Chapter Text
After that disastrous shopping trip nearly two weeks ago, the Tsukauchi household version 2.0 had sort of begun to fall into something of a tentative routine. Naomasa would wake at his usual early hour and go for a run. By the time he got home, Ohta would be up, in the kitchen finding breakfast or flopped on the couch with the TV on - Naomasa was slowly getting used to having the subtitles on and it was nice that the kid never changed the volume from where it had last been set. Makoto had an annoying tendency to turn it all the way up so she could still hear it from any room in the apartment. After Naomasa had showered and found breakfast for himself, Ohta would come with him to the precinct for the day in order to have something to do other than sit around the apartment.
The boy wasn’t much of a runner, but he did seem to like working out in the precinct gym, taking long showers after that he was only allowed to get away with because he timed them during points where there were no officers about to come on or off shift. For the rest of the day he’d hang out in the detective’s office, reading whatever book had currently caught his fancy - the kid was going to have an entire bookstore in his bedroom to move later if the collection kept growing - or else walking with a uniform to get coffee or sandwiches for the precinct as an opportunity to go outside and stretch his legs… and possibly to get out of Naomasa’s space for a bit.
He’d taken the day off so that Aizawa could come from UA to administer placement testing a couple of days ago (and so that they could have a discussion of things that Naomasa preferred to keep away from work), but the schools were all on break right now so regardless of what those showed there wasn’t really anyplace else for Ohta to go.
Naomasa had given it a lot of thought, and he felt that he was at least trying to be there for the kid. A conversation with Nezu about the needs of teenagers had turned into more of a lecture on human emotional development than he’d been able to follow which left him looking for other more easily digested advice. Sansa didn’t have kids, but he did have a gaggle of nieces and nephews which put him ahead of most of the other people in Naomasa’s life in that department, so he’d seemed the best person to ask. His consensus was that what Ohta needed - wanted? - was someone to spend time with him, so instead of staying at the office all hours of the night, he was attempting to get home in time to eat dinner at the apartment instead of at his desk, and thanks to the other cops he’d only failed at that once in the past week. So far he’d also managed to avoid getting called to investigations that took him too far out of the city, and he’d only had to go back out twice after thinking he was home for the night. On both of those occasions he’d gotten a uniform to sit on his apartment until he was back.
He couldn’t tell if any of it was working…
… or if he would even know what to look for to know if it was.
*****
Naomasa flipped through the files on the desk in front of him, cross-referencing from one case to the next. This guy had definitely been seen hanging around with a couple of the known League members, but reports conflicted about whether he was a League member himself or if he was even still in contact with them.
Setting down his pen, Naomasa leaned back in his chair and rolled his shoulders. Even with heroes doing so much of the actual capturing of villains, the general public still had this vision of police work being all walking beats and breaking down doors and showing up to take statements after a crime. They had no idea just how much of the job was made up of mind numbing paperwork! And detectives had that much more of it than the uniforms.
He looked over to where Ohta was curled up in his corner office chair reading yet another novel - this time one that Naomasa himself had brought to the office three months ago thinking he’d read it over his lunch breaks. Of course that had never happened. That said the kid had been sitting at least as long as he had.
He flicked a paperclip across the room to get his attention.
Ohta’s initial lack of reaction might have left him thinking in anyone else’s case that he hadn’t seen it, but they’d been here before. A beat later Ohta slowly closed his book and looked up.
“It’s getting close to lunch time. How about you go see if Abé is ready to take orders?” Naomasa signed.
Ohta pulled a face but set his book down and walked out of the office without a word.
Naomasa sighed. Last night he’d thought they were maybe beginning to make something that looked like progress when Ohta had sat down next to him on the couch to watch a baseball game and hadn’t immediately pulled out a book. They’d even talked about the game a bit, and the kid had actually had a few good insights into some of the players. But then this morning it had seemed they were back to square one. The boy had been in a mood since he woke up, sullen, barely looking at anyone.
Come to think of it, Ohta hadn’t even gone down to the gym yet today either.
Ohta popped his head back in the door, leaning on the frame. It could just be typical teenage rebellion or it could be something else. “He said yes. I’m going to walk with him. You want your usual tuna bento with a side of ‘I season my rice like a toddler’?”
Naomasa frowned. Ohta had made a couple less than favorable comments about his eating habits before but that one was definitely meaner than what usually came off as hesitant attempts at teasing. “That will be fine… Do you feel okay?”
Ohta pushed himself back off the doorframe and left again without answering.
He wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. That reaction definitely said that the answer was ‘no’, but at the same time it was equally obvious that he wasn’t wanting to talk about it.
Skittish, traumatized, grumpy teenagers. Teenagers with apparently no credit limit, who mocked his food and fashion choices. Teenagers with a price on their head who were completely convinced that the world was broken. In what universe had he thought he was capable of doing any of this?
Maybe this had been a mistake…
…
Naomasa picked up his pen and started going back through the case in front of him. Another missing persons case, but this one hadn’t come out of the cabin or been marked as discarded, just your usual case of someone going missing after a night of too much drinking. The only reason it was on his desk at all was the mention of a man who was rumored to be tied to the black market and had been seen on at least one occasion having dealings with the League.
Aside from the possible League connection this man was interesting for another reason. Someone like that would likely have connections to all sorts of backroom dealings and information. He might even be able to give a lead on who these people were who wanted Ohta and the UA students.
Caught up in his work he lost track of time until there was a tap on his office door. Another one of the senior detectives poked his head in to announce that Abé and Ohta were back with the lunch orders.
