!” Katsuki pulled against his bindings and instantly regretted it, the rope dug into the raw flesh of his wrists and arms, and he yelped as a thick trickle of blood streamed onto the floor.
“Time for a different approach, maybe,” Shigaraki smirked and looked behind Katsuki. Then he grabbed the chair, hands landing on either side of his head, and Katsuki had to force himself not to flinch. He turned the chair around slowly, so slowly, probably to give Katsuki time to process what he was seeing, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t. What he was seeing had to be a hallucination. There was no way it could be anything but.
It was Eijirou. Sitting on a crate in the corner of the room, as relaxed as he had been sitting on their couch with their cats that morning, hair down. His eyes were clear, unlike they could be when he’d been hit by a quirk, and he looked… bored, for lack of a better word. Katsuki was full on drinking in the fact that he was okay, and unharmed, and he just looked completely unaffected. When Katsuki met his eyes he gave an insincere grin and a little wave, before looking to Shigaraki who was standing at his side, grinning about whatever emotion was on Katsuki’s face. He would’ve tried to pull himself together, grab what little satisfaction he could back from the sadistic villain, but here Ei was, right in front of him. He never could put up much face in front of the redhead. His eyes were watering, that much he could feel, but other than that, he just felt numb.
After what felt like forever, he finally forced himself to speak. “Ei…” he said, voice cracking.
“Hey, babe.” Eijirou responded, normal enough, but the look on his face wasn’t one that Katsuki recognized. It was colder, sharper, almost. “You ready to talk, yet?”
“... What ?” Katsuki asked, incredulously, “What do you mean? Are you stuck over there? Can you get out? If you can get my arms free, we might be able to-”
Katsuki cut himself off as Ei chuckled humourlessly. “Babe, I know you’re not stupid.”
There was that petname again… Ei only used it when he was trying to pull back from an argument, calm Katsuki down before his anger got away from him and he said something he’d regret. Usually it did the job well. Now, however… Katsuki just felt cold and numb and there was something in his husband’s eyes that made him scared.
He’d never felt scared of Ei before. Everyone else, maybe, but not Ei, Never Ei.
No, Katsuki wasn’t stupid. But the conclusion that his mind kept trying to draw wasn’t one he thought he could deal with. “ You’re not stupid,” he shot back, desperately hoping for once he was wrong, because if he was right he knew he would break. “You know what this looks like, but there’s no way you’re actually-” a villain.
Katsuki cut himself off again before he could say it. Saying it made it more believeable, made it more real, and there was no way he could ever see Eijirou like that, even if he was the one holding the knife against his throat.
“I think you know exactly what I am, Katsu,” Ei said, voice still emotionless and blank, so terribly different from the life it usually emanated, “I think you have since we met at Yuuei. Although, I do have to thank your blind faith, I think a lot more people would have caught on a lot sooner otherwise,”
Katsuki felt like he was choking, like his chest was trying to suffocate his heart inside of his body. None of this could be true, this had to all be the worst nightmare his brain had ever thrown at him. He was going to wake up, he was going to feel Ei sleeping next to him, and he was going to press his ear to his chest and listen to his heart beat until morning. This person couldn’t be his husband, so this must not be real.
His arms ached like one huge open wound, and the person who looked like his husband rose to his feet and walked closer to Katsuki’s chair. “Don’t try to rationalize your way out of this one, Katsu, this is real as fuck, I’ve been where the whole time. Now tell me what the hell the heroes are planning.” ‘The heroes’... like he didn’t consider himself one of them.
That grin… it was the smile he knew but it was also one he’d never seen before. If this was actually Ei… Katsuki’s mind blanked out. If this was actually Ei, then what was the point of anything. This was his husband, his wonderful husband whose face was shifting into a foreign, maniacal grin that fit him like a second skin, so different from the wide, confident one Katsuki had seen time and time again when he took down villains. It was nothing like the soft, gentle smile he’d been recieving from him for years, perfect Eijirou with his sunshine smile, the boy who’d met him when he was still young and stupid and been patient enough to sit around and wait for Katsuki to pull his head out of his own ass and realize just how much he needed him. The man he’d married straight out of high school like some dumbass romance film, the man he’d sleep in with on the weekends and make breakfast in bed for, the man he’d opened an agency with. His partner. If he couldn’t trust him then he couldn’t trust anyone. And he finally understood. Even if he had of called for backup, nobody would be coming to save him.
Eijirou was speaking, but it was like Katsuki was hearing him shouting downstairs from the shower while Katsuki was cooking dinner. Like he was a floor away, like there was water running and food sizzling in a frying pan somewhere in his mind, stopping him from hearing his voice.
He seemed to realize just as Katsuki did that... huh. There wasn’t really a point in pushing anymore, was there, Katsuki couldn’t find it in himself to care anymore. He was tired. Tired of feeling the pain in his arms, the pain in his chest, tired of looking at Ei’s face when it was clear, so incredibly clear that Katsuki had put his trust… something so hard to gain already, in the wrong person.
He turned away to say something to Shigaraki, and the last thing Katsuki heard before the white-haired villain called some thug to drag him out of the room, was Eijirou; beautiful, wonderful Eijirou, telling the villain that he wasn’t going to talk, and that they might as well kill him to tie up any loose ends.
Well. If it was his husband sentencing him to die, he didn’t think he could fight it.