He could probably just wait until someone brought it to him, but it was probably high time he actually stood up anyway. Popping his back after sitting for so long he headed out into the main room, where the lunch orders were being set out on a long counter. He noticed Ohta still hadn’t taken off his sunglasses since coming back inside, but those seemed to be pretty much a permanent accessory, a pair of them always on his person somewhere so that wasn’t really much of a surprise. The kid definitely was moving slower, less smoothly than normal however, more like when Naomasa had found him in that warehouse. Which was to say at the time he’d thought the kid’s fighting stance had been very fluid even then, but after spending so much time with him to learn that the kid tended to move more like a cat - odd though it was for someone who couldn’t hear to so instinctively muffle their movements like that - it was easy to see how much pain the kid had been in back then.
His growing suspicion that Ohta wasn’t feeling well confirmed itself rather dramatically when Ohta suddenly groaned and reached for his head with one hand while grabbing hold of the counter with a white knuckled grip with the other to keep from falling.
In a few quick strides Naomasa was across the room and shooing away the few other officers who had also reacted.
“Okay, guys, back up. I’ll take care of him.”
Ohta was bent over the counter now with both hands holding his scalp. Hesitantly Naomasa reached out to grip the boy’s shoulders. He was trembling, but he didn’t try to shrug the detective off. Up to now Ohta’s inability to hear hadn’t been much of a hindrance to anything they needed to communicate, but now when he wasn’t looking at him - over the edge of the sunglasses Naomasa could see his eyes squeezed tightly shut - it made it very difficult to ask the kid to explain what was wrong.
Tugging at him gently, he got Ohta to slowly straighten back up after which the kid promptly dropped to the floor and curled up so his head was resting on his knees. Naomasa could just catch the mumble of “too bright… it’s too much…” as he crouched down next to him. All Might was still on I-Island though so what could…?
“Sir!” a woman at one of the secretarial desks suddenly shouted. “Something’s trying to hack into my computer!” At the same time all the lights in the room began to flicker and other computer screens started to flash. Ohta cried out and curled in on himself even tighter.
Torn, Naomasa looked between the kid and the chaos forming around him - no one else was taking charge - He jumped up and headed for the nearest computer. He had to see what was happening.
“It’s gotta be a villain attack.”
“Where’s this coming from?”
“Someone look outside.”
“Get cyber crimes on the line!”
Detective Tsukauchi looked around at the lights continuing to flash around them. His mind was racing. Something didn’t feel right. He looked down at Ohta, still moaning on the floor. Too bright… Ohta had said it was too bright. If that was the case, then they had to be… “They’re in the building! Spread out and find them!”
Kneeling back down, he rested a hand on the side of Ohta’s neck. Something in his chest tightened when the kid leaned into the touch and forced his eyes open - the sunglasses had fallen off - to look up at him. His face was tight but Naomasa was surprised to see his quirk was active when he was obviously hurting. “We’re gonna find them. You’re going to be okay.”
Ohta frowned and then shook his head. “He’s… in the basement. Far side of the parking garage… oww… some kind of electric quirk.”
“How do you…? You’re sure about that?”
Ohta nodded and deactivated his quirk, squeezing his eyes shut with a whimper.
He didn’t understand how the kid knew, but his quirk said the boy had been telling the truth. They’d have to talk later about exactly how that worked. Standing up he ran to his office to grab his gun from his desk, shouting directions over his shoulder as he went. “You all heard him! Parking garage - now! Makino, take care of the kid for me!”
…
…
They found the villain exactly where Ohta had said he would be, arm deep in an electrical panel. Even those of them without vision quirks had found him a bit hard to look at as they got close to him. The guy hadn’t really had much in the way of defenses outside of that however, apparently expecting to have been able to get whatever it was he was looking for and be gone before anyone figured out where he was. From the way he was acting, Detective Tsukauchi would bet money that he was high on Trigger.
Once the villain was down and the attack was ended, he handed him off to a couple of uniforms to book the man and transfer him to a holding cell. The villain had refused to answer any questions about what it was he’d been after, but Tsukauchi would interrogate him in a bit. Right now he needed to check on the kid.
…
When he got back upstairs, Makino and a few of the other secretaries had gotten Ohta moved to lay down on the couch in the chief’s office (the man was at a Commission meeting all afternoon - he wouldn’t mind them using the space). The kid had a wet rag over his eyes, but he didn’t look quite relaxed enough to be asleep.
Naomasa spun one of the chief’s chairs around and pulled it over next to the couch. He patted Ohta’s knee and the kid pushed the rag up onto his forehead to squint up at him.
“Feeling better?”
Ohta shrugged. “It’s just a headache. They happen sometimes.”
“Seemed like a bit more than just a headache for you to react like that.”
Another shrug. “Headache, migraine, doesn’t make much difference what you call it. Sometimes my brain just can’t handle how much sensory input it gets from my quirk.”
“But you already weren’t feeling well before the villain attack started?”
“I woke up with it. Otherwise that guy wouldn’t have been a problem.”
“Speaking of him…”
“I told you. I see energy. Walls don’t exactly block it out.”
Oh.
Before he could ask for any further explanation however - “I’m tired. Can I please just take a nap now?”
That Ohta pulled the rag back down over his eyes as he spoke so that he couldn’t see the answer - at least not directly, Noamasa wasn’t certain what to make of what he’d just learned about that - showed that he didn’t actually intend the question as the polite request he’d phrased it as.
“Sure, kid, we’ll talk later,” he answered anyway, before heading back out of the room. He still hadn’t eaten lunch, and he had a villain to question.